Inequality Essay

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There has been a dramatic shift of inequality within the United States. This shift has favored the wealthy and left the middle class struggling to pay for simple items such as healthcare, childcare, and education. It has been argued that today’s middle now resembles the working poor. Due to this imbalance, the United States economy has suffered from wage decreases, child poverty, segregation, and minimal upward mobility. Inequality is bad for economic growth. Distribution of wealth, education, and health are contributing factors of inequality which affect economic growth.
Over the years, distribution of wealth has been a major issue which has weakened economic growth. One main government policy that weakened economic growth was the reduction of taxes. During the seventies, the United States started to see a dramatic change in labor. Unions started to lose their bargaining power, wages stopped increasing for workers, and production was being shipped overseas to unregulated markets. The middle class was now under attack by its own government. Government was now setting the rules which would favor the wealthy and …show more content…

Thorstein Veblen would describe most of these consumptions as conspicuous consumption: products that demonstrate power but don’t contribute to the prosperity in society. This makes it nearly impossible the working poor and the middle class to intertwine within the wealthy’s inner circles to obtain upward mobility. Our text used Tom Hertz analysis and stated, “Hertz reports that children born into the poorest 20% of U.S households have a 1% chance of getting rich, which he defined as making it into the top 5% of income earners” (Sackery, Dollars and Sense 8th Edition). Another reason why inequality is bad for economic growth is it creates poor health conditions for the working poor and middle

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