Economic Inequality Of The United States - 1435 Words

In 2013, President Obama asserted that the growing income gap in the United States is a â€Å"defining challenge of our time†. Economic inequality consistently ranks amongst the greatest concerns of voters and is the subject of growing national and international attention. As such, explorations of rising inequality are not new. Where the readings are revelatory, however, is in their efforts to expose the fallacy that economic distribution, be it the hyper-concentration of wealth at the top or the existence of poverty at the bottom, is ‘natural’, nothing more than an economic reality caused by ‘inevitable shifts in [the] economy driven by global, universal pressures’ (Hacker Pierson, 4). Instead, the authors posit that economic inequality is ‘largely a product of political decisions and institutions that generate and sustain a sharply unequal distribution of wealth and resources’ (Williams, 569). Politically Suspect In Winner-Take-All Politics, Hacker and Pierson look at the evolving bifurcation of society not into â€Å"haves† and â€Å"have nots†, but into the â€Å"have-it-alls† and other Americans. Their book is dominated by a whodunnit-like search for answers to the â€Å"three big mysteries† such a conclusion poses; who, how and why (Hacker Pierson, 41). The underlying argument is that economic disparity in the United States of America is caused by a combination of political action and inaction. Hacker and Pierson focus on the importance of policy-creation, as opposed to electoralShow MoreRelatedEconomic Inequality Of The United States1696 Words   |  7 PagesEconomic Inequality Paper Homelessness is one of the main problems plaguing the United States today, with low income earners at a higher risk of becoming homeless than previous years. 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