The American dream was owning a house with a white picket fence. Now this dream is impossible. Individuals and families find it more difficult to find a decent home to rent in a suitable living area. According to Huffington Post, the hourly wage needed to afford a two bedroom apartment in California is at least $26 an hour. This is more than triple the minimum wage. Eviction, relocation, and inflation are the common keywords that associate with affordable housing. I 'm hoping to persuade you to support affordable housing for all. Today, I will be discussing, one, inflation of the housing market that needs to decrease, two, eviction from homes, three having to move to communities far from their work site. As the United States economy grows and technology advances, many areas such as San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and New York City embrace tech companies with open arms. However, it turns San Francisco, once an affordable place, into a luxurious and costly city for people who earn six digit pay checks. The Golden Gate City currently tops the chart for the most expensive homes in the nation. Even techies rent are increasing each month. The people moving into these cities are raising rental and property prices. The middle class is being squeezed out of their …show more content…
While the the 1%, are secured, no one is addressing the rest of the people. As the economy flourishes, housing, higher education and health care, and child care increases with it to the point where 30 percent of a person’s income goes towards housing. People are finding it impossible to purchase a house with their middle class incomes. People begin to fall out of the once stable middle class because too much is needed to be sacrificed in order to live in a stable home. In the shrinking middle class, “40% or more of the residents live below the poverty
With each class comes a certain level in financial standing, the lower class having the lowest income and the upper class having the highest income. According to Mantsios’ “Class in America” the wealthiest one percent of the American population hold thirty-four percent of the total national wealth and while this is going on nearly thirty-seven million Americans across the nation live in unrelenting poverty (Mantsios 284-6). There is a clear difference in the way that these two groups of people live, one is extreme poverty and the other extremely
Instead of focusing on the relationship between federal housing policy and segregation, as does Mohl, DiPasquale explores how rental housing and federal policies affect each other. In her article, “Rental Housing: Current Market Conditions and the Role of Federal Policy,” DiPasquale challenges the federal policies that were in place at the time she wrote her article. She brings to attention her belief that in the past, government policies have given much of their focus to homeowners and little to the renter. Through her research, DiPasquale had found that rental housing had become increasingly less affordable, especially to poorer tenants, who are spending a greater portion of their income on rent. This not only poses a problem to the renters, but also to the landlords, for if the renters cannot pay the rent, the landlords get a vacancy and no income from their property. She also asserts her belief that homeownership is not for everyone, and uses evidence from the recent housing crisis to support her claim. Her article calls for a revamping of current federal policies to level the playing field between home owning and renting. By doing so, households will have more choices available to them when it comes to choosing suitable housing for them
Since poverty affects a wide array of people, poverty has evolved into a very complex issue. And even though the government has passed legislature to try to ameliorate the situation, many of these means-tested measures like food stamps, have only been able to help the surface of poverty and fails to rip out the long roots poverty has grown throughout history. Poverty’s deep effects are seen especially in minorities as they struggle much more to leave a current situation that has been created by historical process. Even though government assistance like food stamps do help alleviate some of poverty’s burden, these measures fail to recognize the reality that many of the impoverished minority have undervalued homes or no homes at all and even if they can rent, that rent can be high enough to take up more than fifty-percent of their paychecks. Overall, poverty in America is a vastly complicated issue rooted throughout history. And even though the government has attempted to pass legislature to help provide relief from poverty, America still has yet to provide measures that target the roots of poverty and until then, the government assistance it does provide will only be superficial and fail to provide long-term solutions to a complicated
Frank, Robert H. Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class. Berkeley: University of California, 2007. Print.
Did you know that the top 1 percent of Americans hold almost 40 percent of the country’s total wealth? Or that the same 1 percent has 288 times as much wealth as the median American household? Those are staggering and shocking statistics that present a grim reality. In response, activists have created the Occupy Wall Street group and have developed its trademark slogan, “We are the 99 percent.” The motto refers to the economic struggle between the bottom 99 percent of Americans and the wealthiest 1 percent, who are rapidly accumulating the majority of national wealth. The large income gap in the U.S. has caused and will continue to result in economic issues, social chaos, and political injustice.
This high demand can be due to what many people call “historical low interest rates” as more people are interesting in home ownership especially young people to take advantage of these low rates. A prosperous tech industry in the area that keeps attracting highly skilled workers who earn higher than average incomes increases demand. In her article “Housing affordability crisis drives Bay Area middle-class exodus”, Mary Ann Azevedo explains that the Bay Area created 114,000 new jobs in 2014 and only 8,000 housing units. Azevedo further explains this low inventory, “The City of San Francisco is still producing only 2,000 housing units per year — when it has needed more like 5,000 for the last 20 years and going forward.” These statistics provide a clear picture of the seriousness of the situation and explains one of the major reasons that are driving the prices up with no sight of slowing
Inside of this video, this guy really targets an issue nobody has really been presented. He shows charts that talk about how we Americans think our wealth is distributed. We think distribution is doing alright. Americans think that the bottom 40% is getting a bit of money. They also believe that the middle class is doing reasonably well. Unfortunately, that is not the case. In the video, he breaks it down a little bit getter. He shows a graph that shows how money is actually being distributed. The poorest of poor don 't even register on the poverty line. The middle class is barely making it. And then there is this huge difference between "the rich" and the poor. It is proven that the 1% of America has 40% of the entire nation 's wealth ("Wealth Inequality in America."). The bottom 80% of America only share 7% of the nation 's wealth among themselves. The top 1% has 50% of the stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. The bottom 50% of Americans only own 0.5% ("Wealth Inequality in America."). The poor is not just getting by but they are scraping and fighting to get by. Now that it is clear that there is a lot of poor people in America, it is important to figure out how to fix
...he Betrayal of The American Dream, other factors that have placed tension and added stress on the middle class are explained. As the federal government and other corporations have enacted policies that, “Benefit the few at the expense of the many … steadily dismantling the foundation of America’s middle class” (Barlett 5) almost all economic prosperity has seemingly become only attainable by the richest in our society. From using policies that force people to work until the age of seventy before being able to access retirement benefits, to Washington and Wall street having slowly replaced high paying jobs with minimum wage ones that force more and more people to work under contracts that lower wages, the governments harsh treatment of the middle class has only aided in this increase in economic stress and it will continue to do so unless we take a stand (Barlett 5).
Since the mid-1970s, affordable housing has become increasingly difficult to find. This is because Americans are being asked to contribute more and more or their paychecks to their rent and when they become homeless it is difficult to get themselves back into affordable housing. It has been reported that “A full-time worker earning minimum wage cannot afford a one-bedroom unit priced at the Fair Market Rent anywhere in the United States. Nationally a full-time worker must earn $18.32 per hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent.”(National low-income Housing Coalation 2010) Today, our federal minimum wages contributes to our increasing homeless population, while even if you work fulltime making $7.25 isnt even enough to get you off the street. In 1970 there was a...
America’s upper class has been getting richer since the past three decades, and we have still not found a way to stop this. We have been unable to find a way to distribute America’s wealth equally, so we can have a decent lower class and a good middle class. Inequality has caused many people to struggle in various ways, but their is alway another side to the story.
Income inequality has affected American citizens ever since the American Dream came to existence. The American Dream is centered around the concept of working hard and earning enough money to support a family, own a home, send children to college, and invest for retirement. Economic gains in income are one of the only possible ways to achieve enough wealth to fulfill the dream. Unfortunately, many people cannot achieve this dream due to low income. Income inequality refers to the uneven distribution of income and wealth between the social classes of American citizens. The United States has often experienced a rise in inequality as the rich become richer and the poor become poorer, increasing the unstable gap between the two classes. The income gap in America has been increasing steadily since the late 1970’s, and has now reached historic highs not seen since the 1920’s (Desilver). UC Berkeley economics professor, Emmanuel Saez conducted extensive research on past and present income inequality statistics and published them in his report “Striking it Richer.” Saez claims that changes in technology, tax policies, labor unions, corporate benefits, and social norms have caused income inequality. He stands to advocate a change in American economic policies that will help close this inequality gap and considers institutional and tax reforms that should be developed to counter it. Although Saez’s provides legitimate causes of income inequality, I highly disagree with the thought of making changes to end income inequality. In any diverse economic environment, income inequality will exist due to the rise of some economically successful people and the further development of factors that push people into poverty. I believe income inequality e...
Inequality today is one of the most significant problems that America faces. According to Inequality.org in 2015 Household income of the top 0.1% of the population gained $6,747,439 while bottom 90% of the population got $34,074 (Inequality.org). The gap between incomes only continues to grow every year, which requires a change in social and economic policies of the country. However, it should be remembered that economic indicators can tell about working conditions, living conditions, nutrition, education of representatives of various groups of the population, but they can not show a picture of the realizability and opportunities to be successful in life for different groups of the population. That is why at the end
Meanwhile, the wealthiest 1 percent took in 19 percent of America’s income in 2012—their highest share since 1928 (McClelland 551). Noting that 1928 was one year before the Great Depression, similar levels of income inequality should be cause for concern. In addition, between 1970 and today, the share of the nation’s income that went to the middle class—households
Quigley, J. M. (2002, April 3). A decent home: Housing policy in perspective, (pp. 53-99). Berkley, CA. University of California, Berkley Program on Housing and Urban Policy. Retrieved June 20, 2011 from http://escholarship.org/uc/item/8f57x42q
D. Today I would like to encourage you to donate your time or money to help fight the homeless epidemic in our nation.