Worth a Read: The Rise of the New American Oligarchy

Welcome to Worth a Read, a new feature from Democracy News, where we walk you through a news article, feature story, report, or data set about corruption that we’ve read that we don’t want you to miss. This week: a damning new report on the rapid consolidation of wealth and political power by American elites.

Unequal: The Rise of a New American Oligarchy and The Agenda We Need, which was published by Oxfam, is a sobering picture of exactly how dire things are during this Trump oligarchy. The report makes clear that inequality has increased dramatically in the United States for reasons that long predate Trump – and stem from long-standing political corruption.

The wealth gap in the United States is devastating. And it’s the underlying problem that has distorted our politics. While the Trump family and administration cash in on wild grifts, millions of Americans are facing hardship, whether because of layoffs, rising costs, or cuts to life-saving programs like Medicaid. Last week, news of Elon Musk’s trillion-dollar Tesla pay package dropped just as a federal judge was ordering that the federal government could not follow through with its plan to deny 42 million Americans their food assistance benefits. And then, the Trump administration demanded that states not pay the full amount to cover those benefits. During the government shutdown, people who rely on SNAP benefits have resorted to finding food in dumpsters, waiting in line at food pantries, and going without.

And, if we needed any further explanation for why this month voters turned out in droves to support Democratic candidates running on addressing the cost-of-living crisis, the Oxfam report emphasizes why.

Stats From the Report:

• The rich are getting richer: In the past year alone, the 10 richest U.S. billionaires got $698 billion dollars richer.

• While the poor get poorer: Over 40% of the country – including 48.9% of children – live below 200% of the supplemental poverty threshold and are thus considered poor or low income.

• Credit card delinquencies recently hit their highest in over a decade, and last year, 43% of families had difficulty paying bills.

• Homelessness is at a record high, and landlords filed over a million evictions in the past year.

• Food insecurity is the highest it’s been since 2014, with rates of food insecurity four times higher for low-income people.

• Analyses suggest as many as 68,000 people or more die each year due to lack of insurance coverage.

• Looking at the 10 largest peer economies, the U.S. has the highest rate of relative poverty, the second-highest rate of child poverty and infant mortality, and the second-lowest life expectancy.

Key Takeaways:

“The extreme concentration of wealth alongside the hardship of many is no accident. It is a product of, and reinforced by, the undue influence of the very wealthiest people and largest corporations over politics today. While oligarchy burst into the headlines in 2025, in recent decades activists and scholars have warned of the corrosive effects of extreme concentrations of wealth on U.S. democracy… Oligarchy is indeed a useful concept for understanding how the very richest translate resources into power, even in a formal democracy, and use that power to defend their own wealth.”

“Despite positioning himself as a champion of U.S. workers and families, in his second presidency, President Trump and his administration have pursued a policy agenda that directly undermines working-class interests, and used the office to enrich the already very wealthy.”

What this means for campaign finance reform:

In response to the widening wealth gap, Oxfam calls for campaign finance reform. As the report emphasizes, strengthening campaign finance rules is central to dismantling the oligarchy and minimizing the conditions that created these power imbalances in the first place. The report calls for strengthening voting rights, campaign finance reform, and protecting the integrity and availability of federal data.

All of this confirms that anti-corruption platforms that center cost-of-living concerns speak to this moment. As we just saw as Democrats swept elections nationwide, candidates who promise to fight for the American people, not wealthy interests, resonate with voters.

You can read the full report, including a forward by Senator Elizabeth Warren, on Oxfam’s website.

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