Income Inequality Issues

Abstractly, Global corporations have a key role to play in issues ranging from human rights to environmental policies. Specifically, corporations can be most effective in helping the poor by investing in local and global communities on a long-term basis rather than by acting as charities or aid agencies. However, to do so, corporations must restore the public 's trust. They must demonstrate that their presence, particularly in poorer countries and the emerging market economies, is a source of human progress. They must demonstrate that globalisation is not a zero-sum game in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In this regard, those who argue against globalisation are denying 1.5 billion people, who live in absolute poverty, the means of escape. To do nothing is morally unacceptable. The world is watching the corporate sector. This is a moment of great challenge, but also of great opportunity because if corporations can demonstrate that they are agents of progress, they can remove the doubts and renew the trust that is essential for both prosperity and security.

In Income Inequality: Too Big to Ignore, Robert H. Frank paints a picture to the reader about the struggles of pier pressure. For example: an upper-classmen chooses to buy a big house and fancy clothing. This acts as a “frame of reference” to the changes and norms of the society. If he spends money on something nice, a middle-classmen will then go and decide to do the same thing, and then a lower-classmen…all the way down the social hierarchy. This is what he calls an “expenditure cascade.” Robert relates this with a person’s downfalls, which can be traced due to lower income inequality. Income inequality basically means that in a given quantity, the dispersion of income is underlined by the gap between individuals and or households with

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 major problem that has been going on in America for decades. Many people feel that it barely exists today, but those people are very uneducated and don’t really care about the huge problem in front of them the many people that feel that way are highly uneducated, and seem to not really care about which has been gradually increasing instead of decreasing. 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: Upper Class, Upper Middle Class, Middle Class, Working Class, Poor. The highest percentage of Americans fall in the Poor department, and it has been that way for decades, and will continue to be that way for decades to come.

Income inequality is increasingly becoming a significant concern for many countries around the world. The income difference between the highly-educated, skilled, wealthy class and the poor, low to mid-skilled workers is growing larger and larger. In fact, the incomes of the rich are increasing significantly, while the low skilled workers’ incomes have been declining (The Economist, “Wealth Without Workers”). According to The Economist, real median wages have been decreasing since 2000 in half of the member countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In the United States, there was a 4% increase from 1980 to 2012 in the share of national income that was distributed to the top 0.01% (The Economist, “True Progressivism”). Canada is facing a similar problem of rising inequality.

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 income inequality amount all Americans is growing greater amount of stress on the everyday people. For instance, older populations are living longer which means they require medical attention more often because they’re getting weaker and venerable to the world. The ACA was passed to help all American receive coverage yet, problems like this still happen. Robyn Stone talks about how Medicare would have much benefit if they did communities housing for older families, keeping in mind the idea is that they should be able to live where they want too. Diane Rowland contradicts Stone by imploring her idea that states should close the Medicaid’s gap to give medical help for everyone and their need.

Inequality is not favorable in society. There is inequality in many aspects of our society, such as race, and gender. The main inequality we look at is income inequality in the United States. The one percent of the population control a vast majority of the United States currency. The Gini coefficient has been increasing ever since the Industrial Revolution, a period where education, manufacturing, and economics has shown growth. However, income inequality has increased in the Industrial Revolution. There are many events, and causes that have led to the rise of income equality in the United States.

Income inequality has been a major concern around the world, and it mainly links to how economic metrics are distributed among individuals in a country. Economists generally categorise these metrics in wealth, income and consumption. Wilkinson and Picket (2009) showed in their studies that inequality has drawbacks that lead to social problems. This is because income inequality and wealth concentration can hinder or delay long term growth. In 2011, International Monetary Fund economists showed that less income inequality increased the duration of countries’ economic growth spells more than free trade, low government corruption, foreign investment or low foreign debt (Berg and Ostry, 2011).

In “Inequality Has Been Going on Forever… but That Doesn’t Mean It’s Inevitable” by David Leonhardt, he responds to the issue of income inequality between the wealthy and the poor. He starts out with explaining that rising income inequality has been going on for so long that it is starting to look inevitable. Leonhardt then states that Thomas Piketty had wrote that income inequality has been a historical norm. Piketty also writes that the inequality has risen all throughout modern history, with some exceptions including wars and depressions. Leonhardt then begins to explain that even though something may seem natural or likely, it doesn’t mean something is inevitable. Leonhardt then states that the course of income inequality can be changed. He tells that along with wars and depressions, education can disrupt income inequality. I agree with David Leonhardt that income inequality is not an inevitability, and it is something that can be changed.

According to the OECD, the term inequality in the opposite of equity can be defined as evenness

There are three potential consequences of income and wealth inequality in the U.S discussed in the reading by Krueger. One consequence of the rise of inequality is that it makes it a struggle for those who are being born into low-income families to have the same equal opportunities as wealthier families to become successful in life. Children from high-income families have a higher advantage in ways that they are more likely to not only go to a good school and obtain their degrees but further extend that towards graduate schools with chances of promising careers. Growing up in an affluent family, the possibility of having a high-income as an adult is more attainable than an individual coming from a poor family who didn’t have the same privilege

One of the social issues concerning power, status, and class in American society today is income inequality. The income gap between the social classes has increased drastically throughout the last few decades, creating a significant gap between the wealthy and the poor. This gap has become so large that the middle class has nearly diminished, creating a social class comprised of the rich and the poor. The significant gap between the two social classes is unhealthy for the economy because it provides too much power in the hands of those with high social status.

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.

With the topic of income inequality becoming more prominent in the media, it is important to focus on the individuals who are taking the most advantage of this: CEOs of business firms. According to the Norton and Ariely (2011), “the top 1% of Americans hold nearly 50% of the wealth, topping even the levels seen just before the Great Depression in the 1920s.” Unfortunately, this number is only increasing with time as a result increasing the gap of average household income in the United States. To further examine pay deviation, it is important to understand the causes for this divergence. In the United States, the CEO of a company now makes 380 times the average worker’s pay in the company (Norton & Ariely, 2011). Therefore, does it mean that