Sklar and the Economist: Inequality in America

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).

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.

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

The issue of income inequality is a reoccurring theme in Maria Konnikova’s article “America’s Surprising Views on Income Inequality” as well as Barbara Ehrenreich’s memoir Nickel and Dimed. To commence, Konnikova writes about the rapid growing gap between the rich and the poor. In particular, she elucidates, “Income inequality has grown by record amounts since the 2008 recession: between 2009 and 2012, incomes for the top one per cent of the population rose by more than thirty per cent, while those for the rest of the country-the bottom ninety-nine per cent-increased by less than half of one per cent” (Konnikova 1). Clearly, it is difficult for low-class individuals to make enough money to support themselves and their families. Furthermore,

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.

We hope for a prosperous future and fear poverty for ourselves and our future generations. In “Poverty in America: Trends and Explanations”, they show statistics representing poverty through the Census Bureau and Current Population Survey data. The definition of poverty given by the Census Bureau is based on families pretax money income compared to the family size and age composition. In the United States groups of people are more likely to live in poverty based on factors such as gender, race and ethnicity, and level of education. The statistics show that men are more likely to have greater wealth than women, especially if the woman is not married. African Americans and Hispanics are nearly three times more likely to struggle from poverty than whites. Immigrants are also more likely to live in poverty than native born citizens. Education also plays an important role seeing as 31.3 percent of families where the head of the family has less than a high school education live in poverty (Hoynes, Page, Stevens

In 2013, President Obama asserted that the growing income gap in the United States is a “defining challenge of our time”. Economic inequality consistently ranks amongst the greatest concerns of voters and is the subject of growing national and international attention. As such, explorations of rising inequality are not new. Where the readings are revelatory, however, is in their efforts to expose the fallacy that economic distribution, be it the hyper-concentration of wealth at the top or the existence of poverty at the bottom, is ‘natural’, nothing more than an economic reality caused by ‘inevitable shifts in [the] economy driven by global, universal pressures’ (Hacker & Pierson, 4). Instead, the authors posit that economic inequality is ‘largely a product of political decisions and institutions that generate and sustain a sharply unequal distribution of wealth and resources’ (Williams, 569).

The wealth gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow in America as it has in recent decades. Wealth distribution in America has not been this unequal since 1928, the year before the Great Depression started. The richest four hundred people in America have more money than the one hundred fifty million poorest Americans combined. The wealth gap needs to shrink due to the negative repercussions of wealth inequality. Wealth inequality leads to inequality in other aspects of life. Uneven distribution of wealth stunts economic growth as well as limits socio economic mobility. It also leads to a shorter lifespan for the less wealthy.

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

Isabel V. Sawhill wrote an article in 2008 titled “Poverty in the United States”. She talks about how poverty

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

The growing disparity in income and wealth between the richest Americans and “the rest of us” is very much in the news these days. Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel-prize winning economist, has been writing about economics for a very long time. This book brings together short pieces that appear in publications such as Vanity Fair and the New York Times warning the dangers of inequality as long ago as 2007. This book is in nine sections. Each of the nine sections of the book is preceeded by a lengthy introduction providing an overview of the topic of that section. The first section he calls a Prelude because it discusses the 2007-2008 recession and the response to it that built the backround for the increasing inequality seen today. The middle

“The reasons poverty rates remain high despite the [economic] recovery has to do with wage decline and failure of the “safety net” i.e, the government systems of taxes and transfers designed

“We may have an 8.3% unemployment rate, but I know of plenty of McDonald’s and Walmart stores that are always hiring. The bottom line is, we’re all wealthy in America compared to most of the world.”(Freeman 153). I find no truth in that. Destitution in the in the States is real and preserves at an unarguably huge measure that is variant throughout America, and higher measure is among older adults, women, individuals under the age of eighteen and people of color. Close to 13.3%, Americans operate below the poverty line despite the fact that the US is the wealthiest country around the globe according to the 2012-2014 American Survey. This statistic incorporates 25.8% of Native Americans, 14.6% of women 18.3% of children under eighteen and 25.3% of African-Americans, according to the U.S. Census Bureau 2015.

Many Americans believe that America has one of the most powerful economies that is involved in the global market and the best average living standards. Since the creation of the United States it has been known as the land of endless opportunities, regardless of social or economic classes. Under this philosophy, all citizens should have equal rights and given equal opportunity to progress in the workforce. However many Americans are living full lives and do not have financial obstacles to get over. Even so, millions of Americans are still faced with poor living conditions and struggle with providing for their families basic needs. Whether Americans believe poverty and inequality exist in America exists or not, the authors in three different articles:” Culture of Success” by Brink Lindsey, “A Great Time to Be Alive?” by Matt Yglesias, and “Born Poor and Smart” by Angela Locke, and “The War Against the Poor Instead of Programs to End Poverty”by Herbert J. Gans, shared ideas on how to help fix the problems of the impoverished community and address the cause of the problem. The four articles also explain different biases that the impoverish have to endure everyday.