Issues Facing America

In the 21st century, America faces various threats and challenges to its authority as a growing world power. These threats and challenges help define America’s role as a growing world power in the 21st century. As a large nation, America faces a plethora of issues and continues to compete against other world powers. America today is plagued with various economic, social, political, and military problems, with little or no simple or practical solutions available.

Innovation has been a topic that has dominated the main conversation across many organizations. How can governments reshape their role and redesign the existing systems they have and renew the benefits from the creation and development of individual processes. The recession of 2008 has created opportunities and has demanded things be done differently. Gone are the times when problems are solved with endless resources and labor to work their way to a solution. The energy has been refocused to determine the best solution to the different array of issues facing any organization. The national debate has begun to reveal strategies that have reiterations of the most prominent theories and suggestions related to problem solving and a devotion to avoiding crisis. Municipality’s revenues have diminished, leadership and experienced workers have retired, and the push to change and progress is paramount, while assets and resources have been cut or are nonexistent. The key phrase of “doing more with less” has been engrained in every employee in the public sector who was fortunate enough to of avoiding the painful reduction in force policies that have contributed to the demise of the communities. These organizations have been cut deep and are left with employees that faced lost wages, decreasing financial securities and trust that represents the culture and values of these organizations. The changes necessary to reverse the demise of these organization demands collaboration and a change

Throughout this essay, I will be discussing what I believe to be the four most important problems facing the United States of America today. I will present these problems in order for most important, to least important. I will talk about how these problems came to be and discuss what my research stated. I will then give my reasoning for selecting each problem and discuss my ideas for correcting these problems.

From 1938-1969, in America was in a period called the great compression, a time where the difference between the richest and poorest Americans was very small and economic growth was explosive. Due to past and current economic policies and events, income inequality has exploded in America, which is why in 2015 America had the highest level of wealth inequality in the world at 80.56 gini[1] . In the future this inequality will slow down economic growth, increase debt for middle income Americans, make America less democratic, and reduce economic mobility. This problem, however, does have solutions and this paper will lay out some of the solutions and the effect they will have on the economy, but first I will explain the history of income inequality in the US.

What are the largest problems that plague America? Most would argue that issues such as mass hunger, climate change and poverty are the most prominent difficulties that the United States faces. While these things are important, and do have a great impact on the country, there is another large and often forgotten issue that faces America: childhood obesity. This nationwide problem is also directly harmful to the strength and conditioning industry. Physical education classes are failing to involve kids in the necessary amount of daily physical activity. Parents are lacking proactivity to get kids exercising. Food marketing is aggressively drawing children to junk food, and restaurants are failing to provide healthy food options for kids. Children in America today are fatter than they’ve been at any point in the history of humans. Childhood obesity is the largest problem facing the strength and conditioning industry because it causes severe physical, psychological and social problems later on in life; therefore it is imperative that children be educated on nutrition so that they can be knowledgeable viewers of modern day food marketing.

There is no doubt that wealth inequality in America has been escalating quickly; the portion of total income earned by the top one percent has doubled since the beginning of the 1970’s. The wealthy are the main beneficiaries

America faces a plethora of problems and issues on a daily basis. Let's face it, though many view us as superior to all other countries, we, as a nation, are far from a utopia. Because of our supremacy and power, we probably deal with more issues than any other country in the world. But, judging the importance of these issues is simply a matter of opinion. One can argue valid points for multiple issues as being the most important of all. In my opinion, third world immigration and the affects it has on America is the most important problem we face. Third world immigration into the United States of America has boosted poverty levels, put millions of Americans out of work, contributed to over 25 percent of the federal prison

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.

Today in America, income and wealth inequality has continued to grow at an unsettling pace. The rich continue to get richer, while the number of people categorized as lower class grows exponentially. As Joseph Stiglitz has explained, many theories that are seen as strongly Republican, such as the trickle-down effect, has caused the rich to take money from the poor, and as a result the lower class grows and the middle class disintegrates. The top 1 percent of America’s households currently holds 30 percent of America’s economy, which is much more than other first-world countries and helps to emphasize the extremity of inequality currently in America today. This increased inequality has in turn caused America to become a much more divided society; those born in poverty typically stay in poverty, with little to no chance of self-improvement due to a lack of education provided in their areas. In contrast, those that are born wealthy typically go to better schools, have better health care, and are all but spoon fed information on how to remain wealthy. These two sides of society almost never cross, and this causes the country to be more divided than ever. In order to limit this inequality, drastic changes must be made, such as large corporations paying their fair share of taxes and giving back to the lower class, and minimum wage should be raised. If everyone in America works together, we can raise social mobility and re-unite what has become an increasingly divided country.

I can assure you that if there were to be a vote in assessing whether the wealth distribution in America should be changed, the majority will abide for a change. In fact, most American’s don’t even realize the severity of the wealth distribution. When Americans were asked what they thought the wealth distribution in America was, ninety-two percent of Americans thought that the distribution was better than it actually is, where the rich were just about a hundred times better off than the poor when in reality the rich are about three hundred times better off than the poor and fifteen percent of the poor are below the poverty line

This “middle-class nation” is struggling to support all those who live in its borders and the misconceptions about wealth are vastly overrated. Furthermore, the idea of wealth and stability is incorrect, and there is a very sharp contrast between the rich and poor in the country. As the richest twenty percent of American hold ninety percent of the total household of the total household wealth in the country, those at the bottom have managed very poorly and suffer to get through the days.

Wealth is a privilege that too many people have. The top 20% of Americans owned 85% of the country's wealth and the bottom more of the population owned around 15 percent. The Recession also caused a drop in median household wealth , making the crack bigger between the upper and the lower class. The “debt-dependent economy,” has negative effects on the nation as a whole. But single families are suffering too.

Capitalism has been the central force behind the growth of the United States’ progressive economy. Within such advanced economic system the chances of economic disparity are significantly high. In fact, over the past three decades there has being a steady increase in unequal wealth distribution among the economic classes. To sustain the current unequal wealth distribution among the classes of the American population, there are numerous factors that influence and shape this trend. For some members of the population it is alarmingly disturbing to know that recent statistics have shown that, “In the US [alone] the wealthiest 1% of its population owns more than the bottom 95 %” (Gutman). As for the difference in economic wealth, it resulted

Over the past few decades, the “American Dream” vision has been quickly vanishing as a result of the increasing troubles and weakening of the middle class. It has lost the view of being the most successful and wealthy middle class in the world, while the middle classes in other countries are excelling in earning higher middle and lower class incomes. The issue of the declining wealth of the middle class explains a huge problem in the United States’ future prosperity and well being for the citizens and the country. There are many issues that affect the success of the middle and lower classes, such as structural differences in the economy, culture, and government. The gap between the middle and high classes is increasing specifically. The United States has the image of giving people life and prosperity, but inequality is increasing significantly due to issues in education, decrease in taxation among the upper class, and decrease of middle class power in the democracy, while other ideas and mechanisms can be take from other nations.

There are many inequalities prevalent in the US, and as a capitalist society, one of the most common is economic inequality. The Equality Trust defines economic inequality, as the gap between the well off and less well of in regards to overall economic distribution (“How Is”). See, our capitalist society strongly benefits those with a capitalist mentality and can afford the means to invest/own capital. Over the years there has been an increasing wealth gap between the top one percent earners and the general population. So why are the rich flourishing while the poor are struggling in this capitalist environment? The policy decisions of our country allow this inequality to permeate throughout our industries, thus creating a culture of power and greed. One result of this culture is the explosion of high salaries in the US and Emmanuel Saez explains this trend in Striking it Richer. Saez affirms, “Indeed, estimates based purely on wages and salaries show that the share of total wage and salaries earned by the top 1 percent wage income earners has jumped from 5.1 percent in 1970 to 12.0 percent in 2006” (Grusky 89). Too bad that the 99 percent of America missed out on this massive economic growth spurt. When economic growth is not evenly distributed among the general population, people tend to question our entire system. This has been an increasingly controversial issue, where corporate America is responsible for the constant exploitation of low-level employees. Through my