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What is the wealth gap?
In America, it might be harder than ever to climb the ladder of success and move up in income levels.
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Jeremy Hobson: Well this week we've been introducing you to our new Wealth and Poverty Desk.
Today, we're going to tackle "The Wealth Gap" -- the growing concentration of wealth in our country at the top, while those in the middle and at the bottom have lost ground. Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman reports.
Mitchell Hartman: Back in 1979, the top 10 percent of earners took home about a third of the nation’s income. By the late 2000s, half that income was flowing into their paychecks. Another way to look at it: As the economy grew, fully 80 percent of the increase in our incomes went to the top 1 percent. Everyone else?
Well, not doing so well, says N.Y.U. economist Edward Wolff.
Edward Wolff: The middle class has basically been experiencing stagnating income, and, it turns out, stagnating wealth as well. So the benefits of economic growth have become almost totally concentrated in the hands of the rich.
But not everyone agrees gains for the rich come at the expense of the poor and middle class. Scott Winship of the Brookings Institution told a Senate Committee recently: Consider Mark Zuckerberg. He could make billions off Facebook stock.
Scott Winship: How would the typical American end up better off if Zuckerberg could not exercise those options? American inequality levels are viscerally bracing, but one still has to make the case that they are undesirable.
A lot of people are making the case for "undesirable." They point to growing disparities in health care and education. And, economic mobility.
Timothy Smeeding at the University of Wisconsin’s Institute for Research on Poverty says a growing economy that leaves so many stuck at the middle or bottom tears at the social fabric. And he says it’s getting ever harder for the have-nots to move up the ladder.
Timothy Smeeding: Most low-income people do not begrudge the haves: 'Hey, he had a smart idea, he went out and worked hard, that’s great, I want my son to have the same chance.’ But the problem is they’re increasingly realizing that their children will not have the same chance. That means the American dream is shaking right now.
The stronger job growth we’ve seen lately could expand the economic pie again. But few economists see the slice the rich get served up, getting any smaller.
I’m Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.
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Where does wealth come from?
On the day you were born, were you alone? Perhaps there was a doctor there, a nurse, and other health care providers. Of course your mother was there. My point? Wealth comes from our close and distant networks.
Strange, we buy into the myth of my effort, my work, and self made. Where did your education come from, you? No, an education network. Your job, is it just you?
So why don't we teach the importance of caring for our human networks? Isn't this the basis of any market?
When we talk of investing, we talk of investing dollars, but are we not investing in people, their ideas, and there hard work?
Maybe we need to focus on how we can improve our networks of people that in one way or another are bringing so much wealth into our lives.
“And he says it’s getting even harder for the have-nots to move up the ladder.” Its starting to become harder to afford to go to college in the past few years, and people of the middle and lower class would be largly benefitted if they went to college, so that they could create a larger income. However, because they are of the middle or lower income classes, they may not have the funds to go to college. Causing them to be stuck in their social class. . Middle and lower class people just want an equal chance to climb the ladder, but because of the difference in income it is not as equal.
This is a major issue that the government has to discuss as the costs of oil, health care, food prices, electricity and housing are on the rise. At the same time Middle class families are experiencing stagnant wages. Middle class families cannot continue to absorb all their pressures on their income and stay in the middle class.
Throughout history people have come to America with high hopes. They hear that this is the land of freedom, opportunity, and equality only to come here and be disappointed. People are struggling to make a living and not fall behind. There used to be clear guidelines as to how to become successful, but now the latter of achievement is so hard to climb that it seems impossible. As the gap of wealth grows more and more people in the middle class will become part of the lower class. The people in the lower class cannot change their living situation because they are not given the same opportunities as the upper class which makes up most of the nations income.
What do you think the people will have to do to come out of the lower class if they get pushed into it? Personally I feel like if they are pushed into it they will have to work out of. They will have to try and get better jobs and such. This way they can get out of the lower class and get back to the middle class.
Smeeding mentioned that the low income people don't ever smudge the top one percent. I disagree, some of the one percent I accept, and agree with. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, they did really have great idea's. Of the one percent that have ended up at their level from wall street didn't. They gambled with money that wasn't theirs, and at the time of the recession crushed many people, totally eliminating their pensions, and any hope for retirment. After doing all this, they still got their multi million dollar bonus. They didn't really earn their money for the top percent such as Zuckerberg. They had no great idea. There are people in the one percent, that do deserve to be there, but I would argue that many don't. Realistically, the countries children don't have the option of being the one percent. If everyone did, it wouldn't stay as only the one percent for long.
I believe that education is key to moveing up on the ladder, in order to become a part of that upper class you either need to be really lucky like mark Zuckker Burg and create and idea that will bring in money or be hard working and get a really good education so that you can enter the working world as someone whos worked for that upper middle class spot.
-APN
The fact that the rich class earns 80 percent of the nation's income explains the dysfunction of the American economic system and the fall of the American dream. But the issue is that the wealthy people want to get more money and they have the possibility to do it because they are already rich. Their incomes keep increasing. And it is their right, but this situation is not predisposing to the middle and lower class in America. It gives them no opportunities to earn money from their own business, they are crushed by the upper class. They stagnate and their American dream falls.
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