Earlier this week, Marty posted about the increasingly huge share of income going to the richest Americans. And as we’ve seen in the past, Americans tend to way — way — underestimate how unequal the U.S. is.
This video (via Upworthy) does a great job illustrating the distribution of wealth, and how it compares to Americans’ perceptions of both the real and ideal distribution. Even if you know all this stuff, and can recite the statistics, the visual representation of exactly what that means is still jarring.
Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.
Comments 11
Jonathan Harrison — September 19, 2013
I think there's a deeper misconception driving this, namely the myth of social mobility.
Americans seem to accept huge inequality provided they can fool themselves into thinking they have the talent to be the exception and break the glass ceiling. Look at the self-delusion you see in American Idol and X-Factor. The American blinkers regarding class stem from the same wishful thinking.
MikeBoda — September 20, 2013
Why is whoever made this against socialism?
Social democracy doesn't appear to be strong enough to resist neoliberalism. Even Sweden and Denmark are seeing rising socio-economic inequality. Worker collective ownership and self-management of the means of production (not necessarily a wealth gini of 0), would be an ideal society.
Jonathan Harrison — September 20, 2013
Clearly there are variations between how much societies do resist neo-liberalism. Europe has socialized medicine, whilst the US public is hostile to even Obama's highly diluted regulated capitalist form of health care.
ace65 — October 8, 2013
The education system, high taxes, and insane regulation in this country prevent people from rising to and using their true potential. Home of the free ? Not so much.
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Snake.io — January 19, 2024
This is such an interesting article. Inequality is such a deep rooted issue and the U.S isn't the only country plagued by it, I think other countries as well. Especially 3rd world countries. Thanks for this article, great reading break from playing Snake.io