Income Inequality

When it comes to unfair things in our life, one thing stood out: income inequality. Money is an important factor in our daily life because without money, we can't pay for food, water, electricity, etc. So if money is so important to our lives, shouldn't it be distributed equally among human. If everyone have the same amount of income, wouldn't that means everyone will live a happy life?

That maybe true in theory, but in reality, things aren't always how we want them to be. Statistics shown that out of the 7 billion people on Earth, the richest 1% is holding 43% of world wealth, while the bottom 80%of people only have 6% of the world wealth. So what is happening here? Why do the minorities have so much money while the majorities have almost nothing?

More astounding facts: 200 years ago, rich countries were only 3 times richer than poor countries. Today, that number rise to 85 times. So why is there such a huge gap in the income between poor and rich people? To understand this, we can take the US for example.

US currently has the most unequal advanced economy in the world.United State's economy is so unequal, it even has its own Wiki page talking about it. In 2013, 75.4% of the nation's wealth is in the hands of 10% of the population. From wealth accumulation rigged for the rich, manipulation of tax, tax rate decrease, stock market domination by the riches, to numerous consumer debts, the rich just keep getting richer, while the poor are getting poorer.

That's not all, as many scams have been created by the richest to hide the fact that the minority of people in US is holding the majority of the nation's wealth. One of those scam is the "we should all cheer for stock market". Mainstream media has made this seems like a chance for poor people to become richer by investing in stock market. But the truth is: 60% of US population only own 0.2% of all wealth outside of home. Some organization even claimed that income inequality remain steady since the wealth of the top 1% decrease from 1983 to 2007 because of "democratization of stock ownership. What many people didn't know is that while the wealth of the top 1% decreased, the top other 5% increase by 20%, and the poorest 80% decrease by almost 20%.

So how can we fix America? Based on theatlantic.com, "The most potent way to get more wealth to the poor and middle-class is to get these people to save more of their income, and to invest in assets with higher average rates of return." And to do this, first we have to change America's culture of saving. Rich people have lots of money, so they usually save them, and in time the saving become huge. The poor, on the other hand, don't have that much money for savings.What the website propose is financial education is a must in public school to change American's way of thinking.

The change of US wealth distribution from 2007-2009

In addition, we can help the middle class invest in stock to raise their wealth. Teaching people how to manage their stock investments is a great way to help people avoid losing their wealth. Tips and tricks about what to do, what to not do, and what to avoid doing are great in helping people make the right decision in stock investing. By doing so, we can change the wealth distribution in society so it will shift more to the other poor and middle class. In turn, these solutions can help closing the gap between the rich and the poor and make unfair distribution of wealth fairer.