Social inequality comes in many forms including things such as income, race, gender, and wealth. It is something we can see in everyday life, yet there are some people that don’t seem to think it exists, or it at least isn’t anything that they need to be concerned about because they’re doing just fine. I believe that they are wrong and that inequality affects us all in one way or another. It is something that we need to come to grips with and deal with as a society and is not a problem that can be solved on an individual basis.
Income inequality has come to the front as an issue over the past few years due to low-wage workers demanding a raise in the minimum wage. While the United States remains one of the richest countries in the world,
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I only included income inequality, but it stretches beyond that to race, sexuality, status, etc. All of those things need to be addressed by society as a whole, through policies and increasing access to opportunity among the poor.
Policies. Addressing inequality doesn’t mean we just increase the minimum wage and say we’re done. Actually, there is more to it, such as making sure policies are in place to help regulate Wall Street.
As it was put by Jim Lardner (2014) “One of the conspicuous drivers of inequality over the past three decades has been the spectacular income gains of the top 1 percent. Financial executives, traders, fund managers and others account for about one-fourth of those gains, and their paychecks, after taking a hit in the immediate wake of the crisis, are once again soaring to levels wildly disconnected from the state of the overall economy.” Reigning in these practices using policies like the Dodd Frank Act and the former Glass-Steagall act could help close the inequality gap by addressing misbehavior by the financial industry, such as pushing risky investments, which only serve the financial industry and hurt the people making these investments. Another bill called the Stop Subsidizing Multimillion Dollar Corporate Bonuses Act, would enhance a law already on the books that puts a cap on the tax deductibility of executive pay. The intention is to raise revenue
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Supposedly our system is “progressive”, which means that it is taxing higher incomes at higher rates, but with all of the loopholes and tax breaks that those at the top can work around, a lot of the lower classes actually end up paying more of a percentage of their income in taxes. Sales taxes and payroll taxes also hit those income levels harder because, again, those end up being a larger amount of their total income. For example, Kansas now has one of the nation’s highest sales tax rates, at 6.5%, in the nation. Many localities have additional local taxes on top of that, making the total tax rate upwards of 10% in some places. (Kansas Department of Revenue, 2015). A 10% sales tax is going to make life a lot harder for someone who only brings home $600 a month than it is on someone who brings home $4000 a month. Regressive taxes like this tend to hit the lower and middle class harder so, if we want to improve income inequality we can move to reduce those. At the federal level, congress can move to implement policies like I mentioned, along with others that would make the system fairer and distribute wealth a little more
A cause of income inequality could be the jobs that people have. “In the United States, income inequality, or the gap between the rich and everyone else, has been growing markedly… (Income Inequality, para 1).” There have been no signs of income inequality changing for the lower classes, or getting better, therefore, it has become a very concerned issue upon Americans. “America’s top ten percent now average at least nine times as much income as the bottom 90 percent (Income Inequality, para 2).” Many people who have a big dream have jobs that pay minimum wage, which makes it hard. With the rich getting richer, it makes it hard for the lower classes to get a shot at being at the top with them. This also makes it hard to close the gap between the three classes.
Executive Compensation. I’m in agreement with Thomas Piketty that the one cause of rising inequality in the United States “the rise of supersalaries” for top executives (Piketty & Goldhammer, 2014, p. 298). The average American estimates CEO to worker pay ratio at about 30-to-1, which is more than 4 times what they believe to be ideal. The career review site Glassdoor reported from 2014 data that the average pay ratio of CEO to median worker was 204-to-1 and that at the top of the list, four CEOs earn more than 1,000 times the salary of their median worker with the very top pay ratio of 1,951-to-1. In some cases a CEO makes in one-hour what it takes the average employee six-months to earn. In comparison, the Washington Post reported for the
Social inequality is the issue pertaining to the lack of housing, health care, education, employment opportunities, and status. It is the dismissal of people from participation in what we, the members of society distinguish as being valuable, important, socially desirable, and personally worthwhile. There are many different perspectives on social inequality within our society; the three areas I am going to focus on are those of the Functionalist, Conflict and Symbolic-Interactionist.
The land of freedom, the United States, is the Promised Land for all. Its citizen can be much as prosperous as they want. Nonetheless, a phenomenon has occurred gradually that has changed the economy, social levels, income, and wealth of all Americans. This is called inequality. Inequality has become a social problem since people has not raised their voice take advantage of voting, large corporations as CEOs who take instead of give.
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
A potential solution that could perhaps help to reduce poverty and inequality could be to increase the minimum wage as well as to raising the overtime salary and index it to inflation, maintain and provide safety net programs such as SNAP, and other programs, create more jobs, provide Medicaid as well as making sure that people can afford health coverage, making sure people/ young teens with children can afford and access a child care, helping low income individuals better their education and provide “fully fund Pell Grants” (10 Solutions to Fight Economy Inequality), having the government spend less money on prisons and instead invest the money into more schools, programs, etc. There are many more potential solutions and things that could be done to either minimize, better or maybe even get rid of Income Inequality, it’s all just up to whoever is willing to make a change and then people will be able to start having and receive a much better
Income inequality is a big ongoing problem in the United States. It has a big effect on what America was all about, the American dream. The American dream that everyone is equal and has equal opportunities. Although a big part of what goes on in the Untied States that just doesn’t fit the American dream; women are unequal in the work place. They are put under what is known as the “Glass Ceiling”. Women do not get promoted in the work place and aren’t getting equal pay as men. This also leads to wag gap between the men and women. Both create income inequality for women and affect their American Dream. There is a long history of women having to deal with the “Glass Ceiling”. Over time woman have made progress but more progress is
Inequality, a subject that usually focuses on developing countries or communistic governments, is now a topic that no longer focuses predominantly on these foreign nations; but rather one that lies here, on our own soil. The United States has one of the largest socioeconomic gaps on earth. In terms of dollars, our gap is greater than a majority of impoverished countries. In a country like Chad, someone could earn a thousand dollars a year and another
This fact remains accurate after government attempts at wealth redistribution such as taxes. This shows that the government is not successful at helping to redistribute wealth and the dramatic increases in wealth of the rich while the poor barely improve show the inefficacy of the “trickle-down economy” model. To figure out why the 10% is gaining wealth so quickly, the people that make up this small group must be analyzed. The top 10% is essentially comprised of three main groups: superstars, CEOs, and high-income professionals. However, the incomes of superstars and CEOs are increasing more rapidly than those of the high-income professionals (Belsie). While the incomes of high-income professionals and superstars are market driven, they do not benefit from the same rate that CEOs do.
Wealthier individuals often have more power than the poor and are sometimes even able to maintain their wealth at the cost of the poor. Inequality of income is often one of the most significant reasons for the disparity within classes socially and one of the most important reasons that poverty is often intergenerational. Particularly in this tumultuous political time of divisiveness, people who are willing and able to make changes to the status quo in meaningful ways are of the utmost importance. Closing the gap in wealth is one of the most essential ways to ensure that inequality is addressed and that the other social issues surrounding this gap will be lessened and lessened until it hopefully eventually disappears. Change-makers are more important than ever and those groups and nations as well as individuals with power that are willing to be honest with themselves and
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.
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.
Social inequality is a persistent issue that affects the continuation of poverty and the sustainment of wealth. Poverty and wealth are derived from labels imposed by society dictating status, class and affluence. A vicious cycle, established through the disproportionate availability of opportunities and unequal distribution of resources, beings to erode the family unit, churches and communities. Therefore, social inequality impacts poverty and wealth through labeling, mass incarceration, crime, education and the creation of the working poor.
Social inequality differentiates society, divides it into different social groups and classes. Inequality has many facets and it appears in various sections of the unified social system: family, institutions, enterprise and social groups. For normal functioning of society, it is needed the optimal combination of all activities. The society reproduces inequality, because it needs it as a source sustenance and development.
Today in society, there are many things people would consider “unequal” which starts the conversation about inequality. Inequality exists all over the world. It can be defined as, “the difference in social status, wealth, or opportunity between people or groups” (Collins, 2017). There are many examples today that can be labeled as inequality. Three examples of places where inequality is substantially prevalent today are Flint, Michigan; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Monterrey, Mexico. These aren’t the only places with substantial amounts of inequality throughout the world, but they have made headlines in the United States and around the world. Not only are there problems with the government not treating people equally, there are also problems with wealth not being equally distributed in the United States, which causes inequality within itself. Because the money isn’t equally distributed, the level of education varies throughout the United States.