An Irreversible Loss?

    Among the many factors driving the widening income gap between the rich and the poor is a replacement of middle-class jobs with low-class jobs. In other words, a decline in manufacturing jobs, an area where people with lower educations were able to make decent wages, has resulted in more people having to make a living working low-wage jobs instead. Despite Obama's efforts to aid this issue (increase in minimum wage and creation of the American Opportunity Tax Credit) as this article states, "inequality has worsened during his administration." Although he has made many efforts, "Real median income is eight percent below pre-recession levels and middle-class jobs continue to be replaced by low-wage jobs." The decline of middle-class jobs, particularly in manufacturing, began in the 1980s when large industries started finding cheaper labor in other countries.
    A documentary called Roger and Me, by Michael Moore, exposes how big of an issue it became when manufacturing jobs started to go overseas. As seen in the trailer attached below, nearly 30,000 people in Flint, Michigan lost their jobs all because the General Motors factory was moved to a different country. While the majority of Flint was affected by the loss, there were a few very wealthy people who seemed to care less about the issue because they were still extremely well-off. This reminds me of The Great Gatsby because most of the characters seem to only focus on their wealth and materials, and might not even know or care that poor people exist. The manufacturing jobs that have been lost do not seem to be coming back any time soon, which makes for a smaller middle class, and a much bigger lower class.

What even is the Income Gap?

  

    Before I began my junior theme, I didn't know anything about the gap between the rich and the poor. Sure, I knew that it was "widening," whatever that meant, but I never really understood how severe of an issue it is. And that's the problem. Americans know that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, but that's pretty much it. Many people don't know, or don't understand that, as the attached video states, "The richest 1% take home almost a quarter of the nation's wealth." I'm not a numbers person, but even I understand that a quarter of the nation's wealth, is a lot of money. People also may not be aware that "The CEO now makes 380 times the average worker's. Not the lowest paid employee...the average one." I can't help but ask myself, doesn't this anger people? A CEO could be working just as hard as one of its workers, yet it is making 380 times more?!? I'm sure that people are angry, but we just don't hear about it. 

    Finding a solution to this growing issue is going to take a lot of work involving many different aspects of our society (taxes, education, technology, etc.), but in my opinion, before any of that happens, the leaders in our society, and people in general, are going to have to start understanding, and being more open to how huge of an issue this really is. Just take a look at the video; it is clear that Americans' perception of how wealth is distributed is skewed, not even close to the reality. One of the reasons for this could be because of how politicians treat the issue. As Peter Edelman mentioned in his book So Rich, So Poor, in regards to the Recovery act, "Obama made little use of the word "poverty"...[but instead] used the word "vulnerable"...to characterize low-income people." Poverty is a real thing and as the income gap grows, it only is going to become a larger issue. If the leader of our country can barely make use of the word, then American people will not think of it as the serious issue that it is.