Analysis Of Confronting Inequality By Paul Krugman

Krugman starts off his essay by painting the picture of his younger days in a rather fair and middle-class American society. The theme of his writing is centered around policies with the power to reverse the extreme economic imbalance the United States has been challenged with. The excessively divided American economy contradicts the basis of America’s birth: “Ever since America’s founding, our idea of ourselves has been that of a nation without sharp class distinctions- not a leveled society of perfect equality, but one in which the gap between the economic elite and the typical citizen isn’t an unbridgeable chasm” (Graff, Birkenstein,

Depressions, wars, and other losses have contributed to the rising of inequality across America in the recent years. The middle and lower social classes have not recovered as quickly as the wealthier classes have. The rich continue to rise above the rest of the nation, continuing to increase the social gaps from the lower classes. Today inequality is what society is used to, and it will continue to get worse if this trend spreads, and is not

Paul Krugman, author of “The Death of Horatio Alger,” evaluates the declining social mobility in America. He proposes that the decline in social mobility is causing the rich to continue to get richer and the poor to continue to get poorer. Krugman was inspired to discuss how this would result in the shocking loss of the American Dream, after he read a Business Week article that made him fearful of the considerable and drastic decline that would destroy the livelihood of many Americans. Krugman’s purpose was to make his audience; those of lower socioeconomic status, aware that the American Dream they hoped to achieve would soon become extinct. He creates a fearful and negative tone, in order to grab his audience's attention and inform them about the economic downfall. Krugman strongly conveys his message not only through his harsh tone, but by appealing to pathos, incorporating rhetorical questions that create a fearful mood, and appealing to logos to make a credible and sound argument.

Her argument and reasoning within the essay talks about how economic inequality is “widely known and widely studied” (1). She persuades her readers with many convincing facts and research that contribute to her argument that economic inequality in the United States is nearing its breaking point (2). Jill Lepore writes about the Gini index and how we have been using this method for a hundred years to measure economic inequality and writes “In 2013, the U.S. Census Bureau reported a Gini index of .476” (1). Jill Lepore argues “The growth of inequality isn’t inevitable. But, insofar as Americans have been unable to adopt measures to reduce it, the number might seem to suggest that the problem doesn’t lie with how Americans treat one another’s kids, as lousy as that is. It lies with Congress” (10). She clearly states that even with this knowledge Americans still have made no changes and are incapable of decrease the inequality as it grows within the United States but are willing to blame other things instead of the real issue.

The U.S. are compared with other countries and we can see the we have top U.S. tax rates are low compared with those in Europe. And consequently, we see that the inequality strains the bonds within the society itself, people less trust the government or each other. While social trust is crucial in having a stable political situation in the country: "very high executive pay used to provoke public scrutiny, congressional hearings, and even presidential interventions". So it comes a turn of the inequality of market income". I agree, that the first step was already made by rising the minimum wage, but it`s no enough. We should pick up the slack of our union policy, what experience the drastic

Why is it so important and why has it caused the economy such agony? Americans, both wealthy and poor, try their absolute best to maintain a decent lifestyle for their children so they may have more open opportunities, especially during these difficult hardships. Many middle class Americans are purchasing homes that they may not be able to afford. Why? Because they want to make sure their children are living in a good neighborhood with a good school to receive an education. This shows how the wealthy and poor have different standards of living in terms of money management. This inequality connects back to predatory lending. People who purchase homes over their budgets will have more income difficulties and financial problems. This is likely to lead to subprime mortgages which, in an unfortunate turn, adds to the distress of the economy. Paul Krugman, an economy professor at Princeton and op-ed writer for the New York Times, states in his essay, “The lack of clear economic progress for lower- and middle- income families is in itself an important reason to seek a more equal distribution of income.” The inequality within our present society has caused a ridiculous amount of misfortune and concern. Incomes are unequal which raises questions as to who is living the better life and who is at a better advantage. Krugman also mentions in his essay, “Our unique lack of universal health care, all by itself puts Americans who are unlucky in

Income Inequality in America is a problem that’s been going on for decades, and many feel that it hardly exists, the many people that feel that way are highly uneducated, and seem to not really care about this tremendous problem that in one’s eyes really has no end in the near future, in fact it has been gradually rising and one feels that it’s just not fair. Unfortunately, there’s not much that can be done, only of course if the poor class of people decide to actually educate themselves and get a higher education. One says poor class, simply because that’s how they’re classified. There are five types of levels that Americans are classified as, and they are: 1. Upper Class, 2. Upper Middle Class, 3. Middle Class, 4. Working Class, 5. Poor.

In the essays “The American Dream: Dead, Alive, or on Hold?” by Brandon King and “Confronting Inequality” by Paul Krugman, the authors discuss a wide variety of ideas that affect or maintain the idea of income inequality in America today. In the essay by Brandon King, he clearly states that the values of the American Dream are still alive today, but are getting harder and harder to achieve for the average person. King argues that the American Dream of today has drastically changed from what it used to be, and that the thought of being successful only lays within having a steady life with little to no struggle. However, in “Confronting Inequality”, Krugman has a different approach on the topic, arguing that the American Dream is no longer alive. Krugman states that the rise of income inequality will also lead heavily to social inequality, and that the rise of income inequality is a huge cause of social inequality as well. The two authors use a majority of viewpoints and methods to explore the same topic of inequality. However, there are also many ways in which both authors offer different sides of the argument and how it should be handled.

Paul Krugman, in a recent article has eloquently discussed the issue of unequally distributed income in the United States (Krugman, 2015). He alludes to a number of general economic principles in this article. He talks about how a major misconception about the effect of taxes on income inequality in the United States has been addressed through a recent research carried out by Branko Milanovic and Janet Gornick.

Wealth inequality in the United States has grown tremendously since 1970. The United States continuously reveals higher rates of inequality as a result of perpetual support for free market capitalism. The high rates of wealth inequality cause the growing financial crisis to persist, lower socio-economic mobility, increase national poverty, and have adverse effects on health and well being.

That top portion manipulates the facts because they want the rest of America to believe that there is little inequality in the society. This causes a massive misunderstanding by the majority of the population where they underestimate the adverse economic effects of inequality and overestimate of the cost of taking action. There are also many misconceptions concerning the government which include the overestimate the ability of government to fix their inequality problems and the failure to understand what the government is doing to fix society’s problems. Despite the seemingly obvious facts, “only 42 percent of Americans believe that inequality has increased in the past ten years,” (Stiglitz 185) this believe is due to the optimism when it comes to social mobility, most Americans believe that there is a way to “cheat” or overcome the inequality. This idea that hope is necessary for a society to be controlled is consistent throughout a lot of governments and even literary works as well. In Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games trilogy the dictator like President Snow makes a point to say that hope is the only thing stronger than fear. This is true in society today, it is easier to rule and control people who think that things will get better

One of the social issues concerning power, status, and class in American society today is income inequality. The income gap between the social classes has increased drastically throughout the last few decades, creating a significant gap between the wealthy and the poor. This gap has become so large that the middle class has nearly diminished, creating a social class comprised of the rich and the poor. The significant gap between the two social classes is unhealthy for the economy because it provides too much power in the hands of those with high social status.

“One reason to care about inequality is the straightforward matter of living standards. The lions share of the economic growth in America over the past thirty years has gone to a small, wealthy minority…”(Krugman 586).

In Robert Reich documentary “Inequality for All” he makes a compelling discussion about the serious crises that the United States faces due the widening economic gap. He looks to raise awareness of the U.S. economic gap between the rich and poor. According to Reich the widening divide in America is real and growing. Income levels at the middle and labor class is stagnant and are at it’s lowest levels compared to upper class incomes since the beginning of WWII and is growing wider each year. Reich suggests that the economy runs more smoothly when the middle class has jobs with fair wages, when unions are strong, and when middle class workers have some extra money to spend if possible when the government uses the tax policy properly and when it raises the minimum wage regularly to control the income gap between labor and management. In other words Reich argues that economically healthy middle and labor class equality is the foundation of a thriving economy and is necessary to maintaining a sound national infrastructure and educational system within

In “Confronting Inequality” by Paul Krugman he tries to show how inquailty in the united states has been getting worse and how it s affecting the united states. He provides many reason to why iniquility is the way it s and how he belives it can be helped. He also states the positive effects in helping the inquility in the united states will have.