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Income inequality research
Social inequalities and injustice
Social inequalities and injustice
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According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the term inequality in the opposite of equity can be defined as evenness or fairness within the social, political, and economic perspectives. Equity forms the core value of both the western democratic tradition and religions. Basing my argument on Ferguson (2012), from the concept of equality, inequality can be described as unfair or uneven treatments of the people within the society or unequal distribution of resources, income, and other factors between different sectors in the society. Inequality can be defined as the unfair or uneven conditions within the society, where some people control more wealth, money, opportunities, income, as well as political favoritism …show more content…
Pay inequality refers to the differences in the employees’ earnings. Income inequality refers to how even income is distributed in the society. Wealth inequality is defined as uneven distribution of different types of assets in the society, where more people control more assets than others (Stiglitz, 2013). In the American society, the richest fifth control 59% of the national wealth and resources while the bottom 40% of the population only control 9%. Likewise, 20% of the top U.S households possess at least 84% of the total wealth. For example, the Walton family controls more wealth than a total of 42% of the American families (Ferguson, 2012). I believe the economic system only favors the rich while undermining the lower class. Most people always work hard to be rich, but due to the influence of the wealthy class, they won’t ever succeed in their struggle easily. Economic inequality has been brought about by structural discrimination, family inheritance and social …show more content…
Inequality of opportunities limits peoples’ ability to earn a better living and incomes. For instance, when a child coming from a poor family is denied access to quality education, it limits him or her from achieving a high level of knowledge which is going to result into high income levels in the future. Other factors that influence inequality of opportunity are gender, geographical location, economic circumstances, and ethnicity. We find that the larger portion of people in the society is trapped in poverty while the smaller portion enjoys all the basic necessities (Clark, 2015).
I think inequalities of opportunities are correlated to the political and economic inequalities. The poor people have fewer opportunities to be employed and become wealthy as compared to the privileged. Lack of equity in the distribution of opportunities is the main cause of poverty and discrimination in the society. Inequality of opportunity has given rise to the social classes where people are defined and relate in accordance with what their own, the influence they have on others, they political influence and economic their political
Economic inequality and injustice come in the same hand. Poor people are more likely to experience inequality and injustice. The negative assumptions of poor people are created by the media and politicians. Promoting economic justice by offering people living in poverty some form of social support. Barbara Ehrenreich found in her experiment the workforce for low-wage was difficult. Conley talks about the different types of social inequalities and how they have been unsuccessful.
There is a high degree of social inequality within the United States. Of most modern industrial countries, the United Stated has some of the richest and some of the poorest people to be found. That fact is very disturbing, however, explains why much of the inequality exists in the US. In the following essay I will explain to you about the inequality in our country and why it occurs, based on the theoretical perspectives of a functionalist, conflict theorist, and social interationist.
Wealth inequality and income inequality are often mistaken as the same thing. Income inequality is the difference of yearly salary throughout the population.1 Wealth inequality is the difference of all assets within a population.2 The United States has a high degree of wealth distribution between rich and poor than any other majorly developed nation.3
The highest earning fifth of U.S. families earned 59.1% of all income, while the richest 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 differences in life expectancy, rapidly increases in the incomes of the top 5 percent, social trends, and shifts in the global economy.
There are many opportunities in America that can improve one’s wealth and power, thus leading to the mass amount of immigrants coming to American. Most immigrants that come to American usually are categorized as the lower class immigrants, but they take any opportunities to improve their economic status. In an article by Howard P. Chudacoff, it states “immigrants generally chose upward paths that led from manual labor into small proprietorships” (Chudacoff 1982: 104). This explains the reason why immigrants choose to come and stay in America. They start out small as laborers then over time they will work to own a small business. Even though immigrants gets to grow to move from the lower class to the middle class, the natives will be always
There are many people that think there is economic and wealth equality in the United States , but with all the statistics I provided it can be clearly seen that inequality in America is a serious issue , and it's getting worse with every year. I do believe that there should be some income inequality because that drives people to succeed , but I also believe that too much inequality limits a lot of people from achieving financial success.
Income inequality not only harms us fiscally, but also affects our mental and physical wellbeing; therefore, it is important to identify the right ways to control wealth distribution among people.
The United States has a pervasive issue of income inequality (Volscho & Kelly, 2012). While the wealthy few live in absurd abundance, poor hardworking individuals often cannot afford basic necessities. Such a dynamic is not only an affront to the ideals of equality of opportunity, but also may increase crime as a result of relative deprivation and lack of legitimate opportunities to achieve (Thio, 2010). This essay describes the magnitude of income inequality in the United States, reveals barriers that obscures its magnitude, and suggests a starting point from which corrective measures might develop.
What is wealth inequality? “It is the difference between individuals or populations in the distribution of assets, wealth or income.” [1] In sociology, the term is social stratification and refers to “a system of structured social inequality” [2] where the inequality might be in power, resources, social standing/class or perceived worth. In the US, where a class system exists (as opposed to a caste or estate system), your place in the class system can be determined by your personal achievements. However, the economic and social class that an individual is born into is a big indicator of the class they will end up in as an adult.
Inequality exist and is high in America because the amount of income and wealth that is distributed through power. In America the income distribution is very inequality and the value of a person wealth is based on their income with their debts subtracted. “As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers)” (Domhoff, 2011). In contrary the poor do not get ahead and the rich get more. Americans are judged and placed in class categories through their home ownership which translates to wealth. Americans social class is often associated with their assets and wealth. “People seek to own property, to have high incomes, to have interesting and safe jobs, to enjoy the finest in travel and leisure, and to live long and healthy lives” (Domhoff, 2011). Power indicates how these “values” are not distributed equally in American society. Huge gains for the rich include cuts in capital gains and dividends and when tax rates decrease for the tiny percent of Americans income is redistributed. Taxes directly affect the wealth and income of Americans every year.
Inequality as previously mentioned is a subject that gets debated when brought up and in any debate there is two sides. In class we have discussed both side of the story of inequality, and it has give me a better perspectives of income inequality. When discussion income inequality, we brought up the concept of the economic pie in which states that the economic pie is a reference to the way income gets distributed among the lower, middle, and higher class of America. So the concept of the economic pie states that the rich is getting richer, so they are
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...
America 's economy is dependent on the middle class. Slowly, the middle class is beginning to decrease. Soon enough there will be only the wealthy and the poor. Economic inequality is the gap between the upper class and the lower class. It is a problem that is growing everyday. Technology, education, race, gender, and globalization are the main causes of economic inequality. Each one of these causes contributes to the vicious cycle of economic inequality. The battle for our country 's financial wellbeing is upon us.
This economic concept is known as capitalism. As long as it exists there will not be an equal chance for everyone to gain income they could need. Source C argues that a society where capitalism rules over cannot be socially just. Though it says that, it is not implying that a just society is making sure everyone gets the same income. Having social justice is not just about having all “economic equality”,which Source A states. Instead, corrupt corporations should be brought to light to bring forth social justice and take down social injustice. The lower class will continue to work harder and harder to get some type of middle ground for themselves, but they will end up giving back their earnings to the upper class to pay for basic needs in life or because of manipulation. If there were no manipulations towards anyone, there wouldn’t be the conflict of wealth. There should be fairness in the workplace to gain money, but do not forget that that means we can take away income from the the well off families. It would bring social justice to the poor but cause social injustice to the wealthy. Source A says that the money the wealthy have is “stolen” money but the money they have, we have to remember, was hard earned money from the beginning that just became prosperous. So we still have to question how will we be able to gain social justice? The answer is in our
There is inequality in terms of gender, race and skin colour. There are different forms of inequality and they are social and economic inequality. Social inequality is basically the unequal opportunities individual have in a society for different social backgrounds and position in the society (Morffitt, 2015). Economic inequality is the point in which income is unequally distributed among people (C.Sutter, 2013).To eliminate inequality in terms of monetary aspects is something I don’t believe in. My reasons are as follows. There are wealthy people who were not born with silver spoons in their mouths, they had to toil day and night to gain outstanding wealth. Also there are some poor people who can work as hard as other people did to get to where they are now but due to laziness and procrastination and bad choices in life, they don’t work hard as they are supposed to. They lazy around expecting riches to fall like manner from the sky. This will however not be fair to the wealthy people who had to work tirelessly to get to where they are now. Think of it, even if some of these group of people get a reasonable amount of money through the distribution they will spend it recklessly trying to fit into something they are not. It has however been recorded that poor people spend more than rich people. Reason being that, they buy things they do not need. In real life, they have been situations where you see people