The Gap between the Rich and the Poor Should Be Reduced: Argumentative Essay

The Gap between the Rich and the Poor Should Be Reduced: Argumentative Essay

Before I start my essay, I would like to introduce some abbreviations and special proper noun that appears in my essay. The first one is OECD. OECD is the abbreviation of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. It is an intergovernmental economic organization with 36 member countries, promoting economic growth and world trade. The second one is the Gini coefficient, which stands for the inequality level, for example, the level of income. The Gini coefficient of zero is expressed as perfectly equal (e.g., everyone has the same income) and the Gini coefficient of 100 percent is expressed as a maximal inequality (e.g., one person has all the money). The third one is social mobility. The meaning is just as the name implies – the movement of people within the social stratification or, in other words, the social hierarchy.

Imagine you are one of the 800 million people who went to bed starving each and every night. At this very moment, countless people are forced to bear the pain of poverty and starvation, through no fault of their own, while millions of individuals in developed countries binge on excessive amounts of food. These same insatiable people waste enormous amounts of money and resources to maintain their exorbitant and disgustingly luxurious lifestyles. When five cents may seem absolutely insignificant, in certain parts of Africa it can actually feed a family of four for over a week; for us, five cents is nothing, for them, it is a matter of life and death. So, how would you feel if you were one of the 168 million children aged between 5 to 17 who has to work so that they can have money to survive and they cannot attend school because of that? In situations like that, the government must take into account reducing the gap to an advisable level to balance society.

To begin with, the wealth gap undermines the equality of opportunities. Picture in your mind you are parenting your child. What would you do when you are parenting your child? You would leave the children and let them explore the world themselves? What I mean explore is letting it grow freely as a great childhood. Or instead, you would spend the money to send your child to a study group or learn music or performing arts? So, here is the point: different opportunities. This sort of enrichment for the kids is designed to ensure the best possible start in life. It is kind of like starting a life-racing competition in which every parent wants a good start by providing financial support potential, and it seems like the rich people are winning.

One sign of this is richer families can give more financial support than the poor in the next generation, which can lead to an unequal status in opportunities. Different opportunities may affect them differently in their outcomes in their adult life. According to researchers Sabino Kornrich and Frank Furstenberg, they found a rising income inequality between the 1970s and 2007 in the U.S. They found that the poorest 10 percent of Americans spent on their child increased 23 percent, whereas the richest 10 percent of families spent on their child has increased about 132 percent during that period. So, what is the impact? According to Sean F. Reardon from Stanford University, he said that in the achievement gap between children from high- and low-income families is around 40 percent larger among children born in 2001 than in the early 1970s.

Here is another piece of information that shows the relationship between a child’s family income and the child’s income in the future. It has been established that the children’s income level is affected by the parents’ income level. If their parents have a low income, their children are also more likely to have a low income, and if their parents have a high income, their children are more likely to have a high income as well. It shows that children born into low-income families are more likely to stay poor, and children who were born into well-off families are more likely to stay well-off.

To conclude those data, the income level of the parents is increasingly and strongly linked with the achievement of their children, which leads to how well they will do in their life, and as Nicholas Lehman wrote last year, “Opportunity is increasingly tied to education, and educational performance is tied to income and wealth”. So, the government should reduce the wealth gap between rich and poor to give equal opportunities to the next generation and to make society fairer, equitable opportunities, and unbiased.

Secondly, inequality is bad for economic growth. Recent OECD researchers point out that the average increase in inequality of 3 points of Gini points is estimated to have cut GDP by 8.5 percent recorded in the last few decades, which in other words means it would decrease about 0.35 percent for economic growth per year by 25 years.

One of the main