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Tag: inequality

  • Thousands March Across Europe Against Inequality and ‘for Young People’s Future’

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    Article by Olivia Rosane republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

    People march in Paris for education reform and against inequality on October 24, 2026.
    (Photo by Jean-Luc Mélenchon /X)

    “Looking at countries like the United States, we don’t want to end up like them, where part of the population has everything and the others have nothing,” one French protester said.

    Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across Europe on Saturday as anger continues to build over the rising cost of living and deteriorating social services.

    While demonstrators emphasized different demands in different countries, the protest wave reflects a sense that the status quo has ceased to work for ordinary people, especially the young.

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    “I see so many more similarities than differences,” Alice de Brito, the vice president of French student union UNEF, told CNN of the protests. “We are all talking about the need for investments in education, in the universities, in youth in general. But we are also talking about the cost of living, about housing.”

    France

    Across France, between 410,000 and 800,000 people turned out in the continuation of protests that erupted in September when students began to mobilize against underfunding, teacher shortages, and other poor conditions in their schools. Adult workers have joined with the students, criticizing widespread inequality and the rising cost of living, leading to mass demonstrations on October 17 and again a week later.

    “Looking at countries like the United States, we don’t want to end up like them, where part of the population has everything and the others have nothing,” Paris protester Louis Ledoux–Xatard told The Associated Press.

    “Too many billionaires; we are preparing the revolution,” one group of protesters chanted, according to Al Jazeera.

    There were 289 protests in France, including in Marseilles, Nantes, Nice, Lyon, Bordeaux, and Orleans. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said that almost 1,000 people were arrested, though the number was expected to grow. Two people sustained significant injuries.

    “Behind every police officer, a compliant camera.”

    The protest in Paris had originally been scheduled to run through the center of the city, but authorities relocated it to outskirts and banned marches organized by groups other than unions.

    “It won’t stop the movement. It won’t stop students from demanding better conditions in schools,” nurse Soumaya Abed told AP of the changes.

    Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who leads the left-wing France Unbowed party, criticized the government of President Emmanuel Macron for changing the route, but also praised the marchers for carrying on.

    “Total victory for the social movement,” Mélenchon wrote on social media. “The march gathered at the new authorized point and is now flowing calmly over more than four kilometers. The provocations for disorder by the Paris police prefect and [French Prime Minister Sébastien] Lecornu are a total failure. For the authorities, it is time to give in, or soon they will have only the exit door left.”

    Media reported that the Parisian demonstration was largely peaceful until the end, when police released tear gas and fired water cannons and some black-clad protesters threw projectiles.

    Reporters with Agence France-Presse said they saw:

    police charge several times and vigorously use tear gas and batons against some, mostly young, protesters.
    “The police started moving towards everyone, telling them to get down and back off. They were just taking people down, you know, beating protesters,” one demonstrator bleeding from a baton blow to his face, who gave his first name as David, told AFP.

    Other witnesses also described a repressive police response to The Guardian:

    Mike, a 23-year-old student who also declined to give his surname, said: “Look around, they’re just teenagers. Is it normal for teenagers to be teargassed and beaten with batons?”

    For Jessica, a 24-year-old student, said: “I just don’t understand why there’s so much violence. I feel like our right to protest is being trampled on.”

    Mélenchon lambasted the police and the media for working together to discredit the movement.

    “In Paris, to ruin the day and unwind, the so-called forces of law and order gas and fire into the crowd at the back of the procession, all in a bid to get footage for the domestic news channels that spent the whole week airing the images that spurred the Trappes killer,” he wrote on social media, referring to a racially motivated shooting west of Paris on Friday that killed one and wounded five.

    In a second post, he added: “It continues with the policing of minds through the televisions of power. Tonight, staging of the « tails of the procession » to spew hatred against the popular movement. Without a single image of the masses in peaceful action. Behind every police officer, a compliant camera.”

    He encouraged readers to “turn off the televisions! Form your own opinion without a guardian. Journey through social networks. Stay free to think for yourselves.”

    Belgium

    In neighboring Belgium, hundreds of people marched in Brussels in a continuation of demonstrations for improvements in the education system.

    “We are here for young people’s future, for better work,” rally speaker Celia Ponce told the crowd, as The Brussels Times reported.

    She also accused governments of wanting to “destroy public services.”


    Police used tear gas to disperse some protesters and, in an incident reported by Reuters, kicked and hit one demonstrator after they fell during a chase.

    Spain

    Approximately 25,000 people marched in Madrid to support Spain’s pension system and demand that it keep pace with inflation and that a gender gap be eliminated, according to Al Jazeera.

    “How beautiful Madrid is when it defends its rights,” Emilio Delgado, deputy spokesperson for left party Mas Madrid, wrote on social media. “We propose that no pension should be below the minimum wage. A lifetime of work deserves a dignified retirement.”

    The protests come a month ahead of Spain’s general election, in which current Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party will face off against the right-wing Popular Party. Popular Party leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo has promised to adjust pensions according to inflation if his party wins, but demonstrators are still concerned about what a right-wing victory would mean for the pension system.

    Portugal

    In Portugal, meanwhile, the main demand was affordable housing.

    People marched in Lisbon, continuing a movement that began October 10 in the city of Porto calling on the government to address the country’s housing crisis, according to The Resident.

    “We have no home, so we set up tents!” read the slogan of the March, organized by the Acampada de Lisboa movement.

    The protesters also opposed new policies from Prime Minister Luis Montenegro that would weaken a limit on annual rent increases and make it easier to evict people who are unable to make rent payments, according to AP.

    Italy

    Thousands of people joined demonstrations across Italy to protest the affordability crisis as well as the right-wing government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Protests were called for eight cities including Milan, Turin, and Rome, with 10,000 attending the Milan demonstration alone.

    “We are here because of the rising prices and because I believe that our government has no respect for its citizens,” a 17-year-old student participant, who did not give a name, told Al Jazeera. “There are four people in my family. My mother works in a factory, but my father is about to lose his job. It’s hard to make ends meet on just one salary.”

    The Italian protests were a continuation of demonstrations that have taken place throughout October. There were fewer clashes between police and demonstrators on Saturday compared with earlier marches, though some protesters tried to enter the Colosseum before being pushed back.

    Albania

    In Albania, outrage over plans by US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to build a luxury resort near a protected wildlife area—which is widely seen as an example of government corruption—has dovetailed with demands by students for less corruption in the education system specifically as well as lower tuition fees and more funding.

    A demonstration in the capital of Tirana on Saturday marked the 12th day of anti-government protests this month following a summer of mobilizations against the luxury hotel.

    Some protesters lit fires and threw projectiles, while police used tear gas, rubber bullets, and water cannons.

    One demonstrator, the ⁠28-year-old Daniel Tahiri, told Reuters that the Albanian government was a “dictatorship with the clothes of democracy.”

    “Albanians have woken up,” Tahiri said.

    Article by Olivia Rosane republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

  • Richest 0.001% Now Own Three Times More Wealth Than Poorest Half of Humanity Combined

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    Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

    People attend a demonstration in support of taxing the super-rich in São Paulo, Brazil on July 10, 2025.  (Photo by Miguel Schincariol/AFP via Getty Images)

    “The choices we make in the coming years will determine whether the global economy continues down a path of extreme concentration or moves toward shared prosperity.”

    A landmark report on global inequality published Wednesday shows that the chasm between the richest slice of humanity and everyone else continued to expand this year, leaving the top 0.001%—fewer than 60,000 multimillionaires—with three times more wealth than the poorest half of the world’s population combined.

    The global wealth gap has become so staggering, and its impact on economies and democratic institutions so corrosive, that policymakers should treat it as an emergency, argues the third edition of the World Inequality Report, a comprehensive analysis that draws on the work of hundreds of scholars worldwide. Ricardo Gómez-Carrera, a researcher at the World Inequality Lab, is the report’s lead author.

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    “Inequality has long been a defining feature of the global economy, but by 2025, it has reached levels that demand urgent attention,” reads the new report. “The benefits of globalization and economic growth have flowed disproportionately to a small minority, while much of the world’s population still face difficulties in achieving stable livelihoods. These divides are not inevitable. They are the outcome of political and institutional choices.”

    The richest 10% of the global population, according to the latest data, own three-quarters of the world’s wealth and capture more income than the rest of humanity. Within most countries, it is rare for the bottom 50% to control more than 5% of national wealth.

    “This concentration is not only persistent, but it is also accelerating,” the report observes. “Since the 1990s, the wealth of billionaires and centimillionaires has grown at approximately 8% annually, nearly twice the rate of growth experienced by the bottom half of the population. The poorest have made modest gains, but these are overshadowed by the extraordinary accumulation at the very top.”

    “The result,” the report adds, “is a world in which a tiny minority commands unprecedented financial power, while billions remain excluded from even basic economic stability.”

    The report comes as the world’s richest and most powerful nation, led by President Donald Trump, abandons international cooperation on climate and taxation and works to supercharge inequality by slashing domestic and foreign aid programs while delivering massive handouts to the wealthiest Americans.

    Jayati Ghosh, a member of the G20 Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts on Global Inequality and co-author of the forward to the new report, said in a statement that “we live in a system where resources extracted from labor and nature in low-income countries continue to sustain the prosperity and the unsustainable lifestyle of people in high-income economies and rich elites across countries.”

    “These patterns are not accidents of markets,” said Ghosh. “They reflect the legacy of history and the functioning of institutions, regulations and policies—all of which are related to unequal power relations that have yet to be rebalanced.”

    Reversing the decadeslong trend of exploding inequality will require the political will to pursue obvious solutions, including fair taxation of the mega-rich and bold investments in social programs and climate action, which is disproportionately fueled by the wealthy.

    “The choices we make in the coming years,” the report says, “will determine whether the global economy continues down a path of extreme concentration or moves toward shared prosperity.”

    Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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  • Global System ‘Rigged for the Wealthy’ Delivers World With ‘More Billionaires Than Ever’

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    Original article by Jon Queally republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

    Tech billionaires Susan Dell and Michael Dell speak as US President Donald Trump makes an announcement about “Trump accounts” in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on December 02, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

    New annual report on “ambitions” of billionaires by wealth management giant UBS shows just 2,919 individuals have a combined wealth of $15.8 trillion.

    A new assessment by the international wealth management giant UBS this week shows that the number of billionaires in the world has reached new heights and that the acceleration of inherited wealth represents a new chapter for the ultra-rich in the 21st Century.

    The latest UBS Billionaire Ambitions Report, unveiled Thursday, details how just 2,919 individual billionaires have a combined wealth of $15.8 trillion. The number of billionaires in the world is up nearly 9 percent from the previous year. In the United States—where nearly a third of those on the list reside—924 billionaires hold a collective $6.9 trillion in wealth.

    The assessment by UBS—which surveyed its own billionaire clients as part of the survey, now its eleventh edition—emphasizes a surge of inherited wealth among the billionaire class. According to the report:

    In 2025, 91 heirs (64 of them male and 27 female) inherited a record USD 297.8 billion. That’s 36% more than in 2024, despite fewer people inheriting overall. Globally, inheritance bolstered the number of multigenerational billionaires, with some 860 multi-generational billionaires now overseeing total assets of USD 4.7 trillion. That’s up from 805 with USD 4.2 trillion in 2024.

    Across the world, multi-generational billionaires are slowly extending down the generations, with the number of second-generation billionaires growing by 4.6% in the 2025 report, the number of third generation
    by 12.3%, and the number of fourth generation and beyond by 10%.

    The growing number of billionaires, including a rapidly increasing share who inherited their wealth rather than generating it themselves, says UBS, “heralds a new era” for the ultra-rich as “the great wealth transfer is intensifying as heirs inherit more than ever before.

    The coming decades, the report notes, “will see growing numbers of billionaires and centi-millionaires as the Great Wealth Transfer continues to accelerate. Billionaires are estimated to transfer approximately USD 6.9 trillion of wealth globally by 2040, with at least USD 5.9 trillion set to be passed to children—either directly or indirectly through spouses.”

    Of the $6.9 trillion currently held by US billionaires, the report estimates that $2.8 trillion of that wealth will be passed down to heirs over the next 15 years.

    “The world has more billionaires than ever because of a system that’s broken for workers and rigged for the wealthy and CEOs who already make 285 times what workers do,” said the AFL-CIO in response to the report.

    The union federation says that organized workers winning better collective bargaining is the first step needed to “level the playing field” for working people, while others see the surging fortunes of the ultra-wealthy as just more evidence that taxing the rich must remain at the top of the economic and political agenda both at the national level and internationally.

    With the UBS report showing that 91 of the new billionaires created this year arrived at their financial status through inheritance, Hal Singer, economics professor at the University of Utah, said, “That’s 91 additional reasons for a wealth tax.”

    Original article by Jon Queally republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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  • Top 10 US billionaires’ collective wealth grew by $698bn in past year – report

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    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/03/wealth-billionaires-increase-trump

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    The collective wealth of the top 10 US billionaires has soared by $698bn in the past year, according to a new report from Oxfam America published on Monday on the growing wealth divide.

    The report warns that Trump administration policies risk driving US inequality to new heights, but points out that both Republican and Democratic administrations have exacerbated the US’s growing wealth gap.

    Using Federal Reserve data from 1989 to 2022, researchers also calculated that the top 1% of households gained 101 times more wealth than the median household during that time span and 987 times the wealth of a household at the bottom 20th percentile of income. This translated to a gain of $8.35m per household for the top 1% of households, compared with $83,000 for the average household during that 33-year period.

    Meanwhile, over 40% of the US population, including nearly 50% of children, are considered low-income, with family earnings that are less than 200% of the national poverty line.

    When pitting the US against 38 other higher-income countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the US has the highest rate of relative poverty, second-highest rate of child poverty and infant mortality, and the second-lowest life expectancy rate.

    …

    Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/03/wealth-billionaires-increase-trump

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  • Greens announce new membership record on first day of Labour Party conference

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    Green party leader Zack Polanski (Green Party of England and Wales). Image: Bristol Green Party Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
    Green party leader Zack Polanski (Green Party of England and Wales). Image: Bristol Green Party Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

    The Green Party of England and Wales has announced it has surged past 80,000 members on the first day of the Labour Party conference – a record high for the party. The announcement was made by Green Party Leader, Zack Polanski, speaking at a campaign event in North London.

    The new membership record marks a near 20% increase in membership since Polanski was elected leader less than a month ago.  Green Party leader Zack Polanski said

    “This is a huge milestone for the Green Party of England and Wales. The tired, old two-party system is over.  More and more people are looking to a politics rooted in tackling the climate crisis and inequality. The Green Party is the party that wants to bring water into public hands, wants to lower bills, and wants to protect our National Health Service.  Our party conference is just a week away. Our membership growth is a fantastic foundation from which to deepen our roots in local communities and build a bolder politics.  This is just the beginning, and we have no time to waste.” 

    Zack Polanski said before the Labour Party conference opening, “When I said we intend to replace Labour, I meant it.  As another Labour conference comes round, it’s another emergency government reset.  It just confirms what we already know: Labour has failed. By his own standards, Starmer has broken the promises he was elected on, ditched the principles he claimed to stand for, and his government has made inequality worse, ignored the climate crisis and contributed to arming a genocidal Israeli government. And for all the talk, this conference isn’t a vision for the future. It’s a desperate attempt to rewrite the past.” 
     
    “People are crying out for bold leadership, not cautious tinkering.  This will probably be Starmer’s last conference.  Labour’s future candidates aren’t offering any of the solutions we need.  The Green Party is offering these solutions. A wealth tax on the super-rich, investment in public services and action to protect our climate. We are ready to turn this country around by offering a bold, positive alternative to a crumbling Labour government.”