Aliza Lichy Ms. Hoff American Government 1/15/2014 The Importance of a Strong Middle Class Having a strong middle class indicates that America’s democracy will be effervescent and its economy will be beneficial, which will lead to the notion of precisely what America is all about. The setback is that the weakness of America’s middle class not only harms those affected by it, but all other individuals living in the U.S as well. America’s incomes are deteriorating or weakening, while items necessary to live increase in cost, and the probabilities of falling behind are beginning to develop. It is important that the gap between the upper class and the lower class is condensed, this way a strong middle class will be emitted. The modern persona of middle class citizens in America derives from the post World War II era. In 1944, the GI Bill was created to provide returning veterans with money to cover college, business, and home mortgages. This money gave servicemen the opportunity to afford a home of their own for the first time ever resulting in the vast proliferation of residential construction. This was how American subdivision commenced (Suddath). The fault in the subdivision initiated when the strong gap between the upper class and the lower class formed due to income inequality, race and gender disparities, education, and technology. The American government is working to rejuvenate the middle class and shorten the gap between the upper and lower class. In 2012, Vice President Joe Biden stated, "America's middle class is hurting, it is our charge to get the middle class — the backbone of this country — up and running again" (“A Strong” n.d.). The revitalization of America’s middle class is possible. In order to do so, the costs ... ... middle of paper ... ...ny other ways that income is received consistently. Race and gender disparities are also a cause of the gap. The “gender earnings gap” in America as well as the “Gender Wage Gap” are other names for the difference in a male and females income year round. This information is gathered and used by economists and federal agencies as part of the current population survey. In 2010 the median income of year round workers was $42,800 for men, compared to $34,700 for women. The ratio of money earned was 0.81, reaching a somewhat higher ratio than that of 2008. The female-to-male earnings ratio of 0.81 means that, in 2009, female FTYR workers earned 19% less than male FTYR workers. The determination of the difference in income does not include the experience, education, skill, qualification, and more of the males and females as long as its full time (“Income inequality”).
According to Gregory Mantsios many American people believed that the classes in the United States were irrelevant, that we equally reside(ed) in a middle class nation, that we were all getting richer, and that everyone has an opportunity to succeed in life. But what many believed, was far from the truth. In reality the middle class of the United States receives a very small amount of the nation's wealth, and sixty percent of America's population receives less than 6 percent of the nation's wealth, while the top 1 percent of the American population receives 34 percent of the total national wealth. In the article Class in America ( 2009), written by Gregory Mantsios informs us that there are some huge differences that exist between the classes of America, especially the wealthy and the poor. After
The essay “RIP the Middle Class: 1946-2013” was written by Edward McClelland. Edward McClelland is an American journalist. In this essay, McClelland is trying to prove a point that at some point there wouldn’t be the middle class and there would only be the rich and the poor, unless the government intervenes to balance out the economy.
White men had higher hourly earnings than all except Asian men in 2015. In 2015, average hourly wages for black and Hispanic men were $15 and $14, respectively, compared with $21 for white men. Only the hourly earnings of Asian men $24 outpaced those of white men. Among women across all races and ethnicities, hourly earnings lag behind those of white men and men in their own racial or ethnic group. But the hourly earnings of Asian and white women ($18 and $17, respectively) are higher than those of black and Hispanic women ($13 and $12, respectively) – and also higher than those of black and Hispanic men. While the hourly earnings of white men continue to outpace those of women, all groups of women have made progress in narrowing this wage gap since 1980, reflecting at least in part a significant increase in the education levels and workforce experience of women over time. White and Asian women have narrowed the wage gap with white men to a much greater degree than black and Hispanic women. For example, white women narrowed the wage gap in median hourly earnings by 22 cents from 1980 (when they earned, on average, 60 cents for every dollar earned by a white man) to 2015 (when they earned 82 cents). By comparison, black women only narrowed that gap by 9 cents, from earning 56 cents for every dollar earned by a white man in 1980 to 65 cents today. Asian women followed roughly the trajectory of white women (but earned a
With each class comes a certain level in financial standing, the lower class having the lowest income and the upper class having the highest income. According to Mantsios’ “Class in America” the wealthiest one percent of the American population hold thirty-four percent of the total national wealth and while this is going on nearly thirty-seven million Americans across the nation live in unrelenting poverty (Mantsios 284-6). There is a clear difference in the way that these two groups of people live, one is extreme poverty and the other extremely
There is a pay gap between men and women in the U.S. The pay gap affects women of all educations levels, and backgrounds. But white men are the largest demographic in labor forces so they possibly favor each other as opposed to women. The graph didn’t specify the type of jobs, or whether they were working parts time or fulltime. But in 2016, women working full time in the U.S. were paid 80% of what men were getting paid. There are some occupations that have not reached the equity but some have like retail, banking and real
The reality of wage differences between men and women is that above all changes women continue to earn less than men. Countless arguments have promoted that wage inequality has changed and that everyone finally receives an equal amount of pay. “For women of color, the gap is largest of all: In 2006, black and Hispanic women earned 86 and 87 cents on the white man’s dollar, respectively,” (Mcswane 2). If a woman is lucky enough she will get an equal pay compared to a man doing the same job. But it is challenging for a woman of a minority background to achieve this. Not only are women paid less because of their sex, but also because of their race. There seems to be a mentality that because someone is a woman and a minority that they cannot do the same job as men or that women do not have the same education as the men, so employers do not have to pay them the same. “When the numbers are broken down by district, they 're pretty hard to ignore. Women in Texas are being utterly screwed financially, according to the data compiled by AAWU, with women earning anywhere from 66 percent of what men do in some districts, to the top end of things, which is about 89 percent,” (Leicht 4). The proof cannot be ignored. It i...
The largest group in America is facing extinction. We are talking of course about the American middle class. In 1971 the American middle class population was 36% higher than the population of the lower class. However, today the middle class population is now only 22% higher than the lower class (McDill). This is only a 14% drop spread over 44 years. The major issue here is that while the middle class shrinks, the upper and lower classes are growing. Financial experts believe that soon the middle class will become nonexistent and America will be divided into two extremes, poverty and wealth. This issue has become so severe that the United States government has stepped in and created a “middle class task force” passed as part of the government “stimulus package” of 2009. However most experts including Kent McDill of the millionaires’ corner, Doyle McManus of the LA Times, Erik Kain of Forbes magazine believe that the government’s program is putting a knife in the middle class. They believe this because the government is taxing businesses until they are forced to leave America and go overseas. This, along with the rise of mechanical workers and ignorance of the issues facing the middle class led to the decreasing job market. Jobs in America will soon be split into either very high paying upper class jobs or very low paying jobs. This makes the job market a hit or miss in America. It is predicted that America will soon be either very rich or very poor with no middle ground.
The most often cited cause of the decline of the middle class in the United States is stagnant wages. Between 1955 and 1970, real wages adjusted and inflation rose by an average of 2.5 percent per year. Between 1971 and 1994, the average growth of real wages was 0.3 percent a year. The stagnation of wages has been especially noticeable to middle-class people, who rely very much on the money they make at their jobs. Recessions seem to hit higher income households much harder, which sends them down to the middle class. Middle-income households may or may not be more likely than higher-income households to qualify for unemployment compensation when jobs are scarce. But those who do are more likely than high-income households to receive benefits that replace a greater share of their regular wages, which helps them maintai...
While the the 1%, are secured, no one is addressing the rest of the people. As the economy flourishes, housing, higher education and health care, and child care increases with it to the point where 30 percent of a person’s income goes towards housing. People are finding it impossible to purchase a house with their middle class incomes. People begin to fall out of the once stable middle class because too much is needed to be sacrificed in order to live in a stable home. In the shrinking middle class, “40% or more of the residents live below the poverty
The wage gap is a major issue that is constantly brought up in the work place. Numerous people use the term “wage gap” to state how gender can affect somebody 's income. There has always been an understanding that men typically made more money than women. For a long time, women were not allowed to work; therefore men were in charge of “bringing home the bacon”. However, times have changed and there are various situations where a household is centered off a women’s’ income. Females can become single mothers who have a responsibility to care for a child(s). Responsibilities can include monthly payments of water and electric bills and even weekly payments towards groceries. Women have to acquire enough money so that they are able
The wage gap not only represents gender discrimination in the workplace, it also reflects the ongoing issue of racial discrimination. While white women do typically earn less than white men, they out earn the majority of female colored workers in America. The average African American female makes only 64 cents for the white man’s dollar. Additionally, Hispanic women receive only 54 cents to their white male coworker’s dollar (Hegewisch para. 9).
America’s upper class has been getting richer since the past three decades, and we have still not found a way to stop this. We have been unable to find a way to distribute America’s wealth equally, so we can have a decent lower class and a good middle class. Inequality has caused many people to struggle in various ways, but their is alway another side to the story.
Today in the United States, men make more than women in various sectors, including education and other trades favoring women workers. The gap gets bigger when comparing the wages earned by men to those of women in jobs favoring men workers such as construction or other physically demanding jobs. Women are less likely to work those jobs, therefor; men have the advantage of having more experience and get paid better. In addition, employers would rather hire a man instead of a woman because they believe that a man will be able to sustain the difficulty of the job and work longer hours which crate a disadvantage for women because they are unable to gain experience and become skilled in that certain field. Gender pay gap based on this information is explained as the result of the discrimination of employers toward the feminine sex in terms of pay, which discourage them to work certain jobs leading to create a bigger gap due to the lack of
Over the past few years, a number of occurrences have displayed the growing economic and political inequality of the United States. The currently dissipated Occupy Movement did draw the general public’s attention to the ridiculous strides made by the rich, whose incomes have skyrocketed within the past four decades. Those pertaining to the middle-income and poor have sadly had their incomes stagnate. According to Caroline Fairchild from the Huffington Post the middle class incomes steadily is on the decline. In 1968 the middle class earned about 53.2 percent of national income in 1968. This number has now fallen to 45.7 percent. Super PACs became a concern as more individual donors willingly wrote up enormous checks to support their particular candidates. As a result, this gave prominence to the growing political inequality, as well as highlighting the rich’s ability to have their words have much more weight over the average citizen in America.
Despite government regulations to promote equality within the workplace, women’s salaries continue to lag behind males in similar career with similar experiences. According to research performed by Blau & Kahn (2007) “women salaries averaged about 60% of men’s until the 1970s and rose to nearly 80% by the 1990s” (as cited in Bendick, Jr. & Nunes, 2012, p.244). Today, women on average earn approximately $.81 for every dollar that men earn in the United States (Guy and Fenley P.41 2014).