Wealth Inequality In The United States

James Madison once stated inequality of the rich and poor predicament to be “evil” and believed that the government should avoid an “immoderate, and especially unmerited, accumulation of riches” (Johnston, 2016). As one of the founding fathers of our nation, James Madison had a concern about the separation between the rich and the poor. He felt the government should do what it could to avoid the separation, which one can infer that he meant for the government to tax the rich by a greater percentage, thus reducing the financial burden on the poor. A rift has always been present between the rich and the poor throughout history. Depending upon the job, the working class may or may not make enough to support a family. At this point, the

According to Inequality.org, “We equate wealth with ‘net worth,’ the sum total of your assets minus liabilities. Assets can include everything from an owned personal residence and cash in savings accounts to investments in stocks/bonds, real estate, and retirement accounts. Liabilities cover what a household owes: a car loan, credit card balance, student loan, mortgage, or any other bill yet to be paid. In the United States, wealth inequality runs even more pronounced than income inequality” (Wealth). Wealth disparity affects everyone in America. When the top twenty percent of earners in America take over fifty percent of total earnings in any given year, It can be see as very unfair by anyone who is in the middle class and especially the lower class of citizens in the U.S. It is safe to say that both sides of the political world (Republicans and Democrats) are equally worried about how economic inequality will affect their children and future generations. No matter who you ask, rich or poor, and whatever their opinion on the shape of economic distribution in America is, they most likely have a unrealistic sense of the state it is actually in.

In today’s capitalist economy, where economic transactions and business in general is centered on self-interest, there is a natural tendency for some people to make more than others. That is the basis for the “American Dream,” where people, if they worked hard, could make money proportional to their effort. However, what happens when this natural occurrence grows disproportional in its allocation of wealth within a society? The resulting issue becomes income inequality. Where a small portion of the population, own the majority of the wealth and the majority of the population own only a fraction of what the rich own. This prominent issue has always been the subject of social tension

In a research of Harvard professor 5000 people in America have opinion in how they think about the actual distribution of wealth in the U.S. and the 92 percent choose the ideal would be 20 percent and 20 percent the middle class. However, the reality is very far from it. “The poorest are not even registered, they are on the package change and the middle class is barely distinguished from the poor, even the rich between the 10 % and 20 % are worst off, only the top 10 % are better off. Only the one percent gets ten time higher and 40 % all the nation wealth. The bottom 80 % 8 out 10 people only has 7 % between them.1 % makes a quarter of the national income today”(you tube, 2015). All of this data reflex one of the truly perspectives in economy of the U.S. Not only people with low wages are the most affected, but also those who have good jobs and

Wealth inequality has become a hot-topic in recent years, this is because the return rate on capital, such as stocks or real estate, outruns that of economic growth which resulted in the wealthiest grasping a growing share of wealth, leading to increasing inequality. The unequal distribution of wealth has been a major hallmark of the U.S economy, and among its most notable and lasting results, but until it was brought to the awareness of the public by the Occupy movement’s catch phrase referring to “the 1%” of the populace who control half of the nation’s wealth, this issue had not been brought to the limelight of public economic and political discourse since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and almost every American is basically unaware of the true magnitude and character of the unequal distribution of wealth in our country. Inequality in wealth i.e. the sum of household savings, home equity, investments, and debts is

I can assure you that if there were to be a vote in assessing whether the wealth distribution in America should be changed, the majority will abide for a change. In fact, most American’s don’t even realize the severity of the wealth distribution. When Americans were asked what they thought the wealth distribution in America was, ninety-two percent of Americans thought that the distribution was better than it actually is, where the rich were just about a hundred times better off than the poor when in reality the rich are about three hundred times better off than the poor and fifteen percent of the poor are below the poverty line

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.

Wealth and Income Inequality in America The United States of America was founded upon the ideals of freedom and equal opportunity for all individuals. Many people strive to achieve the American Dream by enhancing their socioeconomic status. Today, many people argue that these rightful values are no longer relevant due to the growing income and wealth disparity between different social classes. Income and wealth are two social issues that are commonly misinterpreted; although the two concepts are related, the overall concepts are a little bit different.

Wealth in the United States is generally thought to be distributed fairly as the highest earners have a higher percentage of wealth. Although this common notion is technically correct, the wealth is not spread as fairly as people might believe. The United States uses a free market, capitalistic economy, which entails wealth inequality. However, the amount of wealth inequality depends on how the government limits the wealthy. Interestingly enough, the government does not have regulations to distribute the wealth more fairly as the top 1% of earners in the United States own about 40% of the financial wealth in the country and the bottom 80% of earners own a measly 4.7%. Astonishingly, the financial wealth for the top 20% increased from 1983 to 2010 meaning the wealth became more concentrated at the higher socioeconomic tiers as time passed. These economic inequalities benefited the wealthy as they gained political powers, controlled a large portion of the economic market, and used capitalism to manipulate the public’s perspective of the wealth distribution in the United States. While wealth inequality is a result of capitalism, extremely wealthy people use their wealth to exercise political power,but the average person does not understand that this is a corrupt method of crippling the economy in favor of the ultra wealthy.

In the United States, there is a huge income disparity between the richest ten percent, and bottom ninety percent. The American tax, and political system favors the top 10% while neglecting the middle and working classes, suppressing living wages and exporting jobs overseas. A society where working 40 hours a week will not put food on the table. If the average hardworking American is working endless hours to try and support their families which is just slightly above the poverty line, while groups of 400 individuals, who are heads of the top 500 companies and financial institutions, who if even work, is less than 108 days a year, and are proud owners of 50% of U. S’s entire wealth. This is the reality of the United

America hold the highest income inequality in the world compared to all the nations in the world and the gap has grown since 1947. The richest fifth in America are thirteen times more rich than the bottom fifth of the population. Meaning the bottom fifty percent only own 1.1 percent of America’s Wealth. While the top control more than 75 percent of the national wealth. For example, the net worth the bottom five percent only receive 6,029 dollars while the top receives 630,754 dollars in net worth.

In America, we can describe wealth inequality as the unequal distribution of assets within a population. “The United States exhibits wider disparities of wealth between rich and poor than any other major developed nation” (Wealth inequality). The way wealth is defined is by equating the net worth which is the total sum of you assets minus liabilities. What includes in assets is everything that you own such as personal residence, stocks, real estate, and retirement accounts. Now, liabilities cover what a household owes such as, credit card balance, student loan, a car loan, etc…

No country in this globe can escape from wealth inequality. Never and ever. Even, America – The land of opportunity and the first economy of the world. While the nation is striving towards achieving its dream, it is faced with the problem of wealth gap among the low, middle, and upper classes of the society. Wealth inequality is a phenomenon or a social event of the difference in money and other assets which individuals can accumulate. For some people, no more land of opportunity and the existing wealth gap is a result of unequal opportunity. However, I and others argue the nation is still a land of opportunity, but with some challenges to overcome. Furthermore, I and some firmly believe that the wealthiest people at the top are the achievers

According to a recent article, it is estimated that “in America, the wealthiest 160,000 families have as much as the poorest 145 million families (Matthews, 2015).” This translates to the top 1% of the U.S. population having as much as or more wealth than the bottom 99%, which is quite drastic. Gilson further emphasizes this fact, noting, “A huge share of the nation's economic growth over the past 30 years has gone to the top one-hundredth of one percent, who now make an average of $27 million per household... (Gilson, 2011).” Furthermore, “The average income for the bottom 90 percent of us is $31,244 (Gilson, 2011).” =======================

Although data uncovered that the amount of Americans who associate as upper class is small, they own most of the money in the country. “In 1989, 67% of the country’s total wealth was owned by the top 10% of Americans” and by 2016 it increased to 76% (Matthews). This means that about 14% of the country’s wealth is shared between the lower class and the middle class, displaying how unequal income