Reich Why The Rich Are Getting Richer And The Poor

For as long as civilization has been around, there have been types of class systems. These systems almost always based on economic standing within the society. In the most recent economic times, it is clear that the gap between the extremely rich and the extremely poor is expanding, with those in the middle being forced into one extreme or the other. Junhai Ma and Ying Wang co-wrote an article called “A Class of Economic and Financial System’s Lyapunov Index and its Application under the Condition of Parameters Bifurcation” in the academic journal, Advances in Information Sciences and Service Science. They discussed how economics are more complex than ever. “With the development of social and continuous improvement in human activities, people are facing with a more complex economic and financial system” (Ma). Robert B. Reich was another who discussed this issue in his work, Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the

Namely, according to Reich, the issue is labor unions. Routine production jobs have all but vanished in traditional union industries. This is where average wages have kept up with inflation. This is mainly because the jobs of older workers in most industries are protected by seniority; the youngest workers are the first to be laid off. When faced with the decision of cutting pay or cutting the number of jobs, most businesses and unions lately chose the second. “All Americans used to be in roughly the same economic boat. Most rose or fell together as the corporations in which they were employed, the industries comprising such corporations, and the national economy as a whole became more productive—or languished” (Reich 254). However, now everyone is in different boats according to Reich. The lower class is sinking quickly, the middle class is sinking more slowly, and the upper class American’s boat is rising