Analysis Of Income Inequality

Most relevant to my analysis, McCall reverses the conventional view in arguing that rather than first observing violations of equal opportunity and then raising questions about the legitimacy of the level of inequality, Americans may observe the level of inequality and make the inference that opportunities are unequal. This suggests that Americans see highly disparate outcomes and make inferences about the availability of opportunity. In the following sections, I detail how this connection is important in predicting concern about income inequality and propose that the mechanism by which Americans make this connection is the recognition of structural barriers and cumulative disadvantage.
As Kluegal and Smith suggest, some of the challenges …show more content…
Theses conceptions of equality of opportunity differ in where they draw the line between where social responsibility stops and individual responsibility begins. Which conception of equality of opportunity one subscribes to has tremendous consequences for the level of government involvement one might favor. Ensuring substantive equality of opportunity often requires positive action, rather than simply the lack of over discrimination.
“Suppose that in the U.S., whites have enjoyed superior social status, enforced by law and social custom, for decades, going back to times in which blacks were enslaved. Now whites on the average have greater wealth and education and blacks have less. Suppose that formal equality of opportunity is now proclaimed as the law of the land and embraced by popular morality. Still, most superior positions in society continue to go to …show more content…
On the other hand, if one holds a substantive view of equality of opportunity, the scope in which unfair advantage or disadvantage becomes much broader. Formal equality of opportunity requires only that positions which bestow superior rewards are open to all applicants. Violations of equality of opportunity, therefore, can only occur at the gateway to these positions. In the substantive view of equality of opportunity, because it concerns the opportunity to become qualified, violations may occur at any time from the circumstances of one’s birth to the structural forces which guide one’s life. For this reason, detecting violations of substantive equality of opportunity oftentimes necessitates looking to outcomes for evidence. History of turning to outcomes as evidence of unequal