Joseph Stoiglitz The Great Divide Summary

In the United States, high standard of living is not equally shared with in the Americans. The 1970s and 1990s was period where economic inequality began to grow. Emmanuel Saez, an economics professor at UC Berkeley has been doing a research for the U.S. income inequality. He states that there has been an increase since the 1970s, and has reached levels that have not been seen since 1928. “In 1928, the top 1% of families received 23.9% of all pretax income, while the bottom 90% received 50.7%. But the Depression and World War II dramatically reshaped the nation’s income distribution, by 1944 the top 1%’s share was down to 11.3%, while the bottom 90% were receiving 67.5%, levels that would remain more or less constant for the next three decades. But starting in the mid- to late 1970s, the uppermost percent income share began rising dramatically, while that of the bottom 90% started to fall.”(DeSilver) Ever since then, economic inequality continues to increase, especially in the last three decades.

In other words, America has a widening gap between its wealthy and poor. As the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, there is a problem emerging: the disappearance of the middle class. Low-wage workers continue to fall behind those who make higher wages, and this only widens the gap between the two. There has been an economic boom in the United States, which has made the country more prosperous than it has ever been. That prosperity does not reach all people; it seems to only favor the rich. Rising economic segregation has taken away many opportunities for the poor to rise in America today. The poor may find that the economic boom has increased their income; however, as their income increase so does the prices they must for their living expenses (Dreier, Mollenkopf, & Swanstrom 19).

Stiglitz identifies dwindling opportunity, monopoly power and tax treatment, and the investments of the government as the effects from manipulating the economy to exclusively benefit the top 1%. The societal impact becomes clear when the author states that the ultimate price is the “erosion of our sense of identity,” which includes “fair play, equality of opportunity, and a sense of community” because a majority of people realize the importance of these topics related to the success of themselves and their country (Stiglitz, “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%”). The article concludes with the significance of paying attention to common welfare as a “precondition for one’s own ultimate well-being” that the top 1% have a history of failing to grasp before meeting their

The view that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer has been heard repeatedly in reference to America’s income inequality. Though ironic, it comes as no surprise that America, a continent that easily trumps other countries in terms of wealth would be affected by the issue of poverty at such high levels. While much has said regarding the poverty levels, many economists, educators and scholars feel that the income inequality in America may be the reason why it is difficult to live and maintain a middle class lifestyle or to rise out of poverty into the middle class in the current economic state. With this in mind, the only way America, has a chance of lessening or eliminating poverty altogether is by understanding how it exists.

In Paul Krugman’s essay, “Confronting Inequality,” he discusses various points about how America has developed into quite the divided country over the years. The United States of America has become unequal in terms of annual income, living standards, education and school districts, politics, and social standards, just to name a few. Several matters of combatting the injustice faced by the nation are also mentioned. All of Krugman’s points revolve around one central question, being “why should we care about high and rising inequality?” (Graff, Birkenstein, Durst 561). I believe inequality truly does raise concerning problems within our society, but it also may be a positive thing for our people. Extreme equality could, in turn, result in a communistic government in which those who work into overdrive earn the same titles as those who do not.

Living in a society that does not help its people to live comfortably and provide facilities for them to achieve their demands, is harmful. One of these harmful affections is “social inequality” in each diverse society. Social inequality occurs when resources in each society are distributed unevenly, typically through norms of allocation, that engender specific patterns along lines of socially defined categories of persons. The United States contains one of the most common social inequalities for its population and that is “social stratification and mobility” and the government should strictly investigate this social inequality for people who are living in the United States.

Wealth inequality in the United States has grown tremendously since 1970. The United States continuously reveals higher rates of inequality as a result of perpetual support for free market capitalism. The high rates of wealth inequality cause the growing financial crisis to persist, lower socio-economic mobility, increase national poverty, and have adverse effects on health and well being.

Her argument and reasoning within the essay talks about how economic inequality is “widely known and widely studied” (1). She persuades her readers with many convincing facts and research that contribute to her argument that economic inequality in the United States is nearing its breaking point (2). Jill Lepore writes about the Gini index and how we have been using this method for a hundred years to measure economic inequality and writes “In 2013, the U.S. Census Bureau reported a Gini index of .476” (1). Jill Lepore argues “The growth of inequality isn’t inevitable. But, insofar as Americans have been unable to adopt measures to reduce it, the number might seem to suggest that the problem doesn’t lie with how Americans treat one another’s kids, as lousy as that is. It lies with Congress” (10). She clearly states that even with this knowledge Americans still have made no changes and are incapable of decrease the inequality as it grows within the United States but are willing to blame other things instead of the real issue.

Jill Lepore shows strong evidence of Inequality in The United States by using Logos as a dominant resource in her essay. Readers can see that she is able to support her claims by using statistics to improve her knowledge of the intended argument of Income Inequality in the U.S. Jill Lepore uses strong evidence shown by the Gini Index(1). Which supports her stand on how Inequality in the U.S is raising and how U.S Citizens are unaware of the changes that have not yet been made that could inevitably improve the problem of Inequality in the U.S. Jill Lepore States that “Between 1947 and 1968, the U.S Gini Index dropped to .386, the lowest ever recorded. Then it began to climb”(1). Jill Lepore then tries to show the U.S Citizens that with all the statistics shown she is able to provide more effective proof that Inequality in America is on a rise. Furthermore, Jill Lepore uses examples of statistics in her essay “Richer and Poorer Accounting for Inequality” and demonstrate to Americans how efficient she is at using Logos. Using logos in this way strengthens her strategy to efficiently point out to U.S Citizens that the state's Inequality is becoming a bigger problem by the day.

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.

Throughout the article, Stiglitz approaches the topic of the 1% and how that prestigious group rarely tries benefiting anyone besides his or her self. Joseph Stiglitz gets that point across and explains it well within his article. The topic of the 1% only benefiting his or her self is extensively explained in the statement about the rich not caring about common problems. The rich has a large sum of money that they could invest into infrastructure, education, war and technology, but the upper 1% does not want to do that because it does benefit that group enough. I

America is one of the world’s largest and prosperous developed countries in the world, but take a closer look and you realize that the great United States of America has an alarmingly large amount of poverty. Where there once used to be an “American Dream” there now lies the cold hard truth, there is less and less opportunity every day and growing inequality every second. Joseph E. Stiglitz how America has turned into a country that would be unrecognizable to any of the founding fathers. In The Price of InequalityStiglitz visits this problem and searches for the source of the economic inequality that the United States is faced with today. Stiglitz came to the conclusion that America is declining and turning into a society like the one

A major social problem in America today is its inequality of the distribution of income. "Income inequality refers to the gap between the rich and the poor. The United States has the most unequal income distribution in the industrialized world, and it is growing at a faster rate than any other industrialized country" (Eitzen & Leedham, pg. 37). The main reason as to why income is distributed so unequally is because of the gap between social classes.

Both wealthy and powerful people often take part in deviant behavior. These wealthy or powerful people are in a lot of ways similar to the average people in the fact that people are all the same wealthy or not. Most people have similar motives in life. Not everyone is the same yet different classes of people share many similarities. One theory called the social conflict theory stated by, (Karl Marx) explains that people of wealth and people in power are often looked upon by others. These people can set examples for many others to see and follow. Although there is no class system in the United States there is often, unfortunately, a clear line between the classes of people. People such as politicians who are often paid well and in a position

The country of Denmark is widely regarded as one of the least economically unequal Western nations. Contrastingly, the United States is among one the most unequal advanced nations. The general trend of inequality in Denmark was downward from the late 1800s to the 1970s, followed by general stability since the 1980s (Atkinson & Søgaard, 2016, pp. 266 & 282). American inequality is characterized by large increases in the income gap in the late 1800s and early 1900s, followed by a massive decrease during and after the Great Depression and until the mid-1970s (Saez, 2016, pp. 9). This increase in economic equality was known as the Great Compression, and eventually gave way to the Great Divergence in early 1980s, when the share of the national income