...Income Inequality in America: An Analysis of Policies from Reagan to Obama and What Policies Can Help Close the Gap Income inequality in America has been of great importance in recent election cycles. Candidates from both sides of the political aisle have addressed the growing economic and social concern of increasing income and wealth inequality throughout the country. However, policies to address this growing concern are vastly different. This paper seeks to examine policies from Reagan to Obama that contributed to today’s massive income and wealth inequality. Was it tax reform throughout the 1980s and 1990s that contributed to inequality? Did the Federal Reserve perpetuate policies through massive quantitative easing that led to...
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...Globalization and Income Inequality Is globalization the cause of income inequality? The effects of globalization is a highly debated topic with the pro-globalists claiming that globalization encourages economic growth while the anti-globalists arguing that globalization is responsible for increasing income disparity (International Monetary Fund, 2007). According to a 2011 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OEDC) report, income inequality has widen over the two decades with the rich experiencing a faster income growth than the poor. Although globalization may boost economic development, it also poses a threat in causing an increase in income disparity which can be solved by improving access to education and promoting skills development. Reform to better access to education are likely to have a positive effect on income inequality. It allows the lower income workers and their children to have an access to education. Moreover, individual with a better and higher education is more likely to secure a good job with high income. A research by Alderson and Nielson (as cited in Wells, n.d., p.5) shows that an individual who receives higher education is better paid than those with only primary or no education at all. Therefore, increasing education access could improve income mobility and thus reduce income disparity. However, this solution does not guarantee equal access to education. In Singapore, it seems that the local universities are accepting more foreign...
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...Income inequality in Turkey and its causes and effects on the Turkish population Maastricht University | | | | School of Business & Economics | | | | Place & date: | Maastricht,08 December 2014 | Name, initials: | Canli, T | ID number: | 6091093 | Study: | International Business | Course code: | ebc1009 | Group number: | 1 | Tutor name: | Pierfrancesco, Guarino | Writing tutor name: | Campbell, Gabriel | Writing assignment: | Main Paper (Task 10) | | | t.canli@maastrichtuniversity.nl Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2 2. Income Inequality and its components 2 3. Gini coefficient and inequality 3 4. Turkey´s economic structure 3 5. Wage distribution in Turkey 4 6. Main causes of inequality 5 6.1 Return on capital and increase of economic input 5 6.2 Relationships between people and social mobility 5 7. Effects on Turkish population 6 7.1 Education, child labor and social mobility 6 8. Possible solutions 7 9. Conclusion 8 10. Works Cited 9 11. Figures 10 12. Tables 10 1. Introduction In the past decades the topic “Economic Inequality” has risen in popularity. The reason for this trend is mostly because economic inequality has risen drastically around the world. There are many forms of economic inequality, e.g. gender inequality, regional disparities, and wage inequality, only to name a few. Thus many politicians are discussing about economic inequality, particularly in Turkey. The largest driving...
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...c o m / l o c a t e / e c m o d Foreign direct investment and China's regional income inequality☆ Kang Yu a, Xian Xin b,c, Ping Guo a, Xiaoyun Liu d,⁎ a School of Economics and Management, Zhejiang Forestry University, Zhejiang, 311300, PR China Center for Rural Development Policy, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100083, PR China c College of Economics and Management, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100083, PR China d College of Humanities and Development Studies, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100083, PR China b a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t China's widening regional income inequality coupled with its pronounced regional disparity in foreign direct investment stock since 1990 has claimed the attention of many scholars. While some researchers confirm regional disparity in China's foreign direct investment, others attribute the widening regional income inequality to this regional disparity. This paper thus assesses the impacts of China's stock of foreign direct investment on its regional income inequality using simultaneous equation model and the Shapley value regression-based decomposition approach. Our results suggest that China's stock of foreign direct investment has accounted for merely 2% of its regional income inequality. Furthermore, the contribution ratio of per capita foreign direct investment stock to China's regional income inequality has relatively been on a steady decline since 2002. The decomposition results also...
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...racial inequality has powerfully shaped American history from its beginnings. Racial inequality has integrated into American culture and simulates a false presence of true freedom and equal justice for all. From the assassination of early Native Americans, slavery, black codes, Jim Crow laws, segregation, the civil rights movement, mass incarceration, to present day black lives matter movement, racial inequality is a hard barrier for the United States to overcome. The true impact of racial inequality in America is belittled. Racism in America is the unjust treatment of collective individuals based on the color of their skin due to historical contexts and systematic oppression (Baber 1). Racism roots from the belief of one race has qualities that defines it as inferior or superior to other races. Inequality is the...
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...HEALTH DISPARITIES Health disparity is defined as inequality in health or the gaps in the quality of health care across races, ethnic and socioeconomic groups. Health disparities can also be defined as the significant differences between one population and another. The Minority Health and Health Disparities Research and Education Act of 2000 describe these disparities as differences in the overall rate of disease incidence, prevalence, morbidity, mortality or survival rates. Disparity in health is significant among some income, racial, and ethnic groups in America and is still expanding. Many Americans are in poor health and do not receive the best medical care. While these problems affect people of all groups, the challenges are especially acute for racial and ethnic minorities. When there is element of racism, poverty, and problematic community environment converge greater overall threats to health develop. The most powerful causes of health and health disparity are social and economic determinants or the community conditions for health. There are many reasons why disparities in access to of health care exist in our society. A lot of low income people in America cannot afford health insurance and as such they neglect their health. Some people cannot afford money to buy medication. Because these people did not have insurance they lack a regular source of care. African Americans compared to white minority groups are less likely to seek medical care...
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...Truth about the Income Disparity Recently, President Barack Obama announced his plan to rein in the compensation of executives and raise tax rates on capital gains. This has again brought the topic of America’s widening income gap to the front page. While it is true that the wealth of America has long been dominated by a small number of people, most Americans do not see it as economic inequality or an obstacle to the development of the economy, which can be explained from two aspects—culture and economy. Instead, the real problem is the workers’ slow-paced wage increase, especially compared with the rising health care costs. Admittedly, most of the household income and wealth in America are occupied by a small minority of people at the very top, and actually the income gap has been rising at an increasing pace for the last few years. According to the data released by the Internal Revenue Service in 2005, 21.2% of all the household income went to the top 1% of Americans, the percentage of which was just 19% in 2004, and 20.8% in 2000—the previous high hit due to the skyrocket stock market. First of all, however, are the income disparity and economic inequality the same thing? Definitely not. As pointed out by Ladd and Bowman, rooted in the concept of equality for Americans is the notion of “equality of opportunity” (33). Great disparity in income distribution among social members can be tolerated as long as they can perceive that they have the opportunity to move...
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...Globalization and Income Inequality in U.S. Globalization is the process of international integration, which the nation-states culturally, political, and economically interact with each other, creating a global society. Developing countries are modernizing, economies are constantly shifting, and technologies are advancing; however, as fascinating as globalization can be, it has several side effects. One of the key problems that is caused by globalization is income inequality between and within nations. The rich are getting richer and the lower class people are struggling to survive in this world. One example is the United States. Since the 1970s, its income inequality has been worsening, causing several major problems. This paper looks at US income inequality demonstrating the existence of this problem, the importance of addressing it, and the connection between such disparity and globalization, particularly economic and technological globalization. According to the data retrieved from the U.S. Census Bureau (See Appendix 2), it can be proved that income inequality exists. The real family data show that before 1975, all classes shared the prosperity, growing at a similar rate. Starting from 1973, the 95th Percentile (the level separating the 5 percent of the richest from the rest) rose at the same pace and increased approximately 60 percent; however, the growth of both the median (the level separating the half of the richer families from the other half) and the 20th Percentile...
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...1. a) Discuss the effects of income inequality on a nation’s economic conditions. Income inequality is the unequal distribution of income among individuals of an economy (Income Inequality, 2014). In other words, the difference between the wealthy individual’s income and middle-class to poverty-stricken individuals’ incomes continues to increase. Such disparity can have detrimental effects on the economy. Those individuals who have a low-income are less able to purchase goods. As income inequality between individuals increases, money moves from those who used it to purchase their basic needs to those who already had enough and more. This then causes a weakened aggregate demand for products because the middle-class and poor can no longer afford...
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...Final Paper Wealth Inequality in U.S. and Economic Efficiency Over the last decade, income inequality has become one of the most important issues in the U.S. and a subject of a lot of debate. There is a prevalent idea in the society that the wealth inequality in United States is currently at the highest level in the history after steadily raising for a number of decades. The financial crisis is said to have contributed to this significant gap between the top 1% and everybody else. People view it as an inherently negative thing, and fight hard to promote the equality and income redistribution. This paper examines the causes of inequality; the relationship between wealth inequality and economic growth and the hypothesis on how policy measures can be designed to mitigage the income disparity both in U.S. and in the rest of the world. The researh is based on the theory that inequality is an essential aspect of an efficient free market economy that adversely affects economic growth when in excess. When it comes to global wealth inequality, people often tend to accuse capitalism. In fact, the real laissez-faire capitalism doesn't exist anywhere on our planet. According to its definition, laissez faire is "an economic system in which transactions between private parties are free from intrusive government restrictions, tariffs, and subsidies, with only enough regulations to protect property rights." It has been previously proven free markets lead to the most efficient use of economic...
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...STATE AND DISCUSS FIVE FACTORS OF INEQUALITY IN OUR SOCIETY In this course we will investigate what causes gender inequality. This question is of great importance and it is a very general question that immediately implies a variety of more specific questions. Why has gender inequality seemingly existed in all known societies? Why did gender inequality arise originally? Why did gender inequality persist even as technological and cultural evolution overwhelmingly transformed social, economic and political organization? What is it that people do that sustains gender inequality across generations? The closer and more critically we examine the issues, the more questions about causation we confront. In general, this course will concentrate on explaining inequality between women and men: how does it arise why does it take different forms, why does it vary in degrees across societies; what are the components that add up to gender inequality how do various institutions and practices contribute to it and how does it changed the course will emphasize the history of gender inequality in the United States. While we focus on gender inequality, we will also seek to understand social causation more generally, we will explore the diverse ways social causation works and how we can identify the causes behind important social phenomena. Introduction: What do we mean by inequality? How can we conceive of and talk about gender inequality in ways that are general enough to apply across the...
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...As a graduate student, I studied Economics, and I have always been very interested to learn more about the correlation between economic growth, income distribution and a flourishing society. In his paper on Economic Growth and Income Inequality, Gallo (2002) refers to the theory of the famous Political Economist Adam Smith who states that "no society can be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable." (Gallo, 2002). He further explains that whenever there is a high inequality in income distribution, there is a decline in economic prosperity. This implies that countries should strive towards bringing equality of income among their population to ensure economic growth and the welfare of their nation. Income inequality however, is a fact of life and exists all over the world....
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...Issues in inequality in non-income dimensions Achin Chakraborty Institute of Development Studies Kolkata 1, Reformatory Street, 5th Floor Calcutta University Alipore Campus Kolkata 700 027 India achinchak@rediffmail.com Abstract There are two basic approaches to measuring inequality in non-income dimensions. One views inequality as variation of an outcome indicator across individuals and the other views inequality as essentially disparities across socioeconomic groups. While the latter view now dominates the inequality measurement in health, measurement of education inequalities has so far taken the first view. In this paper, we have argued the importance of reckoning inequality in socio-economic group terms and advocated use of an ‘education concentration index’ exactly in the same way as the health concentration index measures socio-economic inequalities in health. The index has been applied to the Indian data to reckon two kinds of inequalities in educational attainment (years of education) – one across economic classes and the other across socially identified groups such as the Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes and others. We find a strong correlation between the two types of inequalities across the states of India. We also find, as one would expect, that the inequality index values are negatively correlated with the average years of education. However, in actual policy context, analysis of the outliers...
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...on the concept of gender discrimination, even as sundry instances of the persistent issue is well sustained. The argument proposed here provides an anecdotal rather than theoretical overview of the way in which the use of information technology has come to dominate modern decision making in a variety of contexts. The dimension of women disparity and the need to correct such inequality is elaborated. Finally, the areas of applications of information technology in curbing gender differences and the probable outcome of such applications is well addressed. INTRODUCTION Women are key to the development challenge. Throughout the developing world, women are at a disadvantage at the household, community, and societal levels. Within the household, women have less access to and control over resources and limited influence over household decisions. Beyond the household, women have limited access to communal resources, are under-represented in public decision-making bodies; have limited bargaining power in markets (such as the labour market), and often lack opportunities to improve their socioeconomic position. Therefore, efforts to reduce gender inequality are required on multiple fronts. However, the feminization of poverty is not so much about more women than men being poor, but about the “severity of poverty and the greater hardship women face in lifting themselves and their children out of...
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...Education’s Effect on the “Wage Gap” A hot-topic that continues to be a point of emphasis across not only the United States economy but the world economy as a whole is the ever-increasing gap between the upper-class and lower-class. The recent recession in the United States has intensified the subject seeing the top one percent of incomes in the country rise 20% in 2012 as opposed to some other lower-class incomes falling as much as 18% throughout that same timeframe. Other countries have seen similar issues between the two classes and the path toward extinction for the “middle-class.” In-order to combat this trend, some countries have instituted economic policy changes specifically around education. The following will explain how education and the wage gap are related, what the situation is currently in the United States, and what other countries are doing to combat the wage gap which the U.S. can learn from. In order to understand how education has an effect on the wage gap, it is first important to understand the labor market and how wages are determined. “The Marginal Productivity of Labor” is the additional output produced by the addition of one more labor worker holding all other inputs fixed. “The Law of Diminishing Marginal Productivity of Labor” says that the more workers there are (again, holding all things constant) the lower the total productivity per worker will be. This is comparable to having a factory with only one machine. If more...
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