Top 1% population has the most resources
(https://www.cbpp.org)
Inequality term is appeared in many
developing countries since long time ago, but as said by Gorbis (2010) that income
inequality between workers and CEO is widening since 1950 in the USA.
The wages for workers almost not
increase for 35 years. On opposite side, economic profit is increasing so
higher for companies. 20 wealthiest people in America is wealthy than a half of
population. It is mean that 20 people only is richer than 152 million people
(57 million households) combines in the USA.
Many experts tried to solve income inequality
problem by proposed bunch of ideas, some of them are universal basic income to
all population, continuous training to upskill employees and low tax rate for
low-income earners.
Other experts argued that these
ideas to cure symptom only not diseases. The diseases refer to “asset
inequality.” The asset is resources
where people can produce wealth. These assets include shares, specific lands, properties
(houses and apartments), social networks and higher education. More assets mean
more income. More income means more money to invest, to access other assets, to
buy health insurance for better physical and mental care, to buy good house
with crime free and beautiful neighborhoods and so on.
Moreover, American people, include
students believe that social stratification exist in other countries not in the
USA. As said by McIntyre (2011, p.197-233) that most American or around eighty
percent will admire that they are including in middle class in respect to
income. Thus, they believe no different between one and another, and no class different
exist.
However, it is fact that there are
5 different group in term of income distribution in the USA. Top 20% income
earners have 80% of wealth. Sadly, majority American population have less
wealth, share small amount of wealth.
There is a way to measure whether income inequality exist in
one country, called as Gini coefficient (index). The maximum index is one, it
is mean that the inequality is widest. If index is zero, it is mean that
everybody has equal income. The fact shown that Gini index increase year by
year since 1954 in the USA. It is mean that different between rich and poor is
widening until recently. Finally, the income in-equality found everywhere, both
in developing countries and industry nations like USA.
References
Gorbis, M. 2017. To fix income
inequality, we need more than UBI—we need Universal Basic Assets.
Retrieved from https://qz.com/1096659/to-fix-income-inequality-we-need-more-than-ubi-we-need-universal-basic-assets/
McIntyre, L. J. (2011). The
Practical Skeptic: Core Concepts in Sociology 5th ed.,
New York:
McGraw-Hill. (ISBN 978-0-07-340440-0).
