The collective wealth of US billionaires surged to $8.1 trillion in 2025 as working-class Americans faced a cost-of-living crisis made worse by President Donald Trump’s tariff regime and unprecedented assault on the social safety net.<\/p>\n
An analysis<\/a> released Friday by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) found that the top 15 US billionaires saw the largest wealth gains last year, with their collective fortune growing from $2.4 trillion to $3.2 trillion. That 33% gain was more than double the S&P 500’s 16% increase in 2025.<\/p>\n What IPS describes as the “elite group” of US billionaires includes Tesla<\/a> CEO Elon Musk<\/a>, the richest man in the world; Google co-founder Larry Page; Amazon founder Jeff Bezos<\/a>; and Oracle executive chairman Larry Ellison. <\/p>\n IPS emphasized that “these staggering combined billionaire wealth totals come as the Trump-GOP budget bill<\/a> passed in 2025 defunded health insurance, food stamps, and other vital anti-poverty safety net programs, in order to pay for tax cuts<\/a> for the wealthy and budget<\/a> increases for militarism<\/a> and mass deportations<\/a>.”<\/p>\n “The affordability crisis is hitting ordinary Americans particularly hard as we head into the new year, but not everyone is feeling the pain: Billionaires are raking in staggering profits off the backs of ordinary workers,\u201d Chuck Collins \u201cThese extreme concentrations of wealth and power,” Collins added, “undermine our daily lives and further rig our economy in favor of the ultra-rich and corporations, while ordinary Americans get a raw deal once again.\u201d<\/p>\n IPS released its analysis days after Bloomberg reported, based on its Billionaires Index, that the world’s 500 richest people gained a record $2.2 trillion<\/a> in wealth last year.<\/p>\n Omar Ocampo, an IPS researcher, said that in the US, billionaires are “paying far less in taxes compared to the huge amount of wealth they amass,” allowing them to continue accumulating vast fortunes, supercharging inequality, and using their wealth and influence to subvert reform efforts<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cNot only are a small number of Americans holding more wealth than the rest of America, but they\u2019re also not paying their fair share in taxes,” said Ocampo.<\/p>\n