In her essay “What Ever Happened to Upward Mobility?” Rana Foroohar, focuses on the stalled and falling rates of upward mobility in the United States. The formal definition of upward mobility is the capacity or facility for rising to a higher social or economic position. The article generally explains how the United States was once a land of opportunity and was the leading nation of the world, but now has turned into a nation with declining mobility, social instability and morbid wealth gap. Foroohar effectively elaborates about how the idea of pursuing the “American Dream” which implies persistent hard work could get someone ahead in life now “has become bifurcated” (Foroohar), supported by in-depth credible research and sources, sophisticated …show more content…
word and technical term usage that embodies the serious tone of the essay and broad perspective on the subject that incorporates outcomes of socioeconomics, technological advancements, international markets and unique policies that ultimately affects America’s mobility . This article appeals to the majority of United States especially among the modest American household because it speaks about the struggles of the average American families to maintain or uphold the socio-economic balance, to avoid wounding bankruptcy and to be free from the homelessness pandemic in the country.
Foroohar, previously a Deputy Editor in charge of international business and economics for Newsweek established this article with multitude of research and statistics to establish herself as an experienced reporter and the article as a credible and convincing argument. Foroohar begins the article by introducing the great tales of America’s story. The America’s story is scripted by Foroohar as “our national mythology” thus implying the idea of America being an opportunity society is untrue. She chose to begin her article with this serious statement is because she wanted to implore the reader’s attention about the harsh reality of the American country and the immense challenges that the American society has faced throughout the …show more content…
years. Continuing, she projects a well-known ideology of the American people that can be describe as “We may be poor today, but as long as there's a chance that we can be rich tomorrow, things are O.K” (Foroohar). But, this statement is followed by a critical question: “But does America still work like that?” This question intensifies the bitter truth of current American condition. She paved the rest of her article by this serious inquiry to make her reader aware and constantly thinking about the answer while reading. Then she states, “The suspicion that the answer is no inspires not only the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests that have spread across the nation but also a movement as seemingly divergent as the Tea Party” (Foroohar) to emphasizes that doubting the old American ideology have been a severe matter and have sparked stern movements to fight for better quality of life throughout America. Inclusively the article suggest that the current conditions of America has made it rather impossible for average people to get ahead by stating hard facts and statistics highlighting the current situation of America’s instability.
Firstly, she states that the inequality in the U.S. is tragically rising even though it was already high compared with other developed countries. Then, to form dissatisfaction, she provide the stats of the rich 1% of the country taking a whopping 21% of the country’s income and accounts for 35% of its wealth. Next, she indicates that unemployment rate is pervasively upstretched in recent years plus the fact that “For the first time in 20 years, the percentage of the population employed in the U.S. is lower than in the U.K., Germany and the Netherlands” to further support her case. After that, the article provide a finding by The Pew Charitable Trusts' Economic Mobility Project that says “if you were born in 1970 in the bottom one-fifth of the socioeconomic spectrum in the U.S., you had only about a 17% chance of making it into the upper two-fifths” These are some of the solid facts and statistics given in the article to grabs the reader’s attention about how the situation in America is nearing a climax of diminishing equality and stability. I believe that the author is trying to make the audience conscious about the gravity of this problem because the first big step in fixing a problem is realizing there is one. Hence providing these unpleasant
truths is an important measure in knowing the problem wholly. Furthermore, Foroohar successfully uses crisp words and sentences to portray her arguments to the audience. This is one of techniques she uses to efficaciously lure the reader to be interested in the article and to set up the correct tone and setting for the article in general. In this article, she uses advanced words such as dynamism, rapacious, class-riven, homogeneous and bifurcated to emphasize the significance of the subject in hand and to build the urgency and serious tone of the article. I believe the tone greatly impact the article as it clearly directs the article to an academic sense. Thus, readers could sense the tone of the author and realized that this article should be taken seriously. She also uses technical terms for example postwar era, Nordic nations, emerging markets, Malthusian forces, consumption taxes and inflection point that could be unfamiliar to the average reader that are not knowledgeable in the advance economics. I suppose she uses these technical terms to set up a high standard for the article that invite readers to invest their time to read more about these terms and be familiar with the economic and mobility situation in the real world. Other than that, the author also provides wide standpoint on how and what the factors are that effects the America’s declining mobility and wealth divide. For starters, she mentions that relative mobility matters because “Behavioral economics tells us that our sense of well-being is tied not to the past but to how we are doing compared with our peers”. Afterward, she states that the rise of the money culture and bank deregulation in the 1980s and '90s certainly contributed to it. After that, she mentions that real estate and credit crises gave recent blow to economic equality “which wiped out housing prices and thus erased the largest chunk of middle-class wealth” The author also states that technology and the rise of the emerging markets are also the generating factor “that have been reshaping the global economy since the 1970s.” I totally agree with the author’s technique of widening the scope of the subject because the answer to the question of what happened to upward mobility is truly “nuanced and complex”. Thus giving the subject a broader view could give great implications to the gist of the article such as better understanding of the world of upwards mobility and towards the problems that are effecting the country’s economy. Foroohar attempt to surface the unpleasant reality of the declining mobility in United States is a success because her article comprises of a lot of great writing techniques that function to inform and persuade readers towards the subject of declining mobility, social instability and morbid wealth gap. More important than the functions of the techniques the author uses independently is how she uses them together. She weaved the information in the article seamlessly together so that reader would stay interested in reading his article plus maintaining a long lasting curiosity and knowledge about the context of the essay.
In Confronting Inequality, Paul Krugman discusses the cost of inequality and possible solutions. Krugman argues to say that it is a fantasy to believe the rich live just like the middle class. Then, he goes into detail about how middle class families struggle to try to give their children a better life and how education plays a factor in children’s future lives. For example, children’s ability to move into higher education could be affected by their parents economic status. Also, He discusses how politicians play a role in the inequality, because most of politicians are in the upper economic class. Finally, Krugman says how we could possibly have solutions to these various inequalities, but how America won’t get
In Laurence Shames’s article, “The More Factor”, Shames explains how America has grown to believe and reinforce the opportunistic concept of the frontier—vast open space where possibilities of success have the potential to cultivate. This concept has become symbolic of what America stands for: the freedom to go further and farther than man has ever dreamed of, and without limits. And while this mindset still exists as an ideology of America, as well as how the rest of the world believes America supports itself, this ideology can no longer hold itself to be true. This optimistic approach cannot define the growing and upcoming generations of the 21st century. In the same way that Shames states that “in America, a sense of quality has lagged far
Growing up in The United States, people are given this idea of an American Dream. Almost every child is raised to believe they can become and do anything they want to do, if one works hard enough. However, a majority of people believe that there is a separation of class in American society. Gregory Mantsios author of “Class in America-2009” believes that Americans do not exchange thoughts about class division, although most of people are placed in their own set cluster of wealth. Also political officials are trying to get followers by trying to try to appeal to the bulk of the population, or the middle class, in order to get more supporters. An interesting myth that Mantsios makes in his essay is how Americans don’t have equal opportunities.
According to Gregory Mantsios many American people believed that the classes in the United States were irrelevant, that we equally reside(ed) in a middle class nation, that we were all getting richer, and that everyone has an opportunity to succeed in life. But what many believed, was far from the truth. In reality the middle class of the United States receives a very small amount of the nation's wealth, and sixty percent of America's population receives less than 6 percent of the nation's wealth, while the top 1 percent of the American population receives 34 percent of the total national wealth. In the article Class in America ( 2009), written by Gregory Mantsios informs us that there are some huge differences that exist between the classes of America, especially the wealthy and the poor. After
This article was stimulating to me because it related with me on a personal level. I have been discriminated upon many times in my life and this article excellently explained how white privilege plays a role in determining which groups are in the high or low end of the hierarchy spectrum. In Sklar’s article, Imagine a Country, she explains the growing income inequality between individuals by using several statistics that show the rising wealth gap between the lower, middle, and upper class. Throughout her article, Sklar addresses the controversial topic of high government spending by pointing out that there is an unequal amount of resources that are distributed between large programs such as defense and social programs that help reduce poverty. Her critics have stated that because she is presenting statistical facts as it pertains to income inequality, that she is therefore obligated to include proposals that will address and solve this dilemma. The purpose of this article, contrary to what her critics have criticized her for, is not to present a solution to this
America has always seen as the symbolic ideal country of prosperity and equality. This is the reason why people come to America hoping to become successful, but in matter of fact we all have an equal plan field to be successful is not entirely true. For there are social boundaries that keep use limited based upon our own status. Whether we are born of a low class or of a high class the possibility of economic mobility in a sense are predetermined by two factors of social class and success together they both affecting one’s another opportunity of success. In order to achieve success, we must know that it is made up of two main concepts and they are fortune and position.
Gregory Mantsios presents himself as an expert in this essay because he states a lot of facts. The author uses stats, his own opinion, and my favorite thing that brought me in was the myths that he told the reality’s for later in the essay. Mantsios believes that no matter what social or economic class that you fall into, you have a fair chance at succeeding in life. I feel that the intended audience is the citizens of America or people in the workforce since they are the ones that have to deal with this situation. The thesis of this essay is “Perhaps, most importantly, the point that is missed is that inequality is persistent and structural-
Briefly state the main idea of this article: The main idea of this article is that economic inequality has steadily risen in the United States between the richest people and the poorest people. And this inequality affects the people in more ways than buying power; it also affects education, life expectancy, living conditions and possibly happiness. Another idea that he brought up was that the American government tends to give less help to the unemployed than other rich countries.
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.
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.
One would expect that social equality would just be the norm in society today. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Three similar stories of how inequality and the hard reality of how America’s society and workforce is ran shows a bigger picture of the problems American’s have trying to make an honest living in today’s world. When someone thinks about the American dream, is this the way they pictured it? Is this what was envisioned for American’s when thinking about what the future held? The three authors in these articles don’t believe so, and they are pretty sure American’s didn’t either. Bob Herbert in his article “Hiding from Reality” probably makes the most honest and correct statement, “We’re in denial about the extent of the rot in the system, and the effort that would be required to turn things around” (564).
Paul Krugman, in his article “The Death of Horatio Alger” suggests that social mobility among classes in the United States is becoming more difficult by the day. Krugman explains that the idea of the American Dream and moving from class to class was once semi easily attainable; but is now seemingly impossible. Although America is thought of as a classless society, the country has a whole is moving into a caste society run by the rich.
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...
The "American Dream" supposedly allows everyone to climb the "social/economic ladder," if they wish to do so. Anyone that works hard is supposed to be able to move to a higher class. However, society often prevents social mobility. Social classes dictate who moves to a higher class and who does not. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, this issue was especially prevalent.
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.