Wealth Gap In America Essay

The wealth gap in the United States, while staggering, did not strike me as completely unexpected. It is, however, an issue that is a problem for our culture; the distribution of wealth causes other problems, such as deviance, to rise. Though there are many schools of thought regarding wealth distribution and income caps, adequately addressing the basic needs of society will most likely produce the most significant impact. In discussing this with my family and friends, I found that many of them frowned upon the redistribution of wealth, citing socialism, communism, and any number of ‘-isms’ that have been brought up as alternatives to capitalist society. While we agreed that the idea of wealth redistribution has a bit of a ‘Robin Hood’ feel, it was also almost universally accepted that basic necessities of life, such as health care, food, and shelter (particularly of children) should be available for everyone. It seems that an effective way to combat the wealth gap in our country would be to tax income on a scale that accurately represents personal capital, and then use the money collected to shore up these basic needs for the good of our society. This reduction in need would, in turn, lessen the need for …show more content…
By paying by percentage rather than by bracket, each individual would be responsible for a fairer share of the total load. Additionally, a system of incentives to promote community involvement and well-being could be put into place to bring classes together and promote a sense of community, rather than encouraging the ‘us versus them’ mentality that is so prevalent when discussing the poorer section of the class system (Giddens, 2016). By providing a sense of community and worth to all people in our societies, we can use a concept that replaces the idea of secondary deviation (Giddens, 2016) and fills the gap with positive