Income Inequality

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

The issue of income inequality in the United States is complicated and does not have a definite answer. Income inequality can be measured in a few different ways. The first measurement for the income inequality in a country is to look at the percentages on households and group them into income categories, called distribution by income category. The second measurement for income inequality is called distribution by quintiles or fifths. This is when you divide the total number of people, households, families into five groups called quintiles to examine the percentage of total before tax income received by each quintile. Each quintile would then be ordered by income and households in the category.

Income Inequality is a major problem that has been going on in America for decades. Many people feel that it barely exists today, but those people are very uneducated and don’t really care about the huge problem in front of them the many people that feel that way are highly uneducated, and seem to not really care about which has been gradually increasing instead of decreasing. Unfortunately, there’s not much that can be done, only of course if the poor class of people decide to actually educate themselves and get a higher education. One says poor class, simply because that’s how they’re classified. There are five types of levels that Americans are classified as, and they are: Upper Class, Upper Middle Class, Middle Class, Working Class, Poor. The highest percentage of Americans fall in the Poor department, and it has been that way for decades, and will continue to be that way for decades to come.

Amongst all of the presidential candidates of the 2016 race, one in particular stands above the rest. Bernie Sanders, running as a democrat, holds the highest capability to better the nation amongst all other candidates.

Income inequality is increasingly becoming a significant concern for many countries around the world. The income difference between the highly-educated, skilled, wealthy class and the poor, low to mid-skilled workers is growing larger and larger. In fact, the incomes of the rich are increasing significantly, while the low skilled workers’ incomes have been declining (The Economist, “Wealth Without Workers”). According to The Economist, real median wages have been decreasing since 2000 in half of the member countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In the United States, there was a 4% increase from 1980 to 2012 in the share of national income that was distributed to the top 0.01% (The Economist, “True Progressivism”). Canada is facing a similar problem of rising inequality.

In any given population, there is a difference between what people within the population earn. The uneven distribution of income in any given population is income inequality. In order for there to be income, there has to be several sources of income. These sources of income may be combinational or independent per person receiving the income. Income may result from wages, rent, bank account interests, salaries or even profits made in business transactions ( Stiglitz, 2012).

The U.S. is the land of opportunity, but why will so many not achieve the American Dream? There is no doubt a difference exists between the rich and the poor. The most common words to describe social class are the upper, the middle, and the lower class groups of people . U.S. News (Francis) states 46.2 million people, approximately 15 percent of the U.S. population, currently live below the poverty line (Francis). Unequal income distribution contributes tremendously to poverty by making the rich, richer and keeping the poor, poorer.

This article examines the rampant issue of income inequality that has plagued the United States for decades. From the 1970s onward, the 1% of Americans are accumulating more wealth created in the country, leaving the other 99% to scrounge around for the rest; some of these citizens live below the poverty line and may not know if they have enough money to keep the lights on for another month. Evaluating various other reports under the social interpretation of the social conflict theory, the results from most of these findings support the expansion of the labor union’s bargaining power to protect its workers as well as an overhaul of federal and state laws concerning taxes more likely paid by the upper class of citizens.

Corporations and businesses should take responsibility in devising multiple solutions that help society as a whole. In Joseph Stiglitz’s essay “Rent Seeking and the Making of an Unequal Society” shows the corruption of wealth inequality in society. While, in Ethan Watters’ essay “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan” shows the corruption of Western pharmaceutical companies shaping culture to market depression in Japan. [Drug marketing is a big problem in today’s society since big firms neglect their obligation to share the profits with others in society. Both Watters and Stiglitz offer objections to the economic markets in America as unjust due to market competition, false marketing techniques, opposition to cultural or income differences,

Income inequality has been a major concern around the world, and it mainly links to how economic metrics are distributed among individuals in a country. Economists generally categorise these metrics in wealth, income and consumption. Wilkinson and Picket (2009) showed in their studies that inequality has drawbacks that lead to social problems. This is because income inequality and wealth concentration can hinder or delay long term growth. In 2011, International Monetary Fund economists showed that less income inequality increased the duration of countries’ economic growth spells more than free trade, low government corruption, foreign investment or low foreign debt (Berg and Ostry, 2011).

I think that wealth and income inequality give off more social problems and both lead to more negative issues than positive. Crime can tend to occur because of money and that often involves a wealthy person as well as a lower class person. I also think that income inequality can correlate with life expectancy. The rich may live longer because they have more money and therefor are able to afford better health care than the poor. It is crazy to think that some people have too much money than they know what to do with while others don’t know when their next meal is. We live in a vicious cycle where the richer can get richer because of investments and the poor struggle to find jobs because they don’t have the money to buy a car to be able to go

Wealthier individuals often have more power than the poor and are sometimes even able to maintain their wealth at the cost of the poor. Inequality of income is often one of the most significant reasons for the disparity within classes socially and one of the most important reasons that poverty is often intergenerational. Particularly in this tumultuous political time of divisiveness, people who are willing and able to make changes to the status quo in meaningful ways are of the utmost importance. Closing the gap in wealth is one of the most essential ways to ensure that inequality is addressed and that the other social issues surrounding this gap will be lessened and lessened until it hopefully eventually disappears. Change-makers are more important than ever and those groups and nations as well as individuals with power that are willing to be honest with themselves and

The distribution of income is the manner in which income is divided amongst the members of the economy. A more equitable distribution of income from work would lead to all individuals in society having a similar quality of life. This equitable distribution of income may be either positive or negative. Positive factors may include the poor being able to access better education and health care and avoiding the inequality of opportunity they may face. It also decreases and diminishes the poverty faced by individuals. The negative factors of a more equitable income include it having an effect on the economy by lowering the incentives for people to study hard and work hard to achieve a higher education and to get a higher knowledge based job and discourages innovation and people taking risks. Sweden has a fairly equitable distribution of income, its Gini Index is 23.0 a country with 0.0 would have perfectly equitable income. A Gini index is a representation of the income distribution between a nation's residents.

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.

1. How do you define economic equality? For example, is economic equality simply making sure everyone has equal income, or is it enough to provide all equal opportunity to earn income?