Paris, France - Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz blamed the current US government shutdown on politicians putting the interests of the rich and powerful over poor Americans, in comments to AFP on Wednesday.

The US government halted all but non-essential operations on Wednesday after Democrats and Republican lawmakers failed to agree on a funding deal for the new fiscal year.

Shutdowns are a periodic feature of gridlocked Washington, although this is the first since a record 35-day pause in 2019, when Donald Trump was serving his first presidential term.

Democrats – motivated by grassroots anger over expiring healthcare subsidies and Trump's dismantling of government agencies – have withheld votes to fund the government as leverage to try and force negotiations.

"The Republicans said we'd rather shut down the government than have healthcare for the poor," Stiglitz told AFP.

"That's what you have when you have a government run by oligarchs who don't care about the poorest people in your society," said the economist, who attended a French parliamentary debate on taxing the ultrarich as part of efforts to bolster the country's strained public finances.

Stiglitz served as chief economist at the World Bank in the late 1990s after being the chairman of former President Bill Clinton's council of economic advisers.