Sunday, September 7, 2014

The Income Gap In America

By Kerri Stout


The issue of income inequality has been stealthily haunting the United States of America for quite some time already. From the late nineteen seventies up until today, income inequality is an issue that is recurring. Now if one would want to know more about the income gap in America, here are some of the facts and arguments.

Now before discussing the economic situation of this country, it is very important to first define the meaning of income gap. Now in a nutshell, income gap is the big gap in equality between the number of rich people and the number of poor people in a country. If one would put it in easier terms, this would be the income bracket.

Now in America, what is happening here is that the rich occupy a big amount of money from the country while the rest are left in poverty. The two classes are actually very high which means there are a lot of rich people and a lot of poor people. The middle class people on the other hand have a low share of the profits.

Of course it is also very important to know as to why this would be the case. Now in a study that was made by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, they studied the wealth inequality situations of eighteen countries between the years 1975 and 2007. The country wherein the rich had the most benefits was indeed the United States.

In order to know why this is the case, one has to take a look at the active US market. Now it is common knowledge that the market of this country is a totally free market as it is a democratic country. This means that the wealth that is being generated by the people is not really monitored as the government would have little involvement with the market.

Of course one will now tend to ask himself whether this is actually a good thing or a bad thing. Now the common argument in this situation is that the powerhouses like the CEOs and the firms are actually contributing to the economy because they are wealth generators. They will be able to contribute to a better economy through exports and would also contribute to bigger taxes for the government.

Others believe this gap is very unhealthy because the more the unemployment rate would be going up, the less people with spending power. Now with the power all being squeezed at the top, these economists believe that the economy of the US will suffocate itself to death. This is simply because it will not be utilizing all of its people and therefore not be fully productive.

So as one can see, this income inequality is one of the controversial issues that have sprung up in the US. Clearly many people still have the mindset that people should earn as much as they work. However, it can also be seen that as the unemployment rate in the country goes up, the economic growth in the long term may take a turn for the worse.




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