...Anthony Giovenco Political Science Inequality Paper 12-18-14 The Effects of Wealth Inequality in the United States 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. There is no doubt that wealth inequality in America has been escalating quickly; the portion of total income earned by the top one percent has doubled since the beginning of the 1970’s. The wealthy are the main beneficiaries regarding income inequality. In the latest consensus of wealth distribution, the top one percent of Americans owned thirty five percent of the nations private wealth, and the top ten percent took home about fifty percent of all income in 2012. This figure is greater than the bottom 90 percent combined. The question commonly asked concerning this matter: How and why is this becoming so quickly unequal is to be examined. First, we must explain what is meant by the term “wealth.” Wealth is the collection of the assets people own. This includes homes, stocks, savings for pension, and bank accounts, minus all existing debts. The main issue regarding wealth inequality is income inequality. Income equality has grown increasingly in the past 30 years....
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...I E S IN T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S THE ECONOMIC BURDEN OF HEALTH INEQUALITIES IN THE UNITED STATES Thomas A. LaVeist, Ph.D. Darrell J. Gaskin, Ph.D. Patrick Richard, Ph.D. September 2009 foreward Not everyone in the United States enjoys the same health opportunities. Studies show that minority Americans experience poorer than average health outcomes from cradle to the grave. They are much more likely to die as infants, have higher rates of diseases and disabilities, and have shorter life spans. As the U.S. Congress and the Obama Administration work toward enactment of legislation to reform America’s health care system, a central focus of the debate has been the projected cost of ensuring accessible and affordable health care to every citizen. While some have struggled with the premise that health care reform can actually reduce health-related spending, the experience of racial and ethnic minorities under our current health care system is a strong indication that improving opportunities for good health – and minimizing inequities in health care access and outcomes – may well be good for the nation’s fiscal health, as well. This study, commissioned by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and carried out by leading researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, provides important insight into how much of a financial burden racial disparities are putting on our health care system and society at large. The researchers examined the...
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...socio-economic problems as the United States. For the best example of policies that improved socio-economic, infrastructure, and health inequalities, I will reference the 2017 United Health Foundation report...
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...Inequality in the United States In today’s American home life, the pressure of living the American dream has strained society. According to the article The Dangerous Consequences of Growing Inequality, the authors state that “a powerful consequence of growing inequality is an erosion in the amount of free time that families have.” (Collins and Yeskel 155) Though advancements have been made in the work environment, many are working harder to earn the same wages to try to keep up with the changing economy. While unemployment and debt are increasing, there has been a decline in health insurance, retirement security, and ability to earn a proper education. The United States’ gap of inequality is continuously increasing with the changing economy. Presently, many Americans are faces stresses that they did not in the past. The cost of living has risen, yet many cannot afford to maintain a comfortable lifestyle with the wages that they are receiving. The article Dangerous Consequences of Growing Inequality states, “Families continue to make up for falling wages in order to maintain a certain standard of living is by going deeper into debt.” (156) Because debt continues to grow, people are not able to save for their families. The use of credit cards has fueled this problem because people are allowed to borrow money constantly, but do not have the means to pay it back. The income of the average family should increase as the standard of living increases in order to lessen inequality...
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...our attention to thoughts of injustices and inequalities. In actuality, these customs do not exist neither naturally nor neutrally, but have been embedded in the political, economic, and social organization of societies over time. Structural violence is not limited to local histories or countries classified as third world, but also...
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...The first criteria to take a look at will be the effects of income inequality on crime. Crime happens all over the world, but can be the result of many things. In lower income areas or places in poverty, the risk of committing a crime is lower and has more meaning for the people committing it. In areas of higher population and higher income, crime might occur because of an event in that area that triggered the crime to take place, rather than committing a crime for personal gain. In a research paper, it was stated, “the evidence presented so far suggests that, from a cross-country perspective, there is a robust correlation between the incidence of crimes and the extent of income inequality”(Fajnzylber et al. 2002). This was a study from the world bank, and they had...
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...The Human Development Index and the Inequality Human Development Index Human development is defined as the process of enlarging people’s freedoms and opportunities and improving their well-being. Human development is about the real freedom ordinary people have to decide who to be, what to do, and how to live. The human development concept was developed by economist Mahbub ul Haq. At the World Bank in the 1970s, and later as minister of finance in his own country, Pakistan, Dr. Haq argued that existing measures of human progress failed to account for the true purpose of development—to improve people’s lives. In particular, he believed that the commonly used measure of Gross Domestic Product failed to adequately measure well-being. Working with Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen and other gifted economists, in 1990 Dr. Haq published the first Human Development Report, which was commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme. The Human Development Index was developed as an alternative to simple money metrics. It is easy-to-understand numerical measures made up of what most people believe are the very basic ingredients of human well-being: health, education, and income. The first Human Development Index was presented in 1990. It has been an annual feature of every Human Development Report since, ranking virtually every country in the world from number one currently Norway, to number 186 Niger. Like all averages, it conceals disparities in human development across the population...
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...Final Paper Wealth Inequality in U.S. and Economic Efficiency Over the last decade, income inequality has become one of the most important issues in the U.S. and a subject of a lot of debate. There is a prevalent idea in the society that the wealth inequality in United States is currently at the highest level in the history after steadily raising for a number of decades. The financial crisis is said to have contributed to this significant gap between the top 1% and everybody else. People view it as an inherently negative thing, and fight hard to promote the equality and income redistribution. This paper examines the causes of inequality; the relationship between wealth inequality and economic growth and the hypothesis on how policy measures can be designed to mitigage the income disparity both in U.S. and in the rest of the world. The researh is based on the theory that inequality is an essential aspect of an efficient free market economy that adversely affects economic growth when in excess. When it comes to global wealth inequality, people often tend to accuse capitalism. In fact, the real laissez-faire capitalism doesn't exist anywhere on our planet. According to its definition, laissez faire is "an economic system in which transactions between private parties are free from intrusive government restrictions, tariffs, and subsidies, with only enough regulations to protect property rights." It has been previously proven free markets lead to the most efficient use of economic...
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...Report was a 1980 document published [1] by the Department of Health and Social Security (now the Department of Health) in the United Kingdom, which was the report of the expert committee into health inequality chaired by Sir Douglas Black. It was demonstrated that although overall health had improved since the introduction of the welfare state, there were widespread health inequalities. It also found that the main cause of these inequalities was economic inequality. The report showed that the death rate for men in social class V was twice that for men in social class I and that gap between the two was increasing, not reducing as was expected. The Black report was commissioned in March 1977 by David Ennals, Labour Secretary of State, following publication of a two-page article by Richard G. Wilkinson in New Society, on 16 December 1976, entitled Dear David Ennals. The report was nearly ready for publication in early 1979. However, in the General Election on 3 May 1979, the Conservatives were elected. The Black Report was not issued until 1980 by the Conservative Government. The Black report was published on August Bank Holiday with only 260 copies made available on the day for the media. However, the report had a huge impact on political thought in the United Kingdom and overseas. It led to an assessment by the Office for Economic Co-Operation and Development and the World Health Organization of health inequalities in 13 countries—though not on UK government...
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...Institution Course Date Income Inequality: A Hindrance to Retirement Security Holland, K. (2015). On retirement security, US rank far behind others. CNBC. Retrieved 8 November 2015, from http://www.cnbc.com/2015/02/09/ In this article, the author suggests that America lags behind 18 other countries in retirement security because of the high-income inequality observed in many states in America. The author suggests that according to the recent study, the United States offers little support for retirement security services unlike other developed countries. The author quotes Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland as among countries that have good retirement security systems. Many characteristics define these economies. First, most of the nations that score higher than the United States in retirement security have high tax burdens. However, these countries have a narrow income inequality. In addition, most countries are also improving on the gap between the poor and the rich. The universal healthcare schemes provided by these countries have also contributed to the good ratings of the most countries that have better retirement schemes than the United States (Holland, 2015). The author has focused on highlighting the importance of retirement security as a key pillar in economic developments. The author clearly states that the United States social security problem lies with the expanding income inequality. The author states that in order to have a good retirement scheme...
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...Institution Course Date Income Inequality: A Hindrance to Retirement Security Holland, K. (2015). On retirement security, US rank far behind others. CNBC. Retrieved 8 November 2015, from http://www.cnbc.com/2015/02/09/ In this article, the author suggests that America lags behind 18 other countries in retirement security because of the high-income inequality observed in many states in America. The author suggests that according to the recent study, the United States offers little support for retirement security services unlike other developed countries. The author quotes Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland as among countries that have good retirement security systems. Many characteristics define these economies. First, most of the nations that score higher than the United States in retirement security have high tax burdens. However, these countries have a narrow income inequality. In addition, most countries are also improving on the gap between the poor and the rich. The universal healthcare schemes provided by these countries have also contributed to the good ratings of the most countries that have better retirement schemes than the United States (Holland, 2015). The author has focused on highlighting the importance of retirement security as a key pillar in economic developments. The author clearly states that the United States social security problem lies with the expanding income inequality. The author states that in order to have a good retirement scheme...
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...Guinea while Sri Lanka strides ahead Over the past three decades, India has made good progress on the human development index (HDI), says the Human Development Report 2013, released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). However, India’s rank out of 187 countries is no better than last year’s. With a HDI value of 0.554 and a rank of 136 among 187 countries, which it shares with Equatorial Guinea, India is placed in the “medium development” category. There has been steady improvement in its HDI value, which was 0.345 in 1980. In 1950, Brazil, China and India together represented 10 per cent of the world economy, while the six traditional economic leaders of the North accounted for more than half. According to projections in the report, by 2050, Brazil, China and India will together account for 40 per cent of global output, far surpassing the projected combined production of today’s Group of Seven bloc. | | | HDI is a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and income indices used to rank countries in four tiers of human development. Since 2011, the UNDP report has included an inequality adjusted HDI, also known as IHDI, which attempts to include the effects of inequality on human development. The IHDI for India this year is 0.392. High gender inequality The country fails miserably on the front of gender equality. On the gender equality index, with a value of 0.610, India has one of the worst indicators in the medium human development category...
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...Institution Course Date Income Inequality: A Hindrance to Retirement Security Holland, K. (2015). On retirement security, US rank far behind others. CNBC. Retrieved 8 November 2015, from http://www.cnbc.com/2015/02/09/ In this article, the author suggests that America lags behind 18 other countries in retirement security because of the high-income inequality observed in many states in America. The author suggests that according to the recent study, the United States offers little support for retirement security services unlike other developed countries. The author quotes Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland as among countries that have good retirement security systems. Many characteristics define these economies. First, most of the nations that score higher than the United States in retirement security have high tax burdens. However, these countries have a narrow income inequality. In addition, most countries are also improving on the gap between the poor and the rich. The universal healthcare schemes provided by these countries have also contributed to the good ratings of the most countries that have better retirement schemes than the United States (Holland, 2015). The author has focused on highlighting the importance of retirement security as a key pillar in economic developments. The author clearly states that the United States social security problem lies with the expanding income inequality. The author states that in order to have a good retirement scheme...
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...Kinghon, Kevin A Capitalism in United States What Kind of Capitalism does Americans want? First of all, I am going to show a quick overview of the unfolding of capitalism since the Great Depression, which I believe is vital in order to understand the capitalism that exists in the United States today and some of the problems to it. Then I will look at four different complex areas of free market capitalism in America compared with the Scandinavian government control capitalism. I will then talk about what kind of capitalism we want: We being different interest groups, such as the shareholders, the C.E.O.'s, the average worker and the poor. Finally I will talk about what values might be at stake in capitalism. In the United States, the 1930s Great Depression threatened to knock out the capitalism that had been gradually developing for the past 400 years and this led to abandoning the laissez faire capitalism and instead embracing the New Deal concept of government managed capitalism in order to control money supply and government expenditure, and in order to limit the increasing gap of inequality of income. The 1950s and 1960s were decades of equality, but the energy crises of the 1970s forced the government to kick start the economy imposing new taxation benefiting the rich and once again causing widening inequality. Today, capitalism is the most important economic system of the Western world, in its however various forms: In the United States a more free-market capitalism...
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...development economists generally. The focus on poverty reduction reached a high point perhaps with the articulation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and with the extensive analytic work that has accompanied the MDGs.[2] Yet, much of the discussion of poverty reduction and economic development in low and middle income countries has either ignored the issue of income distribution or has tended to view income distribution only in terms of its impact on economic growth. Poverty and inequality, however, are intimately bound up with one another.[3] Both as an analytic issue and as a policy issue, there are severe limitations in attempting to deal with poverty – or, more broadly, with economic well-being – without also examining income inequality. Indeed, it is questionable that we can even define poverty independently of income distribution. In this essay, I want to develop the argument that economists and economic policy-makers should focus much greater attention on inequality as measured by the distribution of income (and wealth). The traditional focus simply on absolute levels of income as a measure of poverty and economic well-being is fundamentally flawed. My argument here has thee parts: • Poverty or, more generally, economic well-being cannot be effectively defined as distinct from income distribution. • Income distribution is fundamental to our understanding of justice (fairness) and human rights, and relative...
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