The Desire for Higher Wealth …or Social Status?
Article Analysis Paper 2 It’s hard to recall a time where America was not driven solely by work and income level. We are told to go to college and earn a degree so we can make a living when we are older. We are consciously reminded of the unemployment rate, and the precautionary steps so we do not end up there. Ultimately, we are living in a generation that strives for the label of “white collar workers.” In his article titled “Why the Highest Paid People Make So Much More Money,” author Steve Hargreaves investigates exactly where this “capital craving “ is coming from. Although it’s easy to pinpoint celebrities and CEO’s as the guilty party, there are a number of other factors that contribute to the shrinkage of the blue-collar working class. Hargreaves opens his article with some shocking statistics, as “middle-income Americans earn a wage of just $39,963, while Tiger Woods’ pegged 78 million last year alone.” With average income falling for the 90% of American families, we are left to question why exactly people at the top are reaching such huge gains, while the rest of us see little to no improvement? Globalization, surprisingly, is one of the leading theories economists have to answer this question. Since there are numerically more people entering the label of “middle class,” celebrities like Tiger Woods are able to leverage their global brand and sell just that much more. As economist Michael Wolf puts it, “there are the same number of people at the top, but they can appeal to a much broader base.” And unfortunately, that “broader base” keeps increasing, as society makes “upper class” seem more impossible to attain.
Noted earlier in the paper, our generation is fueled by the fear that if we do not go to college, we will end up with no job and/or income. The “winner takes all” theory is the second philosophy that draws us away from being classified as a blue-collar worker. Thanks to email, cell phones and other technology, Hargreaves concludes that people skilled in these areas are able to handle a much larger share of their workload then before. Therefore, we credit CEO’s and celebrities for knowing how to leverage those advances in technology, and take an even larger share of the economic pie. So who is truly to blame for this income inequality? All signs point to the lower tax burdens, which has decreased significantly for the rich since the 1980s. As noted in the article, “taxes were much higher for the rich in 1980 at 70%.... now the top tax rate is 39.5%.” Therefore, the middle class is left to fantasize about one day reaching the “white-collar” economic level. I immediately was drawn to this article because it put my family business in perspective. The amount of daily duties that goes into inventory, detailing services, and customer relations would, in my eyes, be considered white class work. However, as the article stated, we are simply living in a generation competing with the top guns, ranking in over 100 million a year. The worst part is, the desire to reach that economic status is far beyond our reach, simply because we do not have the “white collar” gains; this repetitive issue we see in many similar businesses. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article by Steve Hargreaves because he tells it how it is. There are many journalists who tiptoe around the issue of “rich people make too much for their own good,” with reservations that they will offend celebrities and/or CEO’s. However, Hargreaves simply shows this harsh reality through the globalization and winter-take-all theories. I hope that the middle class can come to a similar realization, and somewhere down the line stop idolizing these celebrities who are making a fortune off of their image; because it’s where and how the work occurs that truly matters. Works Cited
Hargreaves, Steve. "Why the Highest Paid People Make so Much Money." CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 07 Nov. 2013. Web. 20 Sept. 2014. .