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The Role Of Income Inequality In The United States

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In order to tackle economic inequality in the United States, we must first establish that it is a problem that needs to be solved. American citizens currently live in one of the wealthiest nations in the history of the world, a feat only possible by the economic systems that are currently in place. But who benefits from this wealth? When the top one tenth of one percent owns almost as much as the bottom ninety percent, it is clear that our current economic systems are benefitting the prolifically wealthy. This wealth inequality extends beyond income, but includes; quality of health care, education, and political representation. Income inequality is an important issue that needs to be addressed in the United States. One reason that the United …show more content…

Unfortunately, the political system within the United States is prolifically corrupt. This not only applies to the people in charge and the ease by which they are able to be bribed, but to the system itself and how it fails to represent the public. It is a sad truth that the wealthy in this country have more representation, and a greater ability to change public policy than the average American. A Princeton University study concluded that, “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant influence upon public policy (Gilens, 11).” Political corruption is the greatest reason as to why wealth inequality is so great in the United States. The policies that are mean to protect the average American worker are being erased, while the incredibly wealthy see more tax-cuts, and are able to change policies to their …show more content…

The American public school system is arguably weak when compared to other countries, but it still functions to educate the public. The issue of inequality arises when it comes to higher education and who has access to it. Due to higher education costing anywhere from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in the United States, it is easy to see why there is an unequal level of access to higher education. Some might argue that higher education is not necessary and that the poor can find a living without it. This is not only restricting the poor to the lower class, but is simply not true. It is easy to see that, “with increasing education, people are rearranging their ideas about what’s important and about what they want from life (Shaw, 172).” Therefore, restricting the poor to a post-secondary education not only limits their understanding of the world around them, but limits their quality of

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