President Donald Trump’s success in pushing his tariff agenda has drawn sharp criticism — not just for the abuse of power and economic risks it creates but also for who it will hurt most. By driving up consumer prices on everything from food to appliances, these tariffs will function as a stealth tax on middle- and working-class Americans. The poorest households, who spend a greater share of their income on basic goods, will be hit hardest.
But the danger isn’t only today’s higher grocery bills or the safety nets gutted to pay for his tax cuts. Decades of evidence point to the same conclusion: funneling wealth upward doesn’t just punish the poor — it eats away at the foundations of the economy and democracy itself. Inequality isn’t an unfortunate side effect; it’s a slow poison that weakens growth, fuels resentment, and makes societies more fragile.
To understand why, it’s crucial to distinguish between poverty and inequality. Poverty is an absolute condition: a lack of access to basic necessities like food, housing, health care, and education. Inequality, by contrast, is a measure of relative difference — how income, wealth, and opportunity are distributed across society. A nation can reduce absolute poverty while still becoming more unequal.
Contrary to debunked “trickle-down” ideas, what happens when wealth is more concentrated at the top is that the rich can push policies to protect and further their advantage: starving public services, blocking redistribution, and undermining labor rights. All of these efforts are now being supercharged under Trump.
Yet the deeper consequences remain invisible to many.
Because of social and economic segregation, the severity of inequality and its consequences are vastly underestimated. When the poor suffer, the injustices are highly visible: more people sleeping on the sidewalk, longer lines at the food bank. But when the rich quietly grow wealthier, the change often escapes notice. They further isolate themselves into their gated communities; they send their children to elite private schools and increasingly travel by private jet.
As sociologist Matthew Desmond has documented, even before Trump, US policy systematically favored the wealthy, from mortgage interest deductions to tax-free university donations, while offering the poor stigmatized, inadequate support. Extreme inequality doesn’t just coexist with poverty; it perpetuates it.
But commentators defending wealth accumulation often assert that inequality is a distraction: as long as others have enough, why does it matter how much wealth is hoarded at the top?
This logic is seductive — but wrong.
Rising inequality doesn’t just harm the poor — it drags down the entire economy. Even research from mainstream institutions like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development show that the more lopsided a society, the weaker its economy becomes: a 1 percent increase in income inequality can shave more than 1 percent off a country’s GDP.
The reasons are simple: when wages are squeezed, businesses lose customers. When public schools are starved, talent goes undeveloped. The rich may save and invest, but these investments often chase speculative returns through real estate, venture capital, and private equity — not on the kind of productive growth healthy economies need. Thus, International Monetary Fund research has also shown that countries with high inequality have lower and less durable growth.
In recent decades, inequality has skyrocketed to a degree that is surprising to many. Since 1980, the income of the top 1 percent in the United States has grown five times faster than that of the bottom 90 percent. A 2023 report by Oxfam showed that for every $100 of wealth created between 2012 and 2021, $54.40 went to the top 1 percent, while the bottom 50 percent were left with $0.70.
In more unequal societies, who you’re born to matters more than what you’re capable of. Rich children attend better schools, receive private tutoring, and gain access to networks that reproduce privilege. Meanwhile, poor children are funneled into underfunded systems, raised by overstressed parents, and offered few pathways to mobility. As a result, the vast majority of people never get the chance to reach their potential — corroding innovation and opportunity.
Perhaps even more dangerously, high inequality tears at the social fabric. As sociologists like Rachel Sherman and John Osburg show in contexts as different as New York City and Chengdu, China, rising inequality breeds anxiety and insecurity even among the elite, who constantly measure themselves against even richer peers. As inequality grows, it makes everyone feel like they’re falling behind.
Further, as the middle class increasingly believes people at the top are not paying their fair share, they become more resentful and less willing to support public goods or social welfare, feeling that they’re unfairly shouldering the burden alone. Thus, inequality has deleterious effects on democratic processes: countries with greater inequality consistently report lower levels of trust, higher rates of violence, and weaker public health outcomes. People stop believing that society is fair — or worth participating in.
As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis reportedly warned, “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”
Criticism of Trump’s economic policies — from tariffs to his budget and deregulatory agenda — must go further. It is not simply a matter of fairness and justice. The problem is also the betrayal of principles foundational to a healthy economy and democracy. The outcome of Trump’s time as president will not just be that the poor will be poorer, but that the United States will be weaker, angrier, more unstable, and less innovative.
Great Job Christopher Marquis & the Team @ Jacobin Source link for sharing this story.
