Has no topic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Has no topic - Essay Example ntrastingly, people who depend on employment have no choice but to work as the job regulations demand and since they do not have other alternatives to earn a living. People having immense wealth can get easy access to the lawmakers through their efforts of campaigning and thus protecting their assets. Alexis argues that America has been an egalitarian society. Egalitarian society is one that takes into consideration little power, status, wealth and prestige differences among individuals. According to Alexis (Brueggemann, 2010), there has not been prevention of individuals amassing resources to extreme extents thus ensuring fair resource distribution. In contrast to this view, Gabriel Kolko argues that, despite year-to-year fluctuations since 1910, there has been unequal income distribution. Gabriel asserts that America has a characteristic concentration of wealth that is wealth is on the hands of only a few individuals in the society. The top 1% of the American rich own 33 percent of wealth in the United States. There are also another top 10% of the people possessing 69 percent of the assets. This means that the remaining 90% majority of the people only own about 31% of the assets. From Table 7.2, we note that 27 percent of the wealth falls to the percentiles 50 to 90% and the bottom about half of the total population possess only around 3 percent of the assets. Thus, it is evident from Table 7.2 that there is a large margin of inequality since the bottom 90 percent of the population is far poor compared to 1% of the population. Figure 7.1 gives the trend of wealth owned by the richest 1% of the population right from 1774 to the year 2005. It shows the share to have hit the highest percentage in 1830s reaching 44 percent. The period between 1774 and 1860 saw wealth concentration rising with 1820s and the late 1840s experiencing steep increases (Brueggemann, 2010). This trend conforms to Kuznets hypothesis. Figure 7.2 shows the top bracket (groupings for taxation