6. If politics is important to explaining poverty and a nation’s level of wealth, how is it also important to explaining the gap between rich and poor within a nation?…
Robert Frank, a professer at Cornell University, published an article for the New York Times on October 16, 2010. The title of the article was "Income Inequality: Too Big to Ignore". In "Income Inequality: Too Big to Ignore", Frank argues that there are differences in the social classes of the American people and that it is having a negative effect on our economy's growth. Frank explains that middle class citizens are in a struggle to maintain a good financial position. Meanwhile, the upper class citizens are spending copious amounts of money which makes it increasingly more difficult for the middle class to meet their basic needs. He says that the middle class are looking toward upper class citizens, comparing their posesions as well as their financial positions which makes the middle class feel financially unstable.…
Moreover, Mrs. Jill Lepore addresses that "Income inequality is greater in the United States than in any other democracy in the developed world"(Lepore 1)…
Their first conclusion “both levels of government influence pre and post-redistribution state income inequality” supports their first and third hypothesis (Kelly, 2012, p. 423). Secondly they conclude that the power resource theory was a relatively useful prediction of state income inequality. With their research supporting the view that stronger unions and left party governmental control lead to “lower levels of inequality” (Kelly, 2012, p. 424). Although their conclusions supported their hypothesis, Kelly and Witko encourage interested researcher to continue the research and reevaluate they hypotheses.…
After reading “The Polarized Public? Why American Government is so dysfunctional” and further looking upon the PEW research center as well as ANES data base Abramowitz seems to have categorized the factors that influence the polarization, and it seems that the divided in belief and opinions have widened, and are now deeply influential to political parties and government fundamentals, as the polarization is found in…
Given their already established power, the two party system managed to perpetuate itself onto a national level, this time making its power on the idea of class politics, where traditionally the Republican Partyrepresents the more financially affluent and the Democratic Partyrepresents the working class and the poor. In other words, the two parties have always benefited by exploiting geographic and financialdivisions.…
For over 60 years, there has been a profound separation in the United States government. The main source of division is between the Democratic and Republican parties. These parties are said to be polarized parties. In this case, polarization is when political parties stand for a different position depending on certain topics. The United States cant seem to come to an agreement with anything because these parties are on two totally different pages in almost every aspect of the government, spending, racial and social issues, war and law just to name a few. The differences between these two parties has caused the government to go into an uproar. The question that stands in front of us is how did American politics become so polarized, and can this polarization lead to changes in the American system?…
Polarization has existed for many years in the United States. The idea of polarization can be dated all the way back to 1787, in the Federalist Papers where James Madison discusses the dangers of that factions and groups can pose to the society. Madison's concerns stemmed from the uneasiness that political division has always existed in the United States. Even, Thomas Jefferson had his concerns with polarization and have seen firsthand of the factional disputes that occurred. So what does the term "polarization" mean in terms of politics? Polarization is when the public opinions go into two different extremes which create no middle ground or compromise. The polarization in politics is in regards to the division between organized groups and…
In a study of a variety of developed countries, the United States had the second highest level of income inequality in the world, right behind Chile. Income inequality has always been a problem in the world, but especially in the United States. There is frequent debate on whether a person is getting a high enough salary or not. If not, the person that is not getting the sufficient funds often resorts back to the argument of their sex, race, or religion. This leads to worrisome debate throughout the country which causes a number of people to point their finger back towards their government. I stand with many other Americans and say that income inequality does threaten democracy in the United States, as well as the world.…
Congress is facing a multitude of consequences due to high levels of polarization. First, there are many scholars who believe that increases in polarization are damaging to American democracy. This trend contributes to the frustrations present in the policymaking process. In addition to Binder and Jones finding polarization associated with gridlock and policy inaction, they also discovered that ideological divergence between the parties has a stronger effect on government's legislative productivity than does divided party control of government. This suggests that the lack of work being completed in Congress is actually due to the parties being so far apart rather than it being caused by the divided control.…
The book describes partisan polarization as a vote in which a majority of voting democrats oppose a majority of voting republicans. Congress today seems more polarized than it was up until the 1970s because of social issues such as abortion. Democrats tends to be more liberal and republicans more conservative.…
Before the tools of survey research came into common use, politicians and political analysts had little problem interpreting aggregate congressional election results. It was widely believed that economic conditions and presidential politics shaped the electoral prospects of congressional candidates. It is no great challenge to interpret…
During the past thirty-three years the gap between the rich, middle-class, and impoverished has become much more prominent. At the early signs of this great economic divergence, people mistook it for a short slip-up in our nations economy, but now the divergence has become a reality of life itself. There were signs that the indifference was beginning to disappear in 2011 when The Occupy Wall Street movement occurred, but its hard to know if these will have any lasting effect in our nations future. We tend to think of America growing more equal in society not less, and it has in ways such as gender equality, equality amongst races, marriage…
I believe that society is held together by social consensus, or cohesion, in which members of the society agree upon, and work together to achieve, what is best for society as a whole. The lopsided growth in U.S. incomes observed between 1979 and 2007 resulted in a rise in every state in the top 1 percent’s share of income. This rise in income inequality represents a sharp reversal of the patterns of income growth that prevailed in the half century following the beginning of the Great Depression; the share of income held by the top 1 percent declined in every state but one between 1928 and…
The exponentially growing gap that separates the affluent from the rest of society in America has become a truly daunting statistic. According to data collected by the IRS, the World Top Economics Database asserted that in 2010, the top .01%, which calculates into one in 10,000 people, held a 4.6% share of that year’s income. The average income of $24 million per individual in the top .01% is $23,970,000 more than the average income of the bottom 90%, which is $30,000. In the subsequent parts of this paper I aim to analyze the grounds of extreme income inequality as well as the severity of the consequences that it has on the economy and the American people.…