The number of children who are living in poverty have decreased for the first time in almost ten years. The Census Bureau reported a 0.5 percent decrease of Americans living in poverty from 2012 to 2013. Poverty is among the country’s contemporary social problems in the Twenty-First Century. According to the Census Bureau, 45.3 million people were categorized as living in poverty in 2013. To address contemporary social problems like poverty, one must take an in depth look at the reasons why there are so many people dealing with poverty and the challenges that arise from trying to escape it. The United States wealth inequality gap is one of the largest gaps in the world. According to the article Causes of Poverty by Anup Shah, “ Almost …show more content…
Poverty began by the oppressing powerful inhabitants creating trades in which the non-powerful inhabitants could not benefit. Even before currency, when barter was the main median of exchange, those who could hunt or gather better than others were the ones who survived. Their mentality of obtaining the most and buying the most stuck. They became the ones with the most currency and eventually their descendants obtained this “gene” of always wanting more. Scientists have debated if poverty is genetic and if there is some sort of characteristic that a person has that could influence their want for riches or desire to accumulate more currency. According to the University of Chicago Press, “ there is a causal effect of genetic diversity on economic success, positing that too much or too little genetic diversity constrains development.” They believe that “the level of genetic diversity (heterozygosity) present in a population causes long-lasting effects on economic development.” They argue that if there is more genetic diversity in a population, there can be uneven distribution of economic development. Authors Quamrul Ashraf and Oded Galor of Brown University believe that high levels of genetic heterozygosity increase “the likelihood of incoordination, distrust, and reduces cooperation and disrupts the socio-economic order. Greater population diversity is thus interpreted as being associated with lower
The video Wealth Inequality in America provides an eye-opening experience to inequality’s reality in the United States. Most Americans believe the system we have today is bad however what they think is far from the ideal and even farther from the reality. The video provides chart to have visuals of the wealth distribution in the United States. Of course, going to socialism would not be the best route. 9 out of 10 Americans feel the ideal wealth distribution should be a curve. The reality chart depicts the wealthy people and top one percent is off the chart since they have so much wealth. Additionally, the top one percent posses quarter of the national income. The narrator suggest we need to revise reality and not what we think it is.
Imagine all the wealth in the United States. Roughly 84.9 trillion dollars, a pretty big number to wrap your mind around, right? Now imagine a third of that number concentrated into the hands of only 1% of the population of the United States. Not only would this seem unfair, but also immoral. Sadly, this unfortunate situation is a reality in the United States. Of all the political issues that face this nation, wealth inequality is often overlooked. This type of inequality is defined as the unequal distribution of assets among a population. The United States has one of the highest gaps between the upper and lower class out of other developed countries. Resolving this issue is a complicated
The wealth gap, or wealth inequality, is the uneven distribution of wealth within the United States. The gap in the United States is one of the largest gaps between the rich and the poor out of most developed countries. The wealth gap is impossible to ignore when “income inequality has been increasing steadily since the 1970s, and now has reached levels not seen since 1928.” (D. Desilver, 2013)
Inequality, a subject that usually focuses on developing countries or communistic governments, is now a topic that no longer focuses predominantly on these foreign nations; but rather one that lies here, on our own soil. The United States has one of the largest socioeconomic gaps on earth. In terms of dollars, our gap is greater than a majority of impoverished countries. In a country like Chad, someone could earn a thousand dollars a year and another
The three consequences that are education, health and security are three results of the wealth gap American can try to stop them from growing more. However, there are four solutions can decrease this inequality. Those solutions should the government do it to eliminate the gap to be high. The first solution, the government should invest more money in food and health. For instance, the government can support the farms by giving them money to reduce the cost to be available for all people. The second solution is the government should try to decrease the cost living by taking some actions such as force the wealth people to invest more money to help the poor by investing more in the United States. Building factories, companies and organization can
Wealth inequality is rooted in the American idea of capitalism because capitalism is creating a name for yourself and making the most money you can, capitalism also includes the fact you can do whatever you want with the money you acquired. Krugman talks about how capitalism created wealth inequality when he says, “…‘capitalism,' in which the commanding heights of the economy are controlled not by talented individuals but by family dynasties…” (Krugman). If generations ago your family was one of the first families in America and became exceedingly rich off of trade or land you probably still have a large majority of their money. Because we live in a capitalistic world people can choose to spend every single penny they have, or give their money
The wealth gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow in America as it has in recent decades. Wealth distribution in America has not been this unequal since 1928, the year before the Great Depression started. The richest four hundred people in America have more money than the one hundred fifty million poorest Americans combined. The wealth gap needs to shrink due to the negative repercussions of wealth inequality. Wealth inequality leads to inequality in other aspects of life. Uneven distribution of wealth stunts economic growth as well as limits socio economic mobility. It also leads to a shorter lifespan for the less wealthy.
Wealth distribution is not what it should be from our perspective. The distribution of wealth in America has been uneven since 1970. We can see the uneven distribution by comparing one of the wealthiest man in America, Bill Gates, who makes over $50 billion, to a homeless person, who has nothing. This shows an income inequality in the U.S because there is a huge gap between rich and poor. While the unemployment rate has decreased in the U.S, the gap between rich and poor in this country has dramatically increased. There are many contributions to the gap, such as different education levels among citizens and cost of living. The main reason that contributes to the income inequality between rich and poor is technological advances. Technological advance hurt the low-income class greatly but at the same time is a big gain to the higher class. The visual graphics are the most powerful aspect of the video, because many times we hear the statistics and percentages without truly comprehending just
Over the last decade, income inequality has become one of the most important issues in the U.S. and a subject of a lot of debate. There is a prevalent idea in the society that the wealth inequality in United States is currently at the highest level in the history after steadily raising for a number of decades. The financial crisis is said to have contributed to this significant gap between the top 1% and everybody else. People view it as an inherently negative thing, and fight hard to promote the equality and income redistribution. This paper examines the causes of inequality; the relationship between wealth inequality and economic growth and the hypothesis on how policy
The wealth gap. It affects us all; old or young, male or female, and-- most importantly-- rich or poor. It’s what separates the most powerful and highest-paid people in America from the rest of us. It’s an issue that receives some attention, but perhaps not enough. The richest 1% of the U.S. owns more wealth than the bottom 90%, and that’s not the only reality of this issue. You see, this is a social and economic problem contributing to a plethora of other big problems here in the U.S., including child poverty, the dwindling middle-class, and the fact that the majority of American citizens have absolutely zero impact on public policy. Here’s the thing—the wealth gap is increasing, rapidly. Not much has been done to address this issue, and there’s a large group of people who don’t want anything done (guess who). I, among others, believe solving this issue opens the door to finding a solution to an abundance of other issues.
The United States is on the way of becoming a corrupted under developed country rather than the leader of develop nations, because of the unequal distribution of wealth. Study show over 75% of the United States wealth is own by the 10% percent of its richest people. You could compare that to the other countries like Israel 68%, Italy 49% and New Zealand 57%, it shows that The United States is mostly wealth concentrated. The other 90% owns only 25% of the United States Wealth.
Poverty has been a huge problem in the United States and all around the world. According to the United States Bureau of the Census, in 2012, over 46 million people were living in poverty in the United States. Poverty rate has remained at high level throughout the years. As high as 15% of the people living in the United States is living in poverty. Poverty mostly targeted racial and ethnic minorities, women, children and single parent families.
The wealth gap, which has two causes in the United States and the effects of, should Americans deal with it as soon as possible. The solutions can be helpful to decrease this problem to be massive. The Americans are trying to do that and the people are wailing to do more for the society. However, the wealth gap became a huge, but the government and people can solve it by the time. This is a global issue like what are happing now in Greece and European counters. If Americans will not do any serous action to stop that, they might face the same result. The countries around the world should put their hand together to solve it by supporting each other once they do it maybe we will stop it.
Human development is majorly concerned with what the state government is doing to make its citizens transform their environment to a productive and creative atmosphere, which can make them acquire all their needs and interests. People are the real wealth of any given nation, therefore if people are rich, the nation is rich. The theme of “The rich continue becoming rich and the poor continue becoming poor” has continued to gain a considerable rise among most American citizens (UN, 2010). This paper will addresss some of the reasons why citizens of the United States of America have disparities in acquiring wealth. It also shows how most of the American has continued living in a low-income life and how the government has continuously ignored their plea. Including the futile attempts the government is putting in place to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor as well.
If you can recall, war on poverty was declared more than 50 years ago. Yet, more than 46 million Americans continue to live in poverty. Thus, with bipartisan support, policies and programs have been passed by the various administrations making a significant impact on reducing poverty, but not winning the battle. Poverty is a concerning matter that must be nationally recognized given the fact that the issues and obstacles faced by the impoverished are the root cause of constant poverty among communities. Subsequently, today, poverty remains a persistent social problem in America.