Wealth Distribution In America

Many Americans do not think that wealth distribution in America is as bad as it really is. In a study done in 2005 by Michael Norton and Dan Ariely, they found that American people thought the top 20% of Americans owned roughly 57% of the nation’s wealth when in actuality the top 20% of Americans own roughly 85% of the nation’s wealth (Building a Better America). This leaves roughly 15% of the nation’s for the rest of Americans to fight over. Due to the very little wealth left for the rest of America this puts people under the poverty line. In 2013, “more than 45 million people, or 14.5% of all Americans were below the poverty line” (Gongloff). Many of these people are assisted with government aid. In 2012, 23.1% of Americans received government …show more content…
As more wealthier people gain more and more money the poor become poorer. The poverty line for a single person according the 2016 guidelines is 11,880. For a family of four is 24,300. In 2015 there was 13.5 million Americans citizens living in poverty. That is 13.5 million people plus all of the people that are barely over the poverty line that needed help from the government to just meet basic needs. Some of these programs are Medicaid, Children 's Health Insurance Program, Temporary Assistance for needy families, food stamps. The government assistance programs spend 400 billion dollars a year to help people get on their feet. (civil rights) The money funding these programs is the taxes everyone pays, with more people needing government aid taxes will increase leaving people with less money to spend to help the economy grow. There have been many studies showing the correlation between crime and inequality of wealth. In one case the studies that were done found findings of “97% of correlations to be positive and concluding that rates of violence are higher in more unequal …show more content…
In one graph in Alameda County Public Health Department article, Economic Inequality: A Growing Threat to Public Health, it showed a correlation between the amount of money you make and the risk of you dying earlier in life. Ranging from 10K to 100K it showed that the closer you got to making 100K or more the lower your risk of dying prematurely was. The wealthier people tend not to stress about paying bills and meeting life’s basic needs. Where on the other side of the spectrum lower class people tend to be stressed about how they will be paying bills, finding health care provider that they can afford. Constantly being stressed can lead to many other problems like depression and stress on the