Income inequality point of view essay

Snapshot of ‘single dispersed actor’ (Mancini 2020)

Income and wealth inequality have come highly contentious and polarizing issues throughout the world today. A economic prosperity continues to grow, statistics show that more individuals are being left behind economically. The rise of income and wealth inequality is creating a large dichotomy between the “haves” and the “have nots.” Likewise, by having such as large proportion of the nation’s wealth and income within a select few individuals, their ability to impact political and social discourse is greatly enhanced. This is particular true within the united states where, politicians often rely on donations from wealthy donors to run for a particularly political office. These donors, often in exchange for their contributions often expect “favors” done for them as it relates to legislation and other policies. The very concept of lobbying is heavily skewed towards those with money, power and influence thereby circumventing the will of those without these tools. This juxtaposition between the needs and desire of the wealthy and the needs and desires of the poor often lead to bitter and antagonistic debates. These extreme levels of inequality also have implication for society at large. At least 40% of households in the nation cannot afford an emergency $500 expense. Unaffordable housing has caused a rapid rise in homelessness. Unaffordable education, has given rise to nearly $1 Trillion of debt. Still others are unable to properly save for retirement that creating more pressure on the social security system. Each of these elements can have grave implications for society at large. For example, the inability to pay for an emergence expense could lead to rising levels of higher interest credit care or personal loan debt. As we have realized in the 2008 financial crisis too much consumer debt, particularly if they are unable to service the debt and causes severe economic hardships for all of society. Likewise, housing for vast majority of Americans, is the single biggest asset they will own. As housing costs continue to rise, more Americans will lose access to this wealth generating asset. As such spending on elements such as appliances, furniture, law equipment, televisions and so forth will decline, also hindering economic activity. The lack of retirement saving is yet another example of how income and wealth inequality in the long run will harm society. Here, the inability of individuals to consistently save places more pressure on an already strained system. With lack of retirement savings, many of the social security programs currently designed run the risk of becoming insolvent as they pay more money in benefits than they receive in revenue (Alvaredo, 2011)

The above is just a few of the many problems resulting from wealth and income inequality. Unfortunately there is a lot of misinformation on how to solve this issue. Most of it centers around taking from one party and giving it to another party. Although this has garnered along of support in the mainstream media, it does nothing to solver the properly. The framing of the issue should revolve around proper education, discipline and skills development as oppose to simply taking funds away from those who rightfully earned it (Goldin, 2009).

This approach has garnered so much attention because it doesn’t require much thought or work on the part of the poor in society. This, as will be detailed below, creates an ease of information that may or may not be accurate. Here social media often plays an adversarial role as many market participants are misinformed. For example, many individuals are quick to simply blame the rich for there transgressions. They often blame income inequality for many transgressions that are the fault of the poor. Research has shown the lower income individuals tend to spend on unnecessary items such as alcohol, jewelry, clothing, and expensive cars. In addition, they are much more likely to finance the purchase of these items using credit at very high interest rates. This combination of purchasing liabilities and then paying for these expenses out of future income creates a downward spiral that ultimately hinders the wealth potential of individuals. The gap between the rich and poor is often determined by behaviors. According to research, 80% of millionaires are self-made. According to the Federal Reserve, the top 10% in the US own 69.6% of the nation’s wealth. From these statistics it appears that much of the negative sentiment towards millionaires is unwarranted. Many of these did so by holding to a certain standard of behaviors that others are often unwilling or unable to commit to.

Here governments, media, and politicians pander to the plight of poor people in American, and then offer unrealistic solutions to fix the problem. These solutions are often unrealistic as they don’t provide sustainable solutions to the issues of wealth inequality as noted below (Berg, 2011).

Actor’s framing and point of view on the selected complex problem

The actor framing this issue often say it’s the fault of the rich that income inequality persists at such a pervasive level in society. The actor’s frame the issue as an “us vs. them” mentality. As a result, many misconstrue the ease of a solution with the effectiveness of the solution. Here there are many countervailing forces at play here. For one politician play a large role in the ability to frame the issues for and against inequality within the United States. Politicians often have an incentive to appeal to certain members of society with half-truths. We have seen this in many of the elections of Donald Trump as president. Here, he simply repeated a number of lies and was able to garner enough support via misinformation. The same, albeit to a lessor extent occurs with other politicians looking to capitalize on the plight of the poor. Here, income inequality is a very easy issue to address as it impacts a vast majority of people. The solution also appeals to the masses as it takes funds away from the few and reallocates them to the many. This expected has generated bipartisan support as it is an efficient method in which politicians can gain votes. This playbook has been leverage be various politicians including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Here, the framing of the issue, it’s simplicity and it immediate gratification creates a very easy approach for politicians to use (Milanovic, 2011).

The media has a very large role as they often exacerbate these issues without providing counter commentary to provide a much more unbiased opinion. Instead, many news outlets simply parrot the information used by politicians in an effort to help expand the political agenda of those looking to hold office. There is no secret that media outlets have a large amount of power in swaying community dialogue and discourse. The political affiliation of each of these outlets therefore poses a problem to society as it relates to framing. Here, political organizations will frame the issue in the manner that best suits their own political narrative and even it its to the detriment of society at large. For example CNN is highly regarding as a much more democratic leaning organization. Likewise, FOX is often seen as a much more republican leaning organization. Here , followers of each neatwork often have a proclivity towards one political party. By listening to only one side of the issue, these individuals often obtain a skewed view of the facts. This again increase se the framing power of media, as they can essentially control the behavior and thoughts of others who are dedicates to their channel for political discourse. As it relates to income inequality, those who lean democratic are often in favor of many of the policies aimed at the reallocation of wealth from which to poor. Likewise, those are heavily republican will typically watch fox news and will not be in favor of such redistribution of wealth. The answer often lies somewhere in the middle, but people on both sides are unwilling to compromise. The reason being that they consume only one side of the argument due to the framing of media outlets and organizations who favor a certain view.

The issue of framing is also exacerbated by social media. This is particularly troublesome as false information can easily enter into the platform and be parroted by those who do not conduct their due diligence. This misinformation is very difficult to correct after the fact as indicated by the recent election of Donald Trump. Here, Russians attempted to frame the opinions of others through misinformation and lies. Those who had a vested interest in believing the lies spread them without doing their own due diligences. As a result, these lies where often framed as the reality of society. This misinformation has the grave consequence of allowing people to make the wrong decision as they are using incorrect information. The media ultimate creates a problem of framing as they distill a very complex problem into simple terms in order to appease their viewing constituency. Without providing counter arguments many of the individuals use this misinformation to make ill-informed decisions that can negatively impact society (Gurría, 2013) .

Actor’s media strategy for engaging online public opinion and/or responses to online public opinion

The media strategy for engaging public opinion is fairly simple. Here, they use simplistic arguments without providing a counter argument to resolve the income inequality issue. This creates a culture of misinformation as the viewing public regurgitates this information to peers and other in the sphere of influence. The actors media strategy is therefore derived from using the public against themselves. Here, income inequality is often a function of a lack of skills, business and financial acumen on the part of certain segments of the community. Here, the solution will be in skills development, education, and better life habits. Instead, the media capitalizes on the negative sentiment by providing easy solutions that are framed as an magical elixir that will solve the problems of the poor in society. The framing of the media is conducted in such a manner that it many of the poor adopt it as gospel. They begin to believe the misinformation and change their behaviors thusly. As a result, these behaviors don’t contribute to mitigating income inequality, but instead exacerbate it. Politicians and the media realizing this occurrence, use it as an opportunity for still further intervention and regulation that does not tackle the root cause. As a result, the cycle perpetuates as the media strategy continue to gain momentum. The media doesn’t change the behavior as they have a vested interest in the outcome, which is higher adoption, higher customer loyalty, more viewership, and ultimately higher revenue (Förster, 1994).

Your framing and point of view on the selected complex problem

My framing point of view comes form a litany of sources. For one, my personal framing perspective is from both points of view. Here, income inequality is indeed a national issue that needs to be addressed. The disparity is growing too large for America resulting in a disproportionate amount of the citizens having too much wealth and power concentrated with them. Likewise, this leads to further complications as many middle-class citizens are now unable to afford to housing, retirement expenses and healthcare. All of these items lead to further inequality as more individuals succumb to rising cost and expense pressures. However, the solution to such an issue simply isn’t to tax the wealthy. Instead, a viable solution is related to proper skills training, development and education. However, this point of view requires work from those who are poor. Many poor individuals do not want to do the work especially when given the alternative of social programs that can alleviate their own stress. We are seeing this now in what many call the “Great Resignation.” Here many people are resigning from jobs as their unemployment benefits are higher than the income they would receive from working. As a result, millions of Americans are electing to not work and benefit from the tax revenue that others have crated through their labor and sacrifice. This is unacceptable, but many poor individuals accept this solution as it requires little work and effort on their part. For example welfare program such as food stamps and other benefits are used by individuals who could easily work but choose not to as they are subsidized by America. Many African Americans and Hispanic Americans suffer from this as they rather elect to receive handouts as oppose to a hand up. This creates a culture of dependency where those who are willing to go the extra mile proper while those looking to receive handouts are simply satisfied with the status quo (Cournède, 2015).

Your response (e.g. defensive master narrative, counter-narrative or alternative narrative) and rationale for choice of narrative type.

The counter narrative, is arguable quite logical in theory, but very difficult in practice. Here, the counter argument states that some inequality is very good for America as it allows people to continually aspire to earn more money and wealth. Through these aspirations, these individuals will ultimately work harder, develop more goods and services, and improve the prosperity of society as a whole. From a financial perspective, business owners take the most risk and should therefore receive the highest reward. Here, entrepreneurs use their capital to develop a product, goods, or services. Investors take all the risk, in the event that their investment do not provide the anticipates return. Employees who work for the firm often don not incur these risks. Instead, they often are only responsibility for the labor output and productivity. As a result, their risks are lower, therefore their reward should be lower. Those with the higher amounts of wealth tend to be business owners as oppose to simply business laborers and as a result obtain a higher reward for the risk they undertook. The counter narrative therefore suggests that that workers should engage in activities that allow them to become business owners as oppose to simply laboring to make others wealthy. Likewise many use the counter argument that wealth inequality will disappear on its own as wealthy heirs squander the money or wealthy parents simply donate it back to society (DeParle, 2012).