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Income inequality sociology
When income inequality is compared across nations, one finds that the united states is
Income inequality sociology
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NEG
Resolved: To alleviate income inequality in the United States, increased spending on public infrastructure should be prioritized over increased spending on means-tested welfare programs.
My partner and I negate this resolution.
Framework: In order for our opponents to win this debate they must be able to prove that income inequality is a good thing and worth having infrastructure being prioritized for. They also have to prove that infrastructure is a good place to spend money.
Contention 1: Income inequality is necessary to stabilize our government
Data from sociologist Lane Kenworthy indicate that the tendency is for countries with larger increases in income concentration within the top 1 percent to have stronger income gains not
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If economic growth is strong enough—enlarging the pie by a sufficient amount—then even though the slices going to the poor and the middle class are comparatively skinnier, they still end up with more pie. The mistake that decriers of inequality make is to assume that the economic pie is fixed, so that a bigger slice for the top must necessarily result in less pie for everyone else. In fact, the evidence from economic research over the past 15 years is that in developed countries, more inequality tends to go hand in hand with stronger economic growth.
2.) Washington Posts’ George Will says When John D. Rockefeller began selling kerosene in 1870, he had approximately 4 percent of the market. By 1890, he had 85 percent. Kerosene prices fell from 30 cents a gallon in 1869 to 6 cents in 1897. And in the process of being branded a menacing monopoly, Rockefeller’s Standard Oil made gasoline so cheap that Ford found a mass market for Model
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Like our health care, U.S. infrastructure isn't just a tad higher than the next most expensive country — we pay something like twice as muchas our closest peer
Ira Stroll says Federal infrastructure spending is often on wasteful projects. Remember the $223 million Congress appropriated to fund the “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska? Federal infrastructure spending can be influenced by the seniority of a Senator on an appropriations subcommittee, rather than by whether a project is a genuinely worthwhile investment.
And The mere fact of low interest rates is not sufficient reason to borrow. If the government uses its borrowing capacity up now on infrastructure, it may have a harder time borrowing in the future for some more urgent need.
Subpoint 2: Bad for the environment
The expansion of the human-built environment into the natural one—infrastructure development—has a significant impact on biodiversity, mainly through the destruction, degradation and fragmentation of natural habitats. It has been identified as a key threat to many bird species, with residential and commercial development posing a particular concern for globally threatened
David J Lynch says that, “ [s]ocieties that manage a narrower gap between rich and poor enjoy longer economic expansions”, however, in the United States the gap between the have and have-nots has widened (source C). “This country is just getting worse and worse and worse … and that is not a recipe for stable growth” (source C). If we do not do something soon our capitalist country will fall. In order for the income inequality gap to lessen to create a more stable economy the government must invest in education and unionize workers and not provide higher taxation for the top one percent.
Taking Sides Summary-Analysis Form. Title and Author of Article: Christopher Jencks. Briefly state the main idea of this article: The main idea of this article is that economic inequality has steadily risen in the United States between the richest people and the poorest people. And this inequality affects the people in more ways than buying power; it also affects education, life expectancy, living conditions and possibly happiness.
In the United States, there are political debates about the government’s role in aiding the poor and whether it is appropriate for the health of the poor to be their responsibility. This is also a relevant topic in the state of Texas alone because the distribution of wealth between the upper and lower classes in Texas can be described as unequal and unfair. However, people can also argue that those in the upper classes worked for their wealth and those considered poor in the lower classes should do the same. Therefore, in order to decide what the government’s role should be one must consider redistributing the wealth from upper income to the lower income households. It also must be determined if the current system
Wealth inequality and income inequality are often mistaken as the same thing. Income inequality is the difference of yearly salary throughout the population.1 Wealth inequality is the difference of all assets within a population.2 The United States has a high degree of wealth distribution between rich and poor than any other majorly developed nation.3
Fletcher, Michael. “Income Inequality Hurts Economic Growth, The Washington Post. N.p., 24 Jan. 2010. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.
In the United States there are four social classes : the upper class, the middle class, the working class, and the lower class. Of these four classes the most inequality exists between the upper class and the lower class. This inequality can be seen in the incomes that the two classes earn. During the period 1979 through the present , the growth in income has disproportionately grown.The bottom sixty percent of the US population actually saw their real income decrease in 1990 dollars. The next 20% saw medium gains. The top twenty percent saw their income increase 18%. The wealthiest one percent saw their incomes rise drastically over 80%. As reported in the 1997 Center on Budget's analysis , the wealthiest one percent of Americans ( 2.6 million people) received as much after-tax income in 1994 as the bottom 35 percent of the population combined (88 million people). But in 1977 the bottom 35 percent had about twice as much after tax income as the top one percent. These statistics further show the disproportional income growth among the social classes. The gr...
Wealth inequality is a real issue that needs to be fixed. The imbalanced growth of the upper class compared to the middle class is a danger to American society as a whole. The rich becoming richer while the middle class remains the same leads to a power imbalance, with the rich using their money to run the country the way they see fit while the middle class speaks to ears that do not listen. The issue of wealth inequality needs to be fixed by raising taxes on the rich.
Improving areas within Federal Infrastructure also has the economic benefit of job creation in construction and maintenance, as well as safer road systems and infrastructure for the American people. Excessive government spending in the Defense Budget is therefore irresponsible as money could be better utilized in areas of the public sector that would directly improve the lives of the American
Income inequality not only harms us fiscally, but also affects our mental and physical wellbeing; therefore, it is important to identify the right ways to control wealth distribution among people.
Inequality as previously mentioned is a subject that gets debated when brought up and in any debate there is two sides. In class we have discussed both side of the story of inequality, and it has give me a better perspectives of income inequality. When discussion income inequality, we brought up the concept of the economic pie in which states that the economic pie is a reference to the way income gets distributed among the lower, middle, and higher class of America. So the concept of the economic pie states that the rich is getting richer, so they are
...ment, income inequality will exist due to the rise of some economically successful people and the further development of factors that push people into poverty. Although it may not seem fair that there are rich people blowing money on impractical and meaningless things while people live in poverty, it’s a reality that the United States has experienced for centuries.
The conquering and development of natural land has in the past, been seen as a mark of human civilization. In the United States, our progress is often measured by growth and development, but should this be re-examined? There are many opinions on the subject of urban sprawl and its effects on wildlife, but one thing is for certain, we are expanding. From 1955 to 2005, urban and suburban areas grew by 300%, however, the population only increased by 75% over the same period (Ewing, Kostyack and Chen). According to NatureServe, a non-profit conservation organization, urban sprawl threatens one of every three endangered species in the United States. NatureServe’s analysis states, “rare and endangered species data shows that three-fifths (60 percent) of the nation’s rarest and most imperiled species are found within designated metropolitan areas, with the 35 fastest growing large metropolitan areas home to nearly one-third (29 percent) of these species. (Ewing, Kostyack and Chen) Nevertheless, other groups believe urban sprawl is beneficial to wildlife. The Landscape Analysis Lab at Sewanee: The University of the South in Tennessee argues that suburbs are doing more for the bird populations in Tennessee than the government supported tree plantations. Their data shows more diverse bird populations making suburbs their home. They find the housing developments more suitable since they are likely to have a wide variety of tree and plant species and other structures that provide diverse nesting opportunities, whereas the tree plantations usually only plant one type of tree (Miller). So, the debate continues, are humans encroaching on wildlife habitat and posing a risk to their survival, or do suburban environments with their lush lawns and...
The governments prior to Obama had spent their money on various programs that would strengthen the country’s infrastructure and provide jobs for the unemployed. Although this was true, it had increased the budget deficits largely. Additionally, budget deficits are important as gov’t pays billions of dollars in interests for the borrowal. There were also administrations wasting money on such constructions like duck pond. As Robert Pole, who had advised the gov’t on transportation issues, has noted “[a] stimulus project and an earmark are dangerously similar. Sometimes the government will waste its resources on bridges that truckers won’t use”(“Deficit Spending”). Opponents of budget deficits feared that if the government continues to spend like this, then that would trigger inflation where the prices rise faster than people’s wages. This substantial effect may lead to a recession. So, Obama had to be careful that the money goes to the correct place and correct cause. During his administration, the deficits decreased and yet the money used helped a lot of serviceable organizations. As part of the stimulus program, he cut taxes for people who make less than $250,000 a year and increased taxes for people who make more than that. On top of that, the stimulus has created a pathway to establish healthy United
Deficits and debt can encourage economic growth. It is tricky, and sometimes seems untrue, but this result evidently depends on how the U.S. Government spends their money. World War II is a good example of when America ran up high amounts of national debt and a large deficit. Looking back we can clearly see that our nation has recovered in comparison to todays national debt and deficit in the sense that the GDP during the World War II era was hiking up to twice of what our nations debt is today. A sustainable economy comes and goes, with the showcase of scientific and technological studies post war era that provided us with a twenty-five year post economic boom (). Spending our way into a deficit would not have triggered this push to revival. There are advantages and disadvantages to ever decision made and in the economic world, spending makes sense.
If income inequality continues to grow, the economy will break down. For example, if the housing price continues to rise because of the rich people, poor people will not have a place to live since they cannot afford to buy these expensive houses. When this happens, it will create another housing bubble because the houses are not worth buying, which means the market value of the house exceeds the house’s value; therefore, nobody will buy the house including the riches since they already have houses to live. Moreover, poor people do not believe they can get access to wealth because they cannot afford anything, and they cannot afford the tuition fees for a good education, which is the traditional route to success.