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.
With a degree from these types of colleges a graduate usually will make their way into upper echelon of the United States workforce. However, Asian Americans only hold less than two percent of top corporate jobs. The average income of an Asian American in the year of 2009 was approximately $68,780, which is the highest among all race groups. However, the poverty rate of Asians in 2009 was up to 12.5 percent from 10.6 percent in 2007. Researchers, supported by Deloitte, Goldman Sachs, Pfizer and Time Warner, conducted 2,952 surveys of working-aged men and women and gathered qualitative and quantitative data to conclude that many Asian-Americans, whether immigrant or native born, find it hard to "fit in" the upper management ranks.
During the eighties and nineties, the United States experienced a lower level in unemployment. However, in the past three years unemployment in the country has risen to over ten percent. The Percentage is the highest it has raised in the country for more than twenty years earlier. The unemployment in America has not just affected just one class of Americans its affecting the rich, middleclass and the lower class. Those that are willing and want to find available work find themselves unable to get job interviews (Cause and Effects of Unemployment Rakoczy, C 2009).
According to the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS), the number of unauthorized immigrants resided in the United States as of March 2012 is estimated to be 11.6 million (Frequently Asked). As we all know, the more consumers spend their money, the more consumers help build the economy, helping businesses stay open and most importantly, help create jobs. One argument against illegal immigrants is that they are taking jobs that should belong to citizens. The truth is that the spending by illegal immigrants employs about 5% of the total workforce of the United States. Taking that into consideration, if the United States deported all illegal immigrants, the unemployment rate would rise from 8% to about 13%.
Not only do Americans work more hours but also they get the least amount of vacation. “They put us Americans at 1,841 “average” hours a year and the Germans at 1,473 hours in 2000 – and then put us at 1,804 hours a year and the Germans at 1,436 hours in 2006” (New York Times). That means that Americans work a total of 368 more hours than Germans in 2000, and exactly the same in 2006. There has been a decrease in hours worked in America, but we are still working more than Germans. 368 hours turns into fifteen and one third days.
The distribution of power and wealth is greatly skewed and has never been so off set. Americans overlook and constantly underestimate the level of economic inequality in the United States. “From 1949 to 1979, everyone benefited from the strong economy: the poorest 20 percent of Americans gained 116 percent in terms of their before-tax incomes, while the top 20 percent gained 99 percent. But this pattern changed in the 1970s. From
In 2004, there were approximately 4 working age individuals (aged 20-64) for every 1 person aged 65 and over. By 2056 this ratio is predicted to fall to about 2.1 meaning our dependence on the workers will increase hugely and sadly this means taxation will have to go up. But the UK is not alone in its concerns over pension provision; others include China whose elderly population could double between 2000 and 2027. Most of the developed world is having to consider how best to support older individuals in the presence of an ageing population: Increasing life-expectancy which means that people are spending more and more years in retirement and lower birth rates. In 1900, on average a 65 year-old man in the UK could expect to live for another 10 years (11 years for a
Sometimes it is just the opposite, sometimes it works well. Well developed economies would benefit largely from the immigrants, because there the labor market is highly-stretched upwards. There is no one to fill in the niche for low-paid service workers or those involved in physical and hard work. That is the place of the immigrants, and that is the new form of slavery in the 21st century. The raise in GDP doesn’t come mainly from taxes, because even if they are legal immigrants (which are not the case usually) they have minimal income.
− Inequality − We live in an unequal society, stratified by wealth − a few people get a lot of the total income, a lot of people split up the remainder − Graph of US wealth distribution in 2005: − The richest 20% of the population owns about 85% of all the wealth in the country − The next-richest 20% owns about 10% of all the wealth − Leaving less than 5% of the wealth of the country to be divided among the remaining 60% of the population − The poorest 40% (not far from half of the population!) owns so little of the national wealth that it is not even visible on the graph. − Some estimates as of 2009 suggest that the richest 1% of Americans hold almost 50% of all American wealth − Source: Norton and Ariely, “Building
The rich are 1% of the population while the middle class and the poor made up the other 99%. “As of 2007, the top 1 percent of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers).” This quote points out the issues in distribute of the wealth in the US. There is a social problem with the distribution of income. Income is what people earn from work but is also interest earned dividends and any other royalties that they earn. The problem with distribution is that the top 1% or the rich while 99% is the middle class or the poor.