‘The gap is widening’: inside Donald Trump’s K-shaped economy 

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This split is on show in Fairfield County. In Greenwich and other rich enclaves such as Darien and New Canaan, “people’s net worth and wealth has been increasing as home prices and the stock market have gone up,” said Mark Abraham, head of DataHaven, a Connecticut-based non-profit research organisation that studies social trends and public data.

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“But the majority, people who are just starting out in their career or don’t own a home or don’t have a stock portfolio, they’re kind of treading water,” Abraham added.

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Mendi Blue Paca, head of Fairfield County’s Communities Foundation, which awards grants to local charities, said chronic homelessness had been virtually eliminated in the area about six years ago, but since the coronavirus pandemic it had been “going gangbusters”.

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“The shelters are overflowing, the pantries are overwhelmed,” she said. “And it’s not just people below the poverty line showing up for handouts — it’s the working poor, as well, who are now food insecure.”

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With its waterside mansions, private beaches and Lamborghini dealerships, Greenwich — where the median sale price for a single-family home rose to US$3.5 million in July from US$3.1 million the previous year — is largely insulated from such problems.

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The town has benefited from a stock market that hit near record highs this year: the HFRI fund-weighted composite index, a barometer of the global hedge fund industry’s health, was up more than 11 per cent by November, close to its best performance since 2016.

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“There are lots of people making lots of money,” said Bruce McGuire, head of the Connecticut Hedge Fund Association. “The shops and restaurants up and down Greenwich Avenue all seem to be doing very well.”

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But even in Greenwich, where 9 per cent of people live below the federal poverty line, the stresses are growing. Rabin said low- and middle-income families often struggled to come up with the $151,000 a year needed for rent, food and child care in the town. “Almost a third of the population here are one missed pay cheque away from disaster,” he said.

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Rabin also noted that as a result of Trump’s tax and spending bill, about a quarter of the 850 people in Greenwich who usually receive food stamps were no longer eligible for them.

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In Bridgeport, the effect of the bill will be far greater. A large share of the population depends on Snap and Medicaid, said Rhonda Neal, head of Bridgeport Rescue Mission, a charity. “If you cut [them], you’re affecting the working poor, the elderly and kids.”

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The increased need is obvious at the Thomas Merton Family Center in Bridgeport, where a soup kitchen doles out plates of meatballs and pasta to a snaking queue of single men and married couples.

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“Every day we have new faces coming here,” said the head chef, Kelemen. Four years ago, 125-150 people showed up for lunch: “Now it’s 200-250.”

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Juan Cardona is a typical guest, a homeless ex-convict who lives in a tent. “Bridgeport is rough,” he said. “But the only way is up.”

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Trump has described “affordability” as the “greatest con job.” But he has also stressed his administration is working hard to lower prices. In a speech from the White House on December 17, he blamed the high cost of living on his predecessor, Joe Biden, and claimed that inflation was being “crushed.”

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People in Bridgeport are unconvinced. “Trump is the biggest liar,” said Robert Walsh, a homeless man who works as a pantry co-ordinator at the Thomas Merton Family Center. “He said he was going to bring prices down on his first day in office. Instead they’ve gone way up.”

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