Inequality & Distribution

Oxfam's Economic Justice Director, Nabil Ahmed, and Oxfam International's Inequality Policy & Advocacy Lead, Max Lawson, discuss their latest Global Inequality Report, which highlights the accelerating pace at which the world's billionaires have increased their wealth exponentially in recent years. They also discuss the ways in which governments can reverse this trend through taxation.

Download the report here.

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Cryptocurrency was supposed to change the economic outlook for Black America. For many, it made things worse.

Promoters plugged crypto as the key to accelerating Black America’s path to prosperity. It was going to level the playing field once and for all. The world of cryptocurrency was painted as a welcoming place for Black investors leery of traditional finance, a golden opportunity to build wealth and achieve financial empowerment. There was lots of talk of big returns, and few warnings of risks. Exuberance took hold.

But when markets began to crumble, Black people were left holding the bag. Many investors who came in after 2020 are now underwater; some have said goodbye to their life savings. Last in, hardest hit.

World-renowned economist and inequality researcher Thomas Piketty in conversation with Rob Johnson, about Piketty’s just-released book, A Brief History of Equality.

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Antitrust expert Hal Singer shows how big businesses in certain industries are taking advantage of inflation worries to jack up prices far beyond their cost increases, all the while raking in robber-baron profits.

Microeconomist Hal Singer studies the topic on everyone’s mind: prices. Singer, who teaches advanced pricing at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business and frequently serves as an economic expert in antitrust litigation (often concerning how firms set prices), says that those who hold workers’ wages responsible for inflation are not only wrong but making the problem worse with policies that fail to hit the real mark.

In her new book, veteran Wall Street watcher and economist Nomi Prins warns that central bank strategies deployed since the financial crisis are destroying the real economy, worsening inequality, and creating societal chaos.

Ever wonder why it is that for most of the 21^st century, no matter who is in the White House, no matter the state of the economy, and regardless of what ordinary people are suffering, money travels inexorably to the top?

If you find this baffling, you’re not alone. For many, it seems that the further we travel into this acutely challenging century, the political, economic, and social rules we thought we understood increasingly fail to apply.