The Rich versus Poor in America
America; the land of opportunities. How many times have we heard this phrase in our lives? This is the promise land and here, you will be treated equally and will be guaranteed freedom and justice. Maybe it is so in legal terms. However if we look closely, there are many injustice going on that is not protected by our constitution. Perhaps the most obvious one is the difference between the rich and the poor or the haves and the have-nots. First line in the constitution states; all men are created equal. Is that so? I see a tremendous disadvantage being born to a family of poverty than being born to the wealthy family. It’s not a just a matter of being able to be educated properly but a life or death situation. Money, just a thin piece of paper, is something that has become essential in our lives and also a thing people live and die for.
“Jack in the Pot” is one very melancholic story. This story left me heart broken for a while. Mr. and Mrs. Edmunds get along together very well. They both care each other greatly, understands each other and everything seems to be what an ideal marriage is. Except for the fact that they are extremely poor. Mr. Edmunds explains their quality of living in this quote: “We don’t live human. I never see a paper ‘cept when I pick one up on the subway. I ain’t had a cigarette in three years. We ain’t got a radio. We don’t have no company. All the pleasure you get is a ten-cent movie one day a week. I don’t even get that.”
One day, Mrs. Edmunds hit the jackpot of $55 at a 10-cent movie theater. Because it was an income that was not planned, she gets confused how to use the money. Around the same time, Mr. Johnson, a very kind janitor of the apartm...
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...he poor, also divides our society. Only few out of millions succeed in becoming a member of the higher society. No way this is an American Dream. I believe this is an illusion that is advertised through propaganda by the government, so the poor won’t revolt. The government is deceiving them, acting as if they are treating everyone equally as said in the constitution, which in reality they are not.
What can we do to solve this problem? To be honest, there isn’t much we can do. But as one of the “haves”, I believe it is our deed to lend a helping hand for these people. Go back to the basic principle of humanity; love and care for all. It is stated like that in all religions. It is also as important to try and increase the number of people that will follow along with you. As Helen Keller once stated: Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.
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
America has forever long been looked upon as the land of opportunity, yet for just as long struggled with the actual attainment of equal opportunity by all of its citizens. The lines of this inequality have b...
Growing up in The United States, people are given this idea of an American Dream. Almost every child is raised to believe they can become and do anything they want to do, if one works hard enough. However, a majority of people believe that there is a separation of class in American society. Gregory Mantsios author of “Class in America-2009” believes that Americans do not exchange thoughts about class division, although most of people are placed in their own set cluster of wealth. Also political officials are trying to get followers by trying to try to appeal to the bulk of the population, or the middle class, in order to get more supporters. An interesting myth that Mantsios makes in his essay is how Americans don’t have equal opportunities.
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
America in today's society is burdened with many economic and political problems that have begun to plague the nation. Controversial topics are constantly being debated from sunrise to sunset across the country with supporters and those who oppose each bearing various levels of financial and political misfortune. With the numerous economic and political problems that affect the nation, the argument over the issue of income inequality is one of the most notable. Creating a political civil war, proponents from both sides have brought the issue into national view and debate has grown substantially within recent years.
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.
Why are so a large number of people that beg for money, sitting on the streets, looking for food 's some sort? It is not day-to-day that we consider situations like this, but it is out there constantly without all of us realizing it. A number of states have poverty 's more issues than others, but it is sad to think about how plenty of people are actually considered to be in poverty. This is an inequality concerning me a lot, and is getting worse daily. Poverty in the United States relates to people whose annual household earnings are less than a poverty line set by the United States government. Poverty is common, resulted in by numerous different factors such as failing markets, structural problems, unfortunate mishaps, and poor individual
Park Avenue, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in all of New York City, home to the ultra rich, the top tier of the American upper class, the 1% (Park Avenue). Those who reside in Park Avenue not only have vast amounts of wealth, but an immense amount of influence that has turned the tables in their favor. But, if you go a couple of miles North of Park Avenue and cross the Harlem river, you arrive at the other side of Park Avenue or otherwise known as the Bronx, one of the poorest districts in all of New York (Park Avenue). Here you see the real hardships average Americans must voyage through in order to put food on the table and provide shelter for their families. 40% of the 700,000 residents who live in the Bronx live in poverty making less than $40 a day (Park Avenue). Some of those residents have lost their jobs due to the economic recession, created by the bankers on the other side of the river (Park Avenue). The wages of these poor citizens has dropped in the past thirty years, while prices have sky rocketed. Even though economic and social hardships have struck these innocent citizens, they still have a chance at achieving the American dream, right? After all, this is America, the land of opportunity, the place where dreams are born and bred. However, America is not what it once was fifty years ago. In today's society, the American dream is hindered by issues involving gender discrimination, racial discrimination, and weak economic mobility. The influence of money has broadened among our society creating an elite group of winners, and leaving the rest as losers. Our government has been intoxicated under the influences of those holding a paper with a handful of zeros scrawled on it....
What seems to go unnoticed by many Americans is the evident and growing wealth gap. According to Pew Research Center, the current U.S. income is at its highest since 1928. This large dispersion of wealth can be attributed by the “fall [of the] routine producers” (Reich). Where jobs that were once attainable during the 70s are declining due to advancing technology and corporations finding workers in poor countries who are willing to work at half the cost of the routine producers. What also drives this wealth gap is the power of corporations in an age of extravagant consumerism. Through media, the demand to buy what we want is unavoidable. Corporations are able to gain revenue while people go unemployed because of America’s vast opportunities to buy what we want when we want it.
Silicon Valley, California, is home to 250,000 millionaires, a staggering number, indeed. But just what does it mean to be rich? This paper examines one of the most powerful forces in the universe: wealth. Merriam Webster defines wealth as all property that has a money value or exchangeable value. Most people think of wealth as cash.
America is one of the wealthiest nations on earth with having a high inequality than other industrialized country. Inequality exists in income, wealth, power and education. Persons who are legally and socially poor in the United states tend to stay in a cycle through life, not always by choice but because they are given fewer opportunities, education and tools to achieve success. Poverty class has a much larger income gap than the upper class, the American Dream is lessens through opportunity and is shown through statistics.
Inequality in the United States was present for a very long time. It wasn’t until essentially the 1960’s when blacks finally had all of their humane rights. It took many courageous and very charismatic leaders to achieve all the things colored people grasped during this time. In my essay today I will be talking about some of these extremely memorable and honorable events and people that transpired and why they are so significant.
Ever since agriculture replaced hunting and gathering, the division of labor led to the creation of social classes and the division of land and unequal distribution of food surplus allowing inequality to flourish. Unfortunately, this has not only remained, but inequality has exponentially grown, making the difference between each social class quite noticeable. This distressing factor makes American economy highly unstable, and there is little to be done in order to fix this grave issue. It is only a matter of time before America’s economy comes crashing down. American economic inequality has been around for a long time, and it has become a monumental issue.
A social class that has been highly isolated from rest has been all those who live in poverty. Many people are aware of the issues involving poverty, yet they choose to do nothing expecting the government to solve the problem. What people don’t take into consideration is that his problem affects not only them, but also the country as a whole. According to Ron Smith escaping poverty has become more challenging than in past years due to the lack of employment opportunities and the expenses of family care. Smith also stated that the government has been working to find a solution for poverty or more less trying to find a way to prevent it from increasing. The government working through it with the help of policymakers; the w...
The entire world attempts to make a better life for themselves; however, too often the majority of the people of a country will suffer more from their technology than benefit from them. As technology increases the wealth distribution in the United States has shifted from all having relatively equal wealth to the rich becoming even more rich than everyone else. Since the 1970’s the wealthy have gained more wealth while the lower and middle class have begun to suffer shown by “…the share of total household wealth owned by the top 0.1 percent increasing to 22 percent in 2012 from 7 percent in the late 1970s” (Saez, & Zucman, 2014, Np). Robert Reich in “Why the Rich are Getting Richer and the Poor Poorer,” discusses the inequality that technology