On Monday, the charity Oxfam published a report on the growth of social inequality in the United States, titled “Unequal: The Rise of a New American Oligarchy.”

The report notes that the “past year has been indelibly shaped by concentrated wealth and power.” It cites data showing that in the past 12 months alone, the 10 richest US billionaires got approximately $700 billion richer. Over this period, their wealth grew by a staggering 40 percent, from $1.79 trillion to $2.5 trillion.

Oxfam: 10 US billionaires have had their wealth increase 6-fold since 2020

Andre Damon

The publication of the Oxfam report came just one day after the Trump administration slashed food stamp benefits for tens of millions of American households. This happened as US President Trump pressed ahead with building himself a massive ballroom in the White House, and his billionaire friends threw a “Great Gatsby”-themed party for themselves at his Mar-a-Lago resort over the weekend.

The domination of the United States by a parasitic oligarchy, whose seat of power is in the White House, is on display for everyone to see.

But the Oxfam report makes clear that, however violent the upward redistribution of wealth being carried out under Trump, it is the product of decades of austerity and pro-corporate policies carried out by both parties. As the report declares, “The story does not begin in 2025.”

Returning to the 10 richest men in America, the Oxfam report noted, “Since 2020, their inflation-adjusted wealth is up 526%.” In other words, from March 2020 through the present, the wealth of these 10 individuals collectively increased six-fold.

A case in point is Elon Musk, whose wealth stood at $33 billion in March 2020, but it has since surged to $469 billion, a 14-fold increase.

Larry Ellison, number two on the list, saw his wealth increase from $54 billion in March 2020 to $323 billion, a six-fold increase. The wealth of Jeff Bezos, number three on the list, increased from $126 billion in March 2020 to $265 billion today.

The increase in wealth is driven by a relentless speculative growth of share values on Wall Street. The Oxfam report noted that “In 2025, the share of assets owned by the top 0.1 percent hit its highest on record since the Federal Reserve began publishing data in 1989 (12.6%), as did their share of the stock market (24%).”

In 1989, the top 0.1 percent of households controlled 8.6 percent of wealth, compared to 13.9 percent today. By contrast, the share of wealth controlled by the bottom 50 percent of American society has fallen from 3.5 percent in 1989 to 2.5 percent today. 

In other words, the top 0.1 percent of US households, amounting to just over 100,000 people, control six times more wealth than the 64 million households at the very bottom of society.

In fact, citing figures from Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, the Oxfam report notes that “The richest 0.0001% control a greater share of wealth than in the Gilded Age, an era of US history defined by extreme inequality.”

The report added, “The richest 1% own half the stock market (49.9%), while the bottom half of the US owns just 1.1% of the stock market.”

The report correctly warns that the Trump administration is carrying out policies that will massively expand social inequality. It warns that “the Trump administration—largely with the support of Republicans in Congress—has moved with staggering speed and scale to carry out a relentless attack on working-class families and use the power of the office to enrich the wealthy and well-connected.”

Oxfam noted that “The recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) will reduce the tax bill of the highest-earning 0.1% by an estimated $311,000 in 2027, while the lowest-income households—those making less than $15,000 annually—are expected to face tax increases.”

But as the Oxfam report makes clear, the Trump administration marks an acceleration, at an unprecedented pace, of processes that had been ongoing for decades. “Policymakers have been choosing inequality, and those choices have had bipartisan support,” the study’s author, Rebecca Riddell, told the Guardian. “Policy reforms over the last 40 years, from cuts to taxes and the social safety net to labor issues and beyond, really had the backing of both parties.”

This assessment is true. But it is here that the report tangles itself up in knots. The study’s author correctly points out that the surge in social inequality has occurred over decades, under both political parties. But the report proceeds to make the following assertion:

Gains made during the Biden administration—such as reductions in poverty, improved wages for low-wage workers, and strong antitrust action that put money back in families’ pockets—demonstrated the real potential for organizing to secure policy change that improves people’s lives.

This is completely contradicted by the report’s own findings. Under the Biden administration, the share of wealth controlled by the financial oligarchy surged at a level only eclipsed by the Trump administration. The combined wealth of the 10 richest individuals in America doubled, from $976 billion in January 2021 to $1,991 billion in January 2025. During this time, labor’s share of national income plunged to an all-time low.

Under Biden, the food insecurity rate for American children increased from 13 percent to 19 percent. By the last year of his administration, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development asserted in its annual report, “The number of people experiencing homelessness on a single night in 2024 was the highest ever recorded.”

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/11/04/mmmx-n04.html

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