US inequality persists across administrations, analysis finds

A new analysis of US income inequality, based on data from the Congressional Budget Office and other sources, finds that the gap between the richest and poorest Americans has persisted across Democratic and Republican administrations. The article, written by journalist Eduardo Porter, notes that while the Obama administration made the largest investments in reducing inequality since the Great Society, those efforts appear as minor blips in a long history of American indifference toward disparities. By the end of 2016, taxes and transfers cut the share of income going to the richest 1% by just over a fifth, more than under any government since Jimmy Carter. However, under Donald Trump, the share of income for the richest 1% drifted back up to 13.2% by the end of his first term, and his 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act reduced the annual income of the poorest tenth of households by 3.1% while boosting the top decile by 2.6%. The article emphasizes that the United States’ deep inequality is not solely Trump’s fault, but a feature of American society embedded in a dislike of paying taxes, particularly among the wealthy. It also notes that the 400 richest Americans pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than the average citizen, and that unrealized capital gains account for 55% of the largest estates, which are bequeathed tax-free.

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Sources: The Guardian