The income gap between the upper and lower classes is relatively easy to see when one examines the statistics. According to a USA Today entitled ‘Census: Income Gap between rich and poor got wider in 2009’," [during 2008] the top-earning 20% of Americans, those making more than $100,000 each year, received 49.4% of all income generated in the U.S., compared with the 3.4% earned by those below the poverty line," (1). Furthermore, "the wages of the college educated have grown by 22% since 1980, while the wages of high school drop-outs [have] fallen by 3%" (Thoma 1).And, if that isn't startling enough, Peter Whoriskey of The Washington Post wrote that inequality in America has reached levels, "not seen since the Great Depression" (1). The author goes on to explain that in 1975 the top .1 percent of America's earners garnered 2.5 percent of the countries income and now that same .1 percent is accountable for 10.4 percent of all income generated (1). This just goes to show the enormous growth that has been going on as the gap widens.
US Budget Deficit and Government Debt vs. Japan’s The United States Budget Deficit and government debt is skyrocketing and almost exceeding $1 trillion dollars. In context of macroeconomics and the United States economy, the definition of debt is the total amount the government owes while the definition deficit is how much one spends compared to how much that person earns. For the United States, the budged deficit is nearly $60 billion dollars and on track to exceed $1 trillion by the end of the year. The United States government debt is currently at $15.8 trillion dollars. This national debt has continued to increase an average $3.92 billion per day since September 28, 2007.
According to the CA Magazine article “Inequality and growth”, it states that the richest of the upper class represent one percent of our population and control over one fifth of our countries earnings, making more than the forty percent of the lower classes earnings combined. According to Ryscavage, this is the largest gap in income between classes since just before the Great Depression in the early 1920’s. (pg.50-54) Marcel Cote, a strategic adviser from Montreal says, “compensation increases awarded to business executives, and salaries paid to top athletes and pop stars, have contributed to inequality at the top end of the income scale.” According to a Pew study released in 2012 listed in the article by Marcel Cote, “wealth inequality has become America’s worst source of tension, causing more distress than race, immigration, age or other social problems.” Some causes of economic inequality are individual behavior within education, technological change/advancements and the pressing issue taxes /welfare. The main question is how does Economic Inequality affect social class? The single most important factor when determining which social class a person will end up in is the amount and quality of education that a person receives; the schools and universities which these people attend.
1. UST: profile and risks The U.S. smokeless tobacco industry generated revenue of $2 billion in 1998 with moist smokeless tobacco contributing for 50% of the total. UST was the leading company in moist smokeless tobacco industry with a control of about 77% of the market. Moist smokeless tobacco was the fastest growing segment in tobacco industry with an annual growth rate of 3.7% compared to the annual decline of 2% in cigarettes volume in the period from 1980 to 2000. Main factors that contributed to this trend are the increased smoking bans and consumers’ perception of moist smokeless tobacco as less risky than cigarettes for health.
Asian American Gerald Trahan ETH/125 July 21, 2011 Jere Wilson Asian American The Asian American population of 17.3 million people in the United States as of 2010, which comprised of 5.6 percent of the total population in the United States, was a higher number then I was expecting. And also 2.6 million people that are Asian American that are five and older speak Chinese at home and more so after Spanish, Chinese is the most widely spoken non-English language in the United States. Fifty percent of Asian Americans that are twenty-five years or older have a bachelor’s degree or higher level of education, where it compares to twenty-eight percent of all Americans in that group. This number almost doubles all the other groups. Eighty-five
There have been times of ‘boom and bust,’ experienced by everyone on the globe although the UK has managed to perform at a steady average of around 2%, managing times of recession reasonably well. Internationally, the UK has one of the highest GDP per capita. The graph to the left corroborates with this and explains why the UK is involved in the G7 and G8 summits – being one of the most powerful countries in the world. Unemployment, as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks. The unemployment rate is a measure of the prevalence of unemployment and it is calculated as a percentage by dividing the number of unemployed individuals by all individuals currently in the labor force.
Over the past year the rate of robberies has increased by more than 1,000. Philadelphia has a poverty rate of 25% percent, which is currently the highest percentage in the United States. Philadelphia developing] a large population and high poverty rate robbery higher than that of Baltimore. Baltimore having a population of 639,919 is a metropolitan area that is located in the state of Maryland. The city of Baltimore has had 3,336 robberies in 2010 .
Income Inequality – Problems with the Welfare System In recent years, rising inequality in the allocation of income has been the topic of substantial public interest, political awareness, and educational research. Income inequality is a gauge of how evenly the income pie is separated between all affiliates of society. The comparative income, or measure, can characterize how well the deprived are doing economically in contrast to the wealthy. In other words inequality is evaluated by how evenly the income pie is separated between all affiliates of society. With inflation comes rising cost and lower income families’ resulting in higher numbers of welfare recipients.
Assignment – Question 1 (total marks 25). You are the Financial Accounting and Tax Consultant of a rapidly expanding company which has experienced extremely fast growth in sales and profitability in the calendar years 2006, 2007 and 2008 as shown in the following table: Description 31/ 12/ 2006 Sales $ 26,500,000 Profit Before Tax $ 1,900,000 Deferred tax asset $ 100, 000 31/12/2007 $ 60,000,000 $ 7,800,000 $ 506,000 31/12/2008 $ 110,000,000 $ 10, 200,000 $ 920,000 Owing to a severe downturn in consumer acceptance and the resultant forced reduction in gross margins, the company incurred an accounting loss for the calendar year 2009 of $ 3, 100,000. Company management has forecasted: 1. A recovery in 2010 to a break-even situation for the year; the estimated loss for the first half of 2010 was $ 3,000,000 and to the date of the 2009 audit report (30 April 2010) the loss was $ 2,200,000. 2.
During the last decade, the suicide rate, though relatively stable, has been about double the rate throughout most of the period from1921 to 1961 and well above previous highs recorded during the Depression of the 1930s. Take Quebec as an example, it is one of the provinces in Canada, which has a 7.2 million mostly population, occupies a territory that is three times the size of California. (Lambert, Chagnon, Renaud & Rivard, 2004)While it has the highest death rate of suicide-20.7 per 100,000 populations in the 15-19 age teenage group compare to the average number in America which is 12.0 per 100,000 populations in 15-24 age group (Peters & Murphy, 1998), and the average death number of suicide in whole Canada which is 11.5 per 100,000 populations in 1996 (Statistics Canada, 1998). Furthermore, the main reason of