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inequality
Watch Out, Billionaires! These 6 Candidates Won by Promising to Fight Inequality
None of these candidates went into Election Day with a “solid Democrat” or even a “likely Democrat” rating from the Cook Political Report; their hard-fought victories are a signal that American voters are ready for inequality-fighting, transformative change.
Nov 07, 2026
The “affordability crisis” ranked as the top issue for every Democrat in this election. But candidates’ solutions to this crisis varied widely. Some seemed to think a bit of tinkering to lower prices, plus a dab of deregulation, would do the trick.
We highlight here six candidates who won tough races by offering a much bolder vision of an economy that works for all. These candidates promised to build working families’ power to tackle the extreme wealth concentrations that are driving up housing and healthcare costs, suppressing wages, squeezing consumers and small businesses, and distorting our democracy.
None of these candidates went into Election Day with a “solid Democrat” or even a “likely Democrat” rating from the Cook Political Report. Their hard-fought victories are a signal that American voters are ready for inequality-fighting, transformative change.
House Seats
Brian Poindexter (Ohio-7)
Poindexter crushed Republican incumbent Max Miller by nearly 10 points, becoming the first non-Republican to represent Ohio’s 7th District since 1939. The union organizer and ironworker won over Rust Belt voters with a strong pro-worker agenda.
“When tax cuts are debated in Washington, they seem to flow easily to the wealthiest and most powerful,” Poindexter wrote in his economic platform. “When subsidies are discussed, large corporations are first in line. But when the conversation turns to deficits, debt, or ‘tough choices,’ it’s working families who are asked to give more, wait longer, or accept less.”
Drawing on his 20-plus years in the labor movement, Poindexter is vowing to strengthen collective bargaining rights so workers can fight for better wages and benefits. He also aims to increase the minimum wage and expand access to affordable healthcare.
Will Lawrence (Michigan-7)
Lawrence’s race was closely watched because it was seen as a test of whether campaigning against Big Tech and unregulated AI could be a vote-getter in a red district. Turns out it was.
Lawrence ran ads denouncing the tech billionaires driving the AI data center boom, vowed to put a pause on advanced AI development, and blasted privacy-invading surveillance technologies like Flock cameras.
A co-founder of a youth-led climate group called the Sunrise Movement, Lawrence also mobilized huge support from Michigan State University students. His campus rallies drew large crowds to discuss his proposals to get money out of politics, increase taxes on the wealthy, end corporate landlord price gouging, and guarantee universal healthcare.
Last night the millennial activist garnered 51% of the vote to oust Republican incumbent Tom Barrett.
Rebecca Cooke (Wisconsin-3)
Cooke grew up on a Wisconsin dairy farm that has suffered the same fate as thousands of others in the state. Because of unfair competition with large corporate producers, her family has had to sell their cows.
“I want to take on the corporate monopolies that have robbed us of our farming traditions and our heritage,” Cooke said in a campaign trail interview with More Perfect Union. On top of breaking up Big Ag, she wants to pass the PRO Act to strengthen union rights, raise the minimum wage, and protect communities from “unchecked hyperscale data centers.”
In between waitressing at two Eau Claire restaurants, Cooke ran a grassroots-powered campaign that beat incumbent Republican Derrick Van Orden by a four-point margin.
Senate Seats
Peggy Flanagan (Minnesota)
Flanagan wasn’t expected to have a tough race after winning the primary to replace Democrat Tina Smith. But she wound up with a “vulnerable” rating in the face of rampant disinformation about welfare fraud during her time as the state’s lieutenant governor and an opponent who happened to be a smooth-talking former TV sportscaster.
As someone who grew up in poverty, Flanagan prevailed by drawing on that experience to deliver a compelling vision of an economy in which everyone can thrive—not just the ultra wealthy. She vowed to work for inequality-fighting policies such as Medicare for All, scrapping the income cap on Social Security contributions, and banning large corporate landlords from purchasing single-family homes.
Flanagan refused corporate PAC money and called for banning all corporate and “dark” money in future elections. In the end, she won by double digits. And when she enters the US Senate in January, she’ll be making history. That body has never had a Native American woman member, and Flanagan belongs to the White Earth Band of Ojibwe.
Troy Jackson (Maine)
After the flameout of the first Democratic nominee, Jackson entered the race with only three months to campaign against teflon Republican Susan Collins.
Growing up, Jackson had formative experiences watching his dad and other loggers stand up to wealthy landowners to demand basic fairness. He carried that working class fight into his own logging career and then into Maine’s state legislature.
On the campaign trail, Jackson signed a “Pledge to Working Mainers” demanding a billionaire tax, a congressional stock trading ban, and a ban on AI surveillance to prevent “robots deciding your paycheck, hiring and firing you, or monitoring your work.”
Heading into Election Night, the Cook Political Report had the Jackson-Collins race as a total “toss-up.” In the end, Jackson ousted the 30-year incumbent by an eight-point margin.
Abdul El-Sayed (Michigan)
Ending with a big one here. El-Sayed had to put up with grotesque racism and Islamophobia throughout his campaign. He prevailed with one of the strongest inequality-fighting economic platforms of any candidate in 2026.
The native Michigander boiled his agenda down to three alliterative pledges: money in your pocket, money out of politics, and Medicare for All.
With his medical degree and public health experience, El-Sayed projected a particularly strong vision of guaranteed healthcare for every American, regardless of what they do for work. He also called for abolishing medical debt, banning the use of AI to allow health insurers to second-guess doctors’ decisions, and preventing Medicare privatization.
El Sayed did not shy away from overtly arguing for wealth distribution.
“I’d rather have an economy that makes 1,000 millionaires than one billionaire,” El-Sayed said in a social media clip. “If you’re serious about building the most productive possible economy, take that excess money that would have been parked into the S&P 500 and invest it in good schools, good infrastructure, healthcare, childcare, which by the way, all make jobs, a ton of jobs, most of which are very difficult to automate,” El-Sayed argued.
Last night, El-Sayed demolished Republican opponent Mike Rogers by an eight-point margin. As he heads to Washington, he is vowing to “fight against corporate tax breaks and the capture of our economy by billionaires and wanna-be oligarchs.”
Look out.
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Time for a Green New Deal 2.0
With Trump’s repudiation in the 2026 midterm elections, it is time to end Green New Deal hushing and instead consider what a Green New Deal revamped for today should be.
Nov 06, 2026
The overwhelming repudiation of President Donald Trump in the 2026 midterm elections may make it possible to constrain his worst depredations. But that will hardly be enough to solve the multiple crises facing the American people or the world. The Green New Deal represents the best vision we have for addressing those realities, but it needs to be updated and expanded for the world we face today. We need a “Green New Deal 2.0.”
Trump’s pet whipping boy was the Green New Deal. His excoriating attacks led many Democratic politicians to engage in “Green New Deal hushing.” With Trump’s repudiation in the 2026 midterm elections, it is time to end Green New Deal hushing and instead consider what a Green New Deal revamped for today should be.
The Green New Deal project has been promoted by a wide array of social forces. It has brought together people operating inside political systems with social movements organizing outside of them. It has used both the institutions of representative democracy and the direct-action power of the people to implement its objectives. The Green New Deal 2.0 will draw on comparable sources of power.
The Green New Deal has proven perennial because it addresses the basic problems faced by our people and planet.
No doubt there are many in both the Republican and Democratic parties who would like to see the Green New Deal where Trump believed he consigned it—in the grave. But the Green New Deal has proven perennial because it addresses the basic problems faced by our people and planet. It is a project that in all its varied manifestations takes the necessity for climate protection as the basis for a broad program for social reconstruction—a visionary program designed to protect the Earth’s climate while creating good jobs, reducing injustice, and eliminating poverty. It will rise again transformed.
The Heritage of the Green New Deal
In 2008, in the depths of the Great Recession, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for “investment that fights climate change, creates millions of green jobs, and spurs green growth.” He said what the world needs, in short, is a “Green New Deal.”
The project of a Green New Deal rapidly picked up momentum around the world. Green New Deals became official policy in many countries, endorsed by the UN, the international trade union movement, and even by the International Monetary Fund. China, India, and the European Union began implementing some of the policies envisioned by the Green New Deal. But within a couple of years a global counterattack demanding austerity stymied much of the drive for massive investment to implement climate protection and economic justice. The Green New Deal appeared dead.
Even in the Trump era the Green New Deal has continued as a force in American life—from below.
The Green New Deal was reborn a decade later when the Sunrise youth climate movement held a sit-in in the office of US Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) demanding she support a resolution for a Green New Deal proposed by newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Drawing on the proposals a decade earlier for a Global Green New Deal, the resolution called for a “new national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal.” The Green New Deal amassed support among congressional representatives, progressive organizations, and young people across the country. A poll found that more than 80% of registered voters “strongly support” or “somewhat support” the general concepts behind a Green New Deal. A poll five years later found that “the Green New Deal is still incredibly popular.”
Notwithstanding its popularity with the public, the Green New Deal met implacable opposition from the fossil fuel industry and hostile forces in both the Democratic and Republic parties. Upon his election as president, Trump declared the Green New Deal dead and proceeded to devastate both climate protection and social justice.
Nonetheless, even in the Trump era the Green New Deal has continued as a force in American life—from below. It has continued to be implemented through little-noticed initiatives by community groups, unions, city and state governments, tribes, and other nonfederal actors pursuing the climate protection and social justice goals of the Green New Deal. I have described it as the “Green New Deal from Below.”
The Green New Deal 2.0
The Green New Deal 2.0, like earlier Green New Deals, is a project to abolish the extraction and burning of fossil fuels while rapidly expanding equality, justice, and well-being. To do that it will have to learn from the earlier Green New Deals but also develop far beyond them. It will be aided in doing so by the radical reduction in the cost of fossil free energy and the ways in which energy is used—the Greentech Revolution. But the Green New Deal 2.0 will also have to function within—and help transform—the period of American dysfunction and global disorder that has come to be known as the Polycrisis.
To succeed, the Green New Deal 2.0 will need to be multilevel: local, state, regional, national, and global. From the start it needs to be global in its perspective and to transcend national borders in many of its actions. But it will initially have to be built from the bottom up, community by community, jurisdiction by jurisdiction. Eventually it will need to control and wield the power of national governments.
Achieving the goals of the Green New Deal 2.0—abolishing fossil fuel extraction and burning while rapidly reducing inequality, injustice, and deprivation—will require simultaneous action at many levels from local communities to global institutions.
The Green New Deal 2.0 won’t happen all at once; it will have to develop over time. In the US the Green New Deal 2.0 may start with an Emergency Green New Deal addressing the catastrophe now being experienced by the American people and its impending intensification. This catastrophe includes the crises of food, housing, energy, health, public safety, climate, inequality, democracy, and the rule of law—a veritable American Polycrisis. In some ways it resembles the “Yeltsin Era” that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union when systems from employment to food to healthcare to housing to the rule of law broke down; male life expectancy at birth fell by six years just between 1990 and 1994.
There is little likelihood of immediate federal solutions to this catastrophe. The newly-elected Congress has an important role to play in limiting Trump’s freedom of action, proposing alternatives, and supporting popular mobilizations. But as long as Trump remains in office, he can veto legislation and wield the powers of the executive branch. Addressing the crises we face requires people organizing themselves from below to implement an Emergency Green New Deal that will put people to work doing the things are that are necessary to ensure survival and well-being in the face of the American Polycrisis.
Achieving the goals of the Green New Deal 2.0—abolishing fossil fuel extraction and burning while rapidly reducing inequality, injustice, and deprivation—will require simultaneous action at many levels from local communities to global institutions. It will constitute an era of social reconstruction.
Elements of the Green New Deal 2.0
Here are some of the ways in which the Green New Deal 2.0 can incorporate but go far beyond previous Green New Deals:
The Greentech Revolution: Protecting the climate by replacing fossil fuels with fossil-free energy was the central pillar of the original US Green New Deal. Since then, climate catastrophe has truly arrived. But the global Greentech Revolution has created a new basis for moving to fossil-free communities, countries, and world. The Green New Deal 2.0 will accelerate the timetable for the transition to climate safety, while utilizing it as the pivot for other transformations.
Jobs: The original US Green New Deal resolution noted a “four-decade trend of wage stagnation, deindustrialization, and anti-labor policies.” It proposed to use climate mobilization as a vehicle to transform the world of work through high-quality union jobs, worker rights, labor standards, and a “job guarantee” that would ensure a job for every worker who wants one doing the work that is necessary to protect the climate and create a more just society. Since then, inequality has exploded and artificial intelligence (AI) threatens to eliminate millions of jobs and turn millions of others into excruciating daily oppression. The Green New Deal 2.0 will expand the jobs programs proposed by the Green New Deal, ensure that there are good jobs for those affected by AI, and empower workers to organize and act collectively on the job.
Affordability: Rising prices for the necessities of life are a crucial concern for working people today. The Green New Deal 2.0 will address this from the start by replacing fossil fuels with far cheaper fossil-free energy, reducing the price of everything that uses energy—that is to say, everything. It will also make massive investment in energy-conserving housing, food production, and other necessities of life that will both protect the climate and reduce the cost of living. It will tax the rich to reduce inequality and provide resources for the 99%.
Human Needs: The Green New Deal specifically addressed the unmet needs for housing, education, healthcare, and other necessities of life as part of the transition to a climate-safe society. Recent bills in Congress have proposed Green New Deals for housing and education. The Trump administration has devastated all aspects of our already inadequate social provision and is taking aim at what’s left. The Green New Deal 2.0 will establish new systems of social provision that empower local communities while providing the resources necessary to meet individual and social needs.
Justice and Equity: The original Green New Deal resolution proposed to use its programs to “promote justice and equity by preventing current and repairing historic oppression” of “indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth.” Today the further degradation of all these groups is being actively promoted by the Trump administration and its supporters in all spheres of life. The Green New Deal 2.0 will use resources, policies, democratic processes, and law to reverse both historic and new forms of injustice and inequality.
Democratization: The original US Green New Deal was defeated in large part by the inordinate wealth and power of the fossil fuel industry and its power base within both Republican and Democratic parties. Since then, the Trump administration and the forces of plutocracy have further degraded our democracy and empowered the billionaire class. The initial US Green New Deal resolution called for “ensuring the use of democratic and participatory processes that are inclusive of and led by frontline and vulnerable communities and workers to plan, implement, and administer the Green New Deal.” The Green New Deal 2.0 will rebuild democracy from the bottom up. That includes establishing democratic institutions at the grassroots and establishing genuine political equality for all people. It will also extend democracy within workplaces and the economy. Donald Trump has greatly expanded the role of government in the economy for the worst of purposes, to enrich kleptocrats and war contractors. The Green New Deal 2.0 will utilize that expansion of powers to provide planning and investment to serve the common good.
Constraining Corporations and Technologies: The original New Deal of the Great Depression aimed to control the anti-social behavior of “malefactors of great wealth.” The startling growth of hyperscale data centers controlled by a handful of tech billionaires has forced new attention to the need to constrain corporations and their technology. To realize its objectives, the Green New Deal 2.0 will have to go far beyond previous green new deals in halting the anti-social behavior of today’s malefactors of great wealth, the corporations they control, and the destructive technologies they are seeking to impose. It will need to implement the “precautionary principle” that forbids introduction of new technologies until they are proven safe. More broadly, it will need to make the actions of private economic entities accountable to the public and those they affect.
Global Cooperation: Neither the climate nor the economy can be fixed at a purely local or national level. The growing chaos of the global Polycrisis, with its breakdown of international cooperation, has led to a collapse of climate protection, proliferating warfare, economic chaos, and an inability of any nation to provide security and well-being for its people. The Green New Deal 2.0 will treat a worldwide Green New Deal as a common project of the world’s people and will make cooperation among movements and nations a primary part of its local and national programs. It will promote mutually managed international trade in the interest of protecting the climate and the world’s people rather than either economic nationalism or unconstrained globalization.
The elements of the Green New Deal 2.0 will rapidly improve the lives of workers, communities, and ordinary Americans. The Greentech Revolution will not only retard climate devastation, it will reduce pollution and reverse soaring energy costs. Putting millions of people to work addressing human and environmental needs will not only provide quality employment but rapidly expand provision of food, housing, medical care, public safety, and other necessities of life. Rebuilding democracy from the bottom up will offer protection against the agressions of authoritarian government and promote our ability to control our common life.
By itself the Green New Deal 2.0 won’t quell the global Polycrisis. But working with other forces it can begin to constrain Polycrisis dynamics while also starting to transcend them. The rapid reduction in burning fossil fuels and the transition to fossil-free energy can slow and eventually reverse the destruction of the Earth’s climate. The reduction in inequity and injustice, the meeting of social needs, the provision of full employment, and the constraining of corporate power all address the inequality promoted by right-wing policies and the Polycrisis. The drive for international cooperation can help begin to bring war making, war crimes, nihilistic geopolitics, and global plunder under control and start to develop an alternative world order.
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California Billionaire Tax Headed for Defeat After $300+ Million Ad Blitz by Superrich
"If you spend enough on ads, you really can get people to vote against their own interests," lamented one observer.
Nov 04, 2026
Proposition 40, the California proposal for a one-time 5% tax on the state's billionaires, appeared headed for defeat Wednesday after a spending blitz exceeding $300 million by some of the state's wealthiest residents helped turn a potentially landmark effort to make plutocrats pay their fare share into one of the most expensive ballot fights in state history.
With around 60% of expected votes counted, Prop 40—also known as the California Billionaire Tax—was losing by a 56% to 44% margin, according to CalMatters and The Associated Press, which had not yet projected the final outcome due to the significant number of uncounted ballots.
The measure, which is sponsored by Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, would impose a one-time 5% tax on the wealth of California residents and trusts worth more than $1 billion. Affecting approximately 200 billionaires, Prop 40 would generate tens of billions of dollars to help fund healthcare, food assistance, and public education programs facing funding pressures, including cuts resulting from President Donald Trump's attacks on Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and other social safety net lifelines.
Polling showed a majority of California voters—55%—supporting Prop 40 last December, buoyed by the backing of prominent national figures like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), and former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich.
In early 2026, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and other tech billionaires began pouring money into efforts to oppose the initiative and support competing ballot measures, Propositions 41 and 42, which were specifically designed to undermine or nullify Prop 40.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom also came out against Prop 40. Critics accused the potential 2028 presidential contender of trying to bamboozle voters with a plan for a national billionaire income tax, knowing that very rich people actually have relatively little income when compared with their investments and other assets that would be subject to taxation under Prop 40.
By June, Prop 40 was polling under 50%. By October, with a deluge of anti-Prop 40 ads flooding the airwaves and internet, support barely topped 40%.
According to CalMatters, billionaires and business interests spent $316.7 million on the campaign against Prop 40, including spending on Props 41 and 42. Most of that money was raised by Building a Better California, a political action committee funded by prominent tech executives, venture capitalists, and business leaders.
As Common Dreams reported Tuesday, opponents of Prop 40 outspent supporters of the measure by a staggering 250: 1 margin.
"We won’t need much analysis to identify what swayed voters," Yousef Baig wrote for CalMatters. "The playbook for defeating the tax was simple: Stoke economic fears and confuse Californians."
Baig continued:
Prop 40’s authors may have even doomed their own campaign with an amendment provision that opponents seized on. If a supermajority—two-thirds of the Legislature—wanted to retool the tax, they could, so long as “the statute is consistent with and furthers the purposes of the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act.” Opponents created ads proclaiming politicians would use this clause to come after our retirement accounts.
It lit up social media. Some Californians are so cynical that they figured 7 out of 10 state lawmakers would vote to extend a billionaire tax to people with fewer zeros and commas invested. It also made one of Brin’s countermeasures, Proposition 42, an easy sell. It would bar taxes on personal property and its passage would make it almost impossible to enact a similar tax in the future. It was ahead in the count Wednesday morning.
"If there is a glimmer of hope, it is that Brin and other billionaires stepped into the sunshine," Baig said. "The record spending and attack ads and political gamesmanship was done out in the open. Many Californians took notice, whether they backed Prop 40 or not."
"The state’s billionaires may have avoided this wealth tax," he added, "but voters won’t forget how some of the richest people on the planet behaved when fairness was on the ballot."
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Take a Deep Breath, America—the Immediate Threat to Democracy Has Been Turned Back
While very soon it will be time to get back to work—because so much more needs to be done—we should enjoy this moment for we have achieved something monumental.
Nov 04, 2026
Good morning. What a day.
November 3rd will be remembered in history as a day like December 7th or July 4th. It was the day that tens of millions of people stood up to defend democracy in the United States.
I have no illusions about the many, many dark points in this country’s history, which predated Donald Trump, many of which were still very much present when he took office. But a democracy that has at least the pretense of respecting human rights and basic decency is infinitely better than a dictatorship that has open contempt for anything that challenges its power.
We are a long way from being completely out of the woods. Donald Trump still has two more years in his term and his sycophants still command the most powerful military in the world, as well as a squad of domestic henchmen that openly act outside of the law. They can do enormous harm to the country and the world in this time.
We are a long way from being completely out of the woods...But our ability to limit the damage is hugely greater today than yesterday.
But our ability to limit the damage is hugely greater today than yesterday. And to be clear, the mission is far larger than surviving the last two years of Donald Trump’s term. We have to reverse the inequality and corruption that led to a situation where tens of millions of people could look to a bumbling reality TV show star as the solution to the problem.
We need to create a government that people believe is on their side, that actively works to make their lives better. However much better the Biden administration and prior Democratic and even Republican administrations might have been in serving the public, people had real grounds for believing that the government was not serving their interests. Elon Musk was already incredibly rich on January 20th, 2025.
Anyhow, that is a long and incredibly important project, but for now, we can all take a deep breath. The immediate threat to democracy has been turned back with an electoral landslide of historic proportions. We should enjoy the moment while still recognizing that much more needs to be done.
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'A Crime of Extreme Inequality': Richest 0.1% Generate More Carbon Pollution Than Half of Humanity
“The ultra-rich are setting the planet on fire and then charging the rest of us for the extinguishers."
Oct 27, 2026
The richest 0.1% of humanity generates more planet-heating carbon pollution than nearly half of the global population combined, according to an Oxfam analysis released late Monday as world leaders prepared to gather in Türkiye next month for the United Nations climate summit.
The new analysis provides an updated look at global elites' outsized contribution to a climate crisis that disproportionately impacts the poorest segments of the global population through increasingly devastating heatwaves, droughts, flooding, and other extreme weather, causing death, destruction, and mass displacement worldwide.
Oxfam estimates that a person in the richest 0.1% "has contributed nearly 400 times more to today’s extreme heatwaves than someone in the poorest 50%." The 8 million richest people in the world combined produce "over three times more carbon pollution than the entire population of Sub-Saharan Africa"—around 1.3 billion people.
"The climate crisis is often described as a shared human challenge. It is not," said Amitabh Behar, Oxfam International's executive director. "Those who have done the least to cause it are losing their homes, their harvests and, increasingly, their lives. Meanwhile, the super-rich can buy their way out of danger—by retreating to high-tech underground survival bunkers, hiring private firefighting crews, and securing private insurance—and are actively profiting from the consequences of their pollution. This is not a tragedy of shared fate; it is a crime of extreme inequality."
Oxfam's report notes that the same investors and firms profiting massively from the fossil fuel companies driving the climate crisis are also benefiting from disaster preparedness and recovery. The analysis places those investors in what it calls a "Destroy and Rebuild" index.
"Six major asset managers (including Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street) make up more than one-quarter of all the Destroy and Rebuild corporations," the report states. "BlackRock and Vanguard are invested in 92% of the corporations in the index: The pair’s total investments in these corporations are more than $1 trillion."
“The ultra-rich are setting the planet on fire and then charging the rest of us for the extinguishers," said Behar. "They profit from the pollution. They profit from the disaster. And they profit again from the clean-up.”
"While ordinary people are forced to grapple with the consequences of emergencies they bear little responsibility in fueling, billionaires are busy outrunning the reality they and their private jets created."
In the United States—where the country's billionaire president has taken a sledgehammer to domestic and international efforts to combat the climate crisis—a person in the richest 0.1% emits 48 times as much carbon dioxide as the average American.
"The country’s richest 0.1% (333,271 people) emit 108 times more CO2 per person than the poorest half of the population (166.6 million people)," Oxfam's analysis shows. "In just under four months (118.3 days), someone in the richest 0.1% emits more CO2 than someone in the poorest half of the U.S. has emitted over the last 30 years."
Rachel Carle, senior advisor on climate justice at Oxfam America, said in a statement that the global climate emergency is "an inequality crisis at its core."
"While ordinary people are forced to grapple with the consequences of emergencies they bear little responsibility in fueling, billionaires are busy outrunning the reality they and their private jets created," said Carle. "Mark Zuckerberg can hunker down in his Hawaiian bunker at the first sign of chaos, but the rest of us don’t have that luxury. Addressing this glaring inequality is the first step to mitigating climate disaster, and that starts with making ultra-rich polluters pay their fair share."
In view of its findings, Oxfam urged governments to use the upcoming COP31 summit in Türkiye to:
- Make rich polluters pay to significantly and rapidly curb their carbon emissions, including through permanent wealth and income taxes, a permanent tax on fossil fuel corporations, and punitive taxes on high-emitting luxury items like private jets;
- Substantially increase climate finance for the Global South, prioritizing public, grant-based finance rather than loans that deepen debt. The amount for adaptation should be tripled by 2035;
- Radically reduce inequality within and between countries, including through climate-resilient public infrastructure and public services; and
- End profiteering from climate disasters. Governments need to curb corporate power in emergency response, reconstruction, and food systems during disasters.
"Another future remains possible," Oxfam's report concludes. "Creating a more equal world would enable emissions to fall rapidly, food systems to become fairer and more resilient, and the creation of public systems to protect people from crisis and adapt to the effects of climate change. Achieving that future will require bold political choices to curb excessive wealth and corporate power while investing in the resilience, rights, and livelihoods of the majority. Climate justice and equality must now become the foundation of climate action."
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Thousands March Across Europe Against Inequality and 'for Young People’s Future'
“Looking at countries like the United States, we don’t want to end up like them, where part of the population has everything and the others have nothing,” one French protester said.
Oct 24, 2026
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across Europe on Saturday as anger continues to build over the rising cost of living and deteriorating social services.
While demonstrators emphasized different demands in different countries, the protest wave reflects a sense that the status quo has ceased to work for ordinary people, especially the young.
“I see so many more similarities than differences,” Alice de Brito, the vice president of French student union UNEF, told CNN of the protests. “We are all talking about the need for investments in education, in the universities, in youth in general. But we are also talking about the cost of living, about housing.”
France
Across France, between 410,000 and 800,000 people turned out in the continuation of protests that erupted in September when students began to mobilize against underfunding, teacher shortages, and other poor conditions in their schools. Adult workers have joined with the students, criticizing widespread inequality and the rising cost of living, leading to mass demonstrations on October 17 and again a week later.
“Looking at countries like the United States, we don’t want to end up like them, where part of the population has everything and the others have nothing,” Paris protester Louis Ledoux--Xatard told The Associated Press.
“Too many billionaires; we are preparing the revolution," one group of protesters chanted, according to Al Jazeera.
There were 289 protests in France, including in Marseilles, Nantes, Nice, Lyon, Bordeaux, and Orleans. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said that almost 1,000 people were arrested, though the number was expected to grow. Two people sustained significant injuries.
"Behind every police officer, a compliant camera."
The protest in Paris had originally been scheduled to run through the center of the city, but authorities relocated it to outskirts and banned marches organized by groups other than unions.
"It won’t stop the movement. It won’t stop students from demanding better conditions in schools,” nurse Soumaya Abed told AP of the changes.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who leads the left-wing France Unbowed party, criticized the government of President Emmanuel Macron for changing the route, but also praised the marchers for carrying on.
"Total victory for the social movement," Mélenchon wrote on social media. "The march gathered at the new authorized point and is now flowing calmly over more than four kilometers. The provocations for disorder by the Paris police prefect and [French Prime Minister Sébastien] Lecornu are a total failure. For the authorities, it is time to give in, or soon they will have only the exit door left."
Victoire totale du mouvement social. La marche s'est rassemblée au nouveau point autorisé et déferle dans le calme sur plus de quatre kilomètres. Les provocations aux désordres du préfet de police et de Lecornu sont un échec total. Pour les autorités, il est temps de céder, sinon il ne leur restera bientôt que la porte de sortie.
— Jean-Luc Mélenchon (@JLMelenchon) October 24, 2026
Media reported that the Parisian demonstration was largely peaceful until the end, when police released tear gas and fired water cannons and some black-clad protesters threw projectiles.
Reporters with Agence France-Presse said they saw:
police charge several times and vigorously use tear gas and batons against some, mostly young, protesters.
"The police started moving towards everyone, telling them to get down and back off. They were just taking people down, you know, beating protesters," one demonstrator bleeding from a baton blow to his face, who gave his first name as David, told AFP.
Other witnesses also described a repressive police response to The Guardian:
Mike, a 23-year-old student who also declined to give his surname, said: “Look around, they’re just teenagers. Is it normal for teenagers to be teargassed and beaten with batons?”
For Jessica, a 24-year-old student, said: “I just don’t understand why there’s so much violence. I feel like our right to protest is being trampled on.”
Mélenchon lambasted the police and the media for working together to discredit the movement.
"In Paris, to ruin the day and unwind, the so-called forces of law and order gas and fire into the crowd at the back of the procession, all in a bid to get footage for the domestic news channels that spent the whole week airing the images that spurred the Trappes killer," he wrote on social media, referring to a racially motivated shooting west of Paris on Friday that killed one and wounded five.
In a second post, he added: "It continues with the policing of minds through the televisions of power. Tonight, staging of the « tails of the procession » to spew hatred against the popular movement. Without a single image of the masses in peaceful action. Behind every police officer, a compliant camera."
He encouraged readers to "turn off the televisions! Form your own opinion without a guardian. Journey through social networks. Stay free to think for yourselves."
Belgium
In neighboring Belgium, hundreds of people marched in Brussels in a continuation of demonstrations for improvements in the education system.
“We are here for young people’s future, for better work," rally speaker Celia Ponce told the crowd, as The Brussels Times reported.
She also accused governments of wanting to "destroy public services."
Protesters build barricades with bikes and scooters in Brussels, Belgium.Follow Press TV on Telegram: https://t.co/1ymjeeywxb https://t.co/TtQNj1BQYU
— PressTV Extra (@PresstvExtra) October 24, 2026
Police used tear gas to disperse some protesters and, in an incident reported by Reuters, kicked and hit one demonstrator after they fell during a chase.
Spain
Approximately 25,000 people marched in Madrid to support Spain's pension system and demand that it keep pace with inflation and that a gender gap be eliminated, according to Al Jazeera.
"How beautiful Madrid is when it defends its rights," Emilio Delgado, deputy spokesperson for left party Mas Madrid, wrote on social media. "We propose that no pension should be below the minimum wage. A lifetime of work deserves a dignified retirement."
Un aviso a @NunezFeijoo: No vamos a permitir que recortéis las pensiones. https://t.co/lQ7V0cQomZ
— Emilio Delgado (@EmilioDelgadoOr) October 24, 2026
The protests come a month ahead of Spain's general election, in which current Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Spanish Socialist Workers' Party will face off against the right-wing Popular Party. Popular Party leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo has promised to adjust pensions according to inflation if his party wins, but demonstrators are still concerned about what a right-wing victory would mean for the pension system.
Portugal
In Portugal, meanwhile, the main demand was affordable housing.
People marched in Lisbon, continuing a movement that began October 10 in the city of Porto calling on the government to address the country's housing crisis, according to The Resident.
Palco dos protestos promovidos pelo movimento Acampada de Lisboa, o Rossio voltou a acolher "um mar de gente" que reivindica soluções do Governo para a atual crise da habitação.Veja a reportagem em direto no local: https://t.co/gpSIyl2mLr#agitacaosocial #europa #protestos #manifestacoes #lisboa #rossio #pais #portugal #habitacao #custodevida #noticias #sicnoticias
— SIC Notícias (@SICNoticias) October 24, 2026
"We have no home, so we set up tents!” read the slogan of the March, organized by the Acampada de Lisboa movement.
The protesters also opposed new policies from Prime Minister Luis Montenegro that would weaken a limit on annual rent increases and make it easier to evict people who are unable to make rent payments, according to AP.
Italy
Thousands of people joined demonstrations across Italy to protest the affordability crisis as well as the right-wing government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Protests were called for eight cities including Milan, Turin, and Rome, with 10,000 attending the Milan demonstration alone.
“We are here because of the rising prices and because I believe that our government has no respect for its citizens,” a 17-year-old student participant, who did not give a name, told Al Jazeera. “There are four people in my family. My mother works in a factory, but my father is about to lose his job. It’s hard to make ends meet on just one salary."
Thousands of protesters took to the streets across Italy to demonstrate against Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government and the rising cost of living, as hundreds of soldiers were deployed to Milan as protests continue.🔗: https://t.co/JquqwnAyhj https://t.co/B97TnZaY9L
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) October 24, 2026
The Italian protests were a continuation of demonstrations that have taken place throughout October. There were fewer clashes between police and demonstrators on Saturday compared with earlier marches, though some protesters tried to enter the Colosseum before being pushed back.
Albania
In Albania, outrage over plans by US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner to build a luxury resort near a protected wildlife area—which is widely seen as an example of government corruption—has dovetailed with demands by students for less corruption in the education system specifically as well as lower tuition fees and more funding.
A demonstration in the capital of Tirana on Saturday marked the 12th day of anti-government protests this month following a summer of mobilizations against the luxury hotel.
Some protesters lit fires and threw projectiles, while police used tear gas, rubber bullets, and water cannons.
Protesters in Albania have fought running battles with police, on a 12th day of anti-government protests. Police in the capital, Tirana, used water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets after Prime Minister Edi Rama warned he would take strong action to quell unrest. https://t.co/6oZMYPU7Ei
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) October 24, 2026
One demonstrator, the 28-year-old Daniel Tahiri, told Reuters that the Albanian government was a "dictatorship with the clothes of democracy."
"Albanians have woken up," Tahiri said.
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1.5 Million Latinos Lost Food Aid Since Trump Passed Tax Giveaway for the Rich: Analysis
“As is so often the case, working families and communities of color bear the brunt of Trump’s economic policies."
Oct 20, 2026
An analysis published Tuesday estimates that 1.5 million US Latinos have lost access to federal food assistance since the passage of President Donald Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the latest of numerous indicators of how the law's evisceration of the social safety net is hitting working-class families while delivering enormous benefits to the wealthy.
The analysis by Unrig Our Economy and Americans for Tax Fairness estimates that in seven states alone—Texas, Arizona, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Nebraska, and Iowa—771,687 Latinos have lost Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits since July 2025, when Trump signed the sweeping budget reconciliation package into law. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) contains the biggest cuts to SNAP and Medicaid in those programs' histories.
According to the analysis, Texas alone accounts for more than half of those losses, with an estimated 396,164 Latino residents losing food assistance, while Arizona has lost another 200,124 and New York has lost 92,816.
“The Republican tax law took food assistance away from more than 1.5 million Latinos to pay for tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations,” Leor Tal, campaign director for Unrig Our Economy, said in a statement. “Families are already struggling with the high cost of groceries and gas thanks to the war in Iran and tariffs. SNAP cuts make it even harder for Latino families—who are disproportionately impacted—to put food on the table.”
More broadly, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated earlier this year that SNAP enrollment fell by more than 5 million people between July 2025 and June 2026, while more than 1.5 million children lost assistance.
The OBBBA contains new SNAP qualification requirements for people experiencing homelessness, veterans, former foster youth, and older adults. The Trump administration says the new rules are meant to ensure that only the truly needy receive benefits. However, the more stringent requirements are harming some of the most vulnerable people, as compliance procedures have proved to be an exclusionary barrier to qualified aid applicants.
The SNAP cuts have fueled what the New York Federal Reserve Bank in May called a “remarkable increase in food insecurity, particularly among lower-educated and lower-income households and households with young children.”
“The results are in: Trump and his GOP allies in Congress cut critical nutrition assistance that helps millions of Latinos and working people across the country meet their basic needs—all to deliver historic tax giveaways to billionaires and business elites,” said Jodie Rubenstein, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness.
“As is so often the case, working families and communities of color bear the brunt of Trump’s economic policies," Rubenstein added. "We cannot allow billionaire wealth to grow unchecked while communities go hungry.”
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40+ California Multimillionaires Sign Open Letter Backing Billionaire Wealth Tax
"We have the chance to lead the world in establishing basic tax fairness, raising revenues for essential programs, and checking the power of the richest among us."
Oct 20, 2026
Dozens of multimillionaire Californians have signed an open letter supporting a one-time wealth tax on the state's billionaire residents, calling the proposal a "very sensible solution" to a looming healthcare disaster and runaway inequality.
"People like us can afford to live wherever we want. We choose to live in California because we love our state," reads the letter, which was organized by Patriotic Millionaires and Tax The Ultra Rich Now. "As multimillionaires, we’re willing to do our part. It’s past time for billionaires—our thousand millionaire cousins—to do theirs. Their opposition to this commonsense idea is embarrassing for all of us."
The letter's signatories, including filmmaker Tim Disney and former congressional candidate Saikat Chakrabarti, reject arguments that a 5% wealth tax on California's billionaires would hamper innovation and damage the state's economic status.
"I’m not a billionaire, but I have enough experience building wealth in California’s tech sector to know this fear is overblown," said Chakrabarti. "A one-time, retroactive tax on 200 or so billion-dollar fortunes is in no way going to disincentivize future innovators from coming to/staying in the tech capital of the world and creating new products, services, and businesses. If I can afford to pay more in tax, so can my billionaire neighbors—especially as many of them make a killing with advances in AI."
The letter comes as billionaire opponents of the tax, which will appear on California's November ballot as Proposition 40, ramp up their spending against the measure in the days ahead of the midterm elections. One recent analysis of financial disclosures estimates that the initiative's billionaire opponents—including Google co-founder Sergey Brin and venture capitalist Peter Thiel—are spending roughly $1 million per day to defeat it.
The ballot measure is also opposed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has endorsed a competing initiative that would cancel out the billionaire tax and prohibit future wealth taxes.
Experts say the proposed billionaire tax would raise around $100 billion in revenue, which would mostly be used to offset the impacts of federal Medicaid cuts that President Donald Trump signed into law last summer.
"Our state is one of the many starving for revenues and facing the prospect of drastic cuts to essential services like healthcare, food assistance, and education," the open letter reads. "Prop 40—a one-time, 5% tax on the wealth of billionaires—would help solve this problem and achieve what we’re after: establishing tax fairness, raising desperately needed revenues, and checking the power of the rich."
"To our fellow Californians, we have the chance to make history in November," the letter continues. "We have the chance to lead the world in establishing basic tax fairness, raising revenues for essential programs, and checking the power of the richest among us. With so much on the line, we urge you to stand up for the future of all Californians and vote 'yes' on Prop 40.
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'The Government Is Trembling': Protests Erupt in France, Spreading to 140 Cities
"For years we've had climate, economy, and equality problems, but the government is not doing anything about it," said one protester.
Oct 17, 2026
Protests erupted throughout France on Saturday, with demonstrators citing a wide variety of grievances including inequality, the high cost of living, and poor conditions in the nation's schools.
As reported by Agence France-Presse, tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in Paris and other cities to protest what they said was inaction by the French government on the biggest problems facing the country.
"For years we've had climate, economy, and equality problems," one protester identified as Agnes told AFP, "but the government is not doing anything about it."
18-year-old student Kamil Alahyan told AFP that there are "so many reasons" to protest, including "the elections coming up in 2027, politicians who lie, the ultra-rich who've been taking more and more wealth over the past 10 years."
A 19-year-old protester identified as Lola expressed a similar view in an interview published by The Guardian on Saturday.
"We are fighting because the cost of living is too harsh," Lola said, "because the price of fuel is too high, because high school pupils are being violently attacked and hurt all over the country just for trying to protest and ask for more teachers and decent learning conditions."
Student organizer Ryad Rani told AFP that "the government is trembling and it's right to tremble because when the French people are angry, they never let up."
Saturday's demonstrations mark the expansion of a movement that began last month when students blockaded their schools to protest staffing shortages, dilapidated buildings, and a widely criticized university application system.
According to The New York Times, demonstrations took place in at least 140 cities across the country.
Some of the protests did turn violent in major cities including Lyon, Marseille, and Paris, AFP reported. A Saturday BBC report claimed that more than 270 protesters have been arrested nationwide.
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu accused "ultra-left groups" of inciting violence at the demonstrations.
"To those who clearly want to use these acts of violence as a 'warm-up' ahead of the presidential election, let me be clear: we will not be intimidated," Lecornu wrote in a social media post. "No one will impose their political agenda through violence."
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader the left-wing France Unbowed party, slammed the media for focusing too much on the isolated incidents of violence and not reporting on the overwhelmingly peaceful nature of the demonstrations.
"Crowds of people everywhere, calm and joyful everywhere when the police aren't around," Mélenchon wrote in a social media post that featured photos of peaceful marches from across the country, which he described as "images you won't see in the official media."
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COLA Lift for Social Security Not Enough, Say Critics, as Trump Economy Makes Life Harder for Seniors
"Social Security’s future is on the ballot this November," said one advocate, "and that includes the size of annual COLA adjustments.“
Oct 14, 2026
The rising cost of healthcare and other essentials means that the modest cost-of-living adjustment for about 76 million Social Security beneficiaries, announced Wednesday by Social Security Administrator Frank Bisignano, is likely to make only a small difference for senior citizens struggling to afford gasoline and groceries, said economic justice advocates.
Bisignano said the COLA for 2027, effective in January for most beneficiaries, will be 3.6%, amounting to an average of about $75 more per month.
Along with senior citizens, 40% of whom rely on Social Security for at least half their income, about 7.3 million people with disabilities who receive Supplemental Security Income will also receive the COLA increase starting December 31.
The COLA is higher than last year's, when the SSA adjusted monthly earned benefits by 2.8%.
But Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said the new increase "is just not enough to keep up with the cost of food, gas, utilities, and prescription drugs."
"A good chunk" of increased Social Security payments "will be wiped out" by higher premiums for Medicare Part B, which covers medically necessary and preventive healthcare services, said Fiesta. Those premiums are projected to rise to $209.50 per month in January, up from $202.90 per month this year.
Medicare Part D prescription drug plans are also expected to see increased premiums next year, while Social Security beneficiaries, like other Americans, will likely be impacted by continued inflation driven by President Donald Trump's illegal war on Iran and his tariff policy.
Social Security recipients are aware of the limits of the COLA, a poll released Monday by the AARP showed. Seventy-six percent of respondents said a 3.5% COLA would not keep up with rising prices they are facing at the grocery store, gas station, and pharmacy.
Fiesta called on billionaires and the wealthiest 1% of Americans to "pay their fair share" to make it possible to "boost benefits for everyone, implement a COLA that reflects the cost of things older Americans spend money on, and guarantee the program’s solvency for future generations."
While most American workers pay into Social Security year-round, millionaires in the US stop paying into the program just two months into the year because the payroll tax does not apply to income over a certain level. Some of the richest Americans, like Tesla CEO Elon Musk, pay very little into the crucial anti-poverty program by earning most of their money through investments rather than income.
"In just three weeks, older Americans will have an opportunity to elect members of Congress who will make strengthening Social Security a priority. The future of our earned benefits is on the ballot.”
“Strengthening and expanding Social Security must be a national priority," said Fiesta. "It’s time for clear and decisive action. In just three weeks, older Americans will have an opportunity to elect members of Congress who will make strengthening Social Security a priority. The future of our earned benefits is on the ballot.”
At Social Security Works (SSW), which advocates for strengthening the program and regularly debunks myths from the Republican Party claiming that Social Security is unaffordable for the country, Nancy Altman said the COLA increase "will help" some seniors, "but it doesn’t fully account for the costs that Social Security beneficiaries face."
"The Trump administration’s war of choice with Iran and tariff chaos have driven gasoline prices up nearly 40 percent, and caused grocery costs to skyrocket," said Altman, president of SSW.
Part of the problem, said Altman, is the SSA's use of the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W), which measures price changes for goods purchased by working families, to determine the annual COLA.
SSW has called for the use of the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E) to better reflect how Social Security recipients spend their money.
Meanwhile, Altman said, Republicans including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have proposed calculating the COLA using the chained Consumer Price Index (CPI), which would “substantially lower benefits over time," according to an AARP analysis.
“That’s a cut to the American people’s hard-earned benefits," said Altman. "Over time, switching to the chained CPI, as the Republicans have proposed, would shrink yearly benefits by hundreds and even thousands of dollars. Switching to the CPI-E, as the Democrats propose, would increase benefits. This would particularly impact women and Hispanics, who have longer average life expectancies."
She noted that US senators elected in November will have a say in whether Social Security remains fully funded through their six-year terms—and urged Americans to vote accordingly.
In 2032, said Altman, "Social Security is projected to face a funding shortfall. The vast majority of Republicans refuse to support a single penny in revenue increases, even from the ultra-wealthy, to address the shortfall. That leaves benefit cuts, including less generous COLAs, as their only option."
"The bottom line: Social Security’s future is on the ballot this November," she said, "and that includes the size of annual COLA adjustments.“
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