Analysis Of Jill Lepore's Essay 'Income Inequality'

Logos are the facts, statistics, and example statements that holds up the argument in any argumentative writing piece. In Fast Food Nation Schlosser had plenty of statistics to advance his argument, "In 1970, Americans spent

Frank, Robert. “Income inequality: Too Big to Ignore”. Graff, Gerald, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst. "They Say, I Say": The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing : With Readings. New York: Norton, 2012. 432-447 Print.

Logos is used for logical reasons to connect to the readers, its opening the citizens eyes to

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.

Logos is presented as a form of logic and offers the most relatable method of communication to an audience, as it is so commonly used. Since Aristotle can be the most authoritative on the three forms of appeals, logos can be viewed

Gorgias goes on to explain three different occupations that use Logos to gain acceptance of opinions. Ultimately, Gorgias finishes comparing Logos to the effects of a drug (Freeman).

McCullough uses logos to convince his audience of Boston College graduates, to keep reading and learning throughout their lives. He uses quotes, several examples, and one statistic to persuade the students. He first uses logos to persuade them that information can be worth a fortune and can save lives, and that “The value of information, facts, figures, and the like, depends on what we make of it” (p.2).

Jill Lepore shows strong evidence of Inequality in The United States by using Logos as a dominant resource in her essay. Readers can see that she is able to support her claims by using statistics to improve her knowledge of the intended argument of Income Inequality in the U.S. Jill Lepore uses strong evidence shown by the Gini Index(1). Which supports her stand on how Inequality in the U.S is raising and how U.S Citizens are unaware of the changes that have not yet been made that could inevitably improve the problem of Inequality in the U.S. Jill Lepore States that “Between 1947 and 1968, the U.S Gini Index dropped to .386, the lowest ever recorded. Then it began to climb”(1). Jill Lepore then tries to show the U.S Citizens that with all the statistics shown she is able to provide more effective proof that Inequality in America is on a rise. Furthermore, Jill Lepore uses examples of statistics in her essay “Richer and Poorer Accounting for Inequality” and demonstrate to Americans how efficient she is at using Logos. Using logos in this way strengthens her strategy to efficiently point out to U.S Citizens that the state's Inequality is becoming a bigger problem by the day.

Logos: It is an appeal to the mind with the use of logic, rationality and critical reasoning to persuade the audience. The author uses logos in his article to make a logical connection with the topic. For example, the author uses the explanation of ideas in the article and employs lots of diagrams in each parts of the topic to show the visualization to support his evidence which is very informative because the visuals give lots of information about what the article is about and that to get attention of the audience.

Income inequality is a big ongoing problem in the United States. It has a big effect on what America was all about, the American dream. The American dream that everyone is equal and has equal opportunities. Although a big part of what goes on in the Untied States that just doesn’t fit the American dream; women are unequal in the work place. They are put under what is known as the “Glass Ceiling”. Women do not get promoted in the work place and aren’t getting equal pay as men. This also leads to wag gap between the men and women. Both create income inequality for women and affect their American Dream. There is a long history of women having to deal with the “Glass Ceiling”. Over time woman have made progress but more progress is

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.

One of the social issues concerning power, status, and class in American society today is income inequality. The income gap between the social classes has increased drastically throughout the last few decades, creating a significant gap between the wealthy and the poor. This gap has become so large that the middle class has nearly diminished, creating a social class comprised of the rich and the poor. The significant gap between the two social classes is unhealthy for the economy because it provides too much power in the hands of those with high social status.

Income inequality has affected American citizens ever since the American Dream came to existence. The American Dream is centered around the concept of working hard and earning enough money to support a family, own a home, send children to college, and invest for retirement. Economic gains in income are one of the only possible ways to achieve enough wealth to fulfill the dream. Unfortunately, many people cannot achieve this dream due to low income. Income inequality refers to the uneven distribution of income and wealth between the social classes of American citizens. The United States has often experienced a rise in inequality as the rich become richer and the poor become poorer, increasing the unstable gap between the two classes. The

Currently there are many problems and flaws with the way the Canadian government’s policies deal with healthcare, income inequality and poverty. Time to time changes in policies have been made, perhaps to improve these issues, however, the gap between rich and poor keeps increasing and there is very little improvement in healthcare and the economy. In fact, healthcare keeps on becoming costly. Major issues like income inequality and poverty are not being taken care of by the government. According to Dr. Raphael (2002) poverty is caused by several reasons such as inequality in people’s income, weak social services and lack of other social supports (p.VI). He states, “Poverty directly harms the health of those with low incomes while income

Income inequality is a phenomenon that is undeniably real in our current world, and more specifically, the present United States. Canon describes how the gap between the elite and the poor has been consistently growing for many years and continues to widen (189). Whether the differences between the top and the bottom are a threat to current society is another story. Does income inequality undermine a democracy? Ray Williams argues that societies are strongest when they have a higher rate of equality while George Will challenges that inequality is the very basis of what make democratic processes. A. Barton Hinkle takes a Libertarian approach to the idea that inequality is threatening to democracy and how it can be fixed. Some threats that each article addressed were economic impacts, civility, and fairness. Overall, there is a definite need to evaluate whether the United States democracy is being threatened due to the continuous rise of the elites and the fall of the working class.