The Latest Breaking News from Inequality

Plus: A listener asks if the economic inequality data is bad.

We recognise extreme poverty as ruinous, but this turbo-charged affluence is deeply damaging too. Treat it as such, says Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah of the New Economics Foundation

Comic Relief is recognised for how it has addressed poverty and inequality in the UK and internationally.

More than 100 days into his return to the White House, the conclusion is stark: Donald Trump is no longer the same president he was during his first term. His familiar nationalist and populist rhetoric is now openly paired with an authoritarian turn – one without precedent in US history. He…

Nothing is more certain than death and taxes, Benjamin Franklin famously declared. And, since 1916, the federal government has imposed an estate tax on the transfer of property owned at death.

It comes as a new report from the WHO revealed targets designed to help tackle global health inequalities within a generation will not be met.

“When diversity, equity and inclusion become ‘threats’ to the order of society,” Judith Butler wrote recently, “progressive politics in general is held responsible for every social ill.” Authoritarians are empowered to oppress vulnerable people in the name of “the nation, the natural order, the family, society or civilization itself”.

Africa faces challenges in reducing extreme poverty and inequality. In 2024, 8.5% of the global population was living in extreme poverty (that is, on less than US$2.15 a day). Nearly 67% of these people were living in sub-Saharan Africa.

South Africa remains one of the most unequal countries in the world. The country’s per-capita expenditure Gini coefficient, a measure of how spending from income is distributed, stands at 0.65. This puts it among countries with the most unequal distribution of spending globally.