Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” Redistributes Wealth From the Poor to the Rich

Republicans’ marquee reconciliation bill would redistribute wealth from the poorest to the richest Americans over the next decade, new estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) show.

An analysis of the bill, dubbed by President Donald Trump as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” finds that the poorest 10 percent of Americans would experience a 4 percent decrease in their household resources, as calculated by their incomes, in the decade of the bill’s enforcement.

The richest 10 percent, or those making $170,000 according to 2021 data, would see a 2 percent increase, with gains up to 4 percent in coming years. Overall, the CBO found that the bill would add $3.8 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years.

“The agency estimates that in general, resources would decrease for households in the lowest decile (tenth) of the income distribution, whereas resources would increase for households in the highest decile,” the agency wrote in its report.

This redistribution of wealth would come as a result of the bill’s massive cuts to crucial welfare programs, combined with tax cuts for the rich.

The CBO has estimated that 15 million people, and likely far more, would lose health care coverage as a result of the bill’s $716 billion cuts to Medicaid and provisions of the Affordable Care Act. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) would face major cuts, to the tune of nearly $300 billion, which helps to feed 42 million people across the U.S. each year.

The bill also cuts other programs benefiting working class families, including student loan aid plans and environmental investments — while funnelling $150 billion to the Pentagon and more funding for Trump’s horrific mass deportation agenda.

At the center of the bill is a massive tax cut for corporations and the wealthy, including an extension of Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act from 2017. Research has found that the richest Americans would gain tens of thousands of dollars in tax savings each year from the cuts, while the bottom 20 percent of Americans would see their taxes increase over the course of the bill.

According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a whopping two-thirds of the share of the tax cuts would go to the richest 20 percent of Americans, with incomes of $157,000 and above — including 24 percent to the richest 1 percent.

These effects would compound upon decades of existing wealth redistribution to the rich. Since the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act originally passed, U.S. billionaires have doubled their wealth to a collective $5.8 trillion, Americans for Tax Fairness found last year. It’s not just the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that is fueling the growing wealth gap, however; according to an analysis by RAND published in February, the richest 1 percent of Americans have sapped $79 trillion in wealth from the bottom 90 percent since 1975.