Wealth Inequality In the U.S.
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| Image 1 |
According to research the top 5% of America’s population own
a massive 72% of the country’s wealth, with the top 1% owning 43% of that. The
article ‘Inequality gap between super
rich and poor continues to widen’ demonstrates that it is not the top 1%
that inequality is mainly evident but the top 0.1% with them, on average,
earning around six million dollars a year (roughly 206 times what the average
family in the US earned in 2012). Many of the top earners work in the finance
industry and live in major US cities such as New York or Los Angeles.
The Image 1 clearly shows the inequality of wealth within the
US however it doesn’t show the somewhat delusional state that Americans seem to
be in. Many know that there is an inequality however it is unclear to them just
how great the difference is, as shown in Image 2. Furthermore, Pizzigati voices his opinions on
Forbes 400, criticising the fact that the super-rich can earn over 1000 times
the wealth of someone with $5.2 million and can still have the power to cut
jobs for those in the ‘middle class’ that on average earn a net worth of
$81,200 per annum. For reasons like this the rich have the opportunity to get
richer whilst the poor struggle for jobs and inevitably get poorer. Even the
column (in image 2) showing wealth of ‘what Americans would like it to be’ doesn’t fairly
distribute wealth to the poorest. Overall inequality is still set to grow in
the United States although many experts agree that to reduce it would be to
raise/ have a better taxation system, trying to control the power that major
corporations and banks have and finally to put emphasis on the younger generation-
making sure even the poorest have education and healthcare so that they can ‘fulfil
their aspirations’.
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| Image 2 |
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