Personal Reflection on The Topic of Economic Inequality

When I hear the word economic inequality the first thing, I think of is unfairness, how the income and wealth being distrusted throughout the population of the country is not right.

So I will talk about top income shares. The chart shows us the income share held by the richest 10 percent, from the year 1979 to 2015. The United States was at 25.30 percent in the year 1979, but since that, the income share held by the richest 10 percent has gone to 30.20 percent. That is a 4.9 percent increase from the year 1979 to 2013. This shows us that the income held by the richest 10 percent is increasing. In my opinion, I think this is bad for the rest of the people because 30.20 percent is a big percentage of the population in the United States that are making and having a very huge chunk of the money made. This is unfair because owners of companies like Facebook, Apple, Tesla, Microsoft are making so much money that their wealth is increasing by a lot, but their worker's wealth isn't. They pay their workers a very small portion of money when the workers are helping the owners of these companies make money. There are no countries with less than 20 percent income shares there are held by the richest 10 percent. Which is crazy because it isn't fair, to make it fair I believe the percentage needs to be under 20 percent. Income share held by the richest 10 percent in Iceland is only 21.30 percent which is the lowest percentage of any of the other countries. The highest Income share held by the richest 10 percent is in South Africa which is 51.3 percent. The conclusion I have come to is countries that are in poor circumstances tend to have a higher percentage than countries with less poor circumstances.

The United States income is divided like this income share held by the highest 20 percent is 46.45 percent, income share held by fourth 20 percent is 22.72 percent, income share held by third 20 percent is 15.42 percent, income share held by second 20 percent is 10.31 percent, and lastly, income share held by lowest 20 percent is 5.11 percent. This data was collected in 2013. This data shows me that the income that is being made in the united states is being distributed with total unfairness. The highest 20 percent is making 46.5 percent of the money compared to the lowest which is making only 5.11 percent, which is crazy because the difference is so high and even the fourth 20 percent is making 23.6 percent of the income which is almost half of the highest 20 percent. I remember in econ 201 we looked at the recent poll and the percentage was way higher for the highest 20 percent in the year 2018-2019. Overall the rich are getting richer the poor are getting poor, we need to make a change in the system in order to make it fair for everyone.

I believe too much economic inequality is bad for society because then people won't have that much motivation to make money because nothing would be fair. This will also reduce economic growth which is bad for the country. I am not saying a little economic inequality is bad, but too much is bad for the economy because it will shift a lot of things which then will ruin the economic growth. Also, too much unfairness will make a decrease in workforce labor because people wouldn't want to do jobs that are hard then. If they're making the same amount of many as a person that's job is really easy, they would do that job and quit the harder job. Scaling prices for products are going to be hard because you want the consumer to afford the thing your selling otherwise your losing money. When economic inequality was unfair than fairer the owner of ford had to pay higher wages to his workers because then they could afford to buy his cars. This will honestly demotivate me because if I knew the rich will stay rich and the poor will keep getting poor because of society not being fair. I wouldn’t really want to work that much. Which then will reduce the labor force which then will reduce the economy of our country. Lastly, too much economic inequality will hurt everyone, the poor, the middle class, the upper class, and the rich.

I believe we can reduce economic inequality by increasing the wage of employees. This will make the lower 20 percent a bit higher and then the rest of the tiers will go up a bit to beside the highest 20 percent because the highest, 20 percent own companies and people work for them so if the wage goes higher it won't hurt them but would make things fairer. This will allow people to provide a better chance for them and their kids and hiring the wage will not affect anything in a negative way. Another thing we can do is make education free for the lower and middle class. Doing this will give people that are from lower classes a better chance to do something better in life which will hopefully make them more money and then in the future help them help their kids so they can also have equal opportunities in the world. I believe if we don't discriminate on backgrounds and provide equal opportunities for everyone it will then for sure reduce economic inequality.

Bibliography

1. Ingraham, C. (2019, April 27). Analysis | How rising inequality hurts everyone, even the rich.
2. Roser, M., & Ortiz-Ospina, E. (2013, December 5). Income Inequality.