How Did The Wealth Affect The Economy Of The Gilded Age

In the time period during the Gilded Age, late 18th century to early 19th century, America's industrial economy exploded, creating pioneering opportunities for individuals to erect substantial wealth. Industrial giants like Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller transformed business and launched in the modern corporate economy, but also, at times, eliminated free-market economic competition through the use of monopolies. Overall national wealth increased significantly, but many saw the gap growing between the rich and the poor along with it. The disparity between the realities of the rich, big business tycoons and the poor, “The Other Half”, were substantial, while the similarities between them were very
While the average income for American workers was about $400 to $500 a year, “below the $600 figure the many believe was required to maintain a reasonable level of comfort”, business tycoons were ranking in millions. For example, in 1901, Andrew Carnegie sold his steelworks for $450 million to J. P. Morgan, who joined the Carnegie interests with others to create the enormous United States Steel Corporation— a $14 billion enterprise that dominated almost two-thirds of the nation’s steel production. In addition to low wages, the working class had arduous, dangerous work, long hours and no job security; but even those who kept their jobs could have the chance of their wages being cut significantly during hard times. Another dissimilarity between business magnates and the impoverish working class was housing in cities,“The city was a place of remarkable contrasts. It had homes of almost unimaginable size and grandeur and hovels of indescribable squalor.” For the wealthy, housing was sporadically a worry and they lived in in palatial mansions located in exclusive neighborhoods in the heart of the city while the poor could not afford either to own a house in the city or to move to the suburbs so instead, they stayed at city centers and rented and lived in tenements, slum dwellings, which were miserable places, with many
The industrial age produced the most important result for society as a whole: the growth and increasing prosperity of the middle classes. Since then, the size of the middle class has continued to grow, which establishes the transition from the high class and low class. Mathematically, the middle class in itself eliminates the existence of “The Other Half” since there are three social and economic classes people can identify with instead of two. Also, there are opportunities today, such as education, which enables individuals to get out of poverty and move up into the middle class, which was very difficult, maybe even impossible, to do during the Gilded Age. The rise of government assistance programs also contributed to the end of “The Other Half” in the 21st century. In 2016, Social Security was the most important anti-poverty program, moving 26.1 million individuals out of poverty, and refundable tax credits moved 8.1 million people out of poverty, but other key programs, laws, and charities keep millions of Americans out of impoverishment as well such as food stamps, minimum wage, shelters, etc. Poverty in the Gilded Age was much worse than poverty in America today, and none of the citizens in the Gilded Age had options to save the from penury like Americans do today, and we even have