Readings for June 28

There is a discrepancy between what America always wants and what it actually does. The American Dream was always to achieve equality for everyone in the nation. The society always says that it wants the gap between different social classes to narrow. However, government policy choices do not seem to shape equality for the society. Fischer and Voss suggested in “Inequality by design” that many of the government programs are in fact favoring the middle, and upper class, such as the regulations in the labor market, taxes, health care, and more. In NYT’s “Richest are Leaving even the Rich Far Behind,” it states that “the share of the nation’s income earned by” the top 0.1 percent of income earners “has more than doubled since 1980, to 7.4 percent in 2002. The share of income earned by the rest of the top 10 percent rose far less, and the share earned by the bottom 90 percent fell” (NYT183). The reason of why the hyper-rich have earned so much in the recent years could be the results of the government policies, hence the fact that the middle to lower class families’ earnings are rising only a little, or not at all.

Although it mentions in Fischer and Voss’s article that there are policies and programs that support the poor, our nation “does less than any other advanced nation to reduce poverty through government benefits” (Fischer & Voss 134). In fact, “our spending to aid the poor is precarious…[and] politically vulnerable” (Fischer & Voss 135) since these programs had continually been cut, like the AFDC (a program that supports children). In order to push people off assistance and into jobs, the government set strict requirements, and only those who could meet exact qualifications would be assisted. I do not think that this does appears to be very helpful to those that really need the help. Instead of reducing the gap between the wealthy and the poor, the government’s policies are in fact increasing it. It is important that the government start to think of ways that could really help the poor instead of making policies that are benefiting the rich.