Essay Sample on Income Inequality, Poverty, and Discrimination

Introduction

The United States is termed to be the wealthiest large country on earth, yet in the year 2006, about 36.5 million people were a clear definition of the poor. How can a nation that rich, have so many poor people? The answer to that is the three main problems that are all over the country; income inequality, poverty, and discrimination.

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In this chapter, McConnell Brue Flynn states that income inequality perpetuates itself, for instance, college graduates that marry each other earn higher incomes while those that don't get to college earn a lower salary. Some of the causes of increasing inequality are; managerial and technological change, family structure, tax policy and many more. According to the Census Bureau, the income distribution has become more unequal in the United States for the past 36 years. Going down on the family structure, the author states the median income of families headed by women only is 2.4 times less than that of a family headed by married couples. This has contributed to an increase in inequality among many households.

Technology has dramatically affected the demand for labor since computers have taken over all aspects of production. This factor has caused a large gap between the college graduates who are highly skilled and the high-school trained workers. The wage gaps between the two groups have increased. With the new technologies, firms definitely require workers with high communication skills and must interact, write and speak effectively with other workers. The wage gap is likely to grow as we move on in the coming years hence to solve this issue, education and training should be increased.

Poverty in the United States is defined in two approaches; absolute income test and relative income test. Total income test determines poverty by setting a certain income level, and if a person's income falls below that, he or she is described as poor. The relative income test, on the other hand, represents a person as poor if his or her income falls below the income distribution. However other demographics show that in the United States, poverty is described according to the characteristics of families such that whether, the head of the family is working, the race of the family, the age of the head, geography, level of education and whether the head of the family is female. To eradicate poverty, people have formed some welfare groups that assist the poor. Some of them are based on cash while others give noncash assistance (Beeghley, 43) The noncash compensation is termed to be the best since it involves providing medical care, food job training and child care and it kind of gives an upper hand to living life than cash where the poor could misspend it and find themselves in the same position as before.

As for discrimination, the author states that it is only a particular group of people that are affected. Judging people based on the group to which they belong and on their common characteristics rather than their productivity and personal characteristics have reduced the amount of total income. The author states the consequences of discrimination to society and individuals are; people facing discrimination, experience less access to jobs or low wages and sometimes both. Another thing is that those preferred workers gain from perception as there is less job competition for them, higher salaries and greater access to jobs. Thirdly, discrimination hinders maximum contribution to the total output of the society and the total income.

The author wonders seriously wonder for how long people are going to withstand discrimination, increasing poverty and the widening income inequality, and still expect economic growth in the United States of America (Hagenaars, 153).

One problem in the United States of America as discussed in the chapter is discrimination. As discussed above it only affects a group of people, and that is, women, African Americans, and other ethnic groups termed as less desirable. Statistics have grouped the inequalities brought about by discrimination into; wage inequality, homelessness, gender pay gaps, CEO pay, education wage premium, occupational sex segregation, racial discrimination, racial disparities in education, residential segregation, child poverty, health insurance, dangerous jobs, wealth inequality, deregulation of the labor market, discouraged workers and many more.

Racial Gaps in Education

According to the Digest of Education Statistics 2008, National Center for Education Statistics, high-school dropout rates among Hispanics are high while those of whites are the least. The college enrollments, on the other hand, it is highest among whites and least among blacks.

The college enrollment rate among the three groups has grown more sharply different while the high-school dropout rate is more similar among the three.

Occupational Sex Segregation

Statistics indicate that men and women often work in very different professional sectors. Women are found to be concentrated on a limited number such as nursing, teaching, secretarial and clerical jobs. On the other hand, men are limited to auto mechanics, truck driving, mechanical engineering, chief executives and software engineering.

Racial Discrimination

Racial discrimination in the labor market is also a significant issue. Statistics show that people with "black-sounding" names, whether male or female never get interview call-back while the ones with "white-sounding" names have a high percentage rate of the call-backs even though the resumes are identical.

Below is a graphical representation of the interview call-back rate for women with "white" names and "black" names.

The three statistical presentations above are the significant problems that ethnic groups in America are experiencing as of now. The three have a substantial impact on the economy as they don't give a chance to the qualified individuals to provide their maximum contribution to the society's total output and total income (Kabeer, 193). They are also a clear indication of the poverty rates in the states that some of the ethnic groups reside.

Discrimination has had its effects on the political, social and economic environment of the country. It has also affected the physical and mental stability of people especially the youth. Discrimination in the workplace involves; lack of acknowledging work from people of color or based on gender, women. This usually has a psychological effect on the workers since they tend to think that they cannot deliver what is expected of them in the workplace. This can result in health-related problems such as high blood pressure, cardiovascular illness, obesity and many more due to the impact of stress. Mental effects include loss of self-control leading to hostility or attempting suicide, depression and anxiety disorders.

Discrimination in society mostly focuses on the residential environment of certain ethnic groups and in the education sector. When it comes to the residential area, you will find that in the black-people neighborhood, there are always police patrols all the time. This is because the whites perceive blacks as criminals. Other ethnic groups such as Mexicans and Muslims are seen as terrorists (Kluegel and Smith, 15). In such communities, you will find that people live in fear of being arrested at any time by the police and convicted of having committed a crime that they haven't in a real sense. In schools, on the other hand, you find bullying of black kids by the whites. An example is of a black boy in a neighboring school, who was shoveled down a toilet seat when he was found in the washroom by white kids. This often leads to depression among kids and often results in low self-esteem, stress and sometimes suicide.

Most victims of discrimination, often - knowingly or unknowingly- develop a survival strategy. Perception often leads to disunity hence resulting in the dissolution of society through strife and war.

Discrimination in both the workplace and society can be solved through specific methods. One, in the workplace, employers should promote cultural diversity where there are equal numbers of employees from different ethnics and are all treated equally (Pare, Philippe, and Felson, 453). This will not only result in happy and productive employees but also lead to the development of competencies among all employees. Employers should also develop and institute mandatory anti-discrimination training programs. This will equip all employees with the need to treat one another with respect meaning that all forms of discrimination and harassment against each other will be reported.

In schools, principals should ensure that there are antidiscrimination regulations included in the school's set of rules. They should also enroll students in termly or yearly seminars and workshops that teach about fair treatment of every student. Students that happen to be victims of any discrimination in schools should have a platform where they report the issue and investigations concerning the matter commence immediately.

In the society, citizens should be allowed to report any case of discrimination to the police. In most cases where it is mostly white police and detectives investigating the matter, they tend to bury the issue thus. This mostly discourages the victims from reporting the matter. In this case, victims of such ethnic groups should have a right to hold peaceful demonstrations so as to raise the issue to the government publicly. Citizens should also elect leaders that will solve their problems and improve their living standards.

Once these solutions are followed, uniting societies and maintaining peace in the country will be easy thus resulting in people working together to grow the economy of people.

Current Discrimination in The US

Responding to requests for social change expedited most remarkably by the social liberties and ladies' developments, the government made a move against segregation. In 1954, the U.S. Incomparable Court offered its choice that supposed distinct yet approach schools for high contrast kids were inalienably unsatisfactory, and the Court requested that ethnically isolated schools be coordinated. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 expects managers to pay similar salaries to people who do considerably a similar work. Government enactment was passed in 1965 to guarantee that subgroups were not deprived of the privilege to cast a ballot.

Congress implemented the most imperative government representation against discrimination in 1964. The Civil Rights Act banned separation based on sex, race or ethnicity in pay, advancement, employing, terminating, and preparing. An administrative Order given by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967 needed government temporary workers to realize governmental policy concerning minorities in the society projects to make sure that people from minority groups and women were given equal chance in the workplace. The down to earth impact of the request was to necessitate that these businesses increment the level of ladies and minorities in their work powers. Governmental policy regarding minorities in social programs for minorities pursued at most schools and colleges.

What could have caused the result of these endeavors to decrease discrimination? The first step is to take a gander at wage contrasts among various groups. Holes in wages among guys and women and among blacks and whites have fallen after some time. In 1955, the income of dark men were about 60% of those of white men; in 2005, they were 75% of those of white men (Kluegel and Smith, 15. For dark men, the decrease in the wage hole happened fundamentally somewhere in the range of 1965 and 1973. Conversely, the hole between the wages of dark ladies and white men shut even more considerably, and advancement in shutting the hole proceeded after 1973, yet at a slower rate.

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