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Examples Of Wealth Inequality In The United States

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Wealth Inequality in the United States The United States is one of the largest and richest countries in the world. It holds 41.6% of the world’s wealth to be exact, yet it’s wealth inequality is growing at an alarming rate. Wealth inequality is nothing new, but since the 1980s the top 1% of the richest households have had a constant increase in wealth while the bottom 90%’s wealth has decreased substantially. Wealth is essentially net worth, total assets minus debts. The people at the Institute for Policy Studies, defines wealth inequality “… as the unequal distribution of assets within a population”. In “The Causes of Economic Inequality” May Leung states that low wages are the main element of economic inequality, also known as wealth inequality …show more content…

One example is that “the chairman of Merck took home $17.9 million in 2010, as Merck laid off sixteen thousand workers and announced layoffs of twenty-eight thousand more” (Reich 401). Many Americans in the workforce are “contingent”, meaning that they are either temporary/seasonal workers, contractors, or independent consultants (Reich). Benefits offered by large and medium businesses, such as pensions, have drastically decreased over the last three decades, from more than 80% to below 10% now (Reich 403). Employer-provided insurance has decreased from 74% to below 10% now too (Reich 403). The use of government assistance programs like SNAP and other nutrition programs have increased from 19 million participants in 2002 to 44.7 million in 2011 according to Alison Fraser’s “Federal Spending by the Numbers – 2012”. Combined, the effects of wealth inequality are widely spread across the middle and lower …show more content…

Tim Worstall’s “Inequality in the United States” focuses primarily on how to reduce inequality in the United States according to Tim Smeeding, a professor of public affairs and economics and the director of the Institute for Research on Poverty. Upgrading public and secondary education would involve improving course structure, student counseling, and to “numerate young people ready to specialize at college” instead of sending students off with little to no guidance (Worstall). Along with education, technical training needs a boost to truly give graduates a proper start in the workforce

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