Impact Of Wealth Inequality On The United States - 1220 Words

Impacts of Wealth Inequality Wealth in the United States is generally thought to be spread fairly as the highest earners have a higher percentage of wealth. Although this common notion is technically correct, the wealth is not spread as fairly as people might believe. The United States uses a free market, capitalistic economy, which entails wealth inequality. However, the amount of wealth inequality depends on how the government limits the wealthy. Interestingly enough, the government does not have regulations to distribute the wealth more fairly as the top 1% of earners in the United States own about 40% of the financial wealth in the country and the bottom 80% of earners own a measly 4.7%. Astonishingly, the financial wealth for the top 20% increased from 1983 to 2010 meaning the wealth became more concentrated at the higher socioeconomic tiers as time passed. These economic inequalities benefitted the wealthy as they gained political powers, controlled a large portion of the econo mic market, and used capitalism to manipulate the public’s perspective of the wealth distribution in the United States. While wealth inequality is a result of capitalism, extremely wealthy people use their wealth to exercise political power,but the average person does not understand that this is a corrupt method of crippling the economy in favor of the ultra wealthy. To begin, the wealthiest earners in the United States have more power politically and economically than the rest of theShow MoreRelatedWealth Inequality Of The United States1216 Words   |  5 PagesWealth in the United States is generally thought to be distributed fairly as the highest earners have a higher percentage of wealth. Although this common notion is technically correct, the wealth is not spread as fairly as people might believe. The United States uses a free market, capitalistic economy, which entails wealth inequality. However, the amount of wealth inequality depends on how the government limits the wealthy. Interestingly enough, the government does not have regulations to distributeRead MoreEconomic Inequality And Its Effects On Economic Growth1709 Words   |  7 Pageseconomic inequality. Over the past decades, economic inequality has been rising and at an increasing rate, expanding the gap between the rich and the poor. The direct relationship between inequality and poverty has shown that while inequality increases, so too does poverty. Increased inequality is harmful for economic growth and its effects also bear social implications. Although there are arguments on the consequences of wealth redistribution and its unintended impact on economic growth, wealth shouldRead MoreIncome Inequality in the United States Essay788 Words   |  4 Pagesrichest earned 88.9% of all wealth. A big gap between the rich and poor is often associated with low social mobility, which contradicts the American ideal of equal opportunity. Levels of income inequality are higher than they have been in almost a century, the top one percent has a share of the national income of over 20 percent (Wilhelm). There are a variety of factors that influence income inequality, a few of which will be discussed in this paper. Rising income inequality is caused by differencesRead MoreA Clip Of Jon Stewart And His Satire908 Words   |  4 Pagesâ€Å"The United States of America is not a third world country. . .except perhaps income inequality where we rank worse than the Ivory Coast, worse than Cameroon† (Inequality for All). A clip of Jon Stewart and his satire was featured during the opening minutes of the documentary Inequality for All. Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration, is the centerpiece of the film, describing and explaining the growing income inequality in the United States and the effect it hasRead MoreEconomic Inequality And Political Inequality1647 Words   |  7 PagesEconomic inequality, also known as income inequality, is the interval between the rich and the poor. Economic inequality refers to how the total wealth in the United States is distributed among people in a social class. It is needed and it is important but due to the major gap difference, it affects the Democratic Party and in addition, it also affects Americans because they do not understand the actual wealth distribution. It is a maj or issue in the United States because it affects other economicRead MoreEssay about Death of the American Dream1042 Words   |  5 Pagesrefrain from discussing class distinctions and its impact on our lives and instead revel in the notion that these differences are not relevant to American society. Whether class structure is parted into general categories of upper, middle or lower class, the concept of class distinction is polarized in American society. Income inequality, the defining challenge of our time poses a fundamental threat to the American dream our way of life. Income inequality has become another topic in conversation we beginRead MoreEconomic Inequality Of The United States910 Words   |  4 PagesThe United States is a well-developed country and is considered to have the largest economy in the world. It is ranked high in GDP per capita, which indicates people enjoy a higher living standard in a nation (Mahoney, â€Å"Economic Inequality in the United States†). However, the aggregated data collected for GDP per capita could not be taken account for the middle and lower classes. According to the Pew Research Center, statistics show that the US income inequality has reached the biggest gap in 2013Read MoreJane Jacobs ´ Theory of Development1064 Words   |  4 Pages Today we are concerned with the development of wealth inequality and the serious outcomes that may come about because of this huge impact on the majority of the population of the United States, the 99%. According to Jane Jacobs’ theory of development, â€Å"Development is differentiation emerging from generality.† (Jacobs 16). In other words, Jacobs’s concept of development basically starts off as simple air made out of animate or inanimate subjectRead MoreEssay on Political Science1406 Words   |  6 Pagesconstitutes an element of the United States’ national political culture? The rights and liberties citizens have 2) No political belief has been more widely held across social groups and generations in the United States than ________. individual liberty 3) The Declaration of Independence asserts the primacy of the principle of ________, that â€Å"all men are created equal.† equality 4) The fastest growing ethnic group in the United States is ________. Hispanics Read MoreThe Inequality Gap Of The Rich And Poor1183 Words   |  5 PagesSome people would argue that the inequality gap of the rich and the poor does not affect our democracy. Others say the inequality gap is weakening our democracy. Either way, there is a wealth gap between the rich and the poor in the United States and as this gap between the classes expands, there is a debate over what should be done. On one side, people believe that great inequality between the rich and the poor is incompatible with democracy. Democracy is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary