Wealth Inequality In America

When people hear the word inequality they think of inequality as a circumstance just involving race, things like being unequal with another person cause of your skin color or cause of your traditions. However, inequality covers many other broad factors one factor other than race being income inequality. In “Inequality Has Been Going on Forever…but That Doesn’t Mean It’s Inevitable.” (The New York Times, 02.05.14), David Leonhardt points out that Income inequality has come to be extremely high, the middle class is shrinking while the rich become richer. This attitude is encouraged by various factors: society, taxation, and how much time has passed. The inequality is said to last for decades.

People around the nation have been changing their view on what type of economy America should have. Bernie Sanders a Democratic nominee wants to replace capitalism with a more socialistic economy and hopes to remove income inequality. Americans are unsure on where they should stand on the issue of America’s economy and the wealth gap, presenting an ideal opportunity for the article to get recognition and convince readers that the wealth gap is beneficial to America.

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.

America prides itself on being one of the most effective democratically governed counties. The idea of the American dream is that all people have equivalent political freedoms and a responsive government. However the effectiveness of social equality is being threatened by increasing inequality in the United States. Economic inequality in the US has expanded drastically. The wealth gap has had drastic changes over the past 35 years. What’s more, specifically, the rich have gotten a lot richer. Almost everybody who talk about it says that economic inequality must be reduced.

To begin, there are many types and factors that play a part in inequality and the consequences of societies from it, but one of the main reasons and apparent factors is wealth. The main factor of wealth that causes trouble is the inability to create a better life. Most want success

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s early American masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, gives readers a glimpse of life in the Roaring Twenties. In a time period filled with new inventions and a booming economy, rising through the ranks of social hierarchy seems deceivingly simple. Yet, improving one’s social stature in the communities of East Egg and West Egg is, in fact, a nearly impossible task. Unfortunately, rising in social standing in today’s society has proven just as difficult. As the nation’s wealth gap grows larger, more and more individuals are driven into poverty. Children from these less fortunate families struggle in school; many are lucky to even graduate from high school. Without college degrees, these children face limited

Classism is a major issue that plagues American society. Classism separates groups by their economic status in society. America is perceived to be a middle class society, however in reality the middle class does not hold majority of the nation’s wealth. Most of the nation’s wealth is held by 1% of the population in America which consists of 34% of the nation’s wealth, meanwhile “the richest 20% of Americans hold nearly 85% of the total household wealth in the country” (Adams et al, 2013, p. 151). American citizens that are a part of the upper class are privilege because they have access to majority of the resources. They are not shut out from opportunities like the middle and lower class. The class that an individual is in affects their chance

Income inequality has grown significantly during this past decades and this phenomenon continues to increase over the years. This problem is constantly discussed in the daily news all around the world. Several consequences of this increase of inequality between people leads to economic problems such as high unemployment rates, lack of work for young people, fall of demand for certain product. The gap between rich and poor is increasing, the rich are richer and the poor are poorer as a result politicians and economists try to adopt certain policies in order to reduce this gap. 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 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

Q-1: McAdam and Kloos write a book to try to understand how American politics evolved in the 1950s from a politics of moderation, bipartisan cooperation and relative economic equality to today’s politics of savage partisan divisions and sharp economic inequality. Their first chapter provides an overview of their explanation. Provide in your words a summary of this overview.

The United States is one of the most developed and wealthiest nations on the planet. However, the nation today has more income and wealth inequality as compared to any other key developed nation. In addition, there is a very large gap that exists between extremely rich and the rest of the people. Most of this income and wealth is controlled by a shocking small percentage of individuals. This accrues to only 1 percent of the nation’s total population. Today, there are about 400 billionaires and millionaires who earn billions of US dollars every year through entrepreneurship and heavy international investments (Gornick & Jäntti, 2014). In spite of great technological advancements in the country, as well as productivity, many Americans work for longer hours and get low wages in return. For example, the actual average income for American male employees is about $783 less as compared to what it was 42 years ago; at the same time as the actual average income for female employees is well over $1,300 less as compared to what it in the year 2007 (Gornick & Jäntti, 2014).

In recent discussions of income inequality, a controversial issue has been whether income inequality is more beneficial than detrimental to today’s socioeconomics. On the one hand, some argue that income inequality leads to economic inequality. From this perspective, Jacob Kornbluth, director of the 2013 documentary, Inequality for All, focuses on why economic inequality is happening concerning the distribution of wealth and income, and if it is a problem. On the other hand, however, others argue that this high rate of income inequality is damaging America’s middle class. In the words of Princeton professor and journalist of the New York Times, Paul Krugman in his 2007 book The Conscience of a Liberal, one of his main proponents in his chapter

The socioeconomic status of one, and one’s family, can have a significant impact on potential wealth. Collins (2013) found that, in the United States of America, The 1 percent (in terms of wealth) in the U.S. owns 35.6 percent of all private wealth, more than the bottom 95 percent combined. The top 1 percent also owns 42.4 percent of all financial wealth, which equates to more than bottom 97 percent combined. The 400 wealthiest U.S. individuals, that were included on the Forbes 400 list, possess more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans. Between 1983 and 2009, over 40 percent of all wealth gains flowed to the 1 percent and 82 percent of wealth gains went to the top 5 percent. The bottom 60 percent lost wealth over this same period. Additionally, he found that almost one fifth of the population, mostly located the bottom of the income ladder, have no wealth or savings. They may owe more than they own. Nearly 31 percent of black households and more than 13 percent of white households are “assetless,” possessing zero or negative net worth. This is a massive injustice, considering the massive amount of wealth that the top 1 percent possess. By 2001 the share of wealth owned by the top 1 percent of households was 33 percent. To join the richest 1 percent that year one needs to have at least $3 million in net worth. These facts lead me to the conclusion that

For my final argumentative essay, I have chosen the topic wealth disparity. In my opinion, this topic needs to be research more in depth. The problem of wealth disparity is not just a national societal problem, but global societal problem. The distribution of wealth nationally has created social class system of the haves, and have nots, moreover, wealth disparity or wealth distribution; for example, there is wealth disparity between blacks and whites in America. In compelling surveys done by the United States Census Bureau, show that white men on a whole annual salary are higher in comparison to black

Upon reading Bell’s article I found that I agree with most of the author’s assertions. In my own experience as a child I too would categorize my family as being poor. Although my father was employed, his job was categorized as janitorial and as such paid minimum wage. As a child of the late and sixties and seventies I did realize that my family did not have some of the luxuries that other children enjoyed but I nor anyone in my family was ever treated as lazy, untrustworthy or lacking integrity.