As The Rich Get Richer, The Poor Get Poorer Wealth And Poverty In American Society” Research Paper Sample

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Ruling percent of the country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Richest and influential people in the world and within the United States . . . . . . . . . . 3
Poverty among the common people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Work Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Introduction
One may say that the gap between rich and poor people in the United States is enormous, and he would be 100% right. There are political as well as ethical reasons in strong desire to address the increasing gap among poor and rich people in the U.S., according to specialists varying from political experts and to social workers and common people. The understanding that some people becoming wealthier at the cost of the rest nation, is fuelling a counter strike, from the “Occupy movement” that started in four years ago to the strict protests in Europe, to the worker strikes in order to increase minimum wage in the United States.
Ruling percent of the country
People are afraid that nowadays, our world develops in so called "Downton Abbey economy". Such model is very easy, we have a very small percentage of people, with enormous welfare – less than 1% - and on the other hand, we have worker class – poor and middle class people. (Spotlightonpoverty.org) Meantime, one may see that higher prices and lower wages have been imposed to the middle class, making a lot of people to go into personal debt to try to have a normal life to live.
Different scholars, politic experts, economists and common people argue on the origin and what has caused such paradigm in whole world and in particular countries, and even more disputes over what to do to resolve such issue.
Generally speaking, the richest part of the country in the United States earned more than 58% of the whole nation’s income. Middle class of the country earned quarter of the United States income, and the lower class earned only 16%. Thus, making it possible to state that, the wealthiest people in the country made more than 99% of the U.S. population. To make things worse, compared with late 70s, income was distributed more equally – 35% for richest people, 33% for middle class and 30% for lower class. Of course, the unfairness and inequality is visible, but not as much as we can see nowadays. (Spotlightonpoverty.org)
One may state, that for some time, wealth and income in the U.S. concentrated in very small amount of people and large and almighty organizations. Coupled with reducing funding of social programs, decreasing wages and increased privatizations, made such situation where average salary across the United States makes it impossible to live for the big part of the American citizens. Nowadays, we can see an inequality among rich and poor people, and such situation has never appeared before in the U.S.
Richest and influential people in the world and within the United States
It is important to make an example of difference in wage levels. The top 10 highest-paid CEOs in the U.S. each have salaries for more than $100 million per year, according to a survey made by GMI Ratings. (Damon) Compared to last year’s wealth of the richest people in the United States, showed that their income increased by 17%. It would be possible to cover the federal budget deficit twice! This money could be spent on education, healthcare, various social programs etc. “When the rich get wealthier they become more powerful and that puts them in the position to lobby for policies that make them even wealthier”. (Forbes)
One may assume that not more than 10,000 people control the vast majority of the commanding grounds of the global economy – majority of them are American people. In the top 10 wealthiest people in the world, 7 of them have American citizenship. (Grusky) Frequently, the organizations or corporations that these people own and rule, make it possible to impact political, social, and economical life not only within the U.S., but for the whole world. There is little doubt about the power that these people have and how this small groups of individuals has over essential aspect of the world’s economy and the U.S. government in general.
For the last 20-25 years, as one can see was the extreme economic growth in the U.S. However, it is essential to mention that such growth gave opportunities not for everyone. Most of them doubled or triple their income over the years, while in the middle and the bottom, unfortunately, wealth growth has been indolent or languid. (Cbc.ca)
Poverty among the common people
Alongside with the indecent self-enrichment of the economical elite, poverty continues to grow. A research made by the Southern Education Foundation showed that almost 50% of all public school children in the U.S. were in poverty. Thus, unfortunately, the United States ranks next to Romania in child poverty. With the help of information provided by Depart Of Education in the United States, one could see that more than one million children in the U.S. were homeless at some point in 2011-2012. And the real numbers are much higher than the reality. (Congressional Budget Office)
People who live in poverty have more chances to become homeless, or to live in hunger and in danger to their life. Poor health and education make the whole country less powerful and creating discord in the society.
Increasing inequality is the predominant and ubiquitous social reality in the United State; however it is possible to say that it is not new and unique to the America. Since 2008, the chrysocracy that governs all the mechanisms of political, economical and social life has created an unexampled scheme of money chase from bottom to the top.
In countries with high rates of unemployment like Greece and Spain, such situations became normal, as the richest people in the country dictate the rules to working classes. The rest of the world is in pretty much the same situation and the United States are also swelled with poverty.
Our society is not capable of affording a decent standard of living for vast working classes. We can see, that nowadays the American education, healthcare and social programs is in dire state, there is no doubt about that. In spite of such problems, where money could be a real solution, one can see that the ruling class just draining resources from people.
As a substitute for doing individually fulfilling things such as very important in our life tasks of bag food, creating family or contrasting home for it, low and middle class have to work on low-paid and mind-numbing jobs being constructor workers, waitresses, miners, janitors, dishwashers, drivers, builders, painters and a lot of different jobs with low salaries.
Frequently, such jobs make poor people rebel against the government and the ruling class. The inability to fully express oneself during working, and having been dictated with different types of rules and limitations lead to different psychological and mental diseases and disorders among poor people. Such working condition could lead to alcohol and drugs consuming, which worsen the situation even more. Indeed, usage of drugs and alcohol, bad health due to working conditions and inability to get decent healthcare, gambling, domestic and in violence in general, can show how such low-paid jobs could literally corrupt a person. All these facts can all be described as result of people who are unhappy with their life and degrading work
Conclusion
Hence, one can come to the conclusion that the inequality between wealthy and poor people in the U.S. is as massive as it was in the 1920s. At long last, standing against the system that has enormous incomes and poverty possible – global capitalism – should not be done in one day. Instead, there is likely no bigger step that can be taken by any one person than simply rejecting any compromise of their own personal dignity. The whole change of the system is required, because as we can see, the ruling top of the country has no thought to change anything in their life, as they are completely successful and content. It is possible to say that all the problems within the country and all the hardships, predominantly, were experienced by middle and lower class. And they withstood them with dignity and pride.
Work Cited
Cbc.ca,. 'CBC News - Why The Rich Get Richer And The Poor Get Poorer'. N.p., 2015. Web. 4 Apr. 2015.
Congressional Budget Office,. 'Trends In The Distribution Of Household Income Between 1979 And 2007'. N.p., 2011. Web. 4 Apr. 2015.
Damon, Andre. 'Wealth And Poverty In America - World Socialist Web Site'. Wsws.org. N.p., 2015. Web. 4 Apr. 2015.
Forbes,. 'The Forbes World's Billionaires List Is The Definitive List Of The World's Wealthiest People, Profiling And Ranking Billionaires From 70 Countries By Their Estimated Net Worth.'. N.p., 2015. Web. 4 Apr. 2015.
Grusky, David B. The Poverty And Inequality Report. The Stanford Center, 2014. Print.
Spotlightonpoverty.org,. 'Wealth Inequality In America: Two Views - Spotlight On Poverty'. N.p., 2015. Web. 4 Apr. 2015.