David Leonhardt On Income Inequality

In the essay “Inequality Has Been Going on Forever... but That Doesn’t Mean It’s Inevitable”, David Leonhardt argues that despite the persistent trend of income inequality in the U.S. and throughout history, it is not impossible to change that inequality. He writes that the professor, Thomas Piketty points out the process in which inequality rises and the near inevitability of it. Leonhardt tells of his conversations with Piketty and Piketty’s idea on the possible way to solve inequality, which is to put a global wealth tax that is specifically for income inequality. Leonhardt finds this solution politically improbable and instead advises that the government changes the taxation of the wealthy, healthcare, how we manage the Department of Transportation,
It is in fact, not a question whether the rich recover far faster than the lower classes, the essay “Wealth Inequality in the United States Since 1913: Evidence From Capitalized Income Tax Data” by Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez shows that during the great depression the wealth inequality was at one of its highest points. The Author also points out that in the aftermath of World War II the middle class income was increasing faster than the rich, though they were increasing at a faster rate, the top 0.1% had between 5-10% of the U.S. wealth share and the top 1-10% had 40-45% of the U.S. wealth
Leonhardt writes that education is a form of capital that does not necessarily require money, this form of capital can bring in large amounts of income. He argues that an increase education quality would put the lower classes and middle class a foot ahead and give them more capital to increase income. The author is correct on his idea that education is a major capital, this is especially shown in the recent study by political reporter, Daniel Kurtzleben who found that there is a median pay gap of 17,500 dollars annually between college and high school graduates. I do disagree with the author on his idea that increasing education quality will lower the income inequality, this is due to the fact that the wealthy will always be able to afford higher education and offer far more knowledge based capital than the U.S. government can. The wealthy are also able to easily afford private schools that allow easy admission to ivy league schools, which the wealthy can also afford. This type of education gives a huge head start in the job market and is what many jobs are looking for when hiring. The government has yet to provide free college education which is what many people can not afford, and is almost necessary to acquire a well-paying