Comparing Jill Lepore's Essay 'Richer And Poorer'

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Rhetorical Analysis: Richer and Poorer In the essay “Richer and Poorer” written by Jill Lepore and published in the New Yorker in March 16, 2015, the author argues how the United States has the largest economic inequality in the world, and how it’s been going on for years. The audience the author is pursuing for this paper are those who are either well educated, those who are up to date in recent political regimes, and the affluent to acknowledge those who must stomach economic inequality. The author demonstrates the use of logos, pathos, kairos, and ethos effectively in the paper; the main point of this paper is to analyze her rhetoric. Ms. Lepore paper was written to explore the views on economic inequality. She puts evidence in her paper …show more content…

It is important to realize that the author is to educate her audience by using factors that activates the left side of the brain or the logical part of it. Jill Lepore’s essay enlightens the readers’ understanding of her paper through logos. The author effectively uses data from research from the tax data and Gini index, with logos when she writes, “Income inequality is greater in the United States than in any other democracy in the developed world. Between 1975 and 1985, when the Gini index for U.S. households rose from .397 to .419.” (Lepore, 1). This piece of information shows the data gathered from a time that isn’t so far in the past, and how inequality has been very high just twenty-six years ago. Another part of this is from, Piketty and Saez tax data (Page1, Paragraph 3), which goes with the information of economic inequality by finding the percentage of groups’ income. This data discusses the amount of income for households and views the income of individuals who belong to either the low, middle, or high class giving an idea of what these people receive as income. All of this makes those who suffer from inequality to consider what happened, and what can they do to …show more content…

Lepore effectively meets the requirements of kairos with her publishing this essay in the year 2015, which was just a year and four months ago, this date indicates that the issue is still taking place and has been an issue far too long. Adding to that point is it was published in the New Yorker, a company well informed on political and national issues. These situations help the author make her points and where she is coming from. In addition, to her job showing how credible she is, her credibility is viewed in the way she uses her research, and the way she

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