From Professor Rosenblum:
In connection with last week’s very interesting and lively class discussion about American exceptionalism and income disparity in the U.S., take a look at what I think is a brilliant piece of analysis by Eduarto Porter, an economic reporter for the NY Times. It supports what a number of you were saying about how the U.S. lags behind so many other industrialized nations and is truly terrifying reading, if you ask me. As always, all comments appreciated.
Income Inequality is Costing the US on Social Issues, by Eduardo Porter
Reading through this, I saw a number of point that were mentioned in class, such as infant mortality and rising health care cost/uninsured people. It seemed that article was more focused on providing readers with a background on the discussion on income inequality in the United States, while focusing primarily on the consequences this has on social issues. The article, however, fails to discuss, in-depth, or lead the reader to any solutions regarding this issue. Instead the article briefly discusses the political battle that has been raging for the past half-century or so.
As far as informing the reader goes, the article does a fantastic job of presenting the various ideas and the flaws within them. Whether it was highlighting Republican gutting of ‘Obamacare’, or identifying that the elderly are not the primary issue, Porter does an excellent job of demonstrating the flaws in various attempts made to deal with this issue.
Overall, the article seems more inclined to readers who are interested in learning more about the income disparity in United States and the social/health impacts associated with it, as opposed to those looking for ongoing discussions and debates regarding solutions to this same issue.
As the article highlighted, even though the government seems to be putting in place measures to solve this economic disparity in the country (or so we are made to believe), things only seem to be getting worse. The economic gap between the rich and poor keeps widening, and the sad part is that majority of America’s residents are the poor and middle class. This, as said by Porter, accounts for several of the problems in the country such as graduation rates and in turn economic success, infant mortality rate and the list goes on and on. If effective measures are put in place to close this economic gap, I believe that most of this country problems may cease to exist; but then again this may never be achieved, at least not in the direction things are going as of now.
This article is a great wake-up call for Americans who continue to stay rooted in that reminiscent, “good ol America,” “we’re the best” mindset that we mentioned plagues much of our society. I agree with Joshin that the article fails to give any solutions, but I think it is meant more to be informative and call us out for those who did not realize that our nation is falling behind. As much as we hate to admit it, money DOES make the world go round: we want our babies to live, we need money for the technology, research, and prevention; we want our citizens to have better living conditions, we need money to renovate; we want our children to be educated, we need money to initiate educational programs and hire certified teachers. The problem is where we’re getting the money, and with such an income gap in addition to our capitalistic ideals, it’s hard to decide how we can get this money to allow our country to progress.
Along the lines of education, I just want to thank CUNY and even SUNY for providing affordable education for those who otherwise would struggle or would not pursue higher education. Our college enrollment rates have dropped, and perhaps it’s because people in other states besides New York are not given this same financial support. Public higher education has its ups and downs, but in the long run it would benefit our country as a whole.
The piece was truly informative in highlighting the problems that America is facing. Income inequality is perpetuating social problems such as infant mortality, incarceration rates, and tuition costs. It’s great to keep discussion of the topic alive and to say that change is needed, but it doesn’t seem that will likely happen in the near future. The author of the piece has already claimed that America has gradually stagnated over the past fifty years. The likelihood of a change of course at this point is slim. Mr. Porter paints a grim picture at the end that shows change may only occur when the country is at its lowest. Ultimately, with the voices of most influence being the ones who benefit from income inequality, Mr. Porter’s pictured future is quite likely.
In comparison to other countries, we do have a better overall lifestyle and living standard, but even then mortality and life expectancy are lower than France or Germany. I did a little research, and from 2011 to 2014 there was a drop of 10% for those who believe America is the best country in the world. The declining percentage of American patriotism can be attributed to the widening gap between the rich and poor. This problem is also prevalent in Saudi Arabia, where the government officials deny the existence of poverty although a quarter of the population earns only $530 a month. Merely donating to the poor does not help. We need to establish a firm foundation to hold our society together. We cannot follow in the footsteps of Saudi, where the middle class barely exists. A cliché that I often hear and agree with is, “The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.”
I’m in concurrence with everyone else; these statistics paint a bleak outlook on the future, one heavily attached to economic issues. Though the article doesn’t offer many solutions, it does emphasis the importance of these issues being bad enough to alert Americans that things are NOT okay – that people’s illusion of the United States as the “best” nation in the world falls apart when prosperity is lower than it was forty years ago. This country has a history of capitalism with the American ideal of the self-made person who worked hard and got rewarded. This belief in capitalism makes even attempts at implementing socialist institutions a la Western Europe difficult, not to mention the US’s sheer size compared to each one of those countries in land area, wealth, resources, and population. I’d also like to note one difference that might have occurred in the past forty years is the transition of the United States from a producer society to a consumer society. Many production jobs have been transplanted to other countries (where wages and standards of living are lower) and the US has more intellectually demanding jobs (service, tech, academic, etc. in nature). Hence the reason why a college degree is more necessary. I fear that considering the population, the global economy, and the society we live in, it might not be possible to sustain a growing population of >300 million with everyone living comfortably considering the jobs we strive for.
This article is a great portrayal of how America really does need to improve a great deal.I thought this article was very interesting in the sense that America is suffering a health crisis, so-to-speak, because of a lot of our social problems. Some things the author mentioned was teenage birthrates, the rate of incarceration, and even racial prejudice. In relation to race he mentions how, ” It’s the babies born to nonwhite, nonmarried, nonprosperous women who die so young.” Another problem is the amount of money required for college, that most middle class Americans cannot afford. Even though there are so many issues though, I still think that the US could turn it around and hopefully improve the situation.