U.S. wealth inequality is the highest it has been in nearly four decades, according to federal data, as the economy under the Trump administration appears to increasingly favor the rich.
As of late 2025, the top 1 percent of households held 31.7 percent of wealth, the highest share on record since the Federal Reserve began tracking the figure in 1989.
I agree - there will probably always be differences and that might be even be acceptable. But extreme differences (like we have currently) are just madness. It’s stupidly inefficient in terms of allocating limited material resources to where they are needed. And the ‘meritocratic’ moral argument quickly falls down once wealth and income differences exceed a fairly modest level. If you claimed that a person like Jeff Bezos has the same productive output as 2.5 million nurses or is 2.5 million times more clever or righteous or whatever, even an 8-year-old would think you have a screw loose.
there are very real effects to this to. Like velocity in the money supply. There is always a certain amount of money invested vs spent but an economy can only handle so much of an imbalance. It relies on the velocity to determine the worth of currency and when its to low, like when wealth disparity is high, everything gets out of wack.