Income Inequality Research Paper

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.

Income inequality describes the extent to which income is distributed unevenly among residents of an area. High levels of inequality indicate that a small number of people receive most of the total income, and that most people receive only a small share of the total. There are many advantages and disadvantages associated with the inequitable distribution of income.

Domestic inequality is most commonly measured using the Gini coefficient that varies between 1 and 0. A coefficient of 1 implies inequality is

Chapter 2 was interesting and informative. First, I would like to state that changing demographics, globalization, and household composition are a few of the things which have contributed to income inequality.

Income and wealth inequality refers to the degree to which income is unevenly distributed among people in an economy. The share of total income received by different groups measures inequality, this visually represented in the Lorenz curve. The line of perfect equality bisects the graph with the percentage of income

From 1938-1969, in America was in a period called the great compression, a time where the difference between the richest and poorest Americans was very small and economic growth was explosive. Due to past and current economic policies and events, income inequality has exploded in America, which is why in 2015 America had the highest level of wealth inequality in the world at 80.56 gini[1] . In the future this inequality will slow down economic growth, increase debt for middle income Americans, make America less democratic, and reduce economic mobility. This problem, however, does have solutions and this paper will lay out some of the solutions and the effect they will have on the economy, but first I will explain the history of income inequality in the US.

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.

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.

First we must define what exactly income inequality really is and that is according to Definition of ‘Income Inequality’ (2015) said to be unequal income distributed to household or individual across the various participants in an economy. Income inequality is often presented as the percentage of income to a percentage of population. For example,

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.

Inequality is not favorable in society. There is inequality in many aspects of our society, such as race, and gender. The main inequality we look at is income inequality in the United States. The one percent of the population control a vast majority of the United States currency. The Gini coefficient has been increasing ever since the Industrial Revolution, a period where education, manufacturing, and economics has shown growth. However, income inequality has increased in the Industrial Revolution. There are many events, and causes that have led to the rise of income equality in the United States.

Income inequality has affected American citizens ever since the American Dream came to existence. The American Dream is centered around the concept of working hard and earning enough money to support a family, own a home, send children to college, and invest for retirement. Economic gains in income are one of the only possible ways to achieve enough wealth to fulfill the dream. Unfortunately, many people cannot achieve this dream due to low income. Income inequality refers to the uneven distribution of income and wealth between the social classes of American citizens. The United States has often experienced a rise in inequality as the rich become richer and the poor become poorer, increasing the unstable gap between the two classes. The

The highest earning fifth of U.S. families earned 59.1% of all income, while the richest earned 88.9% of all wealth. A big gap between the rich and poor is often associated with low social mobility, which contradicts the American ideal of equal opportunity. Levels of income inequality are higher than they have been in almost a century, the top one percent has a share of the national income of over 20 percent (Wilhelm). There are a variety of factors that influence income inequality, a few of which will be discussed in this paper. Rising income inequality is caused by differences in life expectancy, rapidly increases in the incomes of the top 5 percent, social trends, and shifts in the global economy.

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).

Currently there are many problems and flaws with the way the Canadian government’s policies deal with healthcare, income inequality and poverty. Time to time changes in policies have been made, perhaps to improve these issues, however, the gap between rich and poor keeps increasing and there is very little improvement in healthcare and the economy. In fact, healthcare keeps on becoming costly. Major issues like income inequality and poverty are not being taken care of by the government. According to Dr. Raphael (2002) poverty is caused by several reasons such as inequality in people’s income, weak social services and lack of other social supports (p.VI). He states, “Poverty directly harms the health of those with low incomes while income