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Economy
'100% Completely Unsustainable': Billionaire Wealth Manager Issues New Warning About US Inequality
"Nearly 50% of all consumer spending now comes from the top 10% of earners. The bottom 80%? Their share keeps falling."
Mar 16, 2026
Wealth inequality in the US has grown unsustainably large, according to one billionaire wealth manager.
In a Monday social media post, Peter Mallouk, the CEO of wealth management firm Creative Planning, shared a graph from the Financial Times showing that the top 10% of earners in the US now account for nearly half of all consumer spending.
"This is 100% completely unsustainable as a society," Mallouk commented. "Nearly 50% of all consumer spending now comes from the top 10% of earners. The bottom 80%? Their share keeps falling."
Mallouk added that this disparity is "why the economy can look strong in the data while millions of people feel like they're falling behind."
Mallouk's observations about the highest earners accounting for a disproportionate share of consumer spending are in line with what economists have been describing as a "K-shaped" economy in which wealth continues growing for the very wealthiest while the vast majority of the population gets left behind.
A February report from TD Economics economist Ksenia Bushmeneva noted that "the economic divide between America’s households at the top of the income spectrum and everyone else continued to widen last year," as "upper-income households benefited from the still-robust wage growth, strong gains in equity markets, and better access to consumer credit."
Bushmeneva also projected that this divide would only grow in the coming year given that the tax cuts passed by Republicans in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025 are expected to provide outsized benefits to the wealthiest Americans, even as "a reduction in funding to various government programs" such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program "will weigh on low-income households."
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, told Axios in a January interview that the data on US consumer spending patterns shows that "the economy is narrowly perched on the backs of the well-to-do," which he noted leaves it in a vulnerable position should the ultrawealthy pull back on their spending at any time.
Zandi's view of the instability of such an economy was echoed in a February column by Carol Ryan of The Wall Street Journal, who warned about the dangers of relying on the wealthiest to drive economic growth.
Given that the wealth of these Americans is tied up in the stock market, Ryan argued, this "could mean the entire economy pays a steep price in the next market correction," as consumer spending would then likely turn negative.
While the richest Americans continue getting wealthier, the US labor market has entered a downturn, as the most recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the American economy lost 92,000 jobs, and overall the economy has posted a net loss of 19,000 jobs since May 2025.
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As His Iran War Drives Up Oil Prices, Trump Orders Restart of California Offshore Drilling
“Mandating a restart of these defective oil pipelines won’t curb high gas prices, but it will put coastal wildlife at huge risk of another oil spill," one advocate said.
Mar 14, 2026
State leaders and environmental advocates responded with outrage after the Trump administration on Friday ordered the restarting of a California pipeline that caused one of the largest oil spills in the state's history, a move that comes as oil prices have skyrocketed following President Donald Trump's launching of an illegal war against Iran and Iran's subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
After Trump issued an executive order on Friday authorizing the Department of Energy (DOE) to ramp up oil and gas development under the Defense Production Act, Energy Secretary Chris Wright ordered Sable Offshore Corp. to restart operations on the Santa Ynez Unit and Pipeline System, which include an offshore rig and a network of offshore and onshore pipelines along the Santa Barbara coast. Among them is a pipeline that ruptured in 2015, spilling around 450,000 gallons of oil into Refugio State Beach and killing hundreds of marine mammals and sea birds.
“Californians have repeatedly rejected dangerous drilling off our coast for decades," Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said in a statement on Saturday. "Now, after dragging the US into a war with Iran and driving up oil prices, the Trump administration is trying to exploit this crisis to further enrich the oil industry at the expense of our communities and our environment."
In his statement, Wright emphasized the defense benefits of resuming drilling, arguing that "today’s order will strengthen America’s oil supply and restore a pipeline system vital to our national security and defense, ensuring that West Coast military installations have the reliable energy critical to military readiness.”
“Directing a private oil company to push its project through without safety checks and adherence to California laws that keep our coast safe is appalling and illegal."
The DOE added that "Sable's facility can produce approximately 50,000 barrels of oil per day, a 15% increase to California’s in-state oil production, that can replace nearly 1.5 million barrels of foreign crude each month."
Yet, far from a novel response to an unexpected emergency, the order is actually an escalation in a preexisting battle between California and the Trump administration over the future of the pipeline system. The state's Attorney General Rob Bonta sued to stop the administration from a federal takeover of two of the pipelines in January.
Sable also faces several lawsuits due to its attempts to restart the system after it purchased it from ExxonMobil in 2024, and has not yet cleared all of the state permitting requirements, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
"In its latest brazen abuse of power, the Trump administration is attempting to seize exclusive federal control over two of California’s onshore pipelines," Bonta said on social media Friday evening. "We will not stand by as this administration continues their unlawful all-out assault on California and our coastlines, and we are reviewing all of our legal options."
California Gov. Gavin Newsom also spoke out against Wright's announcement.
"Trump knew his war with Iran would raise gas prices," he wrote on social media. "Now he wants to illegally resurrect a pipeline shut down by courts and facing criminal charges. And it won't even cut prices. I refuse to let Trump sacrifice Californians, our environment, or our $51 billion coastal economy."
The Center for Biological Diversity noted that this order would mark the first time that the Defense Production Act was used to force an oil company to restart out-of-use Infrastructure and to disregard the state permitting process.
“This is a revolting power grab by an extremist president. Trump is misusing this Cold War-era law just to help a Texas oil company skirt vital state laws that protect our coastline, and Californians will pay the price,” Talia Nimmer, an attorney for the center, said. “Mandating a restart of these defective oil pipelines won’t curb high gas prices, but it will put coastal wildlife at huge risk of another oil spill. Overriding state law to let an oil company restart pipelines sets a radically dangerous precedent. It’s clear that no state is safe from Trump.”
The center also promised to push back against the order.
“Directing a private oil company to push its project through without safety checks and adherence to California laws that keep our coast safe is appalling and illegal,” Nimmer said. “We’re exploring all legal avenues. This dangerous action should be swiftly blocked by the courts.”
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With War on Iran, Trump Is 'Flooring the Gas Pedal as He Drives US Economy Over a Cliff'
"If high costs weren’t already bad enough, Donald Trump’s unnecessary war in Iran has sent gas prices through the roof," said one House Democrat.
Mar 13, 2026
Data released Friday showed that US consumer sentiment hit a new low for 2026 and the American economy expanded by just 0.7% in the fourth quarter of last year, indicators that experts said are only going to get worse due to the cascading impacts of President Donald Trump's deadly, illegal, and expensive war on Iran.
“President Trump is flooring the gas pedal as he drives our economy over a cliff," Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, said in response to the new data, some of which was collected before the US and Israel launched their assault on Iran, sparking a regional conflict, sending oil prices surging, and destabilizing the global economy.
"As bad as this week’s data is," Jacquez added, "it understates reality for exhausted consumers who have been hit with even more price hikes caused by the president’s intentional turmoil in the weeks since this data was collected. Instead of working to bring down ever-increasing prices at the pump, the grocery store, and the doctor’s office, the president is betraying working families as his illegal war with Iran stokes inflation."
Figures released Friday by the US Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) showed that real gross domestic product increased at half the rate predicted by previous government estimates.
"Real GDP was revised down 0.7 percentage points from the advance estimate [of 1.4%], reflecting downward revisions to exports, consumer spending, government spending, and investment," the BEA said in a news release.
NBC News noted that "economists had expected the revision to go the other way—and show stronger growth."
The BEA also published data showing that the personal consumption expenditures price index, a key inflation reading, rose at an annualized rate of 2.8% in January.
“Families across the United States are struggling to make ends meet in Donald Trump’s economy," Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said in a statement. "If high costs weren’t already bad enough, Donald Trump’s unnecessary war in Iran has sent gas prices through the roof."
A Harris Poll opinion survey conducted for The Guardian and released Friday found that more than 70% of US voters believe Trump's tariff regime has driven up their costs.
"In the short run, the economic impact of a sustained loss of Gulf oil could be very ugly."
Consumer sentiment, meanwhile, continued its steady decline in March, falling about 2% compared to last month, according to the University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers. Roughly half of the interviews conducted for the consumer sentiment report were completed before the US and Israel began attacking Iran on February 28.
Joanne Hsu, director of the Surveys of Consumers, noted that "interviews completed prior to the military action in Iran showed an improvement in sentiment from last month, but lower readings seen during the nine days thereafter completely erased those initial gains."
"Gasoline prices have exerted the most immediate impact felt by consumers, though the magnitude of passthrough to other prices remains highly uncertain," Hsu noted. "A broad swath of consumers across incomes, age, and political affiliation all reported declines in expectations for their personal finances, down 7.5% nationally."
"Interviews completed after February 28 exhibited higher inflation expectations than those completed before that date," Hsu added.
The first six days of Trump's war on Iran cost US taxpayers over $11 billion, and the price tag is set to rise exponentially as the administration deploys thousands of additional troops to the Middle East and continues aggressively bombing Iran, which has retaliated in part by closing the Strait of Hormuz—choking off the flow of oil through the critical trade route and sending prices surging.
The Trump administration has sought to downplay skyrocketing oil prices even as it takes emergency action in an attempt to bring them down. The International Energy Agency said Thursday that the US-Israeli assault on Iran sparked "the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market."
Economist Paul Krugman warned Friday that "oil prices could easily go much higher," noting, "The US and other major economies are a lot less oil-dependent than they were in the 1970s, and even at $100 a barrel oil prices are not high enough to provoke a major crisis."
"In the short run, the economic impact of a sustained loss of Gulf oil could be very ugly," Krugman wrote. "I’ve seen some alarmists warn that a long war in the Gulf could lead to oil at $150 a barrel. That looks low to me."
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US Families Set to Pay Combined $330 Billion in Tariff Costs This Year—Over $2,500 Per Household
Sen. Maggie Hassan said that while paying back businesses hit by Trump’s illegal tariffs, the administration “refuses to provide relief for families.”
Mar 13, 2026
American families could pay a combined $330 billion this year as a result of President Donald Trump's aggressive tariff policy, according to a report released Friday by the Democratic minority on the Joint Economic Committee in Congress.
Although the Supreme Court ruled Trump's use of emergency powers to pass sweeping tariffs illegal last month, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the government is expected to bring in "virtually unchanged tariff revenue in 2026" compared with the previous year, as Trump has continued to enact new tariffs using different legal authorities in hopes of getting around the high court's ruling.
If Bessent's projection holds true, the committee's Democrats estimated that the average US household would pay more than $2,500 in tariff costs this year, a considerable increase from the more than $1,700 the committee found Americans paid in 2025.
The minority said it reached its findings based on official data on the amount of tariff revenue collected by the Treasury since 2025 combined with independent research from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which found last month that only about 5% of tariff costs are borne by foreign entities. About 30% is taken on by domestic companies, and the remaining 65% is passed on to consumers.
There is already somewhat of an answer in the works for businesses to recoup the illegal duties they've had to pay. Earlier this month, the US Court of International Trade (CIT) ruled that the Treasury Department and Customs and Border Protection must return $166 billion to around 330,000 importers hit by tariffs, including thousands of companies that have filed lawsuits seeking to recover their money.
However, the Trump administration has said it could take more than 4.4 million hours to process all refund requests for more than 53 million entries subject to the now-illegal tariffs.
On Thursday, Brandon Lord, an official with US Customs and Border Protection responsible for tariff collections, informed the court that CBP is about 40-80% done creating a system that will allow importers and brokers to submit refund requests. He said in a filing last week that it could be operational as soon as mid-April.
But Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), the ranking member of the joint committee, lamented on Friday that while businesses are going to be reimbursed with interest, "the Trump administration refuses to provide relief for families" and is instead "choosing to institute new tariffs that will push prices even higher.”
On Thursday, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), another committee member, introduced a bill to create a new tax rebate for individuals and families hit by tariffs.
The so-called "Working Families Refund" would provide a $600 rebate to individuals earning $90,000 or less annually and to head-of-household filers earning $120,000 or less. Joint filers earning $180,000 or less per year would receive a $1,200 rebate. Each family would also receive an additional $600 for each dependent child.
"This is money that belongs to working families—not the CEOs of Walmart or Amazon or any other big corporation,” Heinrich said.
Trump has pressed ahead with his tariffs despite their rising unpopularity. In an NBC News poll last week, 55% of voters said the tariffs have hurt the economy, while just 33% said they have helped. And as his newly launched war with Iran has heightened economic instability, 62% of voters said they disapproved of his handling of inflation and the cost of living.
Seeking to stop Trump from squeezing a political win out of his policy's failure, Heinrich's bill also forbids the president from putting his own name on the tariff rebate checks, as he famously did with Covid-19 stimulus checks sent months before the 2020 election.
“The president may call the affordability crisis a ‘hoax,’ but working people feel it every time they pay for groceries or everyday essentials," Heinrich said. "This bill will return the money lost to Trump’s tariffs back to the people who paid the price.”
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