How Social Inequality Is Too Much?

Inequality happens when our social status interferes with who we know. For example, it’s harder for a person who grew up in the lower class to get ahead because it is not likely for one to know many who have successfully climbed to the top. It is also hard for people with lower status to know those with a higher status because the two groups do not typically associate with each other.

This is important because inequality causes unrest and brings about interminable turmoil which can eventually lead to a collapse of a regime or a state. If every human being is given equal opportunities then the outcome after those opportunities were presented, whether it was success of failure, fully rests upon the individual’s shoulders. In case of failure, the government or any other individual would not be held accountable.

"How Economic Inequality Harms Societies." Richard Wilkinson:. TED Talks, July 2011. Web. 26 Feb. 2015.

The last issue concerning wealth inequality is the health and well being of the lower class. The high rates of social problems: lower rates of performance in school, life expectancy, incarceration, teenage pregnancy along with health problems like obesity and heart disease are directly effected by the United States high inequality. The reason for poor school performance is that children of the lower class typically do not plan on going to college because they cannot afford it. If they do not plan on going to college, they don’t believe there is a reason to put a lot of effort and succeed in high school.

Poverty and inequality have virtually plagued every country on the planet, including our own wealthy, free, and developed nation. Poverty is when people lack certain resources to meet basic living requirements. Inequality can be equated as the different levels of wealth, opportunities, and resources given to different groups of people. While white people do suffer from poverty, minorities are impacted by poverty and inequality on a much larger scale. Although there are far more white Americans in our country, poverty among African Americans is almost three times the percentage of white Americans in poverty. Overall, poverty affects more than 40 million people in the United States alone. Both poverty and inequality hinder the ability of these 40 million people to provide for their family and pay for housing, food, and living necessities. From my understanding, poverty and inequality are interrelated.

Research indicates that high inequality reverberates through societies on multiple levels, correlating with, if not causing, more crime, poorer mental and physical health (Williams, R., 2011). This can be attributed to the large income gap that the U.S has currently.

When people have imbalanced access to work, housing, healthcare, ownership, education, et cetera, inequality is present. Inequality affects everyone in the world and comes from people’s fears of one another and other people’s opinions.

Inequality is ubiquity in our world, most people are looking at the downside or the surface of this phenomenon. In fact, that inequality is the drive of historical and social progress.

Inequality is one of the biggest problems facing our country today. The wealthiest 1% of Americans have as much financially as the poorest 50% of Americans. Many people in this country are working hard every day and are barely able to make ends meet. The voice of the poorest in this country is being ignored in favor of the voice of the wealthy. Most Americans do not desire to be poor but they are not given the chance and the resources to overcome poverty.

Inequities in wealth, power, resource and quality of life are rising in the United States and globally people suffer from a low SES such as lower education, and healthcare, ultimately affect everyone in the society but the elite class. This impacts the lives of many ethnic and racial minorities who are discriminated and ignored making it real hard to decrease the deep gap between both classes.

Inequality has and continues to be an issue in the world. Whether its gender, social, political, or inequality of class, the problem of vast inequality is a reoccurring issue, that I predict will be an issue that will never be fixed. Several authors over the years have attempted to describe the issue and come up with a solution, such as Emmanuel Sieyes and Herbert Spencer.

In addition, the resources in a society are unevenly distributed. An example of this is, the wealth distribution in the United States, where the top twenty percent have seventy-two percent of the wealth of the country, and the bottom twenty percent only control about three percent, that is a great deal of inequality (Inequality.org, 2017). When social inequality comes to mind, we often think about our society and how it is structured into different classes. One way we do this is by labeling classes by labeling society as containing the upper class, the working class, the middle class, and the lower class. These class

Inequality is a social condition in which people don’t have equal access to different sources, services and positions in the society. Since the beginning of our existence we have seen inequality throughout the history of world. For example, we saw it through the Colonization process, when power defined race, and we have witnessed how the human being took advantage of this with native communities. For example, when the conquistadors came into the new discovered lands they felt in power because of somehow they had weapons, they felt superior, and they took advantage of the poor native, that all that wanted it was welcomed them. According to Jared Diamond, the roots of inequality in the division of the world within haves and have-nots was

Social inequality is defined as the unequal distribution of social and economical resources. There are unequal opportunities and rewards for different social positions and statuses within a group or society. Because there is social inequality, people have less life chances meaning less educational and occupational opportunities, which prevents movement on the social ladder. This gives authority to the rich because the rich own the means of production, giving capitalists the power to exercise it by exploiting the poor working class. An individual interest and not that of a community drive the rich. Such differences degrade and stigmatize the social class with less money and opportunities causing social stratification.

Inequality in the society has been an issue since the history of the universe and as we think we are bridging the gap between the rich and the poor we always find out that it is as a wide as it was. The poor will always exist in the society as the inferior group while the rich are the superiors who control various aspects and sectors of the society.