In a study done last year, a Harvard
professor took the time to survey 5,000 Americas to find out what
they believed the ideal wealth in America is, and what the actual
wealth in America was at the time. He divided the country into 5
groups, equally distributing them into 20 percent pockets. The ideal
wealth could be summed up to America being relatively similar to a
socialist country, where wealth is distributed equally. What they
believed the wealth in America was, was still modest, and had the top
20 percent of the chart with a large majority, the bottom 20 percent
had the least and the other 60 percent were relatively the same.
However, the problem with both is that
neither is correct in the distribution. Actually, the ideal number is
as skewed as what people believe it is. The lower 40 percent of
Americans do not possess nearly any wealth, where as the top 1
percent, has the entire portion that the survey population thought
the top 20% had in the ideal situation. What makes the video below
interesting is the fact that it compresses the 311 million Americans
into 100 Americans and takes the estimated wealth of America in 2009,
which is about 54 trillion dollars, and displays it over a graph. The
telling fact of this graph is that it displays the top 1 percent
separately, simply because it is ten times bigger than the feasible
space on the graph. To quantify the amount of money the top 1 percent
has, it is roughly 40 percent of America’s wealth, while the bottom
80 percent only has 7 percent of America’s wealth. In today’s
American society, the top 1 percent, or wealthiest in the country
brings home 24 percent of America’s income yearly, whereas in 1976,
this same group brought in 9 percent. The top 1 percent of America
owns 50 percent of the stocks, bonds and mutual funds, whereas the
bottom 50 percent of Americas owns only half a percent of the same
investments.
The wealth desperation is one of the
worse in the world, and poverty is slowing increasing in the country.
It is up to those who have the ability to make, to give back to those
who are unfortunate. The inequality in the wealth of Americans can
cease as long as the next generation remembers that there are others
on the planet and make an effort to help them out in some way, shape
or form. The problem will not go away immediately, but with the
continued efforts of those who are determined for it to stop, it can
be a huge change in the graph. The future is in your hands.
I find this very interesting and informative. It is disheartening to see what the wealth distribution is in this country, but even more so to see people's perception. Lack of knowledge of these things is what could end up hurting all Americans as a whole. Even those who are in the wealthiest categories can be negatively impacted if the poverty rate in the country continues to go up. This could mean bad news for all types of investments and businesses.
ReplyDeleteI watched this video a while back and when I saw it I wouldn't really say I was surprised as much. This nation was created on the backs of poor people and within the current government with will continue to happen. Most people love to say that America is the best and that capitalism rules but then complain when they see this. This is what capitalism is. I do believe that capitalism is good for some but I believe we should swing it over into the socialistic range. Not all the way just enough to get the best of both worlds, but I understand that nothing's perfect.
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely surprised at the reality of the spread of our nations wealth. I thought I had a pretty good idea, but I could not have been more wrong. Mainly about the middle class. I knew the poor was well below the poverty line, but I couldn't imagine the middle class (probably the most important to the economy) would have so little of the nations wealth. Obviously something needs to be done, but I feel like nothing will ever be done. There is politics blocking this movement and if we can't stop our nations 1% from corrupting our nation's leaders then we can't get anywhere.
ReplyDeleteThe Wealth continues to get Wealthier, while the Poor continues to get Poorer. It is very hard from someone to move from a poor state to a wealthy one. A person can work an entire lifetime and can still be considered poor. To fix this problem, I believe we need better financial literacy taught while in school. Even at Morehouse, we watch our brothers make poor financial decisions. Instead of practicing saving, many of our brothers get caught up in having the latest clothing, newest technology, and owning luxury cars. This hinders their cash flows and then they potential struggle to survive the rest of the rest of the semester. If we change our way of thinking, we can eventually change our economic state.
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DeleteI believe "The Wealth continues to get Wealthier, while the Poor continues to get Poorer." will never change due to the lack of resources that the reach has compared to the poor and the mindset of a rich person to a poor. There are some people that will see exactly what they are doing wrong and not change the way they are living. There are some people that like being on welfare. there are some people that encourage younger poor people to live and think the way of a poor person does. The only way a solution will come about is giving poorer people more resources, changing peoples way of thinking and starting a movement starting with yourself to make a change.
DeleteGreat article. It shows exactly how the wealth in America is not and never will be equally distributed.
ReplyDeleteI saw this video a few months ago and it really opened my eyes to how the wealth is distributed and to see it again is no less shocking. The difference between how the different classes save and spend partake in how wealth is accumulated in their equity, investing, and cash flow to name a few things.
ReplyDeleteWe have to put a stop to the not giving back problem in the world. I hear it all the time around campus, and I have to include myself as well, people saying time and time again that they will not be giving back to the school once they graduate. Why do we all collectively think this? We complain about many different things on campus and part of the reason is because graduates do not give back to the school. Once we see how the campus is kept and that nobody gives back we decided that we do not want to give back, it's a vicious cycle. We have to break the cycle so that nobody gets left behind.
ReplyDeleteThis article was an interesting read. It actually alludes to "what is the pursuit of happiness in today's society?" In our world today we as youth are constantly bombarded with challenges such as race and being constantly judge based on our culture or socioeconomic status. This should not be the case. Hopefully a solution is discovered soon.
ReplyDeleteI feel it is imperative that once we are settled in our careers, we give back to HBCU's so they can further educate our race. I believe we must also improve our HBCU's so they are seen on the same level as PWI's in the eyes of white America.
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