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Effect of income inequality in us
Effect of income inequality in us
The impact of social inequality
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Income Inequality What is a social problem? A social problem is a problem that affects more than one person in a society. A social problem disrupts the daily life and well being of people in a society. Ryan described a social problem as a problem that affects humans. If a problem affects a human being than it is a social problem. “’What human problem is not a social problem?’” (Ryan 9). Social Problems affect a major part of many individuals’ rights. Some examples of social problems are: sexism, racism, homophobia, and income inequality. In this essay I will be focusing on income inequality and whether this issue is a social problem or an individual problem. Many people argue that income inequality is a personal problem that if people work hard enough they will succeed in life. However I happen to disagree with that statement. I believe that income inequality is a social problem because it doesn’t just affect one person in society it affects many. In the United States alone millions of people are living in poverty many of them homeless. I believe that income
Those who are at the bottom 20 percent don’t have access to things like health care and proper education. Health care is a major issue in most cities in America. While watching the movie “Poor America” there was a scene when the people making the movie decided to film outside a center where doctors and dentists would be performing free services. The line was extremely long and people would be camped outside just so they could see a doctor. Many people who were there had serious injuries and sicknesses and hadn’t seen a doctor or a dentist in a very long time. One gentleman in particular was so sick that the doctors strongly suggested he go to the emergency room, that his sickens could be fatal. However at the end the gentlemen refused to go to the emergency because the medical bill would be extremely
Wealth inequality did not always exist in human life. In fact, “Human life have not only been changed, but revolutionized, within the past hundred years” (Carnegie 1). There used to be
A social problem is an issue that is defined by society to be exactly that; an issue. This can range from issues such as murder; which is commonly agreed on in Australia, or to issues such as smoking or loud music being played in parks, where only certain individuals in society see it as a problem. Unemployment in Australia is considered to be a social problem, due to it affecting around 6 percent of Australia’s population (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2014). If unemployment only affected a few people then it could be said that those individuals being lazy or could not hold down a job, but due to it affecting a majority of society it then becomes a social problem.
Gusfield, J. (2011). How Do We Decide What are Social Problems? Retrieved April 6, 2011 from http://www.soc.iastate.edu/sapp/soc235ch02.html
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
Richard Wilkinson opened his Ted talk with the chilling statement, “I think the intuition that inequality is divisive and socially corrosive has been around since before the French Revolution” (Wilkinson). With this opening, he states that his Income Inequality Hypothesis is not new, but the way we can evaluate the evidence has changed. Now, we can look at the evidence behind this hypothesis and directly see what inequality does to our society. Wilkinson explains these dangers in his Income Inequality Hypothesis. Wilkinson’s Income Inequality Hypothesis states that societies with more equal distributions of incomes have better health, fewer social problems, including drug abuse, mental illness, teenage pregnancy, and obesity, etc., and are more cohesive than countries with a wider gap between the rich and poor.
Wealth inequality is a real issue that needs to be fixed. The imbalanced growth of the upper class compared to the middle class is a danger to American society as a whole. The rich becoming richer while the middle class remains the same leads to a power imbalance, with the rich using their money to run the country the way they see fit while the middle class speaks to ears that do not listen. The issue of wealth inequality needs to be fixed by raising taxes on the rich.
Income inequality is not necessarily harmful to our society because if the rich is getting richer they are able to invest more of their money to create business which will lead to more employment of people in the lower and middle class. A topic we also discussed in class was about the income mobility. The idea behind income mobility is that the poor does not always remain poor. People who were poor in the past are usually not poor later on in the future because the size of the economic pie increase too. People may think that the rise of income inequality is bad, but I do not really think it is as bad as many make it out to be. A solution should be put in place for a better distribution of the wealth, but I do not believe it should really be a concern because it seems to be something that will always exist. Even though income inequality exist or even if it is rising, people are better off today than they were before. The middle and poor class as discussed in class are getting a smaller peace of the pie, but it is larger that before, and with income mobility, the poor keep pushing forward regardless of the rich getting richer. Income inequality is a debated subjected, and I believe it will always be a debated subject. However in this class, so far, I have leaned that income inequality is not such as a bad thing as people make it sound. Income inequality has two side
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...
All around the world, governments and citizens face a large range of social issues. For most people, the biggest social issues in society are media(censorship and social), education, diseases, crime rates, and the overall state of the economy. While these are all extreme issues that effect all people of the society, there are many others that are not fully recognized as social problems; two of these problems are inequality and poverty. As a citizen of the United States, one of the richest nations and coincidently one of the most unequal as well, I have noticed the many issues one can face with inequality. I have also noticed that many Americans have overlearned the ideas of the "American Dream" and what it means to be an American. This has lead to the misguided belief that America truly is the land of the free and that everyone has equal opportuinites. Inequality and poverty are topics that have been overlooked by many citizens but acknowledged by social scientists like Paul Krugman, Richard Wolff, Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson, and Richard Wilkinson. These social scientists have conducted research and formed their own theories on inequality and poverty as social problems. Even though all of these men have made strong arguments on this topic, I felt that Wilkinson's argument was most effective.
Fischer et al. (1996), mainly focused trying to point out how social inequality is socially constructed, which means that it is a man-made invention rather than being something that is determined by nature (Grusky & Weisshar, 2014). This concept emphasizes that man-made social forces are what determines the inequality within a society. For example in the United States, one of the major determents of social inequality is race. The race of a person is something that society has created in order to determine the classification of a person. According to Healy (2011), the term race can be defined as “biologically, an isolated, inbreeding population with distinctive genetic heritage. Socially, the term is used loosely and reflects patterns of inequality
Over the past few years, the income gap between low-income families and high-income families has increased drastically. In the article “10 Practical Steps to Reverse This Diabolical Trend Is Threatening the Foundations of Our Society,” Robert Reich states, “The Congressional Budget Office has found that between 1979 and 2007. . .The gap in income-after federal taxes and transfer-more than tripled between the top 1 percent of the population and everyone else.” As seen in our society, the distribution of wealth is unfair and unjust, which has increased income inequality and will eventually create poverty. As a result, the number of people living in poverty is increasing rapidly. It may seem that income inequality is inevitable, but there are solutions to lessen the gap, like investing in education, hiring American workers instead of overseas workers who accept low pay, and increasing taxes on the wealthy.
Economic inequality is ingrained in our society. Because of this fact, many would argue that “that’s just how it is,” but in reality this is not how a community is suppose to function. As Michael Sandel writes in his book Justice, “As inequality deepens, rich and poor live increasingly separate lives.” Sandel makes an excellent point. As economic divisions, such as the ones present in the United States, worsen, the classes diverge on every level. Wealthy people attend different schools, purchase luxury cars, and live in gated communities. Meanwhile, the poor live in squalor, use public transportation, and attend failing schools. Aside from the lack of a quality education making it harder to escape poverty, the poor are from birth at a disadvantage to those on the other side of the economic scale. The United States is not a land of guaranteed equality of result, that is...
A social inequality that I would say I’m concerned with would be, racial and ethnic inequality. Racial or ethnic inequality is often established based on characteristics such as skin color and other physical characteristics, or a person’s place of origin or culture. Another meaning of racial inequality would be the advantages and disadvantages that affect different races within the Unites States. Race has become a socially constructed category capable of restricting or enabling social status. Racial inequality can lead to diminished opportunities, which can also lead to cycles of poverty and political problems. With this minority members in a society can result in discriminating actions such as; exclusion, oppression, expulsion, and extermination.
Income inequality continues to increase in today’s world, especially in the United States. Income inequality means the unequal distribution between individuals’ assets, wealth, or income. In the Twilight of the Elites, Christopher Hayes, a liberal journalist, states the inequality gap between the rich and the poor are increasing widening, and there need to have things done - tax the rich, provide better education - in order to shortening the inequality gap. America is a meritocratic country, which means that everybody has equal opportunity to be successful regardless of their class privileges or wealth. However, equality of opportunity does not equal equality of outcomes. People are having more opportunities to find a better job, but their incomes are a lot less compared to the top ten percent rich people. In this way, the poor people will never climb up the ladder to high status and become millionaires. Therefore, the government needs to increase all the tax rates on rich people in order to reduce income inequality.