Wealth Gap

When most people think of the average welfare recipient they most likely imagine someone who is a slacker; unambitious and one who is not a hard worker, someone who lazes around waiting until their welfare check comes in so that they can spend it all on whatever frivolous thing they want, and wait until the next check arrives. Sometimes people think of a mother and her children in a poor neighborhood, who wants more money to spend on expensive clothes and electronics, so she gets her welfare checks and buys the expensive yet unnecessary items without using the money to get out of a bad financial situation, contented to live this way without working towards anything better. Nobody would be in support of a system that gives undeserving people their own tax money. However, that is not what welfare looks like. Welfare looks like overworked parents who are doing the best they can, but still don’t have enough to put a meal on the table. Welfare looks like people afraid to lose their homes and willing to do almost anything to just keep living. Welfare looks like the mentally disabled, who despite trying their hardest, need more help. This is what welfare looks like; people in need who strive to live a better life. Welfare helps families in need not only by giving them money but by aiding them with every aspect of their lives such as food, shelter, and more to improve the quality of their life.

Welfare is a public assistance program that is designed to help families who do not have enough money to support themselves. Welfare was developed to improve the quality of life and living standards for the poor and underprivileged. This program started because of the hardships people faced during the Great Depression of the 1930s. In 1935, public assistance for the poor became the government’s responsibility. The money comes from the taxes that are deducted from the working class. Testing welfare recipients for drug abuse stereotypes the poor, is unconstitutional, and has become a big burden.

Welfare is a system that was put into place to give financial help to people or groups who can't support themselves. A problem with welfare is that it usually leaves out the people who are in extreme poverty. The definition of extreme poverty is anyone or any family that are under less than half the poverty brink. For these Americans it is often to hard for them to maneuver themselves through the the welfare system. Other people can also have addictions or poor education and are unable to navigate through the system either. This is one reason why there are so many home less and unsafe people.

The difference of income and workers conditions has been a timeless conflict present throughout history of the United States. In the past workers were faced with deadly work conditions and around the clock hours for little pay. These unjust conditions dramatically increased during the Industrial Revolutions that the United States experienced in the nineteenth century. The latter period of industrialization produced the organization of the first labor unions in the Country, namely the Knights of Labor established in 1869 and the American Federation of Labor established in 1886. In present day countless unions exist, and are a lot less needed than they were in the early industrial days of the United States (Brinkley, 2012).

"Welfare is the statutory procedure or social effort designed to promote the basic physical and material well-being of people in need," according to the dictionary (dictonary.com). Welfare comes in many forms, such as, Medicaid, HUD Homes, Food Stamps, and Supplement Security Income. Some people use one source of Welfare, while others use all.

In this paper I will be discussing the wealth gap. I will also be discussing if there should be a “special” tax to redistribute the wealth. I hope to enlighten the reader of the issue of the wealth gap, and if a tax would help.

Wealth inequality is a controversial topic because money distribution in America doesn’t ‘seem right. The upper class possess most of the wealth in America and the bottom don’t nearly get as much.

The number of children who are living in poverty have decreased for the first time in almost ten years. The Census Bureau reported a 0.5 percent decrease of Americans living in poverty from 2012 to 2013. Poverty is among the country’s contemporary social problems in the Twenty-First Century. According to the Census Bureau, 45.3 million people were categorized as living in poverty in 2013. To address contemporary social problems like poverty, one must take an in depth look at the reasons why there are so many people dealing with poverty and the challenges that arise from trying to escape it.

In the article “The Wealth Gap Is Crushing America’s Youth” by Mandi Woodruff, the author explains how the wealth gap is effecting America’s youth by displaying charts of income inequality comparing the children of American families who were born in a low to high income. Mandi Woodruff cites a study by The Hamilton Project, who uses graphs that uncover economic data that show exactly how income inequality can impact social mobility in America.

My research project is going to be about how the wealth gap in America is causing a slowdown in growth for the United States. I think because there is no more middle class and most people are poor while just a very small percentage of people make alarming amounts of money that it has stopped the growth of America. Im going to try and corellate different points in time when america was growing while at the same time showing that the weakth gap was less at the time.

The wealth gap in the United States is way off compared to what people may think it is or what they would like it to be. I’m actually very shocked of what I found. If we divide the entire United States in five different groups, you can say the first group is the poor, the second is the middle class, third and fourth are even progressively richer and the fifth group is the richest. Personally I would say maybe 40 to 50 percent of Americans are poor. They probably make nothing to twenty thousand a year. The middle class is probably 20 percent of American and they make about 30 to 70 thousand a year. The rest, which are the rich and the richer, makes everything else. My perception of the wealth gap was pretty close to what most Americans think.

Wealth distribution is not what it should be from our perspective. The distribution of wealth in America has been uneven since 1970. We can see the uneven distribution by comparing one of the wealthiest man in America, Bill Gates, who makes over $50 billion, to a homeless person, who has nothing. This shows an income inequality in the U.S because there is a huge gap between rich and poor. While the unemployment rate has decreased in the U.S, the gap between rich and poor in this country has dramatically increased. There are many contributions to the gap, such as different education levels among citizens and cost of living. The main reason that contributes to the income inequality between rich and poor is technological advances. Technological advance hurt the low-income class greatly but at the same time is a big gain to the higher class. The visual graphics are the most powerful aspect of the video, because many times we hear the statistics and percentages without truly comprehending just

The wealth gap. It affects us all; old or young, male or female, and-- most importantly-- rich or poor. It’s what separates the most powerful and highest-paid people in America from the rest of us. It’s an issue that receives some attention, but perhaps not enough. The richest 1% of the U.S. owns more wealth than the bottom 90%, and that’s not the only reality of this issue. You see, this is a social and economic problem contributing to a plethora of other big problems here in the U.S., including child poverty, the dwindling middle-class, and the fact that the majority of American citizens have absolutely zero impact on public policy. Here’s the thing—the wealth gap is increasing, rapidly. Not much has been done to address this issue, and there’s a large group of people who don’t want anything done (guess who). I, among others, believe solving this issue opens the door to finding a solution to an abundance of other issues.

Welfare is a good idea that financially helps those in need and provides people with an income when they are unable to earn a monthly wage; however, when this system is abused it is no longer efficient. Welfare was intended for people who are permanently disabled mentally or physically and are unable to work, but welfare has become an option for every American, even those who do not want to work but are capable of doing so. The American Economy has started to decline because of this due to many people realizing they can get more money with less effort. This problem has only grown worse over time since its creation. Even the hardworking American doesn’t make as much as a welfare recipient since the system of welfare pays more

The problem of poverty has always plagued the world, including developed countries, such as America. It is one of the main reasons that less developed countries have difficulty developing at the pace of other countries. Many different actions can cause poverty. Most people have different opinions on why poverty still exists. “Nearly equal portions of the public in advanced, emerging, and developing countries, cite the gap between the rich and the poor as a very big problem. And notably, it is the leading economic concern in the eyes of people in major economies such as China and Germany, at 42 and 39 percent, respectively, according to the new Pew Research survey. A global median of 29 percent say their government’s actions are to blame for inequality, making it the leading cause cited. People in advanced economies, in particular, believe that their governments are responsible for the rich getting richer and equally culpable for the poor becoming relatively poorer. A median of 32 percent in those nations blame government, three times the percentage that cite the failings of their educational system and double the share who blame their tax system” (Stokes). Some people that are wealthy are also greedy. Although they control a large amount of wealth, they are unwilling to share it. Although it should not be the responsibility of wealthy people to support people in poverty, it would be helpful to the advancement of society. Another contributing reason that poverty exists is