ipl-logo

Examples Of Income Inequality In The United States

1503 Words7 Pages

Robert Bunnett
Professor Ramos-Bernal
POLS 110
5/17/15
Income Inequality in the United States
People have always referred to the United States of America as being the land of opportunity. Americans strive for something called “The American Dream.” Some people believe that they have achieved this dream. However, there are many people in America that have had so many problems economically that this “dream” has become out of reach. The reason for this is because of income inequality in America. America’s economy has gone from being one of the most economically stable countries in the world, to the state it is in now. For an economy to become strong, it needs to have a strong middle class. The reason for this is because …show more content…

If they want to raise taxes on business creators and cause a further slowdown, why they can vote for President Obama” (“Don’t Tax the Job Creators”). What they meant by this title is that the head of a company is employing so many people under them. Because of this idea, many Americans believe in a “trickledown effect.” This is the idea of giving tax cuts to the richest Americans, so the money can move down to their employees. This is a flawed system that keeps getting the rich richer. The rich will do what they can to keep the money and continue to become wealthier. In the article, “Most See Inequality Growing, but Partisans Differ over Solutions,” 54% favor taxing the wealthy to expand aid to the poor. The article states that Jan. 15-19 among 1,504 adults, finds that 65% believe the gap between the rich and everyone else has increased in the last 10 years. Even though a majority sees that economic inequality is a problem, people seem to have different viewpoints on how we should fix it (pewresearch.org). The documentary, Inequality for All, mentions when Ronald Reagan was President of the United States, he brought down the tax rate on the rich from 70 percent to 35 percent. However, most of the money the rich make are from capital gains. So instead of 35 percent, they are actually being taxed about 15 percent. This is the time where the nation’s income kept rising as the average pay of the middle class American froze. It is right when economic inequality started to rise once again. (Jacob

Show More
Related

Rhetorical Analysis: A Fundamental Threat To The American Dream

186 Words | 1 Pages

President Barack Obama writes a very informative article on the subject of inequality within the article, “A Fundamental Threat to the American Dream”. President Obama’s goal is to inform the audience about the inequality between those who are born into rich families compared to the middle and under class families. He starts by comparing statistics of economic growth between the rich and the poor in 1979, the year he graduated high school, to the current year the article was written. Between these two dates, economic growth has been tipped to benefit the rich. With newer technology, it has caused the the size of the labor force to decrease and the wealth gap to increase.

Read More

Lies My Teacher Told Me

369 Words | 2 Pages

“The policies of the Reagan and first Bush administrations, which openly favored the rich, abetted a secular trend already in motion, causing inequality to increase measurably between 1981 and 1992.” (Loewen, 215) The wealthy already had their advantage when they gained their wealth. The wealth they had helped greatly in the process

Read More

Why Income Inequality Doesn T Threaten Opportunity

1667 Words | 7 Pages

This income inequality is explained best in a document written by David Azerrad and Rea S. Hederman Jr., titled “Defending the Dream: Why Income Inequality Doesn't Threaten Opportunity”, when they state “enforced income parity is neither desirable nor just. Because people have different native talents, upbringings, and interests, an economy in which they are free to buy, sell, trade, manufacture, produce, and invest in what they please will inevitably lead to great inequalities of wealth and income”(Azerrad and Hederman 2012). From Azerrad and Hederman we can deduce that while it isn’t wrong to have material possessions be a part of the American Dream, there is a limit to how much a person can achieve with a given set of skills, and not everyone will be able to reach that limit. Even though not everyone can achieve their Dream of vast material wealth that does not mean that they can’t achieve their American dream. Matthew Warshauer supports this point very well by saying “The American dream has always included achieving financial success …

Read More

Supply Side Economics Essay

881 Words | 4 Pages

The top 10% of America owns up to two thirds of the wealth in America. The article goes on to explain why this idea may be harder to put in effect due to the tax hikes. The middle fifth of America will experience a tax cut by an average of $730 in 2019, but will soon increase in 2027 (“Six More Things to Know,”

Read More

Thomas Jefferson's Conception Of The American Dream

738 Words | 3 Pages

However, the middle class has started seriously shrinking in the recent years. As the middle-class in America continues to decrease, the chance of American children rising out of the economic class they are born into does too (Hartmann, 2014). What is causing this decrease in the middle-class? The wealthy becoming even more wealthy.

Read More

Pros And Cons Of Income Tax Applied To The Riches In The United States

636 Words | 3 Pages

After looking at the tax brackets and how they are applied we can understand why the difference and the gap. How the rich becomes richer? Well looking at their taxation explains it very well, after reading and researching I was amazed at what I found. The fact that

Read More

Social Inequality In America

1174 Words | 5 Pages

We have had numerous recessions which in turn makes matters worse as middle class working people lose their jobs or get paid less as a result of of this. When a group faces this kind of setback, it creates inequality in the country because not everyone suffers because of this, but not much is done to erase the issue. Most problems arise when the middle class is expected to pay a certain amount in taxes that could be beyondmeans while the 1% does not face the same issue. We saw this become a main concern in the 2016 election as some candidates wanted even lower taxes for the 1% in turn putting that burden on the middle class. When focussed more precisely, it becomes known of the wage gap between white workers and black or latin workers.

Read More

1984 George Orwell Income Inequality Analysis

475 Words | 2 Pages

The middle class want to become rich and the low class only wants equality.” Orwell’s predictions of the party, the government in modern society, rises to power and the poor stay poor. In LA Times “Income Inequality makes the rich more scrooge-like, study finds”, “Since the 1980’s -- the end of a 30-year period… wealth has grown increasingly concentrated at the top of the economic ladder, while low-income Americans have commanded a smaller and smaller share of the nation’s wealth.” *add where quote is from* ”... top 5 percent of American families saw their real income increase 74.9 percent… the lowest-income fifth saw a decrease in real income of 12.1 percent… Sharply contrasting with the 1947-79 period… with the lowest income group actually seeing the largest gains.”

Read More

Income Inequality In America

968 Words | 4 Pages

65% for the “upper middle” bracket 19% of the U.S population. And a whopping 275% of taxes for the 1% of the U.S. These numbers undeniably show a non “equal” society but one out for the 1% and other high rollers. America isn’t protecting the people at the top nor the bottom.

Read More

Essay On The United States Has Such An Unequal Distribution Of Wealth

867 Words | 4 Pages

“The United States has such an unequal distribution of wealth so that it's in the league of corrupt underdeveloped countries, no longer in the league of the developed nation. ”(Zuesse). Unequal distribution of wealth has become a very big problem in America. As the common saying goes “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer”, this has become very true in America’s case with “75.4% of all wealth is owned by the richest 10% of the people. ”(zeusse).While

Read More

Economic Inequality In America Essay

856 Words | 4 Pages

America prides itself on being one of the most effective democratically governed counties. The idea of the American dream is that all people have equivalent political freedoms and a responsive government. However the effectiveness of social equality is being threatened by increasing inequality in the United States. Economic inequality in the US has expanded drastically. The wealth gap has had drastic changes over the past 35 years.

Read More

Income Inequality In America Essay

850 Words | 4 Pages

The United States of America use to be known as the place to fulfill your dreams, however the American Dream has now been altered. The gap between the rich and poor is now exceeded. Presidential Candidate, Bernie Sanders once said "The issue of wealth and income inequality is the great moral issue of our time, it is the great economic issue of our time, and it is the great political issue of our time. " In my opinion, I completely agree, considering income inequality is The United States of America's biggest problem, and most difficult to fix.

Read More

Essay On Inequality In America

411 Words | 2 Pages

The article says, “While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall.” (Stiglitz 2011) While the rich are getting higher incomes prices the poor are getting higher income by taking it from the one in the middle which therefore, makes them get a lower income percentage. America has fallen behind because of not being an equal country to the population by the income equality there is a huge gap between the income being earned by the poor and the rich. The rich are wealthy and the poor depend on the government for everything. As stated in the article, “America lags behind any country in the old, ossified Europe that President George W. Bush used to deride.

Read More

Income Inequality Essay

967 Words | 4 Pages

In today's economy, many face difficulties and financial hardships. Amongst those financial hardships are paying taxes. Many cannot simply afford to pay taxes, whilst the wealthy of this country pay the same price in taxes and act as bystanders in a crippling economy. Over time, situations have only worsened for the poor, causing the rich to get richer and the poor get poorer. One proposed method of creating a strong economic foundation is to increase taxes for the rich and decrease taxes for the poor, who can barely afford the standard cost of living.

Read More

Inequality In Henry George's The Crime Of Poverty

1709 Words | 7 Pages

Our founders, they sacrificed their lives, their liberty, their sacred honor for a democracy: a government of the many, not a government of the money” (L.Hurley-2014). Even prior to these rulings, the “trickle down” economic theory made famous by President Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts for the rich in the 1980s was just another example of the wealth’s exploitation of democracy. The theory that if the investors and job creators are prosperous, then the profits would trickle down to the rest of the population was a perfectly executed manipulation of policy to increase inequality. Saez and Piketty note, that as result of President Reagan and Prime minister Thatcher’s tax cuts in the 1980s, the U.S and U.K saw the top income tax rates slashed from 70% to less than 30% (E.Saez and

Read More

More about Examples Of Income Inequality In The United States

Related Topics

Open Document