Wealth In America

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America is well known for many reasons; however, one of the most notable reasons is for its capitalist economy. This economy type is very important and comes with many valuable perks . It gives people a reason to work and to try and succeed. It is the basis of the American dream, the idea that anyone can do anything and achieve success. However, the American economy is not perfect, too much of today's wealth is controlled by too few people and the rest have to make do with the scraps. The distribution of wealth in America is, uneven and unjust. The wealthy have more opportunities and resources allowing them to become richer and more powerful, whereas the poor must make do with less and less, leading to shrinking opportunities as well as being …show more content…
The wealthiest 1% of the U.S. population’s yearly income has quadrupled from $500,000 in 1979 to nearly $2 million in 2007. In contrast, the top 20% saw mild income growth during that time and the other 80% of the population had essentially flat growth. This means that their income increased the same amount as inflation did so they did earn more money, but it was proportional to inflation (Wealthiest Americans). Americans misperceive the wealth distribution thinking it is much more equal than it really is (see fig. 1). On average it is thought that the top 20% of Americans control about 60% of the wealth, however in reality they control just over 80% of the wealth. The middle 60% have around 15% of the wealth, leaving the bottom 20% with less than 1% of the total wealth (Wealthiest Americans). Two extremes that show this well are that the top 1% have 35% of the wealth and the bottom 90 have just under 27% (Wealth …show more content…
Much of the lower class works at low paying jobs, such as Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, construction workers, or janitors. They aren't working the clean white collar office jobs that the upper class work. They are working in different world, a world of double shifts, physical labor, repetition, low pay, and minimal benefits. We need to redistribute the wealth to more closely match the ideal economic state. The top 20% of people would have 30% of the wealth, the next 20% with 25%. The next 20% of people would have 15% of the wealth and the final 20% with 10% of the wealth (Wealthiest Americans). This is not equal, but equality is not always equivalent to fairness. If we wanted to make everything equal we would have become a communist economy, not a capitalist
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