Breaking Down the Income Gap Into Real Terms - US News and World Report
U.S. income gap between rich, poor hits new high - Los Angeles Times
Rich-Poor Gap Widens to Most Since 1967 as Income Falls- Bloomberg
Maybe having an everwidening income gap between middle and upper class America might not effect you, your family, or circle of friends immediately, but the time will come when it does hit a loved one. Here are a few articles that show why this gap is troublesome.
For one thing the upper class used to generate its income off of middle class purchases and in turn employers offered reasonable monetary wages for a rebound. IOW money flowed in a circle and everyone was profiting. Even working class and working poor could pay rent on the most neager salary.
Today, in a technology, information-based, and quickly changing economy, we have a need for college educated individuals to keep up. Employers are barely willing to train employees for the most basic of jobs, such as factory work. With more kids sinking into poverty, many from good families and afluent neighborhoods, their chances of graduating high school decrease and their chances/ability to go to college diminish also. And if you have never been through the piss poor public education system here, we learn up to 7th grade basics in comparison with other developed countries. Ya ever wonder why the girl at the gas station cant count back change?
We have these poorly educated kids growing up with 2 working parents, a single parent, or relatives, so their family ties are weak or their emotional development could take a hit. They may also be exposed to the dangers of low income neighborhoods. Things like robberies, drugs, guns, gang violence, pack mentality etc... Depending on their age and state of mind you could be looking at the "well to do" Catherine become the next drug dealer, gang member, unwed teenage mother...
Being hungry can lead to longterm health issues, as well as being unable to afford healthy or nutricious food, and thats compounded with subpar healthcare.
Okay so we survive this generation of poverty. We just breeze on through, the rich sewing new holes in their overstuffed pockets. Then what? Even if the majority of Middle Class families survive their new incomes, lifestyles, and bounce back at the first sign of economic rebound, climb the corporate ladder again... We still have millions of recession built Catherines out there. Kids who are inadvertently raised to rebel, to act as masochists or victims,kids who couldnt cope to sudden changes and picks up drugs, has sex/teenage pregnancy, or surpasses the newly invoked statistics by succeeding.
The number of people that cant pay 5xes because the CEOs, are taking bonuses while they take paycuts, develope bad credit because they're upsidedown on their mortgage and the banks have pocketed the stimuluses intended to help them. Kids are having meal after meal of rice, bread, pasta, and other filling but lacking vital nutrients foods, because hey, your rich man making well over what he could ever need to survive can't pay his employees a better wage, play fair with his taxes, or be bothered with the hardworking, down on their luck families who have lost everything to their corporations, banks, and predatory lending practices? They'll kill this nation with their greed and I'm certain our founding fathers wouldn't appreciate a corporate-run USA balancing their deficit on the working and middle classes, just crushing them to death.
Welfare needs to be in place as well as a subtle redistribution of wealth and major overhauls in how much power banks and wall street have.
