Who’s fault is income inequality?

2014

All the following speaks for itself.

A lack of education is a key factor in unemployment, and economic status. “Why” individuals drop out of school is a major issue. I’m no expert, but I suspect, the dysfunctional family unit, poor schools and poverty itself are major factors. In other words, it’s a vicious cycle that despite years of trying new programs, we have not stopped. Being born to a single mother has a direct impact on your future.

All this means we are constantly adding to economic disparity by adding more and more Americans to the lower end of the spectrum and making it more difficult for them to break the cycle of poverty.

If you have a gap between two points, you can widen that gap by adding to either end. America keeps adding to lower economic levels because of the facts shown below and because of the influx of low-income immigrants, legal or not.

Why, after all these years of trying, we have not solved for poor schools and dysfunctional families is a question we should ask the progressives of the world. Democrats receive the overwhelming support of teacher unions across the country and run most of our major urban areas. In other words, they have power over the schools.

Democrats receive the support of most minority, low-income groups and should have influence in those communities. Heavens knows they have promised them enough. Single parent births are highest among Hispanic and African-American populations, that’s just a fact, a fact that contributes significantly to their economic status.

What is the solution? Education and training and not just in the formal sense of schooling. Education in values, financial acumen, ethics, decision-making and more would help. How to do that is the big question because you need leaders from the affected communities to take the lead to get into people’s heads, to break the dependency mentality. Government sure has failed so what’s next? More programs to keep more people trapped in poverty or low-income status? Back in 2009 Bill Cosby put the education issue on the table in a speech and was promptly criticized. His speech was labeled a rant by some.

Since the early 1970s, the average inflation-adjusted wage for high-school dropouts has fallen about 25%; for high-school graduates with no college degree, it is down about 15%. Simply put, many of the available jobs don’t pay enough to get men to take them, particularly if securing a job requires moving, long commutes or surrendering government benefits. Wall Street Journal 2-6-14.

Instead of telling people the truth about their situation, politicians blame somebody else. We look at only one end of the two points of the income gap and blame the 1%.

Large Urban-Suburban Gap Seen in Graduation Rates
By SAM DILLON

Published: April 22, 2009

It is no surprise that more students drop out of high school in big cities than elsewhere. Now, however, a nationwide study shows the magnitude of the gap: the average high school graduation rate in the nation’s 50 largest cities was 53 percent, compared with 71 percent in the suburbs.

High School Drop-Out Disparities

But that urban-suburban gap, which in part is due to hundreds of failing city schools that some researchers call dropout factories, was far wider in some areas.

In Cleveland, for instance, where the gap was largest, only 38 percent of high school freshmen graduated within four years, compared with 80 percent in the Cleveland suburbs, the report said. In Baltimore, which has the nation’s second-largest gap, 41 percent of students graduate from city schools, compared with 81 percent in the suburbs.

New York also had a large gap, with 54 percent of freshmen graduating within four years from schools in the city, compared with 83 percent from suburban high schools.

via Large Urban-Suburban Gap Seen in Graduation Rates – NYTimes.com.