The Wealth Gap: Analyzing The Growing Gulf Between Rich and Poor

Growing Gulf Between Rich and the Rest of Us

Although race and gender have always been hot topics in this country, causing various protests and debates, lately a new issue has been rising in the ranks: Social Class. Many people think social class is a thing of the past, a problem that feel with the British empire, a difficulty that does not exist in a country with an economy as rich as the United States, but unfortunately it exists and is becoming an increasingly growing concern. In her essay, Growing Gulf Between Rich and the Rest of Us, Holly Sklar describes the current socio-economic climate in the United States. Although the United States is far from the hierarchies and caste systems of other countries, Sklar contends that since we do live in a downwardly mobile society, we are becoming more similar to the caste systems in other places.

My tendency is to agree with Sklar who proves her point quite accurately with her opening sentence. “Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20 percent of households.” If this does not sound like a distinct class system, at least in the financial sense, than what is? A country that bases your success on not what you do, but who you are, what your background is, and what your “pedigree” is sounds like the very thing we fought against in the American Revolution is coming back to haunt us. When the Americans fought for independence from Great Britain they were fighting for equal opportunity for all, freedom from injustice, and freedom from the rule of a King. But this equal opportunity for all was never just that. It was equal opportunity for all, as long as you were a white male who owned property. And the white men who owned property tended to be the wealthier Anglo-Saxon Protestants, from well-to-do backgrounds. They had “pedigree” and their pedigree has carried on through the past couple centuries and is still used today to exclude people of less than desirable backgrounds.

Furthermore, Sklar points out that a country as rich as ours should not have a distinct caste system. More and more people are living below the poverty level, with the middle class becoming thinner and thinner, verging on nonexistent. She compares the infant mortality rate in the United States to that of third world country Malaysia! People in our prosperous country cannot afford the basic necessities such as food, clothing, or healthcare and yet more and more tax cuts are being passed in order for the billionaires who run this country to be able to afford a private jet or helicopter!

In conclusion, it seems that what Holly Sklar says in her article Growing Gulf Between Rich and the Rest of Us is very true. Year after year, the gulf between the rich and the poor is increasing exponentially and if something is not done to correct this trend, very few Americans will be able to provide their families with the basic needs for survival, let alone give them the opportunity to achieve the “American dream”. As the middle class fades away, we are becoming more and more a country like India or historical Britain, or other countries with caste systems in the sense that once you are a part of a select group it is very hard to travel amongst them. It is easy to lose everything and move in a downward spiral, but if you are born at the bottom it is next to impossible to reach a higher class, regardless of how hard you work!