Former U.S. Labor Secretary and economist Robert Reich is renewing his warnings about the widening gap between the wealthy and everyone else.
In a Sunday post on X, Reich made his stance unmistakably clear:
“Poverty is a policy choice. Concentrated wealth is a policy choice. Inequality is a policy choice. None of it is natural or inevitable.”
His words echo a larger argument he’s been making for years: the U.S. economy is not just something that happens, it’s designed.
And right now, it’s designed in ways that overwhelmingly benefit the richest Americans while leaving working families, women, and people of color behind.
Markets Don’t Just Happen—They’re Built
In a video shared by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Reich digs deeper into the idea that economic inequality isn’t some natural byproduct of capitalism.
“Behind much of this discussion of how government designs the market, enforces the market, and creates the market is a collective ethical question. Who is the market for?” Reich said.
He emphasized that government decisions shape how the economy functions, from tax policy to labor laws, and those decisions reflect who holds power.
“You’re talking about dealing with entrenched interests that don’t want to change the balance of power,” he added.
According to Reich, inequality grows not because of random forces, but because policymakers allow it to grow, often under pressure from wealthy donors and corporations.
A System Built to Benefit the Few
A new report from Oxfam America, called “Unequal: The Rise of a New American Oligarchy and the Change We Need,” backs up what Reich has been saying.
It shows how, over the past few decades, lawmakers have made policy decisions that helped the richest Americans build massive wealth while shrinking opportunities for everyone else.
Between 1989 and 2022, the wealth gap in the United States exploded. The top 0.1 percent gained at least $39.5 million per household, while the bottom 20 percent gained less than $8,500.
Meanwhile, the top 1 percent accumulated at least 101 times more wealth than the median household, and nearly 1,000 times more than those at the bottom.
The report also highlights the gender and racial dimensions of inequality.
In 2022, male-headed households held 3.7 times more wealth than female-headed households. And over the same 33-year period, white households gained over seven times the wealth of Black households and nearly seven times more than Hispanic households.
As of 2022, the average white male-headed household held 16 times the wealth of households headed by Black or Latina women.
Global Outlier in Inequality
When compared to other wealthy nations, the U.S. stands out, but not in a good way.
Among 10 peer countries, the U.S. ranks highest in relative poverty, second in both child poverty and infant mortality, and second lowest in life expectancy.
The report links these poor outcomes to decades of underinvestment in public services, low minimum wages, and policies that have weakened the social safety net.
The Role of Recent Leadership
The trend toward greater inequality didn’t start recently, but Oxfam argues that it has accelerated under former President Donald Trump.
Supported by the Republican majority in Congress, his administration passed tax reforms that significantly favored the wealthy.
By 2027, the richest 0.1 percent are expected to see tax cuts worth about $311,000 annually. In contrast, Americans earning less than $15,000 are projected to face tax hikes.
The administration also slashed social programs, deregulated corporate polluters, and rolled back worker protections, all of which, according to Oxfam, have worsened inequality and weakened the public’s ability to push back.
Time for a New Direction
Reich and Oxfam both argue that it doesn’t have to be this way. Inequality isn’t inevitable, and poverty isn’t a mystery. They are the outcomes of choices, and they can be changed by making different ones.
“We have the power to build a system that serves the many, not the powerful few,” Reich wrote on X.
That means doing more to fund things that help everyone—like schools, health care, and public services, while also making sure the wealthiest Americans pay a fairer share in taxes.
It also includes stronger protections for workers and targeted efforts to close racial and gender gaps.
Bottom line: inequality didn’t just happen. People in power made decisions that caused it, and different decisions can help fix it.
IMAGE CREDIT: “Robert Reich” by Albaum, CC0 1.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Image adjusted for layout.