Why Inequality in America is Even Worse Than You Thought

In recent studies, the United States has been slipping in the ranks of developed countries throughout the world. This article focuses on how the top 1% of the population has grown more wealthy in past years, while the rest of the population has dropped further off and detached from that 1%. Over the past 30 years, the income of the top 1% of households has increased 275%, while the rest of the nation has only increased anywhere between 15% and 40%. These numbers seem to truly show how badly our nation is separated. The poor are struggling in the streets, while the rich continue to grow wealthier and wealthier. This separation is an enormous problem in our society, and has contributed to us dropping in the Social Justice Index to 27th out of 31 developed nations (Salon.com). Overall, these numbers seem to show that we are not as well off as we appear to be.

While reading this article, I realized that the author, Justin Elliot, really is astonished by some of the information that he discovered. He appears to be disappointed with how the United States is going, and expresses this disappointment at numerous points in his article. He uses these percentages and graphs to drive his point home that we are struggling as a nation, and these statistics are primarily used to show that something must be done in order to keep up from falling any further in the rankings.