Economic Inequality In America Essay

Paul Krugman, an economics professor at Princeton, writes “Confronting Inequality” chapter 7 in his book. Equality in America is what makes America, what it stands for. Social and economic inequality still is a part of everyday life in America. Education is making parents struggle because they want to give them a good education; but also, health care for those who need it. Middle-class starts to scramble more every day while the high-class gets more prosperous. Inequality in America is creating trouble to the lives of Americans.

Based on freedom and equality, America is today the country the most unequal amongst developed countries.

Nowadays, there is a huge gap of income and wealth inequality in the U.S. and that means the richer people are super rich while bottom people are struggling for basic living standard. There are some direct and explicit statistics from Inequality for All graphic package from which we can tell the phenomenon. In 2010, the typical 1% people earn 33 times of typical male workers but in 1978 the ratio is tenth comparing the male workers with the “1%” people. Also, it says “Today, the top 400 richest people have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans put together” (Inequality for All). This shows considerable wealth of the U.S. is controlled in the minority people, which is totally unlike the period of 1950s through 1980s.

Jasmine Ware Ms.Johnson Period 5 28 February 2018 Wealth inequality: a growing issue in America Wealth inequality all but gave birth to our nation. Between taxation, navigation acts, and writs of assistance, the colonies were engulfed with laws that caused disparity and created social classes, leading to the colonies separating from Great Britain during the revolutionary war in 1783. Inequality has been rampant throughout many parts of the world. It also has been widely prevalent within the United States. When it comes to inequality, not many people think of it in terms of wealth.

Changes in Wealth Distribution in America – 1950 to Present All of us know and have used to the idea that it’s obvious some people are rich while others are poor because it has been so for many centuries even when people didn’t have any knowledge on economy or finance. It’s impossible not feeling sorry for and wanting to help those who benefited less and poor (bottom 99%) or not feeling envy when talking about those who are wealthy (top 1%). It is the result of unequal wealth distribution among population, it is often called wealth gap. This essay will analyze the rate of changes of wealth distribution in the US since 1950s, try to explain its reasons and give recommendations on fixing the raising wealth gap between the poor and the rich. Nowadays the middle class is disappearing as people becoming too poor while some are getting too rich.

Wealth gaps in America is something that people do not know much about causing them to not realize how severe it is getting. In America, the top 10% of people (the very rich) are holding 50-80% of the wealth. This statistic is very scary and hard to grasp. Another scary fact is that the top 1% of the population holds around 35% of the United States net worth. People may ask what do these facts mean? They mean that the wealth gaps in America are getting further apart. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. The wealth gaps in the social classes in the United States are getting worse because the haves and have nots are widening, the American dream is getting harder to do, the rich are taking more of the pie and, income inequality is on a record high.

The United States exhibits a wide difference of wealth distribution between rich and poor people, which is larger than any other major developed country.

The opportunity for access to education, study hard, find jobs, and work hard, known as the American Dream, has been greatly impacted by income inequality (Graff, Birkenstein, and Durst 539). Both sides of this issue agree that income inequality has always existed although some believe that it was a trend, but this trend has evolved into a destiny for many Americans. One side of the issue believes that inequality will always exist and is inevitable while others posit that it is a matter of choice.

Income inequality The article “Confronting Inequality,” written by Paul Krugman, a professor at Princeton University, emphasizes that the middle class suffers from social inequality and economic inequality. Krugman suggests building a stronger safety net so the gap between the poor and rich can be limited to by raising of the taxes. Krugman uses this claim to highlight the fact that the middle class needs to be stronger and the only way to achieve that is to have a strong safety net. Krugman says the rich use loopholes in the tax system to cheat their way out of high taxes, and the poor pay a relatively high tax compared to what they should be paying.

The essay Inequality Undermines Democracy by Eduardo Porter discusses the income gap in today’s world. The first main point Porter describes how Americans are not concerned with the income gap even though it is wider than other developed countries. The United States government has expressed little concern over this issue as well since they have done little to anything to restrain the trend. I believe this has caused opportunities across classes to shrink and the middle class does not exist anymore. I would consider my family a working middle class and I hear my family talking about how the middle class has diminished and it is either the rich or the poor.

The wealthy continue to grow as they get more of everything and the lower class continue to get less. The average wealth has increased over the last 50 years, but it has not grown equally for all. “ Families near the bottom of the wealth distribution (those at the 10th percentile) went from having no wealth on average to being

It is proven that gender does contribute to a difference in wages in society and there for another cause of wealth inequality. The U.N. has found that gender discrimination is still a significant factor in holding many women and children around the world in poverty. In many countries, there is a gender income gap in the labor market. For example, in America, statistics show that “The median full-time salary for women is 78 percent of that of men”; despite the fact women make up half the workforce. One of the reasons women earn less income/money in their lifetime is usually because they are single mums and/or have more people/family to support on their

“Hispanic men, for their part, have made no progress in narrowing the wage gap with white men since 1980” (Patten lines 39-40). Since the dawn of time there has always been discrimination against races that society deems “superior”. In history, in the lives of those who are dedicated to change, and for the betterment of Texas there has always been a shadow cast by inequality. There is hope from every educated person, that this stigma would be completely eradicated. Inequality does nothing but hurt our society and weaken the ties between fellow human beings.

Inequality in the accumulation of wealth in the U.S.’s black population stretches back to times of slavery and lack of reparations for their group’s enslavement to the Social Security Act and the Federal Housing Act (GIB 1). Racial discrimination lurks in the U.S.’s housing market from its very conception after WWII, when GIs began to return home in search of a new home (RTPI). Although, the Federal Housing Administration by no means a starting point for the cause of wealth inequality, it certainly exacerbated the gap. White suburbs like “Levittown” created a white exclusive ideal neighborhood which devalued black and other nonwhite homeowners. Housing discrimination prevented blacks and nonwhites from accumulating wealth like whites would

America’s wealth gap between middle class and upper class income is at its highest level in decades. According to Pew Research Center’s article “America’s Wealth Gap,” they report in 2010, the median wealth of upper-income families was 6.2 times the median wealth of middle-income families and by 2013, that wealth ratio grew to 6.6. This makes the American Dream a very difficult thing to accomplish, especially for the lower class. The American Dream means that all people have the equal opportunity to achieve success of rising in their social ladder through hard work, determination, and initiative. Some argue that the American Dreams is available and achievable by all.