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.
Of Mice and Men is a novel known across the globe, its delicate tone and emphasis on humanity and the struggles of the world locks the readers in. What dazzles readers most about this folk classic is how it is expressed in a way that all can understand, but few comprehend the deep and dark turn of events that lie between the lines of the book at first glance. The book isn’t referenced so often for its events in the past, but more for how it is related to the present as well as the future. The main issue discussed in this masterpiece is inequality, this subject applies to not only those of the past, but to everyone in every circumstance across the world today. Although it’s the 21st century, this issue is still present in everyday life. Wealth, race, gender, and mental illness has torn society apart and lead to inequality. These major reasons for inequality has affected everyone in its path leading to major consequences as well as issues and problems. In China, a new found wealth has left the social classes more divided and issues are beginning to rise. Meanwhile in the U.S., wealth is destroying students and unequal views toward specific types of people are weakening the patriotic bond.
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
For this week 's current events I an article read on the Huffington post that talks about the vast wealth gap between Black and White America. According to the post the gap got a bit smaller in the years leading upto the Great Recession but in the past 30 years has exploded as the black and Latino communities have been hit by foreclosures and job cuts.There 's a lot of reasons why there are enormous wealth gaps between minorities and whites in America. The most simple answer is, it takes money to make money. Part of the reason that there 's this enormous gap is because whites have long had higher wages and wealth to pass on from generation to generation. And it 's like a snowball - it gets bigger and bigger as it gets passed on, and the
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 level of wealth inequality from the years 1967-1970 was higher than the level of income inequality from that same time. It would seem that a higher level of wealth inequality is a standard of the American economy since it was higher than the level of income inequality in all three eras. As for the specific amount of the yearly average wealth controlled by each fractile, using the information from Fig 6, we can see that the top one-hundredth percent fractile was in possession of 72.37% of the yearly average wealth from the years 1967-1970. The next nine-hundredth percent fractile controlled 16.06% of the yearly average wealth from the years 1967-1970. The four-tenth percent fractile after them had 5.95% of the yearly average wealth from
Throughout all of history wealth has never been distributed evenly; no monarchist kingdom, communist utopia, socialistic society, or modern free market has ever existed in a state of equilibrium. The laws of the land have always seemed to operate in a manner of some sort of prejudice. The rich generate wealth at a much higher rate than the poor. Income inequality has existed, in some form or another, since the first trade transaction. Since, we have begun record keeping, statistics show the rich controlling increasing amounts of the total income. The only two discrepancies being global catastrophes--The Bubonic Plague and World War II-- the only reason being economy-wide setbacks putting everyone on much more even playing fields. Given the
In this article by Sean Mcelwee(2014) he talks about why income inequality is the toughest issue America will face in the next few decades. In the article, Why income inequality is America’s biggest (and most difficult) problem, Mcelwee(2014) believes that after the studies he has seen, the most effective way to solve the policy issue of income inequality is by higher taxes on income and wealth. However, the rich would never buy into this solution, because it would take more of their wealth, when the wealthy are trying to maximize their money returns. Mcelwee (2014) also talks about how when a family is wealthy, money tends to stay in the family for 10-15 generations, which is also true for families with lower incomes as stated here by
Are you the "99 percent" or are you the "1 percent" ? In the United States, nationals are set in social classes based upon their salary. This motto focuses on the abundance of the wealthiest and the rest. As indicated by the article "We are the 99 percent" by Brian Shelter, protestors are battling for more equivalent dispersion of wage. They are utilizing online networking like Twitter, Skype, Tumblr, Facebook and more to Arrange occasions and advance their reason.
America is the country the more unequal amongst developed countries: 10 per cent of the active people accounted to them 50 per cent of the income. The incomes of the richest have increased by 3 per cent in the recent years. An average person must work a month to earn what the richest earn in one hour. Four years after the return of growth in the United States, signs of the crisis amongst the most disadvantaged Americans abound. The stagnation, or even declining sale of low-prices chains, while luxury retailers are doing well, is a concrete illustration of the crisis respecting the income inequality.
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
As outlined in chapter 10 of the course text, inequality in housing and wealth is a major problem. The United States is described to be the most unequal countries in the western hemisphere. But with the inequalities when it comes to wealth, the United States is one of the richest countries in the world. Wealth is the sum total of a person’s assets. These assets include, cash in the bank and value of all properties, not only land but houses, cars, stocks, and bonds, and retirements savings. Wealth is one of the factors why residential segregation is an increasing problem.
Wealth inequality in America is increasing specially after the Great Recession of 2008 (Kenworthy & Smeeding, 2013; Allegretto, 2011). “The wealthiest 1% of U.S. households had net worth that was 225 times greater than the median or typical household’s net worth in 2009” (Allegretto, 2011). John Slater (2015) suggests that top 1% will gain more wealth than bottom 99% in 2016 if the government doesn’t take any measures to prevent it.
Surprisingly, statistics show that wealth inequality is not limited to only developing countries, but also some of the most developed countries. America, Israel and Greece are one of the countries with the worst income inequality. In some countries there is an equal and