The collective wealth of America’s top 10 richest people ballooned by $698 billion in the past year, supercharged by President Donald Trump’s tax giveaways to his fellow billionaires.
An Oxfam America report published Monday warns that Trump’s economic agenda is “driving inequality to new heights” and ushering in what it calls “the rise of a new American oligarchy.”
At the center of the boom is Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” passed by Congress in May—legislation Oxfam describes as “one of the single largest transfers of wealth upwards in decades.” The law slashes corporate tax rates and dramatically cuts the tax bills of the wealthiest Americans.
According to the report, the top 0.1 percent of earners will see their annual tax bills shrink by an estimated $311,000 by 2027, while low-income households—those making under $15,000 a year—are projected to see their taxes rise.
“Inequality is a policy choice,” said Rebecca Riddell, senior policy lead for economic justice at Oxfam America. “These comparisons show us that we can make very different choices when it comes to poverty and inequality in our society.”
The report, which tracks billionaire wealth from September 2024 to September 2025, includes several months under President Joe Biden before Trump returned to office in January. Riddell added that both parties share responsibility. “Policymakers have been choosing inequality, and those choices have had bipartisan support,” she said. “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.”
Using Federal Reserve data spanning from 1989 to 2022, Oxfam calculated that the top 1 percent of U.S. households gained 101 times more wealth than the median household over that period—and nearly 1,000 times more than those in the bottom fifth of earners.
That amounts to $8.35 million per household for the richest 1 percent, compared with just $83,000 for the average family.
Meanwhile, the report notes, more than 40 percent of Americans—including nearly half of all children—are classified as low-income, living on less than twice the federal poverty line.
Among 38 wealthy nations tracked by the OECD, the U.S. ranks worst for relative poverty, second for child poverty and infant mortality, and near the bottom for life expectancy.
In a foreword to the report, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts appeared to tie the inequality spike to Trump’s presidency. “We watched the wealthiest among us accumulate unimaginable fortunes while paying virtually nothing,” Warren wrote. “The result is an economy that works great for those at the very top and leaves everyone else hanging on by their fingernails. This didn’t happen by accident. It happened through deliberate policy choices—choices we can unmake.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
