Income Inequality
In the fall of 1976, the group ABBA released their hit Money, Money, Money. This song reflects on the working class individual working hard every day for what, to make money and pay the bills, fantasying what it would be like to be the rich man. Money is the driving force of our society and without money what would our world be like. Everyone wants money, everyone works for money, but are we being paid a fair dollar for what we do or is income inequality playing a role in our paycheck?
What is the definition of income inequality? Merriam Webster defines “income: as a gain or recurrent benefit usually measured in money that derives from capital or labor”. Merriam Webster also defines “inequality: as the quality of being unequal or uneven, disparity of distribution or opportunity, or the condition of being variable”. Combining these two definitions, income inequality may also be defined as the gap between what the CEO earns and the average worker earns working for the same company, the wage difference between a woman employee or a male employee, or the variance in wages of that of a white individual or a black individual.
…show more content…
Income inequality affects our society by stereotyping an individual based on their race or sexuality not based on their ability to perform the job. The pressure has always been on corporations to make the most money for the lowest amount of cost. The easiest method for a corporation to cut cost is to adjust the wages of their employees or outsource the jobs to countries that pay a lower wage to their employees. Katalin Botos notes in her article, Effects of Income Inequalities: Society and Economy, “Over the past two decades, wages and salaries have stagnated, or actually declined in the US” (384). This decline in wages or salaries has caused individuals to fall into a lower class and possible into a poverty
Income inequality has been a major issue in American history. There are many different factors that contribute to inequality. These include education, wealth, discrimination, ability, and monopoly power.
This article titled "How income inequality hurts America” written by Steve Hargreaves explains the thesis statement itself. On the other hand, he states it’s not just income equality but it’s also lifespan inequality, education inequality, and declining economic growth, which refers to the graphs shown above the starting paragraph. Mr. Hargreaves then points out a fact that the rich are getting richer, while the poor and the middle class are falling behind. Another fact concerning this issue is the 400 richest people outnumber the wealth of the bottom 150 million put together.
Income inequality describes the extent to which income is distributed unevenly among residents of an area. High levels of inequality indicate that a small number of people receive most of the total income, and that most people receive only a small share of the total. There are many advantages and disadvantages associated with the inequitable distribution of income.
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
Have you heard what McDonald’s employees’ are asking customers now days? Can you afford fries with that? According to the economist Emmanuel Saez, income inequality has been increasing steadily since the 1970s, and now has attained levels not seen since 1928 (Desilver). So what exactly is income inequality? Most of the time when people talk about income inequality, they usually are discussing the startling growth of the exceptionally rich, the stagnant salaries and diminishing prognoses of the American middle class, and the substantial amount of people at the base of the ladder (Zakaria).
“The United States income inequality has risen drastically since the 1970’s and has not been this high since 1928.” Economic inequality is the unequal differences in how assets, wealth, and income are dispersed among the people and different populations throughout the United States. It is often described as the gap between the rich and the poor.
The issue of income inequality in the United States is complicated and does not have a definite answer. Income inequality can be measured in a few different ways. The first measurement for the income inequality in a country is to look at the percentages on households and group them into income categories, called distribution by income category. The second measurement for income inequality is called distribution by quintiles or fifths. This is when you divide the total number of people, households, families into five groups called quintiles to examine the percentage of total before tax income received by each quintile. Each quintile would then be ordered by income and households in the category.
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
Inequality exists around us. One of the inequalities is the income received by a person or member of a family. This income includes wages, salaries, pensions, and interest derived from assets. Income inequality refers to the various income within a given population. This inequality is especially high in the United States.
First, we will look how income equality is distributed unequally throughout the rich and poor. Second, we will look how taxes are distributed between high-income and low-income families. Finally, we will look at how income inequality affects our society. Sadly, income inequality affects everyone except the rich and we need to do something about it so we can change our future.
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
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.
because it is established by nature, and which consist in the difference in age, health, strength of
In order to improve income inequality in the United States those who are part of the 400 people should reduce their salaries on their own(if possible) and give higher wages to the workers. Who needs millions of dollars for themselves? It is unnecessary and no one needs millions unless it is going towards something life changing that will change a lot more than someone's status.On the other hand, those who reside in the United States can go to any college and work their way up the economic scale. Education is the key to success unless you decide to take the entrepreneur route.
Innovative behavior is not only a key driver to boost countries' economies (Lee & Rodriguez-Pose, 2013) but also a key point to high performance organizations as it, for example, spurs more external focus and aggressive strategy (Dobni, 2010). However, the vulnerability of innovative behavior to socioeconomic condition such as income inequality remains widely undiscussed despite the fact that scholars have acknowledged the inauspicious impact of income inequality on society. To provide information on the interest of scholars on the topic of income inequality, Pickett & Wilkinson (Pickett & Wilkinson, 2015), for example, showed that more than 300 peer-reviewed articles examined about such relationship so far.