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How Reganomics Destroyed Middle Class America

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How Reganomics Destroyed Middle Class America
How Reaganomics Destroyed the Middle Class Reaganomics are the economic policies that were set and promoted in 1980s by the U.S. President Ronald Reagan. These policies are mainly connected to trickle-down economics. There are four pillars that are associated with the economic policy of Reagan and they include: reduce government economic regulation, reduce growth of how much the government spends, reduce the marginal tax rates such as capital gains tax and income tax and lastly reduce the level of inflation by controlling money supply growth. These four policies were expected to increase investment and savings, balance the U.S. budget, reduce inflation, increase the economic growth rate, restore healthy financial markets and reduce interest rates. However, instead of bringing benefit to the U.S. population and the economy, Reaganomics ended up destroying the middle class and America. This is because it led to uneven distribution of wealth, wage disparity, unregulated economic activity, increased deficits and low-end jobs. The following is an analysis of how Reaganomics negatively impacted the middle class and the Americans.

Majority of Americans welcomed the idea that was presented to them by their President Ronald Regan in the 80s whereby he made a policy of cutting down taxes for corporations, businesses and the investors who are the rich in order to stimulate economic growth and to create jobs for the youths and the poor in the society (Chafe 110). American citizens were told that Reaganomics will better the economy but that did not happen instead those who were mainly affected in a negative way were the middle class people and the rich. Reaganomics led to:

Uneven distribution of wealth: Reaganomics was an idea that cutting down on taxes would trickle down the U.S. economy. After the policy was implemented, there was a reduction of tax rate for wealthy Americans from 70% to 28% in a period of seven years. However, this increased the gap



Cited: Barone, Michael. Our Country: The Shaping of America from Roosevelt to Reagan. New York: Free Press, 1990. Print. Chafe, William. The Unfinished Journey: America sSince World War II. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Print. Edel, Wilbur. The Reagan Presidency: An Actor 's Finest Performance. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1992. Print. Gerston, Larry, Fraleigh, Cynthia Fraleigh, Cynthia & Schwab, Robert. The Deregulated Society. Pacific Grove Cal.: Brooks/Cole Publishing, 2000. Print. Wills, Garry. Reagan 's America: Innocents at Home. New York: Doubleday, 2008. Print.

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