Income Inequality Sociology

We often see and hear success stories of successful entrepreneurs in America, such as the story of Bill Gates and how his success came about from founding Microsoft through hard work and dedication. We also see and hear stories about the poor, however, these stories are presented in a much less sensationalized tone when compared to stories of successful entrepreneurs. The general public tend to think that poor people are generally poor because they are lazy and unwilling to work. This is based around the idea of income inequality, where Americans believe that the more effort someone puts to find employment and completing their job, the more money they will make in the long run. But is income inequality truly the reason why there are so many …show more content…
Social pathology is the idea that there are people or groups that are biologically less “fit” than everybody else, which puts them at a disadvantage when trying to compete in society. It follows the person blaming approach, where the cause of the problem is the person themselves and is responsible for their poor living conditions. This sociological perspective takes a social Darwinism approach and states that poor people are poor because they do not have the ability to work as well as other people in society. The richest Americans are the wealthiest because they have put in the effort to accumulate their wealth and should be rewarded for their work. The other 90% of Americans do not have the ability to work as hard as the top 10% simply because they do not have the ability to compete with the 10% who have the ability to control most of the country’s wealth. An example is John Rockefeller and his belief of social Darwinism. He is quoted to saying that “the growth of a large business is merely a survival of the fittest.” Because of his desirable traits such as intelligence and skill, Rockefeller believed he had the inherent abilities to outcompete other businesses at the time, which contributed to his …show more content…
From the data shown above, we can visually see that wealth inequality has dropped in the years where there was a higher tax rate. The high taxes allow the money held by wealthy individuals to be collected by the government to potentially fund social programs, such as welfare programs. A current candidate for president this year, Senator Bernie Sanders, has brought up this issue repeatedly in his campaign. One of his solutions is to raise taxes for the wealthy in order to make the wealth gap between the richest Americans and the poorest Americans smaller. The government can then use this money to fund safety net programs that would benefit the poor. Another approach that our country can take is to revise our laws for non-violent/low risk offenses which has harsh consequences for many Americans. These offenses make it much more difficult for Americans who have a criminal record to find jobs and to earn a living wage. By employing more workers, people with criminal records can be given the opportunity to earn a wage to support themselves. This gives felons the ability to climb up the socioeconomic ladder and be able to climb out of poverty, instead of turning back to a life of crime just to make money to support themselves. Wealth inequality is a solvable issue, if there are enough people who take action to change the