Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk at Trump’s inauguration ceremony on 20 January 2025. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Oxfam warns Trump policies risk driving inequality to new heights – but Democrats have also exacerbated wealth gap
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.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Keir Starmer explains that he feels no shame or guilt benefitting personally from gifts from the rich and powerful while insisting on policies of severe austerity causing suffering and death.
[Daily Record] EXCLUSIVE: SNP MP Kirsty Blackman said getting rid of the hated Tory welfare policy should be the “bare minimum – not the height of ambitions”.
The UK Labour Government has been challenged to go “much further” than scrapping the two-child cap on benefits if it wants to reduce number of kids living in poverty.
SNP MP Kirsty Blackman has today written to Keir Starmer to insist getting rid of the hated Tory welfare policy should be the “bare minimum – not the height of ambitions”.
It comes amid rising speculation the Prime Minister may use next week’s UK Labour conference in Liverpool to confirm the two-child cap will finally be ended.
Anti-poverty campaigners and charities have long warned the policy punishes larger families and pushes more youngsters into a life of poverty as a result.
The SNP Government has already commited to mitigating the impact of the welfare cap in Scotland from next March.
In her letter, Blackman said: “Independent analysis shows that if the UK government matched SNP action across the UK, it could lift 2.3million families out of poverty overnight, including a further 96,000 in Scotland.
Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the “hard times”.
A new Ipsos in the UK poll reveals that the left-wing political party recently founded by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and MP Zarah Sultana could capture a significant segment of the British electorate, particularly among younger voters and those who supported the Labour and Green parties in the 2024 General Election.
Overall, 20% of British adults say they would be ‘very’ or ‘fairly likely’ to consider voting for a new left-wing party. This figure, however, masks a sharp generational divide. A third (33%) of those aged 16-34 would consider voting for the new party, a figure that drops to 22% among 35-54s and just 9% among those aged 55 and over.
The potential for this new party to disrupt the existing political landscape is most evident in its appeal to voters of other left-leaning parties. One-third (33%) of those who voted Labour in 2024 and 43% of 2024 Green party voters would consider lending their vote to a Corbyn-Sultana-led party.
…
Commenting on the findings, Keiran Pedley, Director of UK Politics at Ipsos said:
These figures show that a new left-wing party led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana has the potential to shake up British politics. A significant number of younger people are at least prepared to consider voting for it and a majority of those aged under 35 say they would consider voting for some kind of alliance between the new party and the Greens. Clear policies around change, the NHS, poverty and wealth taxes could be popular. Time will tell if the new party can turn this hypothetical appeal into real votes on a significant scale.
An elderly lady holding a cup of tea at home in Liverpool with her electric fire on
THE Warm Homes Plan should be judged on how much it cuts fuel poverty rather than focusing on technical targets, campaigners urged the government yesterday.
The £13.2 billion scheme aims to improve energy efficiency in five million homes by 2030.
End Fuel Poverty Coalition has written to energy minister Miatta Fahnbulleh, outlining key recommendations to ensure it delivers for those most in need.
Campaigners suggest that the scheme’s success should not be judged by how many insulation measures are installed, or homes moved to EPC band C, but by how far it goes in ending fuel poverty.
About five million households in Britain are trapped deep fuel poverty, according to a University of York study.
Simon Francis, co-ordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition (EFPC), said: “Cold homes cause suffering, cost lives and drive up costs for the NHS.
“The Warm Homes Plan can be the solution — but only if it’s designed around the real needs of people, not just technical targets.”
The government has announced its strategy for “giving every child the best start in life”, laying out proposals covering early years care, education and support in England.
The strategy builds on the current local family hub model of services, which offer a range of support aimed at babies and young children. Best Start family hubs will further bring together early years and family services in a similar way to the previous Sure Start programme. The government’s commitment includes £1.5 billion in investment to implement these reforms.
The Best Start Hubs will be a one-stop shop to support families with their child’s early development, from breastfeeding advice to speech and language support and stay and play sessions. The hubs will also support families with wider challenges such as housing and benefits, and provide courses for parents.
The attempt to bring services together to deliver local, holistic support to families is understandable given the impact of the original Sure Start initiative, introduced by Tony Blair’s Labour government.
Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox.Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.
The Sure Start Local Programmes that were established from 1999 onwards had a significant positive effect on those families who had access to them. From 2010, though, when the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition came into power, funding was cut and many Sure Start centres closed.
In May 2025 the Institute for Fiscal Studies published a summary report on the short- and medium-term effects of Sure Start on children’s lives.
They found that the impact of the Sure Start services for under-fives was remarkably long-lasting, with improvements during their teenage years in educational attainment and behaviour in school, and reductions in hospital admissions. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that these long-term benefits significantly outweigh the cost of the Sure Start programme.
Like Sure Start, the Best Start strategy has the potential to be transformational for young children and their families.
However, the current range of challenges faced by families and the depth of child poverty in the country will make bringing about this transformation challenging. A 2023 report from charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that there are one million children growing up destitute in the UK, without the means to stay warm, dry, clean and fed.
The challenge of poverty
The day after the Best Start strategy was launched, the children’s commissioner for England published a research report on children’s experience of growing up in a low-income family. Based on interviews with 128 children, the report outlines the “almost-Dickensian” levels of poverty experienced by children whose basic needs are not being met. Children described poor housing conditions, mouldy food and lack of hot water.
The significant impact that poverty has on children’s educational attainment, health and future lives will be difficult for the benefits that the Best Start programme may provide to negate.
I have witnessed these financial challenges and the wider range of issues families are dealing with on a daily basis in my own role as the director of the Early Years Community Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University, and through my wider research with families.
In March 2024 I was part of a team of researchers who were commissioned by the Ministry for Housing, Community and Local Government to explore how multiple insecurities, such as financial difficulties, health problems, precarious work, poor housing and lack of support networks affected people’s lives.
Parents described the difficulties of making ends meet. They talked about having to deal with many different national and local agencies, the stress this created within their family and the toll on their health and wellbeing.
Even working full-time did not necessarily make families more secure. In one family, the working pattern the parents had to adopt to make ends meet meant that they only had one day a fortnight to be together.
We have to do stupid hours. I mean my partner, she works nights. I work mainly days … we’re kind of like passing ships in the night.
The places these families turned to were local community centres run by a range of organisations. The common themes about why they accessed these centres were the warm, welcoming, non-judgemental approach taken by staff, trusting relationships with staff and the range of services and support that were offered.
This bodes well for the Best Start strategy – if it is able to deliver the full range of services the government has outlined in a local trusted space. However, this will be a significant challenge in communities that have lacked support over recent years, are suffering the hardships of poverty and that may have lost trust in government services.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.Keir Starmer explains that he feels no shame or guilt benefitting personally from gifts from the rich and powerful while insisting on policies of severe austerity causing suffering and death.
An elderly lady holding a cup of tea at home in Liverpool with her electric fire on