Analysis Of Inequality For All

“Inequality for All” is a movie reveals the truth about the United States’ economy with a speaker used to be the Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, Robert Reich. Throughout the film, Robert gradually proves what is happening in terms of the distribution of income and wealth, why and is it a problem. He provides plenty of graphics, interview

In the United States, high standard of living is not equally shared with in the Americans. The 1970s and 1990s was period where economic inequality began to grow. Emmanuel Saez, an economics professor at UC Berkeley has been doing a research for the U.S. income inequality. He states that there has been an increase since the 1970s, and has reached levels that have not been seen since 1928. “In 1928, the top 1% of families received 23.9% of all pretax income, while the bottom 90% received 50.7%. But the Depression and World War II dramatically reshaped the nation’s income distribution, by 1944 the top 1%’s share was down to 11.3%, while the bottom 90% were receiving 67.5%, levels that would remain more or less constant for the next three decades. But starting in the mid- to late 1970s, the uppermost percent income share began rising dramatically, while that of the bottom 90% started to fall.”(DeSilver) Ever since then, economic inequality continues to increase, especially in the last three decades.

In an economic sense, income distribution refers to how wages and salaries are split among a society of people. The top earners in a society are naturally considered to be the richest, whereas the lowest earners are the poorest. In any society, such differentiation in earnings commonly creates class systems based on yearly income. This structure is often measured by labeling people as lower class, middle class, or upper class depending on yearly earnings even though there can be a large difference in the top and bottom incomes of a class. Concerns about the inequality of the distribution of income in any society are often brought about when individuals believe that one income class is earning too large or too little of a percentage of the total income. In the United States however, certain policies and programs are in place to combat criticism against the fairness of income distribution. In addition to these policies and programs, the United States was founded on the belief that any individual, regardless of social class or birth status, should be as successful or unsuccessful as they wish depending on their ability to capitalize on opportunities presented to them throughout their life. Commonly known as “The American Dream,” this notion towards freely being able to create one’s own wealth and worth can be seen throughout the history of the United States and is a major factor that guided America to become one of the world’s economic super powers. After recognizing a historic

There is no doubt that wealth inequality in America has been escalating quickly; the portion of total income earned by the top one percent has doubled since the beginning of the 1970’s. The wealthy are the main beneficiaries

In “inequality for all”, a documentary presented and narrated by Robert Reich, Reich discusses what is happening in terms of the distribution of income and wealth in the US, why it is happening, and is it a problem. “Inequality for all” is directed by Jacob Kornbluth, it premiered in 2013, and it runs for 90 minutes. Reich studied at the University of Oxford in during the late 1960’s, where he befriended future president Bill Clinton. Subsequently, they kept in touch, and in 1993, when Clinton was elected president, he reached out to Reich, to be secretary of labor. Reich was in office for the following four years, and today he is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. For about three decades now, Reich announced that out of all developed countries, the US has the most unequal distribution of wealth, and that inequality is getting even greater in the US. In the documentary, the most compelling topics covered by Reich, are the changes that started happening in the late 1970’s, the fact that 42 percent of Americans born into poverty stay poor, and that nowadays, money controls politics.

“One reason to care about inequality is the straightforward matter of living standards. The lions share of the economic growth in America over the past thirty years has gone to a small, wealthy minority…”(Krugman 586).

In Robert Reich documentary “Inequality for All” he makes a compelling discussion about the serious crises that the United States faces due the widening economic gap. He looks to raise awareness of the U.S. economic gap between the rich and poor. According to Reich the widening divide in America is real and growing. Income levels at the middle and labor class is stagnant and are at it’s lowest levels compared to upper class incomes since the beginning of WWII and is growing wider each year. Reich suggests that the economy runs more smoothly when the middle class has jobs with fair wages, when unions are strong, and when middle class workers have some extra money to spend if possible when the government uses the tax policy properly and when it raises the minimum wage regularly to control the income gap between labor and management. In other words Reich argues that economically healthy middle and labor class equality is the foundation of a thriving economy and is necessary to maintaining a sound national infrastructure and educational system within

The highest earning fifth of U.S. families earned 59.1% of all income, while the richest earned 88.9% of all wealth. A big gap between the rich and poor is often associated with low social mobility, which contradicts the American ideal of equal opportunity. Levels of income inequality are higher than they have been in almost a century, the top one percent has a share of the national income of over 20 percent (Wilhelm). There are a variety of factors that influence income inequality, a few of which will be discussed in this paper. Rising income inequality is caused by differences in life expectancy, rapidly increases in the incomes of the top 5 percent, social trends, and shifts in the global economy.

Income inequality in the 70’s and the 80’s demonstrated a significant difference in comparisons with today’s income inequality. In the 70’s, the top one percent generated 9% total income in US and today, 30 years later it nearly doubled generating at 24% total income in US. A CEO would earn approximately 40 times more than his or her average worker in the 70’snand the 80’s however, in today’s case a CEO earns 500 times more than his or her average worker that’s about 13 times more grossed income of CEO in a span of 30 years. (Frank, preface VIII) In the 70’s and 80’s the ten percent would earn about $1,500 a week and the average middle class would earn about $720 a week. But, today the ten percent earns nearly $2,000 a week and average middle

Throughout the entire video, Inequality for All, I found myself shocked and disappointed in the economic state of the United States. I think everybody knows that the gap between rich and poor is extreme and that things aren’t getting better but watching this video and having all the facts laid out was very eye opening. I did learn a lot of things that I didn’t know before watching this video. One of the most shocking was that the United States has one of the biggest wage gaps between the rich and the poor of all the developed nations. Another thing I learned was that the 400 richest people in the United states make more than 150 million of the poorest in the United States.

William Dean Howells once stated “Inequality is as dear to the American heart as liberty itself.” Although inequality has been a global, notorious issue, but no other nation recognizes it better than the United States, a nation built upon opportunity and equality, One would expect such a nation to withhold these values, however, inequality is running rampant, and has restrained opportunity to the point where it goes unnoticed in the daily lives of Americans. The poor and middle class stay stagnant and struggle with staying happy and healthy, and the rich prosper and binge on the unnecessary. With free reign over the nation, inequality is desecrating the American promise of the opportunity to pursue happiness economically,

There are many ladders to scale in life. Individuals are constantly looking for the next opportunity, climbing rung by rung to reach new levels of achievement. But what happens when rungs on these ladders are missing? What does one do when opportunity is out of reach due to factors outside of their individual control? One such insurmountable ladder in society is academic achievement— those on the bottom rungs face a gap vast in size and unable to be scaled by meritocracy alone. Specific inequalities maintain this gap, and polarize the academic potentials of students nationwide. In this paper, I assert that the disparity in school nutrition levels between varying socioeconomic classes in American society is a significant contributor to the achievement

We can still see evidence of inequality in the workforce today. Although government intervention induced cleaner facilities and mandated a minimally sustainable base-line pay through the introduction of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, lack of opportunities and income disparities continued to trouble the United States. In the early 1900s, wealth gaps used to exist on quite drastic terms where people were either dirt poor or thriving in luxurious mansions. The gaps started steadily separating in the middle of the 20th century and an in-between economic class began to develop creating a staircase of income brackets. Today, America’s top 10% average more that 9 times as much income as the bottom 90%. Those in the top 1% tower

In this paper, we present the least value and the greatest value such that the double inequality

Income inequality has reached a level of instability which has not been seen since the years leading up to the Great Depression. Income inequality refers to the difference of real income received by the varying socio-economic classes within an economy. There is no better example of this then the Great Depression in which greed sent twenty-five percent of the population into unemployment. Inequality.org defines income as “…the revenue streams from wages, salaries, interest on a savings account, dividends from shares of stock, rent, and profits from selling something for more than you paid for it.” As indicated in Figure 1 and discussed by Marcie Gardner and David Abraham in “Income Inequality”, the median U.S. household income in 2012 totaled $51,017. It wasn’t until The Great Recession (2007-2009) that the economy saw similar inequality as depicted during The Great Depression. Incomes were hit hard across the board. Median household income declined 8.1 percent between 2007 and 2012 (See Appendix A – Figure 1).