PART 4: THE PAPER
Because you have become an expert on the social PROBLEM you have been researching all semester, you now being asked to give a talk on the issue to a group of supporters. This group knows very little about the condition and is relying on you to tell them what they need to know, where they should turn to get more information, and what they should do next.
Topic of choice:
*Income Gap in the society
Your paper will center around answering the following questions :
What is the history of the social problem? Has it always been a public concern?
Should we be worried about this condition? If so, how worried?
What theoretical perspective from class best explains your social problem? What cannot be answered by this perspective? ( you should use what you used in Part 2 ). – Conflict theory
What should we tell the public about the condition? Why?
Who is impacted (the players)? Why?
Who benefits? Why?
How has the Media covered your social problem, explain the reasoning between opposing views if any, if there are none, why?(part 3)
Your conclusion: Does the condition require social change? Why or why not and where do we start
ECONOMICS
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Income gap
Over the past few decades, income inequality has exacerbated menace among Americans.
The rich people have increased their earning power tenfold, leaving half Americans at the bottom
of the income scale. Although real median incomes of family and non-family households have
increased significantly, the income inequality has risen equally, leaving half of Americans
indigent.
According to the PEW research, income inequality in the United States has increased by
20 percent from1980 to 2016. This is because of the increased growth of incomes for upperincome households while middle-income households, which comprise most Americans, have
been shrinking. The more significant share of the country’s total income is now going to the
pockets of upper-income households, and the rest is shared among the middle- and lower-income
households (Saez & Zucman, 2020). Due to the increasing gap in income between upper income
and middle and lower-income households, the number of American adults living in middleincome households reduced from 61 percent to 51 percent in 2019. Equally, the adults living in
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upper-income households increased from 14 percent to 20 percent, with an equal increase of
lower-income households from 25 percent to 29 percent (Pew Research Center, 2020).
Telford (2019) alludes that income inequality in the United States has reached the highest
level since the Census Bureau began tracking it more than 50 years ago. This is particularly high
in wealthy regions such as Connecticut, Washington D.C, California, and areas with vast poverty
levels, including Louisiana and Puerto Rico. Based on the Gini index, which measures wealth
distribution with one representing total inequality and zero representing absolute equality, the
census Bureau depicted that in 2018, the Gini index was 0.485, an increase from 0.397 in 1967.
Although the number of families earning $15,000 or less has decreased since 2007, the number
of households earning $250,000 has also grown by 15 percent, thus increasing the gap (Telford,
2019).
CNN business news report that as home prices increased, the income gap has also
increased significantly. In 2020, the National Association of Realtors reported that house wealth
increased by 8.2 trillion dollars over ten years 2019, increasing from 15.9 trillion to 24.1 trillion
dollars in 2020. The low- and middle-income households realized a smaller share of gains
despite the gains (Bahney, 2022). According to Bahney (2022), the upper-income earners
acquired 71 percent of the wealth, which is the majority, while the middle income and lowincome earners shared the rest. This depicts that the income gap has adversely affected the
housing sector due to the unaffordability of housing. As a result of the income gap and the rapid
increase in home prices, middle- and low-income buyers have struggled to get into the market.
This represents the devastating effects that may face low-income earners in the future as they
will not afford to house since the income gap is also increasing (Bahney, 2022).
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Ultimately, income inequality in America does not mean recession, but it is an economic
state that subjects Americans to indigent conditions. Research has shown that the gap has
reached the highest level in history, with only 20 percent of Americans living in high-income
households. Moreover, the housing sector has experienced significant gains, although the highincome gap has rendered middle-income and low-income earners incapable of affording housing.
For this reason, government finance experts and policymakers ought to develop timely
interventions for curbing the increasing income gap.
References
Bahney, A. (2022, March 9). As home values soar, the wealth gap grows. CNN.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/09/homes/us-homeowner-wealth-gap/index.html
Pew Research Center. (2020, August 17). Trends in U.S. income and wealth inequality. Pew
Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project.
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealthinequality/
ECONOMICS
Telford, T. (2019, September 26). The Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/09/26/income-inequality-americahighest-its-been-since-census-started-tracking-it-data-show/
Saez, E., & Zucman, G. (2020). The rise of income and wealth inequality in America:
Evidence from distributional macroeconomic accounts. Journal of Economic
Perspectives, 34(4), 3-26.
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