Paul Krugman’s book the Conscience of a Liberal is meant to shape conversation about income inequality and promote liberal ideas the way the Conscience of a Conservative promoted movement conservatism and policies that created income inequality. In the book Krugman explains how the policies of the New Deal created a long period of economic growth, the policies that led to income inequality rising again, and the levels of income inequality that exists now. He explains the rise of movement conservatism, and how movement conservative politicians exploited racial and social divisions and anxiety to advance their otherwise unpopular economic agenda. He explains abundance of political unity during the times with little inequality and the partisanship…
A recent study done by Marco Cagetti of the Chicago Fed, illustrates that among members of the Organization For Economic Co-operation and Development, otherwise known as the OECD, the United States holds the most uneven distribution of income and wealth. A disproportionate spread of wealth is an issue citizens of the United States understand very well as this issue has made headlines and gained notoriety recently with the Occupy Wall Street movement. A certain economist, Joseph Reich, discusses the causes and effects of this uneven distribution of wealth in America as early as 1991 in his essay “Why the Rich are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer.” Reich’s essay was not only relevant when written over a decade ago, but also remains pertinent to the current economic status of America today. To portray the relationship between the rich as they continued to gain wealth and the poor as they continue to decline economically, Reich utilizes a metaphor of three different boats rising and sinking with the tide.…
In his article "Confronting Inequality" Paul Krugman is asserting the fact of high socioeconomic inequality in the United States, while demonstrating its consequences and the variety of statistic evidences upon it. He is depicting modern American society where we have a huge gap between economic elite and lower-and middle-income classes. There is a time for ''a Great Moderation" reforms that will bring a socioeconomic equality.…
This question goes through mostly all the people’s mind in the United States now. Paul Krugman, in his article “Confronting Inequality”, explains why that differences are a problem. America's middle class is overreaching themselves in an effort to give their kids more opportunities. Many middle class are buying homes that they can't afford, so that their children will be attending a good school so that their children can have more opportunities, but on the other hand the rich society are creating their own world away from the middle class and of course That shows the growing gap between the wealthy and the poor which leads to the growing difference in social equality. In this article the author used lots of comparison methods to show the difference between the poor and the wealthy society. He also used some facts and diagrams to convince his audience with his case (Krugman…
In the essay “Inequality Has Been Going on Forever... but That Doesn’t Mean It’s Inevitable”, David Leonhardt argues that despite the persistent trend of income inequality in the U.S. and throughout history, it is not impossible to change that inequality. He writes that the professor, Thomas Piketty points out the process in which inequality rises and the near inevitability of it. Leonhardt tells of his conversations with Piketty and Piketty’s idea on the possible way to solve inequality, which is to put a global wealth tax that is specifically for income inequality. Leonhardt finds this solution politically improbable and instead advises that the government changes the taxation of the wealthy, healthcare, how we manage the Department of Transportation,…
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 from even before the French Revolution and spawns numerous other social issues in a society. In the more recent Occupy Movement, beginning in 2011, protesters used income inequality as a motive. Moreover, they were justified in doing so. In a 2010 statistic, it was revealed that the top 1% of America, own 35% of the wealth while the lower 80%, over the majority of the population, only have 11% of the nation’s wealth distributed between them. Financially the situation is even worse where the bottom 80% own only 5% of the financial wealth and the top 1% own 42% of the Nation’s financial wealth. Not to say the top 1% didn’t work hard to get to where they are, but according to the ideals of the “American Dream,” the top 1% should have worked 243 times harder than the average, not the poorest, worker in America. This extreme of disproportional wealth distribution is not only a source of social conflict, but a catalyst for various other problems that exist.…
Within this social system, the author tells us of how desirable school districts are decreasing in number and are becoming much more expensive to live in, making it so that children with low-income parents get a “bad start” in their education. Krugman also states that corrupt politics are a direct result of the difference between the 1% and rest of the country. Using that point as fuel he argues for the removal of tax cuts for the wealthy. Krugman shows us that the Urban-Brookings Joint Tax Policy Center estimated that if Bush tax breaks expired in 2010 for those who have an income of over $200,000 then the money gained from taxes could fund a universal healthcare system for the entire nation.…
Many people in the world blame inequality in the world on race, religion or the amount of intelligence of a civilization, but that's not why. Inequality is simply caused by geography. Geography affects the way a civilization becomes more developed compared to others because, geography controls climate which affects the type of food a civilization can grow, and what type of animals it can domesticate. Domesticated animals and efficient crops give a civilization time to develop new ideas and invent tools that can help the dominate other cultures.…
A crucial controversy of America today is the growing gap between the wealthy and the poor, and the discrepancy is caused by capitalism run wild and only the helping hand of the government can only fix the problem. A question that turns the tables is what if the growing wealth disparity in America is actually caused by the government? For years, the idea that inequality is economically neutral has been the prevailing view not just among traditionalists but also between most Americans outside the further reaches of a political audience. There could be ideological or moral reasons to object to a growing gap between the wealthy and the rest but for economic reasons, there are no such. Furthermore, there are many ways inequality places itself in America. In our society, a good amount of the population is forced to stand up and work for our country while hardly being redeemed for their time and effort, thus the problem of income inequality. An estimate of these people live from paycheck to another, barely coping with life itself, not because they cannot manage their money well, but the reason is that…
When we hear the word “America” we often think of independence, opportunity, and success. Equal opportunity can be defined as every individual granted a fair chance and should be treated the same. The opportunity should overlook religion, race, sex, ethnicity, etc. For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been studying the nature of inequality and how it’s had a negative impact on society. From the outside looking in, it seems as if America is the land of equal opportunity, however, that is not accurate. The United States is not the land of equal opportunity. People of different races have to fight daily for fair opportunities. Inequality affects the ability of people who wants to improve the standards of their lives and contribution to society.…
If people aren’t earning enough a lot of money, all they need to do is work harder they’ll get ahead.…
The exponentially growing gap that separates the affluent from the rest of society in America has become a truly daunting statistic. According to data collected by the IRS, the World Top Economics Database asserted that in 2010, the top .01%, which calculates into one in 10,000 people, held a 4.6% share of that year’s income. The average income of $24 million per individual in the top .01% is $23,970,000 more than the average income of the bottom 90%, which is $30,000. In the subsequent parts of this paper I aim to analyze the grounds of extreme income inequality as well as the severity of the consequences that it has on the economy and the American people.…
America is supposed to be all about equality, but if you take a serious look around, you will see that there is human rights issue going on all over America; this is just one of them. Things need to be reevaluated and adjusted as things change and growth happens, America do not seem to roll with the changes very well and are stuck in a moralistic, religious, patriarchal system. In recent years, the major concerns of economic development is the study of poverty, the income distribution and growth in the less developed countries or from all over the world have been doing researches and studies on how to induce a growth in those under developed countries.…
Over the years America’s inequality income gap has been growing, between the rich and the poor. There are many reasons why this is happening. Andrew Carnegie, John Kenneth Galbraith and Joseph Stiglitz may agree with me, but believe there are different reasons why and how it should be dealt with. I would have to say that I agree that Galbraith’s idea is what is better for America now.…
Over a 9-year period between 1989 and 1998, “[...] the proportion of net worth owned by the top 1 percent [...] rose from 30 percent to more than 34 percent [while...] those in the bottom 90 percent declined from 33 percent to just over 30 percent” (Ciment). Wealth is gradually shifting towards the few and affluent at the expense of the numerous poor due to the increased power of corporations and the rich. The rich and their corporations are able to influence the way money circulates, allowing more money to be diverted to them from the lower and middle classes. This creates the basis as to why the rich continue accumulating wealth while the rest of the populace loses it. Additionally, the rich earn money faster than everyone else, giving them an advantage after recessions.“93 per cent of the income gains in the first official year of economic recovery went to the top one per cent [in terms of wealth] in the US” (Jones). Despite the recent economic gains, most of the population is not benefited by them, with the rich having the largest gains. The poor and middle classes’ incomes remain stagnant or even decrease, highlighting the great disparity between the rich and everyone else. When economic gains are made, money only goes to certain groups, leaving others the same or worse…