Why The Rich Are Getting Richer And Poor By Robert Reich Summary

Throughout Robert Reich article Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer, discusses about the growing gap between the upper and lower class in modern society. Reich’s article is certainly an eye opener regarding unemployment, and how it is currently surfacing from the shortage of technology and education. Through the text Reich uses a firm metaphor to describe how the economy is like a boat that constantly moves up and down the current portraying the upper class and working class. This boat however is extremely important because it is a boat we are all currently in and one is sinking faster than the other and that one is rising; here Reich is distinguishing the different types of social classes. However, the rich are yet getting

There are several essential differences in Reich’s and Murray’s points of view. According to Reich, problems in our societies are caused by poor structures. He argues that increasing of wealth in the society works against the middle class since it forces them to be poor. He talks of keeping a tier of classes which includes the middle and rich class of which if not the middle class will not be able to sustain the economy. Reich describes the great depression of 1929 and explains that the major cause was due to the disparity

Many businesses in United States manufacture their product overseas. This involves manufacturing products outside United States where the labor cost is cheaper. Because of cheap labor, it is often more economical for a U.S. company to manufacture overseas and pay the shipping costs than to manufacture in the United States. For a company, the savings may be substantial. However, there are negative impacts on U.S. employment, as many jobs in the United States are being outsourced and replaced by overseas positions. The manufacturers outsource production projects to save time, money or resources. The manufacturing is outsourced so as to remain competitive and maintain a steady work flow. Without outsourcing, manufacturing costs could escalate to the point at which no product would sell and all employees would have no work. Outsourcing comes

America is the land of opportunity and equality. Many people grow up believing this to be absolutely true, but Stephen Marche feels otherwise. He wrote “We Are Not All Created Equal,” arguing his point that opportunities in this country are strictly determined by the fate of ones class in society. Marche starts off making a strong case by mentioning the United States’ third place ranking for the least amount of social mobility. In further attempts to prove his point he outlines how class determines the fate of Americans place in society by comparing it’s rigid divisions to those of the aristocracy in Britain. There is a repeating idea throughout the paper that many people in the upper classes love to assume that the poor should fault themselves for their predicament due to their lack of hard work. Marche knocks that assumption out the park with statistical evidence to back up his claims. Although he made a very convincing argument with facts, he had a host of overgeneralized statements throughout the paper, which ultimately weakened his argument of class being the only determining factor of success in America.

As the world has gotten “smaller” in terms of trade, outsourcing has become a hot topic in much political and economic debate in the United States.

This article titled "How income inequality hurts America” written by Steve Hargreaves explains the thesis statement itself. On the other hand, he states it’s not just income equality but it’s also lifespan inequality, education inequality, and declining economic growth, which refers to the graphs shown above the starting paragraph. Mr. Hargreaves then points out a fact that the rich are getting richer, while the poor and the middle class are falling behind. Another fact concerning this issue is the 400 richest people outnumber the wealth of the bottom 150 million put together.

The film “Inequality for All” discusses the declining wage-earnings of the American middle class by former labor secretary under President Bill Clinton, Robert Reich. Reich presents economic information in such a complex way for everybody to understand and become engaged in the situation we are going through as a country. Reich was first introduced to Bill Clinton during a scholarship cruise in 1968. Reich became seasick on the cruise and Clinton was kind enough to bring Reich a cup of soup and that’s how it all began. After working under Clinton for several years, Reich became an economics professor in Berkley University.

In “inequality for all”, a documentary presented and narrated by Robert Reich, Reich discusses what is happening in terms of the distribution of income and wealth in the US, why it is happening, and is it a problem. “Inequality for all” is directed by Jacob Kornbluth, it premiered in 2013, and it runs for 90 minutes. Reich studied at the University of Oxford in during the late 1960’s, where he befriended future president Bill Clinton. Subsequently, they kept in touch, and in 1993, when Clinton was elected president, he reached out to Reich, to be secretary of labor. Reich was in office for the following four years, and today he is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. For about three decades now, Reich announced that out of all developed countries, the US has the most unequal distribution of wealth, and that inequality is getting even greater in the US. In the documentary, the most compelling topics covered by Reich, are the changes that started happening in the late 1970’s, the fact that 42 percent of Americans born into poverty stay poor, and that nowadays, money controls politics.

Robert Reich explained to us, "Income inequality is inevitable and is the essence of capitalism, but when the gap became too much, then it became a problem to the society. Today, the United States has the most inequality distribution of income of all the developed nations, the richest 400 Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million people put together"2. First of all, income inequality exists everywhere, it is not a problem for itself. Because of the income inequality, poor people know the life different between people, then they will work harder and harder to catch up to get rid of the poor, and to have a better life. The income inequality is a good thing when it is not much for is the source of power that makes people improve themselves. However, the data show that the income gap is too huge now, the income distribution is extremely unfair. 400 people have more money than the half of the nation, so now the great income inequality disturbs social inequality. Gregory Mantsios wrote "Class in America-2009", he provided some examples from the rich, middle class and poor family to discuss the different life condition of the different class in America. Mr. Mantsios state, "Despite what we like to think about ourselves as a nation, the truth is that

     The exporting of American jobs is an issue that is important and will become increasingly so as more and more white collar jobs are shipped overseas. American companies in the past few decades have been sending American jobs overseas paying residents of other countries pennies on the dollar what they had paid American workers to do. This saves the companies millions of dollars on labor costs but costs Americans precious jobs.

In Robert Reich documentary “Inequality for All” he makes a compelling discussion about the serious crises that the United States faces due the widening economic gap. He looks to raise awareness of the U.S. economic gap between the rich and poor. According to Reich the widening divide in America is real and growing. Income levels at the middle and labor class is stagnant and are at it’s lowest levels compared to upper class incomes since the beginning of WWII and is growing wider each year. Reich suggests that the economy runs more smoothly when the middle class has jobs with fair wages, when unions are strong, and when middle class workers have some extra money to spend if possible when the government uses the tax policy properly and when it raises the minimum wage regularly to control the income gap between labor and management. In other words Reich argues that economically healthy middle and labor class equality is the foundation of a thriving economy and is necessary to maintaining a sound national infrastructure and educational system within

Robert Reich is an American pundit, author, economist, and professor who served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997 (wikipedia). The film “Inequality for All” offers a depiction of Reich’s economic beliefs and what he believes contributes to the widening economic inequality gap. Furthermore, Reich explores what effects this increasing gap has not only on the US economy, but also on American democracy itself. The film was introduced to explain and make relevant the issue of income inequality and how it is dividing our country. In the US this gap between the rich and everyone else has been growing for the last 30 years.

According to Reich: “In 1978 the average male worker earned $48,000 adjusted for inflation, while the average member of 1% earned $390,000. By 2010, that same male worker wage had declined to $33,000, while the 1 percenter was making $1.1 million” (Kornbluth, 2013). This data demonstrates, the accumulation of wealth of the rich as well the decline of the meagre income of the poor. In other words, this illustrates the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer. It is important to note that this extent to which income is distributed in an uneven manner and the end result, is an ever widening gap.

Society expects everyone to do their best and go out of their way to get what they want regardless of where they come from. In this day and age, the social class barriers barely cease to exist. Lower-class people have the right and choice to do whatever the higher-class individuals can do. “But in postwar America--and here I can speak from my personal memory of the society in which I grew up, as well as what we can learn from what people said and wrote--much of that class consciousness was gone. Postwar American society had its poor, but the truly rich were rare and made little impact on society” (Krugman 44).

This paper will be discussing “Some Principles of Stratification” by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore, “Classes in Capitalism and Pre- Capitalism” by Karl Marx, and “Who Rules America?” by G. William Domhoff. Davis and Moore examine stratification, social class, and positional rank and their effects on individuals and society. Marx examines inequality in society, the relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed or the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and methods of production and their effects on society. Domhoff examines the roles of corporate communities and the upper class and how they impact America.