Causes Of Income Inequality In South Africa

Income inequality is on the rise and it is evident in most cities throughout the United States. There are individuals with six to seven figure incomes and then there are individuals whose income is just enough to get by. The middle class is not as prominent as the upper and lower class. This should be the other way around. There should not be so many cities with very wealthy neighborhoods right next door to low class, rundown neighborhoods, with little middle class households. Digging deeper, 47.6% of the money in the United States belongs to individuals that receive $98,200 or more (“Distribution of U.S. family income”, 101). The middle class should be much more noticeable with the upper and lower

Americans today live in a distinctly unequal society. Inequality is now wider than it used to be in the last century, and the division in income, wages, and wealth are broader than they are in other developed economies of the world. Wealth inequality is the imbalance of wealth or income within a society, and it is one of the most vital economic challenge the US is facing today because the distribution of wealth is more dispersed, making the inequality in wealth distribution at its highest. While the matter has been discussed for many years, the actual income disparity in the U.S. has heightened and is now verging on an extreme gap that portends to impede long-term economic growth. The huge gap between the wealthy and poor is squeezing the U.S. economy, the wealth gap threatens economic growth by diminishing social mobility and producing a less-educated workforce who are not able to compete in the global economy. unrestrained level of income inequality causes political pressures, it discourages trade, investment, and hiring. The present level of income inequality in the U.S. is shrinking GDP growth, and the world's largest economy is struggling to recover from the Great Recession.

South Africa’s largest sport is rugby. They will have grand festivals before and after each big game. Instead of baseball, they play cricket. Hunting is also a big sport in South Africa; some of the game they hunt include deer, which are described to be enormous compared to the deer in the United States, rhino, and buffalo. On some highways you will see wild animals strolling down the side and across the roads, including lions, leopards, rhinos, elephants and buffalo. I could not imagine seeing wildlife like that in our everyday surroundings! Lions, leopards and elephant are of course, illegal to hunt. They also celebrate Woodstock, just as we do in the US.

Income inequality has been an ongoing issue that has affects many American citizens for decades. Some Americans are more affected by income inequality than other Americans. This is an unfortunate fact, but there seems to be no easy solution and it seems it is getting worse. American citizens are losing hope in the system, and their voices screaming for change that benefits all, are rarely heard.

Poverty and income inequality is an enormous obstacle in which certain Americans may face daily. Poverty refers to economic or income deprivation (Iceland 2006). Some may refer to poverty as having material hardships, or having one’s income and assets compared against a standard. If an individual’s income falls below the standard, they’re considered “poor” (Newman and O’Brien 2011). Poverty may be currently measured in two common ways, either through an absolute measure or relative. The poverty measure I am proposing would be looking at “family/couple/household” as the unit of analysis, cost of food, childcare, housing, and transportation as scale of resources, and the threshold will be using a more relative dimensional perspective.

There’s no denying that there are social classes in America. At the top there are the billionaires, and residing at the bottom are those that don’t have a roof over their head. The cause of this huge difference in living is due to income inequality. The gap between the levels is only getting worse. In fact, because of this the middle class is beginning to disappear. However, we can prevent this from happening by placing a strong focus on education, creating more jobs for Americans, and increasing the federal minimum wage.

“Income inequality has no necessary connection with poverty, the lack of material resources for a decent life, such as adequate food, shelter, and clothing. A society with great income inequality may have no poor people, and a society with no income inequality may have nothing but poor people” - Robert Higgs. When people think of income inequality they picture poverty and people not having basic necessities. However income inequality is not just a connection to the poor. Income inequality is strongly affected by education attainment, technology, and gender.

The county of South Africa is an economically flourishing country and probably the most advanced country on the continent of Africa. However the entire continent of Africa is probably the most undeveloped part of the world. Why is South Africa so different from the rest of its continent? Karen Politis Virk explains that it is because of South Africa’s developed economy and diverse population (Virk 40). South Africa has three main ethnic groups: African, Afrikaners, and the mixed race. The Afrikaners and mixed races have many roots to Europe and Asia giving the nation even more diversity and a culture melting pot. This set the nation apart from the rest of the African nation in which the majority of the residents are of native African

People are not able to make enough money in order to make a living. The government does try to help out and create programs for those in poverty to benefit from them. Yet people are still in poverty. Even though efforts have been made, it has failed and still is not working. “Americans like to think that this country is the land of opportunity and that any individual who really wants to escape poverty can do so if they “just try hard enough” (pull themselves up by their bootstraps, as it were). (1)” What people fail to understand is that no one tries to find out what is it that causes “poverty”. Solutions are only thought of, but that does not get to the core. Money is an issue for people where they are not able to afford what it is they need. Even health care costs

The country South Africa is located at the very tip of the continent Africa. South Africa is most known for its former president Nelson Mandela, along with its gold reserves, Kruger National Park and minerals and gems. South africa is bordered by Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe. It is also surrounds the kingdom of Lesotho.

During the apartheid in South Africa, those being oppressed had very few choices, to silently take the oppression, to revolt, or to kiss up to the colonists. In the town of Soweto students chose to revolt against the oppression, because of this many lives were lost but the events of that day helped to forever free South Africa. From the writings of Steve Biko, we know that he fully agree with the students decided to revolt. He wanted to unify South Africa against the oppressor.

“The reasons poverty rates remain high despite the [economic] recovery has to do with wage decline and failure of the “safety net” i.e, the government systems of taxes and transfers designed

Owing to South Africa's historical and socio-cultural development, its present population is extremely heterogeneous. There are a number of different languages and dialects spoken on the mines, hence resulting in vast socio-cultural differences in the mining environment. In addition to these problems, destructive legislation in the past has led to the overutilization of whites in supervisory positions.

The largest faiths practiced in South Africa are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, traditional African religions, and Judaism. Most of these religions were brought over though European and

Currently in South Africa there is an increased amount of poverty, as South Africa’s current poverty rate is sitting at twelve million people (Dailymaverick.co.za, 2017).Whilst one of the major advantages, that was previously discussed, of Utilitaria is the lack of poverty in the society (Lukes 2009: 52). Poverty only gets worse in South Africa as fewer job opportunities become available and the price for education increases. Utilitaria in contrast, has no issues of unemployment since all utilitarians strive for achieving maximum utility, whilst all also receive equal opportunity which has not yet been achieved in South Africa. In the State of the Nation Address (SONA), President Jacob Zuma highlighted that one of the key issues the South African economy is facing is that there are small groups of people that control majority of the economy which leads to a high level of inequailty, therfore by using Utilitarian ideas we can create an equal opportunity for everyone,