Wealth Inequality In America Essay

Inequality What is it? Income inequality is the unequal distribution of household or individual income across the various participants in an economy. Income inequality is often presented as the percentage of income to a percentage of the population. Stated in Ineqaulity.org “Income includes the revenue streams from wages, salaries, interest on a savings account, dividends from shares of stock, rent, and profits from selling something for more than you paid for it.”(Inequality) It also eludes to income as being distributed in an uneven manner among a national population.The gap between everyone else and the rich has constantly been growing since the year 2000. Inequality can be defined or measured in a number of different ways.

The United States shows wider differences of wealth between rich and poor than any other developed nation. “Net Worth,” is the sum total of your assets minus liabilities. A persons assets can include everything from an owned personal residence and cash in savings accounts all the way to investments in stocks and bonds, real estate, and retirement accounts. What liabilities do is they cover what a household owes, for example a car loan, credit card balance, student loans, mortgage, or any other bill that has yet to be paid. The Recession shows that the longstanding racial and ethnic wealth divide in the United States.

Wealth Inequality In America Ryan Wallace Throughout American history, wealth inequality has taken many different forms, and has affected many people and groups in different ways. In the following analysis, two measures of 'wealth inequalities' will be used. First is a more traditional view, regarding the distribution of income and wealth among the upper to lower classes. The size of the gap has varied over time, widening and compressing throughout American history. While America has been thought of as a middle class nation, this is a fairly recent phenomena that began after World War II.

The distribution of wealth in America has been unevenly distributed since 1970. We can see this distribution clearly through some of the wealthiest people in America who make millions of dollars, compared to a homeless individual. There is a huge income gap between rich and poor, the rich stay rich, and the poor, become poorer. Income inequality refers to the unequal distribution of income and wealth between the social classes of citizens. This concept of income inequality has proved over the years, to be a widespread problem, where in the future, economic inequality in developing countries will make up about “95 percent of the entire global population.” Nancy Birdsall discusses this notion of “inequality breeding more inequality” in her article Why Inequality Matters: Some Economic Issues.

Inequality can be traced as far back as possible. It can also be described as disparity. This disparity can be in terms of income, wealth, class etc. Economic inequality can be described as the disparity between income of individuals or household within and outside a country. When “income inequality” is mentioned, most people think about it in a within the country context, but in a world that is becoming more integrated, economic inequality between countries is becoming more relevant.

Inequality in America I believe that there is too much wealth and income inequality in the United States today. The upper classes have most of the power in the nation and use their influence and wealth to convert the United States income into benefiting their well being and financial stability. In the last fifteen years, the income of the upper classes has risen while the income of the lower classes has generally lowered, further showing the inequality that exists in our nation. It is usually difficult for the lower classes to achieve financial success because a high income job requires good education which the lower classes lacks because they cannot afford it. In the United States there are four social classes : the upper class, the middle class, the working class, and the lower class.

But industry shifts in labor demand away from less educated workers are perhaps a more important explanation of declining wages than the outsourcing of manufacturing. Also, factors putting downward pressure on the wages of less educated workers are increasing global competition and immigration. As well as the decline of the proportion of workers belonging to unions, and the decline in the real value of the minimum wage (Weinberg). All of these factors are what causes the global economy to suffer from inequality. A diminutive percentage of American citizens hold almost half of the public wealth.

Will an increase in the minimum wage help lift people out of poverty? There are several arguments to this and in this paper I will explore the issues surrounding income inequality and also add in the important factor of social mobility. When we think of income inequality we usually think of big corporations versus the rest of us. We do not typically think that small businesses contribute to this problem as well. But indeed this gap is present in all forms of business big and small because, let’s face it, most business models are based on the capitalist system.

A year later, the Economist published the article, “Inequality and the American Dream” implies that the American dream is broken. Sklar’s argument sheds light on the Economist’s argument. In particular, Sklar’s use of facts regarding the wealthiest Americans, the poorest Americans, and the discussion of the impact of inequality on society provide insight into the Economist’s article. Sklar provides vivid illustrations of the astronomical wealth of America’s richest class. Sklar opens her article with the following fact from the CIA World Factbook, “‘Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20 percent of households’” (308).

March 11, 2014. In this article the authors shows how income inequality has been changing over the time. He also tries to emphasize how large this gap has become by comparing income and taxation of the top 1% with the rest of the nation. Sutter, John. “7 Ways to Narrow the Rich-Poor Gap.” CNN Opinion.