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Trump, Extreme Wealth Concentration, and Our Societal Crisis
The US government simply has not done enough to ensure that the livelihoods of all Americans are protected or improved in this new Gilded Age. What it has done is made sure the rich get richer by the minute and more politically powerful year after year.
Feb 09, 2026
The decline of Keynesian economic theory in the 1970s marked a tipping point in the evolution of capitalism in the United States. Beginning with the Great Depression, Keynesian economic policy facilitated the expansion of social welfare programs to mitigate the social inequities of the nation's economic system. In the last quarter of the 20th century, however, rising political conservatism targeted public expenditures for social services. Cuts in education and health, including reductions in social welfare programs and the weakening of the social safety network for the poor, were then and continue today to be goals of political conservatives. Conservatives, furthermore, argue that cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations promotes investment, economic growth and job creation; and that smaller government and less regulation of market forces distributes wealth the most equitably. These ideas are variously known as supply-side economics, neoliberal economics or simply “trickle-down theory.” Historically, though, trickle-down theory has failed to benefit American working families. In fact, during the course of the last several decades this market strategy has encouraged vast accumulation of private wealth and accelerated its concentration on both a national and global scale. Tragically, it has had deeply injurious social consequences. The societal crisis America finds itself in today relates directly to extreme concentration of wealth.
Absent effective public regulation of economic activities, government and law protect investors and corporations in their aggressive pursuit of wealth. The distribution of wealth in the U.S. is a primary indicator of who benefits most from the political and legal organization of American society. In the third quarter of 2025, according to Federal Reserve data, the top 1% of Americans held 31.7% of all wealth while the bottom 50% held 2.5% (Federal Reserve 2025). That is the highest concentration of wealth in the post-WWII era (Economic Inequality), greater than almost any other developed country. Another indicator of the government's weak support for workers and their families is the federal minimum wage. It is $7.25/hour. At forty hours per week this represents a monthly income of $1160 and a yearly income of $13,920. In 2025, the federal poverty level for individuals was $15,650 and $32,150 for families of four (Poverty Level). These dismal figures show how dire wages are for many millions of Americans. In real terms (inflation-adjusted) the average wage of American workers peaked 48 years ago in 1978 (Wages Peaked).
If one takes a closer look at wealth concentration and the average American’s opportunity to accrue wealth since the 1970s and 1980s, it offers more evidence of how the last few decades of capitalism's development have denied workers a fair share of the tremendous wealth that has been generated. Indeed, a 2023 Rand Corporation analysis revealed that, since 1975, $79 trillion in wealth had been transferred from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. (Massive Wealth Transfer ). This massive redistribution of wealth continues today. In 2023 alone, $3.9 trillion in wealth was siphoned from working Americans to the richest Americans, enough to give every full-time worker in the bottom 90% a $32,000 raise for the year (2023 Wealth Transfer). When it comes to gaining wealth for the average working American, owning a home is the principal path. Home ownership, however, is completely out of reach for the poor and millions more in today's middle class find it unattainable. The median home price to annual income ratio was 5 in 2025. In other words, the median price of a home was equal to 5 years of salary. The ratio was 3.7 in 1985 when a median-price home was $82,800. Today a median-price home is $416,900. Not only is the distribution of wealth radically unequal, the pathway to increased wealth in home ownership has narrowed dramatically.
The political division and violence in America today stems in large measure from a political system whose policies have encouraged radical disparities in incomes and wealth.
These data amply illustrate the crisis poor and increasingly middle income people in the United States face. The poorest Americans, the bottom 20%, simply do not have enough money to meet their daily needs. Nearly a third of all households lives on less than $50,000 annual income (Household Income). In the richest country in the world 36.8 million Americans live in poverty (Poverty), including 9 million children without adequate access to food, shelter and healthcare (Children). At the same time, the more than 900 billionaires in the U.S. have a collective wealth of $6.9 trillion, their wealth increasing 18% in 2025 alone (Fortune). As reported in Forbes, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, now has wealth of $778 billion (Elon Musk). It would take the average American worker 16 million years to make that much (Extrapolated).
The US government simply has not done enough to ensure that the livelihoods of all Americans are protected in this new Gilded Age. In fact, the government actually provides 40% more benefits to the wealthy than to the impoverished. In his 2023 book Poverty, By America, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Matthew Desmond draws attention to this fact. From recent government data “compiling spending on social insurance, means-tested programs, tax benefits, and financial aid for higher education,” Desmond calculates that the top 20% of income earners on average receives $35,363 in government benefits and individuals in the bottom 20% receive an average $25,733 (p. 99). This reality is a result of policies, policies that benefit wealthy Americans and corporations at the expense of working people. Public policy, in turn, is shaped by corporate lobbying and political contributions as well as professional research that supports goals of the wealthiest and most influential: smaller government, broad corporate deregulation, limited worker protections, and tax breaks favoring the wealthy over working Americans.
It has not always been this way. Between 1947 and 1979, the period when Keynesian economic theory and policies prevailed, “hourly wages grew 2.2 percent. From 1979 to the present, average growth in hourly wages fell to 0.7 percent per year, only one-third of the average rate in the earlier postwar period” (Economic Policy Institute). In the first three decades after WWII labor unions tripled weekly earnings of manufacturing workers across the nation. Collective bargaining gained “for union workers an unprecedented measure of security against old age, illness and unemployment, and, through contractual protections, greatly strengthening their right to fair treatment at the workplace” (Labor Unions). Significantly, one-third of workers (32.3% in 1959) were unionized in this post-war period (Bureau of Labor Statistics ). By 2024, the percentage of wage and salary workers in unions fell to 9.9 percent (Bureau of Labor Statistics). Concentrated wealth, particularly corporate wealth, and government failure to protect workers dampened wages. Also, in the 1950s the statutory taxes on U.S.corporate and personal wealth were much higher, though the effective tax rate was considerably lower due to corporate tax loopholes and rich taxpayers recategorizing income as derived from investments (Tax Rates). The statutory corporate income tax was over 50 percent (Economic Policy Institute). Today it is 21 percent (Corporate Tax). While it is difficult to determine the percentage of taxes actually paid by wealthy individuals and corporations in the early post-war era, it is clear that the statutory personal and corporate income tax is lower today than it was 70 years ago. Of course, enforcement of steeply progressive taxation would make billions of dollars, even trillions, available to fund social programs that distribute income and wealth more fairly.
The pro-democracy citizenry must organize around a political vision that emphasizes several political projects: a just, progressive taxation system; a guaranteed household income; universal healthcare; quality public education; free preschool education; and scientific and technological initiatives for a sustainable economy.
A society riven by such income and wealth inequality is inherently unstable. The political division and violence in America today stems in large measure from a political system whose policies have encouraged radical disparities in incomes and wealth. The loss of 6.5 million manufacturing jobs since 1979 (1979 and 2025), for example, has been facilitated by trade agreements that enable corporations to chase the cheapest wages throughout the world. Runaway companies have gutted industrial towns without consequence, leaving behind poorer communities of people with limited resources to rebuild their lives and neighborhoods. The federal government, moreover, has done virtually nothing to force corporations to pay reparations for the social disintegration left in their wake. As the coastal regions and large metropolitan centers of the nation were generally integrated into the surging commerce of unbridled globalization, distant rural regions experienced economic stagnation and decline. It is little wonder that an authoritarian political figure that exploits these divisions has risen to the presidency of the United States.
In his seminal book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, French economist Thomas Piketty provides an analysis of capitalism in which he notes that “the history of the distribution of wealth has always been deeply political” (p. 20). Reduction of taxes that favors the wealthy is one political determination reflecting the unstemmed power of concentrated wealth. While this political maneuver undermines a primary income and wealth distributive mechanism (taxation system), it further restricts the resources for funding other re-distributive projects such as social welfare, public education and healthcare. Smaller government and privatization of public services are corollary results.
A principal dynamic factor in the process of wealth accumulation and concentration over the last several decades is the growth of profits as the economic growth rate has slowed down. Put another way, the wealthy are taking a larger and larger slice of diminishing income and wealth production. As the vast inequalities in the distribution of income and wealth deny the provision of basic living necessities to tens of millions and circumscribe opportunity for most Americans, social instability and political division and violence escalate. In response, an authoritarian regime consolidates its power around armed force to repress those protesting its anti-democratic policies. Its armed repression inevitably leads to bloodshed.
The pro-democracy citizenry must organize around a political vision that emphasizes several political projects: a just, progressive taxation system; a guaranteed household income; universal healthcare; quality public education; free preschool education; and scientific and technological initiatives for a sustainable economy. These political goals stand in stark contrast to an authoritarian regime that advances the interests of the one percent. They offer a view of the future that is constructive and inspirational, one that generates broad social justice and appeals to the vast majority of Americans.
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DC Shooting Was Not an Afghan or Immigrant Import—It Was All-American Violence
American violence in its many forms destabilized the alleged killer Rahmanullah Lakanwal.
Dec 07, 2025
I’ve heard very few people say it, but Spencer Ackerman recently said it best: “The most sobering fact about Wednesday’s slayings is that the alleged killer, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was all too compatible with Western Civilization.” And we have the data to back his claims.
The early findings from investigations into the potential motives of Lakanwal, who allegedly shot two National Guardsmen last month, do not gel well with the MAGA narrative that immigrants are in some way inherently dangerous criminals. Instead, what is coming to light is an all too believable American context: US imperialism-induced trauma, lack of resources, and infrastructure to assist those in need (oh I don’t know, something like Universal Healthcare?), and most likely an all too easily accessed gun, created violent conditions. These are all quite sadly the makings of a very American event. Regardless, the Trump administration is unsurprisingly using this tragedy to justify and expedite an anti-immigrant agenda they already had in motion. Everything they have to say on the matter is pure fiction. It might be tiresome, but we need to continue providing the actual evidence contrary to MAGA’s lies.
I spent the better part of 2025 engaged in a research project with the Afghan community in the state of Vermont. I conducted a large survey, a series of interviews, and a national data analysis aimed at assessing the socioeconomic well-being of Afghans in the state, four years after the US ended its 20-year occupation in Afghanistan, which led to the subsequent fall of Kabul and the largest airlift in US history. Over 200,000 Afghans most closely allied with US operations have since been resettled in communities around the US, including Vermont.
Over the course of 2025, I spent a lot of time working side by side with Afghans, in Afghan homes, in conversations around coffee tables, and at community gathering spaces, getting to know Afghan Vermonters. One can of course never generalize about the "nature" of an entire population; however, in my experience, Afghans were overwhelmingly kind, welcoming, generous, and at the risk of repeating a common trope associated with liberal-American ideology, incredibly hardworking. It feels ridiculous to even have to type these words, but at no point did I feel in danger, like I was amid "criminals," or any other ludicrous claims the Trump administration and their ilk try to place on entire groups of people, just because they have arrived from other countries. The hundreds of Afghans I engaged with always met me with a smile, offered me phenomenal tea and snacks, and were generous with their time, candidly sharing their experiences in the US.
Western civilization created the conditions in which Lakanwal suffered severe mental health issues, and once he was brought to the US, created the conditions in which Lakanwal had likely limited healthcare supports, reportedly dire economic struggles, and it is safe to assume all too easy access to a gun.
Certain uninformed parties might say, “They played you like a fool, those absolute criminals!” So, anecdotal evidence aside, and the fact that I lived to tell the tale of my experiences with these supposed criminals, we also have the data. And the data is vast.
As countless data-rich research projects, reports, policy analyses, and peer-reviewed journal article after peer-reviewed journal article show, immigrants in the US, across the board, unequivocally, are far less likely to commit a crime in the US than US-born persons. For an extensive but non-exhaustive list that just scratches the surface, see this resource I put together during the 2024 election cycle. What this data overwhelmingly show, if we can generalize anything about an entire subset of people like “immigrants” or “Afghans,” is that immigrants in America are overwhelmingly peaceful and law-abiding.
For the sake of countering one more MAGA lie that says immigrants and the services they receive are already too costly to the US taxpayer, let me point to the other endless data sets that show (time and time again) that immigrants from all backgrounds, from undocumented, to refugee, to O-1 visa holder alike, provide far more economic benefits to the US than they receive in governmental aid. Immigrants of all backgrounds, examined from many angles and subsets, pay far more into the US tax system than they receive in governmental expenditures and likewise contribute billions of dollars in spending and labor power into the US economy. Need we keep reminding ourselves that this country, after all, was built by immigrants? Correcting the past tense, this country will forever rely on immigrants in ways mainstream politicians seem to never admit.
The data I analyzed in the above-mentioned research is one more set proving this. Through a nationwide analysis of American Community Surveys, we showed that the recently resettled Afghan population in the United States (2021 and on) is already contributing far more in taxes than the costs associated with their resettlement and other support services (including SNAP, housing vouchers, Medicaid, and so on), a ratio that steadily improves each year of US residence per average Afghan household. What’s more is that Afghan spending power in the US (money left to spend after taxes) reached about $2 billion by 2023 (latest available data).
And the findings of our national data make sense given the results of the community survey we also conducted of a large portion of Afghan Vermonters. We found that Afghans in Vermont are highly employed: 73.6% of adult Afghans are currently employed, compared with the total Vermont employment rate of 65.3%. Because of systemic issues that must be addressed in Vermont and across the country, those employed Afghans tend to be paid far less than US-born workers. But even given this systemic wage discrimination, taxes paid through Afghan incomes provide a net gain to the US tax system, and their remaining earnings provide priceless benefits to their local, state, and national economies. I firmly believe that all humans, regardless of any economic benefit they may provide, deserve equal treatment, rights, and dignity, including freedom of movement to improve their lives, wherever that may be. However, for those who need the economics of it all, the truth is clear and undeniable.
In our report, I discuss the undeniable benefit Afghans have provided for Vermont and the country, explore the ways in which Afghans and New Americans still struggle in our communities, e.g. inherently lower wages than US-born people, and I provide a suggested list of policy solutions to improve Afghan and New American livelihoods here, which includes expanding free industry-specific ESL programs; streamlined credential evaluation and licensing for foreign-trained professionals; expanded access to higher education for English Language Learners; investment in affordable and flexible childcare; improved public transportation; and policy solutions at the national level that promote more streamlined pathways to Lawful Permanent Resident status for Afghans in coordination with family reunification efforts, which includes increased funding for legal aid services, to name a few.
Of course, rather than supporting immigrant communities that are so deeply important to the country, President Donald Trump is taking the opportunity to further attack them for political gain. He is twisting the contexts and conditions of last month’s violence to push his far-right agenda, cutting off services that immigrants depend on, and imposing more draconian immigration bans that smack of the purest white nationalism.
Despite these challenges, refugees and immigrants of all statuses continue to contribute significantly to US society and the economy. As the endless research continues to show, refugees and immigrants of all backgrounds are not dangerous for the country and in fact in many ways keep it running.
So, if new Americans are not the problem as the Trump administration would have us believe, then what is? We come back to Ackerman: American Imperial aggression and a violent socioeconomic landscape is the problem. American violence in its many forms destabilized Lakanwal.
The US government is now treating all Afghans like criminals, when those same individuals in one way or another, for 20 years, aided the US in Afghanistan.
What’s become clear in the early days since this tragedy is that Lakanwal struggled with mental health issues that are unsurprising given what he has gone through. If Ackerman’s math is correct, Lakanwal was recruited into one of the CIA’s now infamous Zero Unit “death squads” at the age of 15. A good portion of Lakanwal’s formative years were spent as a child soldier employed by one of the deadliest armed forces in the world, the United States, in which he likely experienced and committed violence few of us could imagine, all at the command and employ of the US government.
“When he saw blood, bodies, and the wounded, he could not tolerate it, and it put a lot of pressure on his mind,” a friend of Lakanwal told the New York Times.
As Ackerman and others are astute to point out, the long-lasting legacy of imperialism has been known to come home in the form of violence.
And whatever affordable mental health support systems Lakanwal may have had in the US, which could have perhaps mitigated the effects of his trauma, were likely minimal.
Here we find American violence in the form of neoliberal policy. Once Lakanwal was resettled in the US, he was thrust into a harsh socioeconomic climate, where many manage to get by as the above data show, but when those with physical or mental illness falter, there are few services available to support them, particularly as the Trump administration has attempted to slash as much as possible, e.g. SNAP and healthcare subsidies. These forms of violence affect everyone including immigrants and are increasingly American.
American violence rears its head again in its abandonment of those in need.
American violence also rears itself in its refusal to regulate gun control in any meaningful way. The US accounts for 76% of public mass shooting incidents around the world, the vast majority conducted by US citizens. Public shootings are an American problem, not an immigrant or Afghan problem.
Western civilization created the conditions in which Lakanwal suffered severe mental health issues, and once he was brought to the US, created the conditions in which Lakanwal had likely limited healthcare supports, reportedly dire economic struggles, and it is safe to assume all too easy access to a gun.
I firmly believe that all persons should be treated with dignity, equality, and afforded the same rights as anyone else, no matter where they come from. There is, however, a deep and undeniable irony in all this that brings to light the true inhumanity of US immigration and domestic policy. That irony rests on the fact that the US government is now treating all Afghans like criminals, when those same individuals in one way or another, for 20 years, aided the US in Afghanistan (no matter how we feel about the occupation) and are still at great risk if they are sent back. They risk death in the context of a violence made possible by the outcomes of imperial violence turned abandonment. They should have been evacuated. They should be allowed to come to the US. They should be given the resources they need to thrive here. Instead, the Trump administration is using them as a scapegoat to churn forth with its nativist, fascist immigration agenda, while it cuts resources for all "old" and "new" Americans alike. The double-edged sword of the Trump administration’s violent opportunism knows no bounds.
If Western civilization is one that commits acts of violence around the world. If Western civilization is one that places profit and corporate lobbyists over the needs of its population. If Western civilization, in the American context, continues to refuse to regulate access to guns in any meaningful way. Then November 26's shooting was an American problem, not an immigrant problem.
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Does Anyone Even Remember Trump Once Favored Medicare for All?
Who's going to pay for covering everybody, including the currently uninsured? "The government's going to pay for it," Trump said in a 2015 interview.
Nov 25, 2025
When asked what they like most about Trump, fervent supporters often say, “He says what he thinks.” Well, not always. Donald Trump has long supported government-run universal healthcare—well before he had to deal with a crazed Congressional GOP in his first term. The controlling Republicans repealed Obamacare dozens of times in the House of Representatives (repeal was blocked in the Senate)—without offering any alternative.
President Trump also denounced Obamacare in vitriolic expletives, but he offers no alternatives.
However, let’s look back at a time when Trump, before his first term, was not tongue-tied about Medicare for All.
In a little-noticed Washington Post article (May 5, 2017), headlined “Trump’s forbidden love: Single-payer health care,” Aaron Blake reports that “in his heart of hearts, [Trump] wants single-payer health care. Indeed, it seems to be his forbidden fruit.”
Blake goes back to 2000 when “he [Trump] advocated for it as both a potential Reform Party presidential candidate and in his book, “The America We Deserve,” to wit:
“We must have universal health care. Just imagine the improved quality of life for our society as a whole,” he wrote, adding: “The Canadian-style, single-payer system in which all payments for medical care are made to a single agency (as opposed to the large number of HMOs and insurance companies with their diverse rules, claim forms, and deductibles)…helps Canadians live longer and healthier than Americans…Just before the 2016 campaign, Trump appeared on David Letterman’s show and held up Scotland’s socialist system as the ideal.”
Then, in April 2017, a law professor argued in the New York Post that Trump should just go for it. Universal Healthcare would be great for the Republican Party, as it would challenge the Democrats’ claim that it is the compassionate party. Moreover, Trump’s supporters would actually like better, less costly healthcare.
“A friend of mine was in Scotland recently. He got very, very sick. They took him by ambulance and he was there for four days. He was really in trouble, and they released him and he said, ‘Where do I pay?’ And they said, ‘There’s no charge,’” Trump said. “Not only that, he said it was like great doctors, great care. I mean, we could have a great system in this country.”
Then, early in the 2016 campaign, he again praised the single-payer systems in Scotland and Canada—while also arguing that the United States needed to have a private system.
Asked on “Morning Joe” whether he supported single-payer, he said: “No, but it’s certainly something that in certain countries works. It actually works incredibly well in Scotland. Some people think it really works in Canada. But not here, I don’t think it would work as well here.”
He said two days later at a GOP debate: “As far as single-payer, it works in Canada. It works incredibly well in Scotland. It could have worked in a different age, which is the age you’re talking about here.”
Later on, Trump would repeatedly push for universal health care without specifically subscribing to the words “single-payer.”
“Everybody’s got to be covered. This is an un-Republican thing for me to say,” Trump said in a September 2015 “60 Minutes” interview. “I am going to take care of everybody. I don’t care if it costs me votes or not. Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.”
He added when asked who is going to pay for it: “The government’s gonna pay for it.”
[…]
Law professor F.H. Buckley argued in the New York Post last month that, in the face of defeat for the Republican health-care bill, Trump should just go for it. He argued that it would be a great thing for the Republican Party because it would eliminate Democrats’ claim to being the party of compassion and that Trump’s supporters would actually like it.
“Leave behind all the people who hated you, who curse when you succeed,” Buckley wrote. “Reach out to the people who voted for you. Challenge the Democrats by offering them what they’ve always said they wanted.”
Fast forward, and Buckley’s words are even more timely. In a few weeks, the Republicans have promised a vote on extending the Obamacare subsidies to 22 million Americans. The Grand Old Plutocrats are in a bind. If they reject these subsidies, they give the Democrats a huge and decisive winning campaign issue for the 2026 elections. If they accede and keep the prices from skyrocketing, they hand a victory to the Democrats in defiance of their past rejections of universal healthcare and look weak.
My sister Claire Nader suggests that this is a great opportunity for Trump’s sense of grandiosity. Knowing the Congressional Republicans’ bind and disarray, he can announce his single-payer universal health care—everybody in, nobody out—and cite how much more efficient such a system is in Scotland, Canada, Australia, and other countries.
Then Trump could tout the political advantages—sweeping aside all the media coverage coming about the loss of Medicaid coverage by tens of millions of Americans, including Trump voters. Gone would be the huge inflationary price increases, continued inscrutable bills, with their overcharges and fraud. Getting healthcare would be far less aggravating than today. Imagine no more giant health insurance companies with their denials of benefits, rip-offs, suffocating fine print, and prior authorization requirements that enrage physicians. All people would need to show is their Medicare card.
Trump could pluck H.R. 676 out of its obscurity (about 140 House Democrats signed on in 2019). He would get support for this bill from all the Democrats plus a hefty slice of GOP lawmakers, especially those running for re-election in 2026.
Trump is running out of distractions, and running out of the gas that kept his opponents in shock and awe. His polls are dropping. A recession is on the horizon. Inflation is here. His campaign promises are papier-mache. Government health insurance for all, with private (and some public, as with the VA) delivery of health care, comes close to the Canadian healthcare system that has worked for some 50 years, with better health outcomes.
As Claire wryly reminded me, Trump could become the Tommy Douglas of the United States. Douglas started Canadian Medicare in Saskatchewan in 1962 and is a hero in Canada.
Any Democrats holding back support for “Medicare for All” for fear of making Trump look good should think of the tens of millions of Americans who would feel good in so many ways, shorn of the anxiety, dread, and fear produced by our current broken, gouging healthcare system.
Trump’s past, present, and future will still give the Dems plenty of fodder for their loathing of the president’s policies and actions.
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