Saturday, 6 September 2014

The Income Gap In America

By Kerri Stout


America is known to be one of the highest economies in the world but what many people do not know is that the number of poor people in the country is still on the rise. Even up until today income inequality in this country is still rising steadily. So for those who are interested to know, here are some facts about the income gap in America.

Now before discussing about this issue, it is very crucial to first have a clear understanding of the income gap. Now this gap is known as the inequality of the wealth distribution among the people that are in the country. Now when one would discuss about this issue, he would be looking at how much each class would be getting.

Now in America, it can actually be seen that the rich are clearly hogging all the money that is circulating in the country. It is for this reason that there are rich people as well as super rich people and a lot of slum areas in the country. Of course as for the middle class, they also get a share of the wealth generated by the country but most would still go to the rich.

Now of course in order to study this, economists studied the wealth generated by several countries. They take a sample of eighteen countries and studied how the distribution of wealth are for these countries ranging from the year 1975 up to the year 2007. Now they were able to conclude from the results that the United States was the country wherein the rich benefited the most.

Now the reason as to why this is the case is simply because the US is a free market. Being in a very democratic country, the US supports the existence of a free market. Due to them being a free market, the wealth distribution among the people is not monitored by the government and the market is left alone to do whatever it wants.

Now the million dollar question right now is that is this phenomenon good for the economy or bad for the economy. Now a lot of people would argue that it is in fact healthy for the economy because the rich people can make the country wealthy which means that they can contribute more to the economy. When that happens, then the country will be able to prosper better because of bigger taxes.

On the other side of the coin, some economists would argue that it is unhealthy because having a high poverty rate and unemployment. With all the wealth being wealth being tipped at the rich people, the poor people do not have much spending power. When this happens, the country will not be able to benefit from all the population which is bad for the long term.

Now by taking a look at some of the issues that would stem out from this one issue, it can be seen how this problem would affect the country. Now there are still those who believe that being fair is good for the country. Now there is also the other side that believes that the unemployment rate will stop the economic growth in the future.




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