Income Inequality

A cause of income inequality could be the jobs that people have. “In the United States, income inequality, or the gap between the rich and everyone else, has been growing markedly… (Income Inequality, para 1).” There have been no signs of income inequality changing for the lower classes, or getting better, therefore, it has become a very concerned issue upon Americans. “America’s top ten percent now average at least nine times as much income as the bottom 90 percent (Income Inequality, para 2).” Many people who have a big dream have jobs that pay minimum wage, which makes it hard. With the rich getting richer, it makes it hard for the lower classes to get a shot at being at the top with them. This also makes it hard to close the gap between the three classes.

Gary Becker’s and Kevin Murphy’s article, “The Upside of Income Inequality”, analyzes the positive effects of the income gap, and Paul Krugman’s New York Times column, “Confronting Inequality”, stresses the negative impact of the income gap; it is apparent by juxtaposing these two texts that income inequality can be effected by economic development, education, and social equality.

In Income Inequality: Too Big to Ignore, Robert H. Frank paints a picture to the reader about the struggles of pier pressure. For example: an upper-classmen chooses to buy a big house and fancy clothing. This acts as a “frame of reference” to the changes and norms of the society. If he spends money on something nice, a middle-classmen will then go and decide to do the same thing, and then a lower-classmen…all the way down the social hierarchy. This is what he calls an “expenditure cascade.” Robert relates this with a person’s downfalls, which can be traced due to lower income inequality. Income inequality basically means that in a given quantity, the dispersion of income is underlined by the gap between individuals and or households with

According to Henslin (2015), “Weber illustrates, a large group of people who rank close to one another in property, power, and prestige; according to Marx, one of two groups: capitalists who own the means of production or workers who sell their labor” This is a dynamic that should be working currently in American society. However, in the past three decades there has been a gap between the poor and the not very rich. This gap has not happened by itself. According to Reich (2015), in the movie Inequality For All, “…the all

A brief look at history validates that an income inequality gap between the wealthy “haves” and those viewed as “have-notes” has existed for hundreds of years. Consider for a moment the French revolution that occurred during 1789. Prior to this event, French society consisted primarily of three estates made up of the clergy, nobles, and those viewed as the common people. Individuals could not move up the social ladder as access to those positions and their related privileges were determined by birth. Government policies such as the assignment of taxes based on the inequality between the estates were

This article titled "How income inequality hurts America” written by Steve Hargreaves explains the thesis statement itself. On the other hand, he states it’s not just income equality but it’s also lifespan inequality, education inequality, and declining economic growth, which refers to the graphs shown above the starting paragraph. Mr. Hargreaves then points out a fact that the rich are getting richer, while the poor and the middle class are falling behind. Another fact concerning this issue is the 400 richest people outnumber the wealth of the bottom 150 million put together.

society, the idea of income inequality is a frequent topic of argument. Many believe that a large income inequality distribution has a negative effect on a society, while others feel that it has very minor, nonexistent, or even positive effect. Some of the factors that affect the income inequality in the United States are low minimum wages, education, and discrimination of race and gender. The swelling income inequality gap in the United States has created numerous social, health, and human capital problems. There is a ton of information to digest regarding who the majority of money is split between and who is actually benefitting from it. There are numerous factors that affect the income inequality and the data associated with the results of it are rather

An article in The Nation claims that some inequality of wealth and income is unavoidable and to an extent, it is necessary. In a well-functioning economy, individuals need a reason to work hard. This is where some inequality is necessary to motivate people. However, the article states that at some point, these inequalities can be harmful to our economy and traditional American values.

Income Inequality in the United States has been a problem for decades. Since the year 1913 the gap in income inequality between the rich and poor in the U.S. has widened and has been a hot topic for debate. The rich keep getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Thomas Pogge a German philosopher and a professor at Yale University argue that we live in a world where income and wealth are very unevenly distributed throughout society, thus leading to widespread poverty. Amartya Sen an Indian economist and philosopher of Bengali ethnicity argues that really freedoms should be both the ends and means of human development. Robert Reich a professor at Berkeley University and former secretary of labor under Bill Clinton, makes an fluent and impassioned

The focus of Becker and Murphy’s article “The Upside of Income Inequality” is “Growth in the education level of the population has been a significant source of raising wages, productivity, and living standards over the past century.” (585). Becker and Murphy wrote “The Upside of Income Inequality” as a statement “committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening free enterprise.” (581). They argue that the average income for a person with a higher education keeps getting higher, and the lower class will also see a raise in the income they receive and raise the overall standard of living for communities.

Income inequality is necessary for a capitalist society to thrive as it provides competition, hard work, and innovating ideas (Sutter).

Income inequality has been a major issue in American history. There are many different factors that contribute to inequality. These include education, wealth, discrimination, ability, and monopoly power.

Income inequality is a phenomenon that is undeniably real in our current world, and more specifically, the present United States. Canon describes how the gap between the elite and the poor has been consistently growing for many years and continues to widen (189). Whether the differences between the top and the bottom are a threat to current society is another story. Does income inequality undermine a democracy? Ray Williams argues that societies are strongest when they have a higher rate of equality while George Will challenges that inequality is the very basis of what make democratic processes. A. Barton Hinkle takes a Libertarian approach to the idea that inequality is threatening to democracy and how it can be fixed. Some threats that each article addressed were economic impacts, civility, and fairness. Overall, there is a definite need to evaluate whether the United States democracy is being threatened due to the continuous rise of the elites and the fall of the working class.

“Piketty's First Law of Inequality” describes the pattern by which the rich get richer and the poor can't seem to get ahead. In his essay, David Leonhardt relies on the example of two farmers to explain this idea. Essentially, a farmer with a larger farm (let's call them Farmer One) makes enough money to survive and has some extra left over to save. A farmer with a smaller farm (Farmer Two) makes just enough to live on and can't save anything. If Farmer Two falls on rough times, the larger farmer has the extra money needed to “help” Farmer Two and buy the smaller farm. Now, Farmer One has all of the resources, and Farmer Two is worse off in the long run. Because of the ability to save, what might be a crisis for Farmer Two is inconsequential

The explanation for income inequality has been a controversial topic for economist. In effort to explain this Thomas Piketty wrote his New York Times best seller “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”. In the nearly seven hundred-page book he analyses the past events in the Europe and United States Economies and using that data to create new methods for explaining current economic events. With this he concluded that if rate of return on capital were greater than real economic growth there would be significant income inequality (Holcombe 2015). However, there is some controversy on his evaluation and interpretation of the information. This essay will discuss how Piketty came to this conclusion, the arguments against his interpretations, and