This analysis contrasts China’s success in eliminating extreme poverty with the persistent and growing income inequality in the United States. While China managed to reduce the number of people living on less than $3 a day from 83% of its population to zero by 2019, over 4 million Americans still subsist on this amount. The author contends that this profound disparity is not an inevitable market outcome but a result of decades of policy choices that consistently prioritized market forces over wealth redistribution. As a result, the income share of the poorest 10th of the U.S. population is now comparable to that of poor people in countries like Bolivia.
Nov 23, 2025 theguardian.com