Economic Inequality In America Essay

Income Inequality in America is a problem that’s been going on for decades, and many feel that it hardly exists, the many people that feel that way are highly uneducated, and seem to not really care about this tremendous problem that in one’s eyes really has no end in the near future, in fact it has been gradually rising and one feels that it’s just not fair. Unfortunately, there’s not much that can be done, only of course if the poor class of people decide to actually educate themselves and get a higher education. One says poor class, simply because that’s how they’re classified. There are five types of levels that Americans are classified as, and they are: 1. Upper Class, 2. Upper Middle Class, 3. Middle Class, 4. Working Class, 5. Poor.

In the United States, there is a imaginary finish line wanting to be met by its people. Living like the privileged strives people towards working harder to meet that goal, but the amount of hard work being invested into the bigger picture does not really mean you will make it. It is shown that a low percentage of the average hard working person meets the one percent that owns more than half the money circulated within the U.S (Beeghley 2008). Social mobility, where it all begins is taken into account from the day a person is born based on the social class their parent or parents are under or above on the ladder.

In the previous 20 years, the middle class population has shrunk drastically mostly as an aftereffect of past political

The population of the middle class has been diminishing incessantly, meaning that eventually the social classes will be narrowed down to strictly lower and upper class. Statistics from GALE Database displays, that the wealth of upper-income families has over doubled their income from 1983 to 2013, from approximately $323,402 to $650,074. Not only did the wealth of upper-income families have doubled, but the median wealth of middle-income families have been minimized from $161,050 in the year of 2007 to $98,000 in 2013. This has dramatically damaged the lower and middle class, leaving a multitudinous amount of Americans questioning if the American Dream is still possible

We have gone from the basics in life as our American Dream, to wanting more than what we could ever have. Fundamentally, the American Dream is about ensuring success for every person in the country. Success not being the newest car or highest paying job, but equal opportunities to achieve goals and contribute to the well-being of society. The Declaration of Independence ensures the freedom of the nation, while the American Dream protects the rights to improve life, despite what social class a person is in. The American Dream was ideal for those in poverty because they knew if they were dedicated to working hard, they could transition from dirty poor to filthy rich. Just the idea of someday, being somewhere better allowed early entrepreneurs

According to Goff (2014), Americans are beginning to challenge the ideas of the American Dream. There is still a very potent societal pressure on Americans to chase some version of a dream many may not even want, but have simply been told to pursue their whole lives. The American Dream is dead because no one cares about it anymore. So who cares about making it big anymore. As long as you live a joyous life and can support yourself, that is all that

Wealth has been heavily retained among a small fraction of the population thus, the fluidity between classes has become so viscous and arguably stagnant. As Noam Chomsky puts it in Requiem for the American dream, it has become more of a cycle right now; one where the rich are the only ones capable of wielding power or leadership and once that level is attained, they work policies and laws in their favor at the expense of the masses. In the long run, the rich get richer and the poor also get poorer. The dynamics of this system and the current political atmosphere has led many to ask if the American dream is still

From the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, the United States of America witnessed the arrival of millions of immigrants. "Most of them were natives of Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe, Slavs and Italians looking for a better life and Jews fleeing from oppressive ghettos" (Kubic 4). It is estimated that during that period millions of immigrants crossed Ellis Island, the so-called door to America, upon their arrival at the seaport of New York. Throughout history the United States has been characterized as a country that provides new life opportunities. It was founded under the ideals of the Founding Fathers that provides its citizens liberty, equality, opportunity, democracy, and rights. Thus, it has become the haven for immigrants around the world.

Then most americans dream with financial freedom; by contrast, the cost of living that is rapidly increasing more than the income of individual brings multiple problems.The minimum wage is not enough to survive in society. For example in the documentary the Schenk family who have been working for 30 years in their restaurant. The Schenk are hoping to retire soon, but they are leaving off their retirement plan. The higher cost of living make that they do see the end of their jobs. Then they went into the forest where they built a little cabin and made it their home. They have not security about their economic future because they have a

The United States is known for the American Dream. The belief of this was that every citizen, no matter the class, rights, race, or gender, should have the same opportunities to succeed. People wanted to start their own business, get an education, start a family, and pay to send them off to college. The motto went from, “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” from the Ford administration to “success is not given, it is earned” which was created during Obama’s presidency. This dream has become increasingly difficult to achieve over the past few years, unless you are one of the top 1% super wealthy citizens. Corporations have been attempting to take control of the government and to make sure that they stay on top while everyone else struggles to

In the United states, the top 10% makes approximately $90,000 more than the average American (The New York Times.). A controversial belief regarding that wage gap revolves around the idea that people are only capable of joining the top 10% of wage earners when they are born into wealthy families themselves. However, others would argue that with enough hard work and continuity almost anyone in America could earn wages far higher than any of their predecessors. After all, the American Dream is to come from an average or poor family and make something more for oneself. Many people have given up hope in that dream believing that the only way to get ahead is to have the right connections

Such a diverse influx of people had never occurred in US history prior to this time period. Immigrants arrived not only from northern and western European nations, such as Germany, France, and Ireland, but also from Italy, Eastern Europe, Canada, and the Far East. Their motives for seeking a new home were as varied as the places from which they had come.

The last report of the Census Bureau from 2015 shows that while the poverty rate for the population as a whole was 13.5%, the rate varied greatly by age, sex and race. Nearly 20% of children under age 18 were poor in 2015, compared to 12.4% of people ages 18-64 and 8.8% of people ages 65 and older. Therefore, around 14.5 million children–one in five–were in poverty status in 2015 and represented 33.6% of the people in poverty. Approximately 45% of poor children lived in extreme poverty, defined as an annual income of less than half the poverty level, and the youngest children had the highest poverty rates (21.4% of infants, toddlers and preschoolers) [1]. Children who are born into poverty and live persistently in poor conditions are at greatest risk of adverse health outcomes. However, even short-term spells of poverty can expose children to hardships, such as food insecurity, housing

What Most of the American population wants in life is wealth, it's been like that in the past

In “Lazarus, Emma (1849-1887)” Emma Lazarus’s writes in her sonnet “the New Colossus”, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” (Par. 1). Engraved within the Statue of Liberty, the icon of freedom, this sonnet defines the country of the United States. Even before its independence from Britain, the America was vastly recognized as the land of opportunity for those seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Emigrating by the thousands, many immigrants, both in the past and in the present, have made their way into this country to obtain the American concept of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It was not long until the United States quickly turned into a melting pot that welcomed