United States Blog #4

     As said in Blink, there is a gender income gap between men and women in the United States (Discrimination). Women make 79% of what men earn, and the gap is even larger for women of color. Although the validity of this statistic has been highly debated, it does show that there is a gap. There is, however, already an Equal Pay Act, which was enacted in 1963, that makes it illegal to pay women or men less solely based on their gender. This further complicates the topic of whether the statistic is true or not, but if it is true, then the U.S Government needs to more strictly enforce the law, or add more legislation to combat the earnings gap. 

    Another cause of inequality in the United States is the inequality of opportunities, namely education. Those in poorer neighborhoods are less likely to have quality education because public schools in those areas often get less funding (Source). Since these people will get a worse education and are poor, they will also be less likely to go to college. Someone's education level and their wages are directly proportional; the more educated you are, the more money you make (Differences In Human Capital) (Source). This is likely one of the causes for the United States' severe income gap between the lower 20% of earners and the top 20%. Although it is a complicated issue because there are many other disadvantages that come with being poor, the beginning to solving this problem could be to increase funding for schools in poorer neighborhoods.

    The disastrous Supply Side policies in the United States have had adverse affects to their intended outcomes. For the past three decades, the government has offered numerous tax cuts to the highest income brackets with the assumption that it would incentivize those people to invest more into the economy, leading to economic growth. Instead of increased investment, it actually led to a decrease in investment, economic growth, employment growth, and income growth. Since middle income earners stagnated, and the rich received massive tax cuts, it can be inferred that the supply side policies of the United States widened the gap between high income earners and those below them (Source).

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