Income And Assets Inequality: A Case Study

Murray, Harry. "Deniable Degradation: The Finger-Imaging Of Welfare Recipients." Sociological Forum 15.1 (2000): 39. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 May 2013.

Each year income increases in the United States. Economic inequality and political inequality may have a connection where our democracy could be affected but americans have the ability to solve this problem. Economic inequality refers to wealth or income between different groups or a society as a whole. There have been past social movements that have tried to improve this problem such as women's suffrage and more. We are still trying to resolve this issue of economic inequality.

In today’s capitalist economy, where economic transactions and business in general is centered on self-interest, there is a natural tendency for some people to make more than others. That is the basis for the “American Dream,” where people, if they worked hard, could make money proportional to their effort. However, what happens when this natural occurrence grows disproportional in its allocation of wealth within a society? The resulting issue becomes income inequality. Where a small portion of the population, own the majority of the wealth and the majority of the population own only a fraction of what the rich own. This prominent issue has always been the subject of social tension

Wealth inequality in the United States has grown tremendously since 1970. The United States continuously reveals higher rates of inequality as a result of perpetual support for free market capitalism. The high rates of wealth inequality cause the growing financial crisis to persist, lower socio-economic mobility, increase national poverty, and have adverse effects on health and well being.

Income and wealth inequality refers to the degree to which income is unevenly distributed among people in an economy. The share of total income received by different groups measures inequality, this visually represented in the Lorenz curve. The line of perfect equality bisects the graph with the percentage of income

In any given population, there is a difference between what people within the population earn. The uneven distribution of income in any given population is income inequality. In order for there to be income, there has to be several sources of income. These sources of income may be combinational or independent per person receiving the income. Income may result from wages, rent, bank account interests, salaries or even profits made in business transactions ( Stiglitz, 2012).

The sociological views of functionalist and conflict theorist on stratification and economic inequality have had profound impact on the current economic discussion. In the past, economist have argued that wealth inequality is essential for “economic strength and social stability. [5] That wealth inequality “is needed to reward hard work, talent and innovation”. [6] However, in recent years, many economist have come to the conclusion that extreme wealth inequality, can lead to economic stagnation and social instability. What degree of

Income Inequality in the United States has been a problem for decades. Since the year 1913 the gap in income inequality between the rich and poor in the U.S. has widened and has been a hot topic for debate. The rich keep getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Thomas Pogge a German philosopher and a professor at Yale University argue that we live in a world where income and wealth are very unevenly distributed throughout society, thus leading to widespread poverty. Amartya Sen an Indian economist and philosopher of Bengali ethnicity argues that really freedoms should be both the ends and means of human development. Robert Reich a professor at Berkeley University and former secretary of labor under Bill Clinton, makes an fluent and impassioned

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 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

A major social problem in America today is its inequality of the distribution of income. "Income inequality refers to the gap between the rich and the poor. The United States has the most unequal income distribution in the industrialized world, and it is growing at a faster rate than any other industrialized country" (Eitzen & Leedham, pg. 37). The main reason as to why income is distributed so unequally is because of the gap between social classes.

Income redistribution refers to the concept of transferring income from the wealthy individuals to the less wealthy individuals through social mechanisms such as monetary policies, charity, welfare, land reforms, and taxation among others. Income redistribution affects the entire economy rather than selected groups of individuals. The concept of income redistribution emanates from the existence of income inequalities within an economy. Income inequality depicts a gap between the highest and the lowest income earners in an economy (Tullock 13). Income inequality is sometimes considered appropriate in societies since it acts as an incentive in free market economies, whereby in the absence of inequality, elements of economic stagnation and lack of enterprise would emerge. Conversely, income inequality is criticized on the basis of introducing contributing towards the development of key problems in the society, including progression of poverty levels. This paper seeks to explore the concept of income redistribution and its key pros and cons.

In recent years, one of the major concerns of economic development is the study of poverty, the income distribution and growth in the less developed countries (LDC’s) or Third World countries. Economists from all over the world have been doing researches and studies on how to induce a growth in those underdeveloped countries. However, countries differentiate in historical backgrounds, cultural believes and natural resources. As a result, the government would implement different strategies to attain a much fairer distribution of income among the society. The relationship between the income distribution and growth in the LDC’s is a significant factor that would affect

This essay’s results present that inequality decreases as financial development. Although there are some weak evidence suggests that there is an inverted U shaped linkage between income distribution and financial development.