In Paul Krugman’s, Confronting Inequality, he illustrates how economic inequality affects America, as well as identifies steps to resolve the gap between the upper elite and lower class. He claims that economic growth has gone to the wealthy minority; meanwhile, there is a lack of economic growth for lower and middle-class families. The upper elite can afford to stay a night at a luxury hotel with an eleven thousand dollar per night rate, while middle class families are buying homes they cannot afford, so their children can be placed in good schools. Paul Krugman suggests that by undoing tax cuts for the wealthy, the limit of inequality would be lessened. He includes, “from the New Deal until the 1970s[,] it was considered normal and appropriate to have ‘super’ tax rates on very-high-income individuals” (572). To be effective, though, taxes would also have to be raised for the middle-class. Also, an increase in minimum wage would create a direct benefit for those currently paid less than the minimum, and the increased minimum would ripple, so even those paid above minimum wage would benefit. Lastly, Krugman promotes unions by stating they often raise and equalize wages for members. …show more content…
Expenditures of the wealthy are wants rather than needs. Meanwhile, the very small middle class that remains can barely afford homes as they tend to buy in nicer neighborhoods, so their children will be districted to attend a good school. However, is it not to say that if many of the middle-class families were to learn and experience how to budget and manage money well, they would not encounter large debt? Moving into a home a family cannot afford is the first issue. Once they dig themselves into a large hole of debt in mortgage, it is rare the family has even thought of putting money towards a college fund. Debt only leads to more
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
We, as Americans, view inequality one way, while Krugman perceives it rhetorically. This rhetorical view represents his signal to us, stating the fact that our society changes continuously. “The America I grew up in was a [...] middle class society. Over the past generation,
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.
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
Time is Money A plethora of research studies exist on the topic of wealth inequality in America. There is no question that the top one percent of earners consume a large portion of wealth in this country, while the other 90 percent of earners share the left-overs. Some of the related questions that I found during the course of my research are: 1) Why are wealth and income distributions so vastly disproportionate? 2) Can America bridge the wealth gap? 3)
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...
Smith, Noah. “How to Fix America's Wealth Inequality: Teach Americans to Be Cheap.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Pub., 12 March 2013. Web. 06 April 2014. .
Later in his article, Cohen explains how this leaves middle-class families in a very uncomfortable situation. Parents or other money-making entities in the household want their student to go to college and earn a degree, but now there can be an element of stress in figuring out how the fees will be paid. Furthermore, many families have to worry about sending multiple children to college in succession, so the cost of college for the children can be quickly overwhelming.... ... middle of paper ...
Divisions within the social stratum is a characteristic of societies in various cultures and has been present throughout history. During the middle ages, the medieval feudal system prevailed, characterized by kings and queens reigning over the peasantry. Similarly, in today’s society, corporate feudalism, otherwise known as Capitalism, consists of wealthy elites dominating over the working poor. Class divisions became most evident during America’s Gilded Age and Progressive era, a period in time in which the rich became richer via exploitation of the fruits of labor that the poor persistently toiled to earn. As a result, many Americans grew compelled to ask the question on everyone’s mind: what do the rich owe the poor? According to wealthy
In Confronting Inequality, Paul Krugman discusses the cost of inequality and possible solutions. Krugman argues to say that it is a fantasy to believe the rich live just like the middle class. Then, he goes into detail about how middle class families struggle to try to give their children a better life and how education plays a factor in children’s future lives. For example, children’s ability to move into higher education could be affected by their parents economic status. Also, He discusses how politicians play a role in the inequality, because most of politicians are in the upper economic class. Finally, Krugman says how we could possibly have solutions to these various inequalities, but how America won’t get
In Rousseau’s book “A Discourse On Inequality”, he looks into the question of where the general inequality amongst men came from. Inequality exists economically, structurally, amongst different generations, genders, races, and in almost all other areas of society. However, Rousseau considers that there are really two categories of inequality. The first is called Natural/Physical, it occurs as an affect of nature. It includes inequalities of age,, health, bodily strength, and the qualities of the mind and soul. The second may be called Moral/Political inequality, this basically occurs through the consent of men. This consists of the privileges one group may have over another, such as the rich over the poor.
Where would you consider yourself with your ranking in America 's social classes, are you upper class, middle class or even lower class? This is actually very important when it come to you receiving opportunities and in a sense special treatment. I’m referring to of course social inequality which is still very much alive in America and still affects a lot of families mostly in a negative way. This problem in America has grabbed the attention of two authors, Paul Krugman who wrote “Confronting Inequality” and Gary S. Becker and Kevin M. Murphy who wrote “The Upside of Income Inequality”. However, they both have different views on inequality Krugman believes that social inequality is only negative while on the other hand, Becker and Murphy believe Krugman believes that the only way to get into a good school is to be living in a higher economic area.
Income inequality has affected American citizens ever since the American Dream came to existence. The American Dream is centered around the concept of working hard and earning enough money to support a family, own a home, send children to college, and invest for retirement. Economic gains in income are one of the only possible ways to achieve enough wealth to fulfill the dream. Unfortunately, many people cannot achieve this dream due to low income. Income inequality refers to the uneven distribution of income and wealth between the social classes of American citizens. The United States has often experienced a rise in inequality as the rich become richer and the poor become poorer, increasing the unstable gap between the two classes. The income gap in America has been increasing steadily since the late 1970’s, and has now reached historic highs not seen since the 1920’s (Desilver). UC Berkeley economics professor, Emmanuel Saez conducted extensive research on past and present income inequality statistics and published them in his report “Striking it Richer.” Saez claims that changes in technology, tax policies, labor unions, corporate benefits, and social norms have caused income inequality. He stands to advocate a change in American economic policies that will help close this inequality gap and considers institutional and tax reforms that should be developed to counter it. Although Saez’s provides legitimate causes of income inequality, I highly disagree with the thought of making changes to end income inequality. In any diverse economic environment, income inequality will exist due to the rise of some economically successful people and the further development of factors that push people into poverty. I believe income inequality e...
Tax cuts are only benefiting the richest people, and will widen the inequality gap between the rich and the poor. A recent report from the Congressional Research Service states, “as the top tax rates a...
With their increased wealth, the rich, from 19762 to 2006, have increased their spending on enrichment activities for their children by 151 percent, compared to only 57 percent for poor families (O’Brien). This gives rich children an advantage over poor children. This gap is further extended in public education. Rich children often go to better schools that provide opportunities that children in poor schools do not receive. This is “an educational system that provides such privilege to some students, while willfully and purposefully denying it to others” (Strauss). The current education system allows rich children to succeed while it tells the poor children that “they are inadequate instead of educating them” (Strauss). Even when poor children achieve in school, they are just as likely to succeed later in life as rich children who have dropped out of school (O’Brien). This creates an atmosphere where the education provided to the poor is woefully inadequate when compared to that hoarded by the rich. This, in turn, continues to place poor children in a situation that keeps them