Inequality In America
When we hear the word “America” we often think of independence, opportunity, and success. Equal opportunity can be defined as every individual granted a fair chance and should be treated the same. The opportunity should overlook religion, race, sex, ethnicity, etc. For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been studying the nature of inequality and how it’s had a negative impact on society. From the outside looking in, it seems as if America is the land of equal opportunity, however, that is not accurate. The United States is not the land of equal opportunity. People of different races have to fight daily for fair opportunities. Inequality affects the ability of people who wants to improve the standards of their lives and contribution to society.
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To a wealthy individual, the high standard of living is to be comfortable which they already are, while the typical person struggles to feel at ease trying to make ends meet. In The New Yorkers article “The Mobility Myth” by James Surowiekcki it states “Raising living standards for ordinary workers is hard: you need to either get wages growing or talk about things that scares politicians, like “redistribution” and “taxes”. But making it easier for some Americans to move up the economic ladder is no great triumph if most can barely hold.” (Surowiekcki 92). This particular quote from the article demonstrates how unduly the standards of living are. United States representatives are determined to change the basic living standards to a high standard of living for those who can afford it. This makes it even harder, for those who are barely making ends meet. By doing so, this illustrates that America expects too much from people who can barely afford to live here. Equal access to public goods isn’t optional. Public goods are a commodity or service that is provided without profit to all members of a society, either by the government or a private individual or organization. The article “The Decline of the American Public Goods” by Robert Reich it states “The slide really started more than three decades ago with so-called “tax revolts” by a middle class whose earnings had stopped advancing even though the economy continued to grow. Most families still wanted good public services and institutions but could no longer afford the tab. From that time onward, almost all the gains from growth have gone to the top. But as the upper middle class and the rich began shifting to private institutions, they withdrew political support for public ones. In consequence, their marginal tax rates dropped — setting off a vicious cycle of
To a wealthy individual, the high standard of living is to be comfortable which they already are, while the typical person struggles to feel at ease trying to make ends meet. In The New Yorkers article “The Mobility Myth” by James Surowiekcki it states “Raising living standards for ordinary workers is hard: you need to either get wages growing or talk about things that scares politicians, like “redistribution” and “taxes”. But making it easier for some Americans to move up the economic ladder is no great triumph if most can barely hold.” (Surowiekcki 92). This particular quote from the article demonstrates how unduly the standards of living are. United States representatives are determined to change the basic living standards to a high standard of living for those who can afford it. This makes it even harder, for those who are barely making ends meet. By doing so, this illustrates that America expects too much from people who can barely afford to live here. Equal access to public goods isn’t optional. Public goods are a commodity or service that is provided without profit to all members of a society, either by the government or a private individual or organization. The article “The Decline of the American Public Goods” by Robert Reich it states “The slide really started more than three decades ago with so-called “tax revolts” by a middle class whose earnings had stopped advancing even though the economy continued to grow. Most families still wanted good public services and institutions but could no longer afford the tab. From that time onward, almost all the gains from growth have gone to the top. But as the upper middle class and the rich began shifting to private institutions, they withdrew political support for public ones. In consequence, their marginal tax rates dropped — setting off a vicious cycle of