Inequality In America Essays - Social Inequality,

Inequality In America I believe that there is too much wealth and income inequality in the United States today. The upper classes have most of the power in the nation and use their influence and wealth to convert the United States income into benefiting their well being and financial stability. In the last fifteen years, the income of the upper classes has risen while the income of the lower classes has generally lowered, further showing the inequality that exists in our nation. It is usually difficult for the lower classes to achieve financial success because a high income job requires good education which the lower classes lacks because they cannot afford it. In the United States there are four social classes : the upper class, the middle class, the working class, and the lower class. Of these four classes the most inequality exists between the upper class and the lower class. This inequality can be seen in the incomes that the two classes earn. During the period 1979 through the present , the growth in income has disproportionately grown.The bottom sixty percent of the US population actually saw their real income decrease in 1990 dollars. The next 20% saw medium gains. The top twenty percent saw their income increase 18%. The wealthiest one percent saw their incomes rise drastically over 80%. As reported in the 1997 Center on Budget's analysis , the wealthiest one percent of Americans ( 2.6 million people) received as much after-tax income in 1994 as the bottom 35 percent of the population combined (88 million people). But in 1977 the bottom 35 percent had about twice as much after tax income as the top one percent. These statistics furt her show the disproportional income growth among the social classes. The growth of income should be proportioned or equal among the classes, but the opposite is occurring where the rich are seeing immense gains while the poor are seeing loses. The lower classes are not given the chance to climb economic ladder. Along with income inequality comes wealth inequality. In 1976 , the wealthiest one percent of Americans owned 19% of all the private material wealth in the US Today, they own over 40% of all wealth. Their share now exceeds the wealth owned by the bottom 92% of the US population combined. (Edward N. Wolff, Top Heavy: A Study of Increasing Inequality in America Twentieth Century Fund: 1995). From 1976 till the present , the power of the wealthy has increased greatly meaning their power has increased as well. When a certain group constantly gains power they will abuse it and this can be seen with the unfair wealth distribution in this country. Although each person has the right to make as much money as possible, in the United States the government should however keep the income rise proportioned by taxing the wealthy more and the poor less. In recent years the opposite happened where the taxes on the wealthy were cut from a top rate of 68% in 1980s to 28.5% by 1988. The share of federal tax revenue paid by corporations has dropped from 33 cents of every dollar collected in 1953 to less than 10 cents today. (Donald Barlett and James Steele: America: Who Really Pays the Taxes? Andrews and McMeel: 1995) To explain the class differences in the United States I believe that the Davis-Moore Thesis comes the closest. Davis and Moore state that certain jobs or professions that require good education and knowledge should reward more by paying more whereas jobs that can be done buy a person without much skill or education should pay less. This is true in the United States to point. Of course doctors and lawyers make more than a store manager for example , but many jobs such as being a president are not rewarded well, because a basketball player or a celebrity can make millions more than a president. This is unfair because carrying out the job of a president is a lot harder than acting or playing a certain sport. If the Davis-Moore thesis actually been accepted by a society than the president would probably make the most money. There are many people that think there is economic and wealth