Economic Inequality

Education in America is one of the most important issues that face our nation. If the education in America is not thought of one of most serious issues we face, our nation as a whole will fall. There are many debates and they seemly extend to all walks of life. The debates range from the decline in education, school vouchers, and the no child left behind law. As a nation, the United States is ranked above others. We must search for that solution to all of the pro’s and con’s in education. The solution should allow all walks of life to excel in the education realm. After all, the children of today will be the leaders of tomorrow.

Income inequality has been a major issue in American history. There are many different factors that contribute to inequality. These include education, wealth, discrimination, ability, and monopoly power.

The greatest country in the world still has problems evenly distributing education to its youth. The articles I have read for this unit have a common theme regarding our education system. The authors illustrate to the reader about the struggles in America concerning how we obtain and education. Oppression, politics, racism, and socioeconomic status are a few examples of what is wrong with our country and its means of delivering a fair education to all Americans.

There was a time when America’s education system was top-notch according to the culture and society. With time, a myriad of things has changed, but unfortunately what has not evolved is the American education system. The country is still following a system which was not designed for the current global economic climate. Equality, as positive as it sounds is not as sufficient when it comes to education. The system treats students equally yet expect a similar culmination and outcome. Every child has his individuality and distinct abilities; one cannot judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree. Conversely, a few of the prominent reasons why the education system is failing are overcrowded schools, the rise of technology, and following the same old school hours.

America’s school system and student population remains segregated, by race and class. The inequalities that exist in schools today result from more than just poorly managed schools; they reflect the racial and socioeconomic inequities of society as a whole. Most of the problems of schools boil down to either racism in and outside the school or financial disparity between wealthy and poor school districts. Because schools receive funding through local property taxes, low-income communities start at an economic disadvantage. Less funding means fewer resources, lower quality instruction and curricula, and little to no community involvement. Even when low-income schools manage to find adequate funding, the money doesn’t solve all the school’s

The issue of income inequality in the United States is complicated and does not have a definite answer. Income inequality can be measured in a few different ways. The first measurement for the income inequality in a country is to look at the percentages on households and group them into income categories, called distribution by income category. The second measurement for income inequality is called distribution by quintiles or fifths. This is when you divide the total number of people, households, families into five groups called quintiles to examine the percentage of total before tax income received by each quintile. Each quintile would then be ordered by income and households in the category.

The American Education System is not meeting the needs of current students. If anything, the system is not building a sturdy foundation for the future working class. Schools have existed for many years and every period they have worked differently. However, every school’s main purpose was to educate students to be efficacious later in life. Modern day schools are corrupting students with added pressure, standardized tests, making less accommodations for special education students, not following laws, and take away individualism from the students’. The students of modern times are the people of our future and the future does not look too bright with the current American Education System.

Income Inequality is a major problem that has been going on in America for decades. Many people feel that it barely exists today, but those people are very uneducated and don’t really care about the huge problem in front of them the many people that feel that way are highly uneducated, and seem to not really care about which has been gradually increasing instead of decreasing. 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: Upper Class, Upper Middle Class, Middle Class, Working Class, Poor. The highest percentage of Americans fall in the Poor department, and it has been that way for decades, and will continue to be that way for decades to come.

Income inequality is increasingly becoming a significant concern for many countries around the world. The income difference between the highly-educated, skilled, wealthy class and the poor, low to mid-skilled workers is growing larger and larger. In fact, the incomes of the rich are increasing significantly, while the low skilled workers’ incomes have been declining (The Economist, “Wealth Without Workers”). According to The Economist, real median wages have been decreasing since 2000 in half of the member countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In the United States, there was a 4% increase from 1980 to 2012 in the share of national income that was distributed to the top 0.01% (The Economist, “True Progressivism”). Canada is facing a similar problem of rising inequality.

Income inequality has been a major concern around the world, and it mainly links to how economic metrics are distributed among individuals in a country. Economists generally categorise these metrics in wealth, income and consumption. Wilkinson and Picket (2009) showed in their studies that inequality has drawbacks that lead to social problems. This is because income inequality and wealth concentration can hinder or delay long term growth. In 2011, International Monetary Fund economists showed that less income inequality increased the duration of countries’ economic growth spells more than free trade, low government corruption, foreign investment or low foreign debt (Berg and Ostry, 2011).

In any given population, there is a difference between what people within the population earn. The uneven distribution of income in any given population is income inequality. In order for there to be income, there has to be several sources of income. These sources of income may be combinational or independent per person receiving the income. Income may result from wages, rent, bank account interests, salaries or even profits made in business transactions ( Stiglitz, 2012).

Much has been written about Economic inequality and how it affects various aspects of quality of life. The literature is varied with recent works such as Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s Spirit Level which suggesting that economic inequality has a detrimental effect on several factors such as increased crime, increased obesity, and worse mental health within a country. Whilst other authors have seen economic growth as part of the development process as outlined by Simon Kuznets. Whilst there has always been a wide range of literature on inequality, this literature has expanded significantly since the Financial Crisis of 2008. The financial crisis seems to have sparked a vast amount of public disapproval which has been reflected in the increased literature and popularity as shown through French economist Thomas Piketty’s best-seller ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’

Perspectives by conflict theorists in sociology suggest that the social, political, or material inequality of a social group, are used as an instrument of oppression. Power is a concept that can be explained by interactions between individuals and groups. The law is an instrument of oppression used to maintain power and privilege(Henslin164) Social inequality can be seen as many different things. The most common would be gender roles or discrimination by social stereotyping. They can also be established through the unjust criminal justice system, health, and education. Inequalities exist between race or religion groups, classes, and even countries, making this a worldwide phenomenon. More often you would see it in the form of racism or segregation. In sociology, classification of people into groups are based on shared social and economic conditions; these three main groups are the capitalist class, working class, and marginal working class. Within these groups are many inequalities. The capitalist class would be considered the wealthy who own companies and buy labor from the working class. Working class are the group that sells their labor. The marginal working class is the most desperate members of society who have little money or skills, most often unemployed or jailed. Because of their struggle with poverty, most end up as prison inmates or repeat offenders.

Economic inequality can be defined by the unequal access to economic resources, in the form of opportunities, wealth, capital, land, etc., which determine the individual’s or the group’s level of power. Generally speaking, individuals and groups with high access to resources have high levels of vertical and horizontal power, which in it turn generate more access to resources and power. The unequal access to economic resources is institutionalized within a society. Thus, economic inequality has far reaching effects and manifestations in other social and political institutions. In addition, with increasing role of global economy on national economies, and the increasing inequality in the global market, which is reflecting on increasing inequality in it turn increases inequality within nations. Thus, the interest among political economists has increased in an effort to understand stratification and to create policies which aim to elevate economic inequality globally and nationally.

Social and economic circumstances are known as a mixture of education, occupation, and income. Some of us may have dissimilar conditions such as a higher and lower the socio-economic status (SES). Several income classes were introduced in Alhanati (2017), and they were the upper class, the upper middle class, the middle class and lower middle class, and the lowest class. However, there is a huge inequality among those classes because of the “widening gaps in income, wealth, and power” (Johnson, 2006, p.44). Therefore, the upper classes have their privilege to be a “greater say in the political realm and exert more control over the use of natural resources” (Alhanati, 2017, n.p). On the other hand, low SES refer to people who have lower education, poverty, and poor health. Recently there are some of the families are still under the poverty line, and they don’t earn enough to meet their basic needs. In fact, social and economic circumstances have a great impact on our everyday lives, especially low-income families.