Theme Of Income Inequality In Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees

Introduction: "I'd never been around working-class whites before, either, and that was a shock. They were just as likely to be poor as the blacks and Mexicans, but they were different in some important way that I couldn't put my finger on" (Kingsolver 86). This quote from The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver provides the complexity of race and economy in America. Despite the American Dream's promise of opportunity and upward mobility for all, the novel's protagonist, Taylor Greer, confronts the harsh reality that economic success is not equally accessible to all individuals, particularly those from marginalized communities. Kingsolver uses Taylor’s observation of racial income inequality shows that escaping poverty and discrimination highlights

According to Rebecca Kulik, a contributor to Encyclopedia Britannica, social issues can be defined as affairs that affect personal and social lives of individuals or communities. Many communities are affected with the social issue of income inequality, but the races most heavily affected are the African-American and Hispanic communities. This issue is driven by systemic factors such as historical discrimination, limited access to education, and a lack of opportunities for economic mobility. Economic mobility is for people in poverty to improve their economic status through a course of time, stated by Elizabeth Male, a senior manager of an organization that strives for economic equality. In acknowledging the fact that there have been decades of racial inequality through different events, Dionissi Aliprantis, assistant vice president and director of the Program on Economic Inclusion emphasizes, slavery and unequal treatment such as segregation in schools, and even discrimination in labor markets has skyrocketed the cases of income inequality. These factors contribute to a persistent gap in earnings and wealth between racial groups, with Black and Hispanic communities being disproportionately

John Powell, an expert in structural racism and poverty at UC Berkeley shows, higher wages for low paid workers has helped almost 4.6 million people out of poverty. This statistic shows that this solution has been tried and has worked very efficiently. If we implement this solution today, and keep it going in the future, we can help millions of impoverished people to help them get basic necessities. Another solution that can solve this problem is investment in education. Education is the foundation on who is going to get the higher paying jobs. Students with higher quality education will have the tools to be successful in the future. But, students with poor education won’t have the resources to be successful in their future. School quality and differences in education is the starting point for economic inequality, says John Powell, expert on structural