Essay On Income Inequality

Words: 591
Pages: 3

U.S. Income Inequality

Income inequality can be defined as the unequal distribution of household or individual income across the various participants in an economy. In 2012 the top 1 percent of U.S. taxpayers earned 22.5 percent of all U.S. income. Wages used to be tied to worker productivity, the amount goods and services produced per hour worked. From 1948 to 1973 worker productivity increased 97 percent and wages increased nearly as much 91 percent. But from 1973 to 2013 worker productivity increased 74 percent, wages rose only by nine percent.
The reason for this disparity is that the CEO’s of large corporations are taking more of company profits for themselves. Today the mega wealthy (top 1 percent) earn an average of $1.3million a year.
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The lower income will affect health care as the cost could not be affordable. Equality, like fairness, is an important value in most societies. Regardless of ideology, culture, and religion, people care about inequality. Inequality can be a signal of lack of income mobility and opportunity and a reflection of tenacious disadvantage for particular sectors of the society. The despair the sectors of society feel when they do the right thing and it appears that those in power reap all of the benefits from their hard work can lead to emotional and physical problems. With a vexed workforce production will slow and hinder the economy even more. While the problem of income inequality might not be an easy one to fix or find a solution to, this problem needs to researched and solutions need to be thought out carefully, as the solution might add to the problem. This is not and will not be an easy task, but needs to be addressed by all. If we as a country and as middle-class citizens do not try and find a way to close this inequality gap we are putting our future in