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Welcome to Our Generation USA!

Social Equality
addresses the successes and failures of achieving complete Equality between Americans, regardless of politics, race, gender or creed, age, economic circumstances, religion, disabilities, and including all minorities

See also:
Humanitarians
Feminism
Great Americans
Culture​
Law & Order
Politics
​Worst of Humanity
​​

Social Equality vs. Social Inequality including a List of Countries by Income Equality and by Distribution of Wealth

Social equality is a state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in certain respects, including civil rights, freedom of speech, property rights and equal access to certain social goods and social services.

However, it also includes concepts of health equality, economic equality and other social securities. It also includes equal opportunities and obligations, and so involves the whole of society.

Social equality requires the absence of legally enforced social class or caste boundaries and the absence of discrimination motivated by an inalienable part of a person's identity. For example, sex, gender, race, age, sexual orientation, origin, caste or class, income or property, language, religion, convictions, opinions, health or disability must absolutely not result in unequal treatment under the law and should not reduce opportunities unjustifiably.

Equal opportunities is interpreted as being judged by ability, which is compatible with a free-market economy. Relevant problems are horizontal inequality − the inequality of two persons of same origin and ability and differing opportunities given to individuals − such as in (education) or by inherited capital.

Concepts of social equality may vary per philosophy and individual and other than egalitarianism it does not necessarily require all social inequalities to be eliminated by artificial means but instead often recognizes and respects natural differences between people.


The standard of equality that states everyone is created equal at birth is called ontological equality. This type of equality can be seen in many different places like the Declaration of Independence.

This early document, which states many of the values of the United States of America, has this idea of equality embedded in it. It clearly states that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". The statement reflects the philosophy of John Locke and his idea that we are all equal in certain natural rights.

Although this standard of equality is seen in documents as important as the Declaration of Independence, it is "one not often invoked in policy debates these days". However this notion of equality is often used to justify inequalities such as material inequality.

Dalton Conley claims that ontological equality is used to justify material inequality by putting a spotlight on the fact, legitimated by theology, that "the distribution of power and resources here on earth does not matter, because all of us are equally children of God and will have to face our maker upon dying". 

Dalton Conley, the author of You May Ask Yourself, claims that ontological equality can also be used to put forth the notion that poverty is virtue. Luciano Floridi, author of a book about information, wrote about what he calls the ontological equality principle. His work on information ethics raises the importance of equality when presenting information. Here is a short sample of his work:

Information ethics is impartial and universal because it brings to ultimate completion the process of enlargement of the concept of what may count as a center of a (no matter how minimal) moral claim, which now includes every instance of being understood informationally, no matter whether physically implemented or not.

In this respect information ethics holds that every entity as an expression of being, has a dignity constituted by its mode of existence and essence (the collection of all the elementary properties that constitute it for what it is), which deserve to be respected (at least in a minimal and overridable sense), and hence place moral claims on the interacting agent and ought to contribute to the constraint and guidance of his ethical decisions and behavior.

Floridi goes onto claim that this "ontological equality principle means that any form of reality (any instance of information/being), simply for the fact of being what it is, enjoys a minimal, initial, over-ridable, equal right to exist and develop in a way which is appropriate to its nature." Values in his claims correlate to those shown in the sociological textbook You May Ask Yourself by Dalton Conley.

The notion of "ontological equality" describes equality by saying everything is equal by nature. Everyone is created equal at birth. Everything has equal right to exist and develop by its nature.

Opportunity:
Main article: Equality of opportunity

Another standard of equality is equality of opportunity, "the idea that everyone has an equal chance to achieve wealth, social prestige, and power because the rules of the game, so to speak, are the same for everyone". This concept can be applied to society by saying that no one has a head start.

This means that, for any social equality issue dealing with wealth, social prestige, power, or any of that sort, the equality of opportunity standard can defend the idea that everyone had the same start.

This views society almost as a game and any of the differences in equality are due to luck and playing the "game" to one's best ability. Conley gives an example of this standard of equality by using a game of Monopoly to describe society.

He claims that "Monopoly follows the rules of equality of opportunity" by explaining that everyone had an equal chance when starting the game and any differences were a result of the luck of the dice roll and the skill of the player to make choices to benefit their wealth.

Comparing this example to society, the standard of equality of opportunity eliminates inequality because the rules of the games in society are still fair and the same for all; therefore making any existing inequalities in society fair.

Lesley A. Jacobs, the author of Pursuing Equal Opportunities: The Theory and Practice of Egalitarian Justice, talks about equality of opportunity and its importance relating to egalitarian justice.

Jacobs states that at the core of equality of opportunity... is the concept that in competitive procedures designed for the allocation of scarce resources and the distribution of the benefits and burdens of social life, those procedures should be governed by criteria that are relevant to the particular goods at stake in the competition and not by irrelevant considerations such as race, religion, class, gender, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or other factors that may hinder some of the competitors’ opportunities at success. (Jacobs, 10).This concept points out factors like race, gender, class etc. that should not be considered when talking about equality through this notion.

Conley also mentions that this standard of equality is at the heart of a bourgeois society, such as a modern capitalist society, or "a society of commerce in which the maximization of profit is the primary business incentive". It was the equal opportunity ideology that civil rights activists adopted in the era of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. This ideology was used by them to argue that Jim Crow laws were incompatible with the standard of equality of opportunity.

Condition:
Main article: Leveling mechanism

Another notion of equality introduced by Conley is equality of condition. Through this framework is the idea that everyone should have an equal starting point. Conley goes back to his example of a game of Monopoly to explain this standard. If the game of four started off with two players both having an advantage of $5,000 dollars to start off with and both already owning hotels and other property while the other two players both did not own any property and both started off with a $5,000 dollar deficit, then from a perspective of the standard of equality of condition, one can argue that the rules of the game "need to be altered in order to compensate for inequalities in the relative starting positions".

From this we form policies in order to even equality which in result bring an efficient way to create fairer competition in society. Here is where social engineering comes into play where we change society in order to give an equality of condition to everyone based on race, gender, class, religion etc. when it is made justifiable that the proponents of the society makes it unfair for them.

Sharon E. Kahn, author of Academic Freedom and the Inclusive University, talks about equality of condition in their work as well and how it correlates to freedom of individuals.

They claim that in order to have individual freedom there needs to be equality of condition "which requires much more than the elimination of legal barriers: it requires the creation of a level playing field that eliminates structural barriers to opportunity". 

Kahn's work talks about the academic structure and its problem with equalities and claims that to "ensure equity...we need to recognize that the university structure and its organizational culture have traditionally privileged some and marginalized other; we need to go beyond theoretical concepts of equality by eliminating systemic barriers that hinder the equal participation of members of all groups; we need to create and equality of condition, not merely an equality of opportunity".

"Notions of equity, diversity, and inclusiveness begin with a set of premises about individualism, freedom and rights that take as given the existence of deeply rooted inequalities in social structure," therefore in order to have a culture of the inclusive university, it would have to "be based on values of equity; that is, equality of condition" eliminating all systemic barriers that go against equality.

Outcome:
Main article: Equality of outcome

A fourth standard of equality is equality of outcome, which is "a position that argues each player must end up with the same amount regardless of the fairness". This ideology is predominately a Marxist philosophy that is concerned with equal distribution of power and resources rather than the rules of society. In this standard of equality, the idea is that "everyone contributes to society and to the economy according to what they do best".

Under this notion of equality, Conley states that "nobody will earn more power, prestige, and wealth by working harder".

When defining equality of outcome in education, "the goals should not be the liberal one of equality of access but equality of outcome for the median number of each identifiable non-educationally defined group, i.e. the average women, negro, or proletarian or rural dweller should have the same level of educational attainment as the average male, white, suburbanite".

The outcome and the benefits from equality from education from this notion of equality promotes that all should have the same outcomes and benefits regardless of race, gender, religion etc. The equality of outcome in Hewitt's point of view is supposed to result in "a comparable range of achievements between a specific disadvantaged group – such as an ethnic minority, women, lone parents and the disabled – and society as a whole".
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​Social inequality occurs when resources in a given society are distributed unevenly, typically through norms of allocation, that engender specific patterns along lines of socially defined categories of persons.

It is the differentiation preference of access of social goods in the society brought about by power, religion, kinship, prestige, race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, and class.

The social rights include labor market, the source of income, health care, and freedom of speech, education, political representation, and participation. Social inequality linked to economic inequality, usually described on the basis of the unequal distribution of income or wealth, is a frequently studied type of social inequality.

Although the disciplines of economics and sociology generally use different theoretical approaches to examine and explain economic inequality, both fields are actively involved in researching this inequality. However, social and natural resources other than purely economic resources are also unevenly distributed in most societies and may contribute to social status.

Norms of allocation can also affect the distribution of rights and privileges, social power, access to public goods such as education or the judicial system, adequate housing, transportation, credit and financial services such as banking and other social goods and services.

Many societies worldwide claim to be meritocracies—that is, that their societies exclusively distribute resources on the basis of merit. The term "meritocracy" was coined by Michael Young in his 1958 dystopian essay "The Rise of the Meritocracy" to demonstrate the social dysfunctions that he anticipated arising in societies where the elites believe that they are successful entirely on the basis of merit, so the adoption of this term into English without negative connotations is ironic.

Young was concerned that the Tripartite System of education being practiced in the United Kingdom at the time he wrote the essay considered merit to be "intelligence-plus-effort, its possessors ... identified at an early age and selected for appropriate intensive education" and that the "obsession with quantification, test-scoring, and qualifications" it supported would create an educated middle-class elite at the expense of the education of the working class, inevitably resulting in injustice and – eventually – revolution. A modern representation of the sort of "meritocracy" Young feared may be seen in the series 3%.

Although merit matters to some degree in many societies, research shows that the distribution of resources in societies often follows hierarchical social categorizations of persons to a degree too significant to warrant calling these societies "meritocratic", since even exceptional intelligence, talent, or other forms of merit may not be compensatory for the social disadvantages people face.

In many cases, social inequality is linked to racial inequality, ethnic inequality, and gender inequality, as well as other social statuses and these forms can be related to corruption.

The most common metric for comparing social inequality in different nations is the Gini coefficient, which measures the concentration of wealth and income in a nation from 0 (evenly distributed wealth and income) to 1 (one person has all wealth and income). Two nations may have identical Gini coefficients but dramatically different economic (output) and/or quality of life, so the Gini coefficient must be contextualized for meaningful comparisons to be made.

Overview:

Social inequality is found in almost every society. Social inequality is shaped by a range of structural factors, such as geographical location or citizenship status, and are often underpinned by cultural discourses and identities defining, for example, whether the poor are 'deserving' or 'undeserving'.

In simple societies, those that have few social roles and statuses occupied by its members, social inequality may be very low. In tribal societies, for example, a tribal head or chieftain may hold some privileges, use some tools, or wear marks of office to which others do not have access, but the daily life of the chieftain is very much like the daily life of any other tribal member. 

Anthropologists identify such highly egalitarian cultures as "kinship-oriented", which appear to value social harmony more than wealth or status. These cultures are contrasted with materially oriented cultures in which status and wealth are prized and competition and conflict are common. Kinship-oriented cultures may actively work to prevent social hierarchies from developing because they believe that could lead to conflict and instability.

In today's world, most of our population lives in more complex than simple societies. As social complexity increases, inequality tends to increase along with a widening gap between the poorest and the most wealthy members of society.

Social inequality can be classified into egalitarian societies, ranked society, and stratified society.

Egalitarian societies are those communities advocating for social equality through equal opportunities and rights, hence no discrimination. People with special skills were not viewed as superior compared to the rest. The leaders do not have the power they only have influence.

The norms and the beliefs the egalitarian society holds are for sharing equally and equal participation. Simply there are no classes. Ranked society mostly is agricultural communities who hierarchically grouped from the chief who is viewed to have a status in the society. In this society, people are clustered regarding status and prestige and not by access to power and resources.

The chief is the most influential person followed by his family and relative, and those further related to him are less ranked. Stratified society is societies which horizontally ranked into the upper class, middle class, and lower class. The classification is regarding wealth, power, and prestige.

The upper class are mostly the leaders and are the most influential in the society. It's possible for a person in the society to move from one stratum to the other. The social status is also hereditable from one generation to the next.

There are five systems or types of social inequality:
  1. wealth inequality,
  2. treatment and responsibility inequality,
  3. political inequality,
  4. life inequality,
  5. and membership inequality.

Political inequality is the difference brought about by the ability to access governmental resources which therefore have no civic equality. In treatment and responsibility differences, some people benefit more and can quickly receive more privileges than others.

In working stations, some are given more responsibilities and hence better compensation and more benefits than the rest even when equally qualified. Membership inequality is the number of members in a family, nation or faith. Life inequality is brought about by the disparity of opportunities which, if present, improve a person’s life quality.

Finally, income and wealth inequality is the disparity due to what an individual can earn on a daily basis contributing to their total revenue either monthly or yearly.

The major examples of social inequality include income gap, gender inequality, health care, and social class. In health care, some individuals receive better and more professional care compared to others. They are also expected to pay more for these services. Social class differential comes evident during the public gathering where upper-class people given the best places to seat, the hospitality they receive and the first priorities they receive.

Status in society is of two types which are ascribed characteristics and achieved characteristics. Ascribed characteristics are those present at birth or assigned by others and over which an individual has little or no control. Examples include sex, skin colour, eye shape, place of birth, sexuality, gender identity, parentage and social status of parents.

Achieved characteristics are those which we earn or choose; examples include level of education, marital status, leadership status and other measures of merit. In most societies, an individual's social status is a combination of ascribed and achieved factors.

In some societies, however, only ascribed statuses are considered in determining one's social status and there exists little to no social mobility and, therefore, few paths to more social equality. This type of social inequality is generally referred to as caste inequality.

One's social location in a society's overall structure of social stratification affects and is affected by almost every aspect of social life and one's life chances. The single best predictor of an individual's future social status is the social status into which they were born.

Theoretical approaches to explaining social inequality concentrate on questions about how such social differentiations arise, what types of resources are being allocated (for example, reserves versus resources), what are the roles of human cooperation and conflict in allocating resources, and how do these differing types and forms of inequality affect the overall functioning of a society?

The variables considered most important in explaining inequality and the manner in which those variables combine to produce the inequities and their social consequences in a given society can change across time and place.

In addition to interest in comparing and contrasting social inequality at local and national levels, in the wake of today's globalizing processes, the most interesting question becomes: what does inequality look like on a worldwide scale and what does such global inequality bode for the future? In effect, globalization reduces the distances of time and space, producing a global interaction of cultures and societies and social roles that can increase global inequities.

Inequality and ideology:

Philosophical questions about social ethics and the desirability or inevitability of inequality in human societies have given rise to a spate of ideologies to address such questions. We can broadly classify these ideologies on the basis of whether they justify or legitimize inequality, casting it as desirable or inevitable, or whether they cast equality as desirable and inequality as a feature of society to be reduced or eliminated.

One end of this ideological continuum can be called "Individualist", the other "Collectivist". 

In Western societies, there is a long history associated with the idea of individual ownership of property and economic liberalism, the ideological belief in organizing the economy on individualist lines such that the greatest possible number of economic decisions are made by individuals and not by collective institutions or organizations.

​Laissez-faire, free market ideologies—including classical liberalism, neoliberalism, and libertarianism—are formed around the idea that social inequality is a "natural" feature of societies, is therefore inevitable and, in some philosophies, even desirable.

Inequality provides for differing goods and services to be offered on the open market, spurs ambition, and provides incentive for industriousness and innovation. At the other end of the continuum, collectivists place little to no trust in "free market" economic systems, noting widespread lack of access among specific groups or classes of individuals to the costs of entry to the market.

Widespread inequalities often lead to conflict and dissatisfaction with the current social order. Such ideologies include Fabianism and socialism. Inequality, in these ideologies, must be reduced, eliminated, or kept under tight control through collective regulation.

Furthermore, in some views inequality is natural but shouldn't affect certain fundamental human needs, human rights and the initial chances given to individuals (e.g. by education) and is out of proportions due to various problematic systemic structures.

Though the above discussion is limited to specific Western ideologies, similar thinking can be found, historically, in differing societies throughout the world. While, in general, eastern societies tend toward collectivism, elements of individualism and free market organization can be found in certain regions and historical eras.

Classic Chinese society in the Han and Tang dynasties, for example, while highly organized into tight hierarchies of horizontal inequality with a distinct power elite also had many elements of free trade among its various regions and subcultures.

Social mobility is the movement along social strata or hierarchies by individuals, ethnic group, or nations. There is a change in literacy, income distribution, education and health status. The movement can be vertical or horizontal.
  • Vertical is the upward or downward movement along social strata which occurs due to change of jobs or marriage.
  • Horizontal movement along levels that are equally ranked. Intra-generational mobility is a social status change in a generation (single lifetime).

For example, a person moves from a junior staff in an organization to the senior management. The absolute management movement is where a person gains better social status than their parents, and this can be due to improved security, economic development, and better education system. Relative mobility is where some individual are expected to have higher social ranks than their parents.

Today, there is belief held by some that social inequality often creates political conflict and growing consensus that political structures determine the solution for such conflicts. Under this line of thinking, adequately designed social and political institutions are seen as ensuring the smooth functioning of economic markets such that there is political stability, which improves the long-term outlook, enhances labor and capital productivity and so stimulates economic growth.

With higher economic growth, net gains are positive across all levels and political reforms are easier to sustain. This may explain why, over time, in more egalitarian societies fiscal performance is better, stimulating greater accumulation of capital and higher growth.

Inequality and social class:
Main article: Social class
​
​Socioeconomic status (SES) is a combined total measure of a person's work experience and of an individual's or family's economic and social position in relation to others, based on income, education, and occupation. It is often used as synonymous with social class, a set of hierarchical social categories that indicate an individual's or household's relative position in a stratified matrix of social relationships.

Social class is delineated by a number of variables, some of which change across time and place. For Karl Marx, there exist two major social classes with significant inequality between the two. The two are delineated by their relationship to the means of production in a given society. Those two classes are defined as the owners of the means of production and those who sell their labor to the owners of the means of production.

In capitalistic societies, the two classifications represent the opposing social interests of its members, capital gain for the capitalists and good wages for the laborers, creating social conflict.

Max Weber uses social classes to examine wealth and status. For him, social class is strongly associated with prestige and privileges. It may explain social reproduction, the tendency of social classes to remain stable across generations maintaining most of their inequalities as well.

Such inequalities include differences in income, wealth, access to education, pension levels, social status, socioeconomic safety-net. In general, social class can be defined as a large category of similarly ranked people located in a hierarchy and distinguished from other large categories in the hierarchy by such traits as occupation, education, income, and wealth.

In modern Western societies, inequalities are often broadly classified into three major divisions of social class: upper class, middle class, and lower class. Each of these classes can be further subdivided into smaller classes (e.g. "upper middle"). Members of different classes have varied access to financial resources, which affects their placement in the social stratification system.

Class, race, and gender are forms of stratification that bring inequality and determines the difference in allocation of societal rewards. Occupation is the primary determinant of a person class since it affects their lifestyle, opportunities, culture, and kind of people one associates with. Class based families include the lower class who are the poor in the society. They have limited opportunities.

Working class are those people in blue-collar jobs and usually, affects the economic level of a nation. The Middle classes are those who rely mostly on wives' employment and depends on credits from the bank and medical coverage. The upper middle class are professionals who are strong because of economic resources and supportive institutions. Additionally, the upper class usually are the wealthy families who have economic power due to accumulative wealth from families but not and not hard earned income.

Social stratification is the hierarchical arrangement of society about social class, wealth, political influence. A society can be politically stratified based on authority and power, economically stratified based on income level and wealth, occupational stratification about one's occupation. Some roles for examples doctors, engineers, lawyers are highly ranked, and thus they give orders while the rest receive the orders.

There are three systems of social stratification which are the caste system, estates system, and class system. Castes system usually ascribed to children during birth whereby one receives the same stratification as of that of their parents. The caste system has been linked to religion and thus permanent. The stratification may be superior or inferior and thus influences the occupation and the social roles assigned to a person.

Estate system is a state or society where people in this state were required to work on their land to receive some services like military protection. Communities ranked according to the nobility of their lords. The class system is about income inequality and socio-political status.

People can move the classes when they increase their level of income or if they have authority. People are expected to maximize their innate abilities and possessions. Social stratification characteristics include its universal, social, ancient, it’s in diverse forms and also consequential.

The quantitative variables most often used as an indicator of social inequality are income and wealth. In a given society, the distribution of individual or household accumulation of wealth tells us more about variation in well-being than does income, alone. Gross Domestic Product (GDP), especially per capita GDP, is sometimes used to describe economic inequality at the international or global level.

A better measure at that level, however, is the Gini coefficient, a measure of statistical dispersion used to represent the distribution of a specific quantity, such as income or wealth, at a global level, among a nation's residents, or even within a metropolitan area. Other widely used measures of economic inequality are the percentage of people living with under US$1.25 or $2 a day and the share of national income held by the wealthiest 10% of the population, sometimes called "the Palma" measure.

​Patterns of inequality:

There are a number of socially defined characteristics of individuals that contribute to social status and, therefore, equality or inequality within a society. When researchers use quantitative variables such as income or wealth to measure inequality, on an examination of the data, patterns are found that indicate these other social variables contribute to income or wealth as intervening variables.

Significant inequalities in income and wealth are found when specific socially defined categories of people are compared. Among the most pervasive of these variables are sex/gender, race, and ethnicity. This is not to say, in societies wherein merit is considered to be the primary factor determining one's place or rank in the social order, that merit has no effect on variations in income or wealth.

It is to say that these other socially defined characteristics can, and often do, intervene in the valuation of merit.

Gender inequality:

Gender as a social inequality is whereby women and men are treated differently due to masculinity and femininity by dividing labor, assigning roles, and responsibilities and allocating social rewards. Sex- and gender-based prejudice and discrimination, called sexism, are major contributing factors to social inequality.

Most societies, even agricultural ones, have some sexual division of labor and gender-based division of labor tends to increase during industrialization. The emphasis on gender inequality is born out of the deepening division in the roles assigned to men and women, particularly in the economic, political and educational spheres. Women are underrepresented in political activities and decision making processes in most states in both the Global North and Global South.

Gender discrimination, especially concerning the lower social status of women, has been a topic of serious discussion not only within academic and activist communities but also by governmental agencies and international bodies such as the United Nations.

These discussions seek to identify and remedy widespread, institutionalized barriers to access for women in their societies. By making use of gender analysis, researchers try to understand the social expectations, responsibilities, resources and priorities of women and men within a specific context, examining the social, economic and environmental factors which influence their roles and decision-making capacity.

By enforcing artificial separations between the social and economic roles of men and women, the lives of women and girls are negatively impacted and this can have the effect of limiting social and economic development.

Cultural ideals about women's work can also affect men whose outward gender expression is considered "feminine" within a given society. Transgender and gender-variant persons may express their gender through their appearance, the statements they make, or official documents they present.

In this context, gender normality, which is understood as the social expectations placed on us when we present particular bodies, produces widespread cultural/institutional devaluations of trans identities, homosexuality and femininity. Trans persons, in particular, have been defined as socially unproductive and disruptive.

A variety of global issues like HIV/AIDS, illiteracy, and poverty are often seen as "women's issues" since women are disproportionately affected. In many countries, women and girls face problems such as lack of access to education, which limit their opportunities to succeed, and further limits their ability to contribute economically to their society.

Women are underrepresented in political activities and decision making processes throughout most of the world. As of 2007, around 20 percent of women were below the $1.25/day international poverty line and 40 percent below the $2/day mark. More than one-quarter of females under the age of 25 were below the $1.25/day international poverty line and about half on less than $2/day.

Women's participation in work has been increasing globally, but women are still faced with wage discrepancies and differences compared to what men earn. This is true globally even in the agricultural and rural sector in developed as well as developing countries.

Structural impediments to women's ability to pursue and advance in their chosen professions often result in a phenomenon known as the glass ceiling, which refers to unseen – and often unacknowledged barriers that prevent minorities and women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements.

This effect can be seen in the corporate and bureaucratic environments of many countries, lowering the chances of women to excel. It prevents women from succeeding and making the maximum use of their potential, which is at a cost for women as well as the society's development. Ensuring that women's rights are protected and endorsed can promote a sense of belonging that motivates women to contribute to their society. Once able to work, women should be titled to the same job security and safe working environments as men.

Until such safeguards are in place, women and girls will continue to experience not only barriers to work and opportunities to earn, but will continue to be the primary victims of discrimination, oppression, and gender-based violence.

Women and persons whose gender identity does not conform to patriarchal beliefs about sex (only male and female) continue to face violence on global domestic, interpersonal, institutional and administrative scales.

While first-wave Liberal Feminist initiatives raised awareness about the lack of fundamental rights and freedoms that women have access to, second-wave feminism (see also Radical Feminism) highlighted the structural forces that underlie gender-based violence. Masculinities are generally constructed so as to subordinate femininities and other expressions of gender that are not heterosexual, assertive and dominant.

Gender sociologist and author, Raewyn Connell, discusses in her 2009 book, Gender, how masculinity is dangerous, heterosexual, violent and authoritative. These structures of masculinity ultimately contribute to the vast amounts of gendered violence, marginalization and suppression that women, queer, transgender, gender variant and gender non-conforming persons face.

Some scholars suggest that women's under-representation in political systems speaks the idea that "formal citizenship does not always imply full social membership". Men, male bodies and expressions of masculinity are linked to ideas about work and citizenship. Others point out that patriarchal states tend top scale and claw back their social policies relative to the disadvantage of women. This process ensures that women encounter resistance into meaningful positions of power in institutions, administrations, and political systems and communities.

Racial and ethnic inequality:

Racial or ethnic inequality is the result of hierarchical social distinctions between racial and ethnic categories within a society and often established based on characteristics such as skin color and other physical characteristics or an individual's place of origin or culture. Racism is whereby some races are more privileged and are allowed to venture into the labor market and are better compensated than others.

Ethnicity is the privilege one enjoys for belonging to a particular ethnic group. Even though race has no biological connection, it has become a socially constructed category capable of restricting or enabling social status.

Racial inequality can also result in diminished opportunities for members of marginalized groups, which in turn can lead to cycles of poverty and political marginalization. Racial and ethnic categories become a minority category in a society.

Minority members in such a society are often subjected to discriminatory actions resulting from majority policies, including assimilation, exclusion, oppression, expulsion, and extermination. 

For example, during the run-up to the 2012 federal elections in the United States, legislation in certain "battleground states" that claimed to target voter fraud had the effect of disenfranchising tens of thousands of primarily African American voters.

These types of institutional barriers to full and equal social participation have far-reaching effects within marginalized communities, including reduced economic opportunity and output, reduced educational outcomes and opportunities and reduced levels of overall health.

In the United States, Angela Davis argues that mass incarceration has been a modern tool of the state to impose inequality, repression, and discrimination upon African American and Hispanics. The War on Drugs has been a campaign with disparate effects, ensuring the constant incarceration of poor, vulnerable, and marginalized populations in North America.

Over a million African Americans are incarcerated in the US, many of whom have been convicted of a non-violent drug possession charge. 

With the States of Colorado and Washington having legalized the possession of marijuana, drug reformists and anti-war on drugs lobbyists are hopeful that drug issues will be interpreted and dealt with from a healthcare perspective instead of a matter of criminal law.

In Canada, Aboriginal, First Nations, and Indigenous persons represent over a quarter of the federal prison population, even though they only represent 3% of the country's population.

Age inequality:

Age discrimination is defined as the unfair treatment of people with regard to promotions, recruitment, resources, or privileges because of their age. It is also known as ageism: the stereotyping of and discrimination against individuals or groups based upon their age. It is a set of beliefs, attitudes, norms, and values used to justify age-based prejudice, discrimination, and subordination.

One form of ageism is adultism, which is the discrimination against children and people under the legal adult age. An example of an act of adultism might be the policy of a certain establishment, restaurant, or place of business to not allow those under the legal adult age to enter their premises after a certain time or at all.

While some people may benefit or enjoy these practices, some find them offensive and discriminatory. Discrimination against those under the age of 40 however is not illegal under the current U.S. Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA).

As implied in the definitions above, treating people differently based upon their age is not necessarily discrimination. Virtually every society has age-stratification, meaning that the age structure in a society changes as people begin to live longer and the population becomes older.

In most cultures, there are different social role expectations for people of different ages to perform. Every society manages people's ageing by allocating certain roles for different age groups. Age discrimination primarily occurs when age is used as an unfair criterion for allocating more or less resources.

Scholars of age inequality have suggested that certain social organizations favor particular age inequalities. For instance, because of their emphasis on training and maintaining productive citizens, modern capitalist societies may dedicate disproportionate resources to training the young and maintaining the middle-aged worker to the detriment of the elderly and the retired (especially those already disadvantaged by income/wealth inequality).

In modern, technologically advanced societies, there is a tendency for both the young and the old to be relatively disadvantaged. However, more recently, in the United States the tendency is for the young to be most disadvantaged. For example, poverty levels in the U.S. have been decreasing among people aged 65 and older since the early 1970s whereas the number of children under 18 in poverty has steadily risen.

Sometimes, the elderly have had the opportunity to build their wealth throughout their lives, while younger people have the disadvantage of recently entering into or having not yet entered into the economic sphere. The larger contributor to this, however, is the increase in the number of people over 65 receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits in the U.S.

When we compare income distribution among youth across the globe, we find that about half (48.5 percent) of the world's young people are confined to the bottom two income brackets as of 2007. This means that, out of the three billion persons under the age of 24 in the world as of 2007, approximately 1.5 billion were living in situations in which they and their families had access to just nine percent of global income.

Moving up the income distribution ladder, children and youth do not fare much better: more than two-thirds of the world's youth have access to less than 20 percent of global wealth, with 86 percent of all young people living on about one-third of world income. For the just over 400 million youth who are fortunate enough to rank among families or situations at the top of the income distribution, however, opportunities improve greatly with more than 60 percent of global income within their reach.

Although this does not exhaust the scope of age discrimination, in modern societies it is often discussed primarily with regards to the work environment. Indeed, non-participation in the labour force and the unequal access to rewarding jobs means that the elderly and the young are often subject to unfair disadvantages because of their age. On the one hand, the elderly are less likely to be involved in the workforce.

At the same time, old age may or may not put one at a disadvantage in accessing positions of prestige. Old age may benefit one in such positions, but it may also disadvantage one because of negative ageist stereotyping of old people. On the other hand, young people are often disadvantaged from accessing prestigious or relatively rewarding jobs, because of their recent entry to the work force or because they are still completing their education.

Typically, once they enter the labor force or take a part-time job while in school, they start at entry level positions with low level wages. Furthermore, because of their lack of prior work experience, they can also often be forced to take marginal jobs, where they can be taken advantage of by their employers. As a result, many older people have to face obstacles in their lives.

Inequalities in health:
Further information: 
Health inequalities can be defined as differences in health status or in the distribution of health determinants between different population groups.

Health care:

Health inequalities are in many cases related to access to health care. In industrialized nations, health inequalities are most prevalent in countries that have not implemented a universal health care system, such as the United States.

Because the US health care system is heavily privatized, access to health care is dependent upon one's economic capital; Health care is not a right, it is a commodity that can be purchased through private insurance companies (or that is sometimes provided through an employer).

The way health care is organized in the U.S. contributes to health inequalities based on gender, socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity. As Wright and Perry assert, "social status differences in health care are a primary mechanism of health inequalities".

In the United States, over 48 million people are without medical care coverage. This means that almost one sixth of the population is without health insurance, mostly people belonging to the lower classes of society.

While universal access to health care may not completely eliminate health inequalities, it has been shown that it greatly reduces them. In this context, privatization gives individuals the 'power' to purchase their own health care (through private health insurance companies), but this leads to social inequality by only allowing people who have economic resources to access health care.

Citizens are seen as consumers who have a 'choice' to buy the best health care they can afford; in alignment with neoliberal ideology, this puts the burden on the individual rather than the government or the community.

In countries that have a universal health care system, health inequalities have been reduced. In Canada, for example, equity in the availability of health services has been improved dramatically through Medicare. People don't have to worry about how they will pay health care, or rely on emergency rooms for care, since health care is provided for the entire population.

However, inequality issues still remain. For example, not everyone has the same level of access to services. Inequalities in health are not, however, only related to access to health care. Even if everyone had the same level of access, inequalities may still remain.

This is because health status is a product of more than just how much medical care people have available to them. While Medicare has equalized access to health care by removing the need for direct payments at the time of services, which improved the health of low status people, inequities in health are still prevalent in Canada. This may be due to the state of the current social system, which bear other types of inequalities such as economic, racial and gender inequality.

A lack of health equity is also evident in the developing world, where the importance of equitable access to healthcare has been cited as crucial to achieving many of the Millennium Development Goals. Health inequalities can vary greatly depending on the country one is looking at. Health equity is needed in order to live a healthier and more sufficient life within society.

Inequalities in health lead to substantial effects, that is burdensome or the entire society. Inequalities in health are often associated with socioeconomic status and access to health care. Health inequities can occur when the distribution of public health services is unequal.

For example, in Indonesia in 1990, only 12% of government spending for health was for services consumed by the poorest 20% of households, while the wealthiest 20% consumed 29% of the government subsidy in the health sector.

Access to health care is heavily influenced by socioeconomic status as well, as wealthier population groups have a higher probability of obtaining care when they need it. A study by Makinen et al. (2000) found that in the majority of developing countries they looked at, there was an upward trend by quantile in health care use for those reporting illness.

Wealthier groups are also more likely to be seen by doctors and to receive medicine.

Food:

There has been considerable research in recent years regarding a phenomenon known as food deserts, in which low access to fresh, healthy food in a neighborhood leads to poor consumer choices and options regarding diet.

It is widely thought that food deserts are significant contributors to the childhood obesity epidemic in the United States and many other countries.  This may have significant impacts on the local level as well as in broader contexts, such as in Greece, where the childhood obesity rate has skyrocketed in recent years heavily as a result of the rampant poverty and the resultant lack of access to fresh foods.

Global inequality:
See also: International inequality

​The economies of the world have developed unevenly, historically, such that entire geographical regions were left mired in poverty and disease while others began to reduce poverty and disease on a wholesale basis.

This was represented by a type of North–South divide that existed after World War II between First world, more developed, industrialized, wealthy countries and Third world countries, primarily as measured by GDP.

From around 1980, however, through at least 2011, the GDP gap, while still wide, appeared to be closing and, in some more rapidly developing countries, life expectancies began to rise. However, there are numerous limitations of GDP as an economic indicator of social "well-being."

If we look at the Gini coefficient for world income, over time, after World War II the global Gini coefficient sat at just under .45. From around 1959 to 1966, the global Gini increased sharply, to a peak of around .48 in 1966.

After falling and leveling off a couple of times during a period from around 1967 to 1984, the Gini began to climb again in the mid-eighties until reaching a high or around .54 in 2000 then jumped again to around .70 in 2002.

Since the late 1980s, the gap between some regions has markedly narrowed— between Asia and the advanced economies of the West, for example—but huge gaps remain globally.

Overall equality across humanity, considered as individuals, has improved very little. Within the decade between 2003 and 2013, income inequality grew even in traditionally egalitarian countries like Germany, Sweden and Denmark. With a few exceptions—France, Japan, Spain—the top 10 percent of earners in most advanced economies raced ahead, while the bottom 10 percent fell further behind.

By 2013, a tiny elite of multi-billionaires, 85 to be exact, had amassed wealth equivalent to all the wealth owned by the poorest half (3.5 billion) of the world's total population of 7 billion. Country of citizenship (an ascribed status characteristic) explains 60% of variability in global income; citizenship and parental income class (both ascribed status characteristics) combined explain more than 80% of income variability.

Inequality and economic growth:
​
The concept of economic growth is fundamental in capitalist economies. Productivity must grow as population grows and capital must grow to feed into increased productivity.

Investment of capital leads to returns on investment (ROI) and increased capital accumulation. The hypothesis that economic inequality is a necessary precondition for economic growth has been a mainstay of liberal economic theory.

Recent research, particularly over the first two decades of the 21st century, has called this basic assumption into question. While growing inequality does have a positive correlation with economic growth under specific sets of conditions, inequality in general is not positively correlated with economic growth and, under some conditions, shows a negative correlation with economic growth.

Milanovic (2011) points out that overall, global inequality between countries is more important to growth of the world economy than inequality within countries. While global economic growth may be a policy priority, recent evidence about regional and national inequalities cannot be dismissed when more local economic growth is a policy objective.

The recent financial crisis and global recession hit countries and shook financial systems all over the world. This led to the implementation of large-scale fiscal expansionary interventions and, as a result, to massive public debt issuance in some countries.

Governmental bailouts of the banking system further burdened fiscal balances and raises considerable concern about the fiscal solvency of some countries. Most governments want to keep deficits under control but rolling back the expansionary measures or cutting spending and raising taxes implies an enormous wealth transfer from tax payers to the private financial sector.

Expansionary fiscal policies shift resources and causes worries about growing inequality within countries. Moreover, recent data confirm an ongoing trend of increasing income inequality since the early nineties. Increasing inequality within countries has been accompanied by a redistribution of economic resources between developed economies and emerging markets.

Davtyn, et al. (2014) studied the interaction of these fiscal conditions and changes in fiscal and economic policies with income inequality in the UK, Canada, and the US. They find income inequality has negative effect on economic growth in the case of the UK but a positive effect in the cases of the US and Canada.

​Income inequality generally reduces government net lending/borrowing for all the countries. Economic growth, they find, leads to an increase of income inequality in the case of the UK and to the decline of inequality in the cases of the US and Canada.

At the same time, economic growth improves government net lending/borrowing in all the countries. Government spending leads to the decline in inequality in the UK but to its increase in the US and Canada.

Following the results of Alesina and Rodrick (1994), Bourguignon (2004), and Birdsall (2005) show that developing countries with high inequality tend to grow more slowly, Ortiz and Cummings (2011) show that developing countries with high inequality tend to grow more slowly. For 131 countries for which they could estimate the change in Gini index values between 1990 and 2008, they find that those countries that increased levels of inequality experienced slower annual per capita GDP growth over the same time period.

Noting a lack of data for national wealth, they build an index using Forbes list of billionaires by country normalized by GDP and validated through correlation with a Gini coefficient for wealth and the share of wealth going to the top decile.

They find that many countries generating low rates of economic growth are also characterized by a high level of wealth inequality with wealth concentration among a class of entrenched elites.

They conclude that extreme inequality in the distribution of wealth globally, regionally and nationally, coupled with the negative effects of higher levels of income disparities, should make us question current economic development approaches and examine the need to place equity at the center of the development agenda.

Ostry, et al. (2014) reject the hypothesis that there is a major trade-off between a reduction of income inequality (through income redistribution) and economic growth. If that were the case, they hold, then redistribution that reduces income inequality would on average be bad for growth, taking into account both the direct effect of higher redistribution and the effect of the resulting lower inequality.

Their research shows rather the opposite: increasing income inequality always has a significant and, in most cases, negative effect on economic growth while redistribution has an overall pro-growth effect (in one sample) or no growth effect. Their conclusion is that increasing inequality, particularly when inequality is already high, results in low growth, if any, and such growth may be unsustainable over long periods.

Piketty and Saez (2014) note that there are important differences between income and wealth inequality dynamics. First, wealth concentration is always much higher than income concentration.

The top 10 percent of wealth share typically falls in the 60 to 90 percent range of all wealth, whereas the top 10 percent income share is in the 30 to 50 percent range. The bottom 50 percent wealth share is always less than 5 percent, whereas the bottom 50 percent income share generally falls in the 20 to 30 percent range.

The bottom half of the population hardly owns any wealth, but it does earn appreciable income:The inequality of labor income can be high, but it is usually much less extreme. On average, members of the bottom half of the population, in terms of wealth, own less than one-tenth of the average wealth. The inequality of labor income can be high, but it is usually much less extreme.

Members of the bottom half of the population in income earn about half the average income. In sum, the concentration of capital ownership is always extreme, so that the very notion of capital is fairly abstract for large segments—if not the majority—of the population.

Piketty (2014) finds that wealth-income ratios, today, seem to be returning to very high levels in low economic growth countries, similar to what he calls the "classic patrimonial" wealth-based societies of the 19th century wherein a minority lives off its wealth while the rest of the population works for subsistence living. He surmises that wealth accumulation is high because growth is low.

See also:







Social Justice Pictured below: Understanding and promoting social justice through your library
Social justice is a concept of fair and just relations between the individual and society. This is measured by the explicit and tacit terms for the distribution of wealth, opportunities
for personal activity, and social privileges.

In Western as well as in older Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fulfill their societal roles and receive what was their due from society. In the current global grassroots movements for social justice, the emphasis has been on the breaking of barriers for social mobility, the creation of safety nets and economic justice.

Social justice assigns rights and duties in the institutions of society, which enables people to receive the basic benefits and burdens of cooperation. The relevant institutions often include the following: 
Interpretations that relate justice to a reciprocal relationship to society are mediated by differences in cultural traditions, some of which emphasize the individual responsibility toward society and others the equilibrium between access to power and its responsible use.

Hence, social justice is invoked today while reinterpreting historical figures such as Bartolomé de las Casas, in philosophical debates about differences among human beings, in efforts for gender, racial and social equality, for advocating justice for migrants, prisoners, the environment, and the physically and developmentally disabled.

While the concept of social justice can be traced through the theology of Augustine of Hippo and the philosophy of Thomas Paine, the term "social justice" became used explicitly in the 1780s. A Jesuit priest named Luigi Taparelli is typically credited with coining the term, and it spread during the revolutions of 1848 with the work of Antonio Rosmini-Serbati.

However, recent research has proved that the use of the expression "social justice" is older (even before the 19th century). For example, in Anglo-America, the term appears in The Federalist Papers, No. 7: "We have observed the disposition to retaliation excited in Connecticut in consequence of the enormities perpetrated by the Legislature of Rhode Island; and we reasonably infer that, in similar cases, under other circumstances, a war, not of parchment, but of the sword, would chastise such atrocious breaches of moral obligation and social justice."

In the late industrial revolution, progressive American legal scholars began to use the term more, particularly Louis Brandeis and Roscoe Pound. From the early 20th century it was also embedded in international law and institutions; the preamble to establish the International Labour Organization recalled that "universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice."

In the later 20th century, social justice was made central to the philosophy of the social contract, primarily by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice (1971). In 1993, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action treats social justice as a purpose of human rights education.

Some authors such as Friedrich Hayek criticize the concept of social justice, arguing the lack of objective, accepted moral standard; and that while there is a legal definition of what is just and equitable "there is no test of what is socially unjust", and further that social justice is often used for the reallocation of resources based on an arbitrary standard which may in fact be inequitable or unjust.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Social Justice.






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​Race and ethnicity in the United States including a List by household income * - By the Brookings Institutution (Richard Reeves).
​Pictured below: by Racial and Ethnic Makeup (L) Population; (R) Household Income
Click here for a ​List of racial and ethnic groups in the United States by household income.

The United States has a racially and ethnically diverse population. The United States Census officially recognizes six racial categories: 
  1. White American,
  2. Black or African American,
  3. Native American and Alaska Native, 
  4. Asian American,
  5. Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander,
  6. People of two or more races; a category called "some other race" is also used in the census and other surveys, but is not official.

The United States Census Bureau also classifies Americans as "Hispanic or Latino" and "Not Hispanic or Latino", which identifies Hispanic and Latino Americans as an ethnicity (not a race) distinct from others that composes the largest minority group in the nation.

The United States Supreme Court unanimously held that "race" is not limited to Census designations on the "race question" but extends to all ethnicities, and thus can include Jewish and Arab as well as Polish or Italian or Irish, etc. In fact, the Census asks an "Ancestry Question" which covers the broader notion of ethnicity initially in the 2000 Census long form and now in the American Community Survey.

White Americans are the racial majority. African Americans are the largest racial minority, amounting to 13.2% of the population. Hispanic and Latino Americans amount to 17% of the population, making up the largest ethnic minority. The White, non-Hispanic or Latino population make up 62.6% of the nation's total, with the total White population (including White Hispanics and Latinos) being 77%.

White Americans are the majority in every region except Hawaii, but contribute the highest proportion of the population in the Midwestern United States, at 85% per the Population Estimates Program (PEP), or 83% per the American Community Survey (ACS).

Non-Hispanic Whites make up 79% of the Midwest's population, the highest ratio of any region. However, 35% of White Americans (whether all White Americans or non-Hispanic/Latino only) live in the South, the most of any region.

55% of the African American population lives in the South. A plurality or majority of the other official groups reside in the West. This region is home to 42% of Hispanic and Latino Americans, 46% of Asian Americans, 48% of American Indians and Alaska Natives, 68% of Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, 37% of the "two or more races" population (Multiracial Americans), and 46% of those designated "some other race".

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for moire about Race and Ethnicity in the United States:
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​
​Demographic Makeup of the United States
​According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the United States had an estimated population of 328,239,523 in 2019 (with an unofficial statistical adjustment to 329,484,123 as of July 1, 2020 ahead of the final 2020 Census).

The United States is the third most populous country in the world, and current projections from the unofficial U.S. Population Clock show a total of just over 330 million residents.

All these figures exclude the population of five self-governing U.S. territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands) as well as several minor island possessions.

The Census Bureau showed a population increase of 0.75% for the twelve-month period ending in July 2012. Though high by industrialized country standards, this is below the world average annual rate of 1.1%. The total fertility rate in the United States estimated for 2019 is 1.706 children per woman, which is below the replacement fertility rate of approximately 2.1.

The U.S. population almost quadrupled during the 20th century—at a growth rate of about 1.3% a year—from about 76 million in 1900 to 281 million in 2000. It is estimated to have reached the 200 million mark in 1967, and the 300 million mark on October 17, 2006.

Foreign-born immigration has caused the U.S. population to continue its rapid increase, with the foreign-born population doubling from almost 20 million in 1990 to over 45 million in 2015, representing one-third of the population increase. 

Population growth is fastest among minorities as a whole, and according to the Census Bureau's estimation for 2020, 50% of U.S. children under the age of 18 are members of ethnic minority groups.

White people constitute the majority of the U.S. population, with a total of about 234,370,202 or 73% of the population as of 2017. Non-Hispanic Whites make up 60.7% of the country's population. Their share of the U.S. population is expected to fall below 50% by 2045, primarily due to immigration and low birth rates.

Hispanic and Latino Americans accounted for 48% of the national population growth of 2.9 million between July 1, 2005, and July 1, 2006. Immigrants and their U.S.-born descendants are expected to provide most of the U.S. population gains in the decades ahead.

The Census Bureau projects a U.S. population of 417 million in 2060, a 38% increase from 2007 (301.3 million), and the United Nations estimates that the U.S. will be among the nine countries responsible for half the world's population growth by 2050, with its population being 402 million by then (an increase of 32% from 2007). 

In an official census report, it was reported that 54.4% (2,150,926 out of 3,953,593) of births in 2010 were to "non-Hispanic whites". This represents an increase of 0.3% compared to the previous year, which was 54.1%.
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Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Demographics of the United States:






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Wealth Inequality in the United States Pictured below: Income Inequality in the United States in 2019 (see also below)
The above infographic explores the rise in income inequality in the United States. There is a particular emphasis on the rise over the last four decades, which have seen income inequality rise and rise. The whole topic is now very much a part of regular public discussion. Read this infographic to learn more about what income inequality is, contributing factors, backing statistics and facts and also how the US compares with trends around the world.

What is Income Inequality?

Income inequality is a broad term used to measure the inequality of household/individual income of various members within an economy. Income has multiple streams including wages, salaries, interest, dividends, rent received, profits earned, benefits received, etc. 

Income inequality is often represented in a statistical form, measuring percentage of incomes for different groups vs the entire population. For example, an Economy Policy Institute (EPI) survey in the US in 2015 revealed that a family in the top 1 percent nationally received, on average, 26.3 times as much income as a family in the bottom 99 percent.

​10 Factors Impacting US Income Inequality:

There are many contributing factors as to why US income inequality has grown. Listed below are a range of factors as to why this has grown in the past four decades:
  • Deregulation – the deregulation of financial markets (in particular) and other barriers to enterprise has caused a shift from wage income to profit based income
  • Education access – certain areas of society do not have comparable access to quality education, particularly in secondary schools, this on average reduces income later in life
  • Executive talent premiums – workers with higher levels of education and skills paid large wage premiums, particularly in technology (demand exceeds supply)
  • Immigration – the immigration of many low-skilled workers in recent decades has caused increased demand for low paid jobs, causing a reduction in hourly rates
  • Reduced labor union influence – the reduced influence of labor unions has been another factor causing reduced/declining wages amongst lower paid workers
  • Stagnating lower income wages – due to a combination of factors (many in this list), lower-income levels have stagnated in recent decades
  • Technology automation – advances in technology have causes automation of many low-skill processes and functions which reduces demand (and wages) for low-skilled workers
  • Trade globalization – a rise in trade between the US and the rest of the world (particularly China) has caused reduced demand for labour (particularly in low paid industries)
  • Transfer payments – after tax welfare payments such as social security, unemployment compensation and other benefits have eroded in recent decades
  • US Tax policies – the “wealthy elite” now pay a lower proportion of tax, particularly in areas such as capital gains, investment income and savings incentives

It’s important to emphasize that income inequality is built up literally by hundreds of different factors. We believe the ten listed above are certainly some of the most important factors, affecting income equality within the United States.
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Wikipedia:

Wealth inequality in the United States (also known as the wealth gap) is the unequal distribution of assets among residents of the United States. Wealth includes the values of homes, automobiles, personal valuables, businesses, savings, and investments.

The net worth of U.S. households and non-profit organizations was $94.7 trillion in the first quarter of 2017, a record level both in nominal terms and purchasing power parity. If divided equally among 124 million U.S. households, this would be $760,000 per family; however, the bottom 50% of families, representing 62 million American households, average $11,000 net worth. From an international perspective, the difference in US median and mean wealth per adult is over 600%.

Just prior to President Obama's 2014 State of the Union Address, media reported that the top wealthiest 1% possess 40% of the nation's wealth; the bottom 80% own 7%; similarly, but later, the media reported, the "richest 1 percent in the United States now own more additional income than the bottom 90 percent".

The gap between the top 10% and the middle class is over 1,000%; that increases another 1,000% for the top 1%. The average employee "needs to work more than a month to earn what the CEO earns in one hour." Although different from income inequality, the two are related.

In Inequality for All—a 2013 documentary with Robert Reich in which he argued that income inequality is the defining issue for the United States—Reich states that 95% of economic gains went to the top 1% net worth (HNWI) since 2009 when the recovery was to believed have started. More recently, in 2017, an Oxfam study found that eight rich people, six of them Americans, own as much combined wealth as half the human race.

From 1989 to 2018 the top 1 percent increased its total net worth by $21 trillion. The bottom 50 percent saw its net worth decrease by $900 billion over the same period. In 2018 dollars.
A 2011 study found that US citizens across the political spectrum dramatically underestimate the current US wealth inequality and would prefer a far more egalitarian distribution of wealth.

​Wealth is usually not used for daily expenditures or factored into household budgets, but combined with income it comprises the family's total opportunity to secure a desired stature and standard of living, or pass their class status along to one's children. 

Moreover, wealth provides for both short- and long-term financial security, bestows social prestige, and contributes to political power, and can be used to produce more wealth.

Hence, wealth possesses a psychological element that awards people the feeling of agency, or the ability to act. The accumulation of wealth grants more options and eliminates restrictions about how one can live life. 

Dennis Gilbert asserts that the standard of living of the working and middle classes is dependent upon income and wages, while the rich tend to rely on wealth, distinguishing them from the vast majority of Americans. A September 2014 study by Harvard Business School declared that the growing disparity between the very wealthy and the lower and middle classes is no longer sustainable

Statistics:
​
In 2007, the top 20% wealthiest possessed 80% of all financial assets. In 2007 the richest 1% of the American population owned 35% of the country's total wealth, and the next 19% owned 51%. Thus, the top 20% of Americans owned 86% of the country's wealth and the bottom 80% of the population owned 14%.

In 2011, financial inequality was greater than inequality in total wealth, with the top 1% of the population owning 43%, the next 19% of Americans owning 50%, and the bottom 80% owning 7%. However, after the Great Recession which started in 2007, the share of total wealth owned by the top 1% of the population grew from 35% to 37%, and that owned by the top 20% of Americans grew from 86% to 88%. The Great Recession also caused a drop of 36% in median household wealth, but a drop of only 11% for the top 1%, further widening the gap between the top 1% and the bottom 99%.

According to PolitiFact and others, in 2011 the 400 wealthiest Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined. Inherited wealth may help explain why many Americans who have become rich may have had a substantial head start. In September 2012, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, over 60 percent of the Forbes richest 400 Americans grew up in substantial privilege.

In 2013 wealth inequality in the U.S. was greater than in most developed countries other than Switzerland and Denmark. In the United States, the use of offshore holdings is exceptionally small compared to Europe, where much of the wealth of the top percentiles is kept in offshore holdings.

While the statistical problem is European wide, in Southern Europe statistics become even more unreliable. Fewer than a thousand people in Italy have declared incomes of more than 1 million euros. Former Prime Minister of Italy described tax evasion as a "national pastime".

According to a 2014 Credit Suisse study, the ratio of wealth to household income is the highest it has been since the Great Depression.

However, according to the Federal Reserve, "For most households, pensions and Social Security are the most important sources of income during retirement, and the promised benefit stream constitutes a sizable fraction of household wealth" and "including pensions and Social Security in net worth makes the distribution more even". A September 2017 study by the Federal Reserve reported that the top 1% owned 38.5% of the country's wealth in 2016.

According to a June 2017 report by the Boston Consulting Group, around 70% of the nation's wealth will be in the hands of millionaires and billionaires by 2021.

Early 20th century:

Pioneering work by Simon Kuznets using income tax records and his own well-researched estimates of national income showed a reduction of about 10% in the portion of national income going to the top 10%, a reduction from about 45–50% in 1913 to about 30–35% in 1948. 

This period spans both The Great Depression and World War II, events with significant economic consequences. This is called the Great Compression.

Wealth and Income:
​
There is an important distinction between income and wealth. Income refers to a flow of money over time in the form of a rate (per hour, per week, or per year); wealth is a collection of assets owned minus liabilities. In essence, income is specifically what people receive through work, retirement, or social welfare whereas wealth is what people own.

While the two are seemingly related, income inequality alone is insufficient for understanding economic inequality for two reasons:
  1. It does not accurately reflect an individual's economic position
  2. Income does not portray the severity of financial inequality in the United States.

The United States Census Bureau formally defines income as received on a regular basis (exclusive of certain money receipts such as capital gains) before payments for personal income taxes, social security, union dues, medicare deductions, etc.

By this official measure, the wealthiest families may have low income, but the value of their assets earns enough money to support their lifestyle. Dividends from trusts or gains in the stock market do not fall under the definition of income but are the primary money flows for the wealthy. Retired people also have little income but usually have a higher net worth because of money saved over time.

Additionally, income does not capture the extent of wealth inequality. Wealth is derived over time from the collection of income earnings and growth of assets. The income of one year cannot encompass the accumulation over a lifetime. Income statistics view too narrow a time span for it to be an adequate indicator of financial inequality. For example, the Gini coefficient for wealth inequality increased from 0.80 in 1983 to 0.84 in 1989. In the same year,

1989, the Gini coefficient for income was only 0.52. The Gini coefficient is an economic tool on a scale from 0 to 1 that measures the level of inequality. 1 signifies perfect inequality and 0 represents perfect equality. From this data, it is evident that in 1989 there was a discrepancy about the level of economic disparity with the extent of wealth inequality significantly higher than income inequality.

​Recent research shows that many households, in particular those headed by young parents (younger than 35), minorities, and individuals with low educational attainment, display very little accumulation. Many have no financial assets and their total net worth is also low.

​According to the Congressional Budget Office, between 1979 and 2007 incomes of the top 1% of Americans grew by an average of 275%. ...

(Note: The IRS insists that comparisons of adjusted gross income pre-1987 and post-1987 are complicated by large changes in the definition of AGI led to households in the top income quintile reporting a lot more of their income in their individual income tax form's AGI, rather than reporting their business income in separate corporate tax returns, or not reporting certain non-taxable income in their AGI at all, such as municipal bond income.

Anyone who wants to discuss incomes in the U.S. fairly must include a chart of all available data split by quantile up to the mid-1980s. That should be followed by a chart from 1990 to 2011. The five-year gap would avoid the major AGI definition changes.

The big picture of this subject is not just a segment of all available data starting in 1979, especially after the IRS warned about the large AGI definition changes in the late 1980s). In addition, IRS studies consistently show a majority of households in the top income quintile have moved to a lower quantile within one decade.

There are even more changes to households in the top 1%. Without including those data here, a reader is likely to assume households in the Top 1% are almost the same from year to year.) In 2009, people in the top 1% of taxpayers made $343,927 or more.

According to US economist Joseph Stiglitz the richest 1% of Americans gained 93% of the additional income created in 2010. A study by Emmanuel Saez and Piketty showed that the top 10 percent of earners took more than half of the country's total income in 2012, the highest level recorded since the government began collecting the relevant data a century ago.

People in the top one percent were three times more likely to work more than 50 hours a week, were more likely to be self-employed, and earned a fifth of their income as capital income. The top one percent was composed of many professions and had an annual turnover rate of more than 25%. The five most common professions were managers, physicians, administrators, lawyers, and teachers.

​In the book Modern Labor Economics: Theory and Public Policy, it is noted that in the United States all income that employees received from their employers in 2012 was 8.6 trillion dollars while the amount of money received from all other sources of personal income in that year came to 5.3 trillion dollars. This makes the relationship of employee to employer and vocational employment in general of paramount importance in the United States.

​Gender Pay Inequality
Further information: Gender pay gap

Wealth inequality and child poverty:
Further information: Child poverty in the United States

In 2013 UNICEF data on the well-being of children in 35 developed nations ranked the United States at 34 out of 35 (Romania is the worst). This may reflect growing income inequality.

​U.S. stock market ownership distribution:
​
​In March 2017, NPR summarized the distribution of U.S. stock market ownership (direct and indirect through mutual funds) in the U.S., which is highly concentrated among the wealthiest families:
  • 52% of U.S. adults owned stock in 2016. Ownership peaked at 65% in 2007 and fell significantly due to the Great Recession.
  • As of 2013, the top 1% of households owned 38% of stock market wealth.
  • As of 2013, the top 10% own 81% of stock wealth, the next 10% (80th to 90th percentile) own 11% and the bottom 80% own 8%.

The Federal Reserve reported the median value of stock ownership by income group for 2016:
  • Bottom 20% own $5,800.
  • 20th-40th percentile own $10,000.
  • 40th to 60th percentile own $15,500.
  • 60th to 80th percentile own $31,700.
  • 80th to 89th percentile own $82,000.
  • Top 10% own $365,000.

NPR reported that when politicians reference the stock market as a measure of economic success, that success is not relevant to nearly half of Americans. Further, more than one-third of Americans who work full-time have no access to pensions or retirement accounts such as 401(k)s that derive their value from financial assets like stocks and bonds.

The NYT reported that the percentage of workers covered by generous defined-benefit pension plans has declined from 62% in 1983 to 17% by 2016. While some economists consider an increase in the stock market to have a "wealth effect" that increases economic growth, economists like Former Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher believe those effects are limited.

Causes of wealth inequality:
Main article: Causes of income inequality in the United States

Essentially, the wealthy possess greater financial opportunities that allow their money to make more money. Earnings from the stock market or mutual funds are reinvested to produce a larger return. Over time, the sum that is invested becomes progressively more substantial.

Those who are not wealthy, however, do not have the resources to enhance their opportunities and improve their economic position. Rather, "after debt payments, poor families are constrained to spend the remaining income on items that will not produce wealth and will depreciate over time."

Scholar David B. Grusky notes that "62 percent of households headed by single parents are without savings or other financial assets." Net indebtedness generally prevents the poor from having any opportunity to accumulate wealth and thereby better their conditions.

Economic inequality is a result of difference in income. Factors that contribute to this gap in wages are things such as level of education, labor market demand and supply, gender differences, growth in technology, and personal abilities. The quality and level of education that a person has often corresponds to their skill level, which is justified by their income.

Wages are also determined by the "market price of a skill" at that current time.

Although gender inequality is a separate social issue, it plays a role in economic inequality. According to the U.S. Census Report, in America the median full-time salary for women is 77 percent of that for men.

Also contributing to the wealth inequality in the U.S., both unskilled and skilled workers are being replaced by machinery. The Seven Pillars Institute for Global Finance and Ethics argues that because of this "technological advance", the income gap between workers and owners has widened.

Income inequality contributes to wealth inequality. For example, economist Emmanuel Saez wrote in June 2016 that the top 1% of families captured 52% of the total real income (GDP) growth per family from 2009-2015. From 2009 to 2012, the top 1% captured 91% of the income gains.

Notably, for both the wealthy and not-wealthy, the process of accumulation or debt is cyclical. The rich use their money to earn larger returns and the poor have no savings with which to produce returns or eliminate debt. Unlike income, both facets are generational.

Wealthy families pass down their assets allowing future generations to develop even more wealth. The poor, on the other hand, are less able to leave inheritances to their children leaving the latter with little or no wealth on which to build...This is another reason why wealth inequality is so important, its accumulation has direct implications for economic inequality among the children of today's families.

Corresponding to financial resources, the wealthy strategically organize their money so that it will produce profit. Affluent people are more likely to allocate their money to financial assets such as stocks, bonds, and other investments which hold the possibility of capital appreciation.

Those who are not wealthy are more likely to have their money in savings accounts and home ownership. This difference comprises the largest reason for the continuation of wealth inequality in America: the rich are accumulating more assets while the middle and working classes are just getting by.

As of 2007, the richest 1% held about 38% of all privately held wealth in the United States. while the bottom 90% held 73.2% of all debt. According to The New York Times, the richest 1 percent in the United States now own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent.

However, other studies argue that higher average savings rate will contribute to the reduction of the share of wealth owned by the rich. The reason is that the rich in wealth are not necessarily the individuals with the highest income. Therefore, the relative wealth share of poorer Quantile of the population would increase if the savings rate of income is very large, although the absolute difference from the wealthiest will increase.

As the price of commodities increases because of inflation, a larger percentage of lower-class people's money is spent on things they need to survive and go to work, such as food and gasoline. Most of the working poor are paid fixed hourly wages that do not keep up with rises in prices, so every year an increasing percentage of their income is consumed until they have to go into debt just to survive. At this point, their little wealth is owed to lenders and banking institutions.

The nature of tax policies in America has been suggested by economists and politicians such as Emmanuel Saez, Thomas Piketty, and Barack Obama to perpetuate economic inequality in America by steering large sums of wealth into the hands of the wealthiest Americans. The mechanism for this is that when the wealthy avoid paying taxes, wealth concentrates to their coffers and the poor go into debt.

​The economist Joseph Stiglitz argues that "Strong unions have helped to reduce inequality, whereas weaker unions have made it easier for CEOs, sometimes working with market forces that they have helped shape, to increase it." The long fall in unionization in the U.S. since WWII has seen a corresponding rise in the inequality of wealth and income.

​Racial disparities:

The wealth gap between white and black families nearly tripled from $85,000 in 1984 to $236,500 in 2009.

There are many causes, including years of home ownership, household income, unemployment, and education, but inheritance might be the most important. Inheritance can directly link the disadvantaged economic position and prospects of today's blacks to the disadvantaged positions of their parents' and grandparents' generations.

According to a report done by Robert B. Avery and Michael S. Rendall, "one in three white households will receive a substantial inheritance during their lifetime compared to only one in ten black households." 

This relative lack of inheritance that has been observed among African Americans can be attributed in large part to factors such as unpaid labor (slavery), violent destruction of personal property in incidents such as Red Summer of 1919, unequal opportunity in education and employment (racial discrimination), and more recent policies such as redlining and planned shrinkage.

Other ethnic minorities, particularly those with darker complexions, have at times faced many of these same adversities to various degrees.

The article "America's Financial Divide" added context to racial wealth inequality stating "…nearly 96.1 percent of the 1.2 million households in the top one percent by income were white, a total of about 1,150,000 households. In addition, these families were found to have a median net asset worth of $8.3 million. In stark contrast, in the same piece, black households were shown as a mere 1.4 percent of the top one percent by income, that's only 16,800 homes.

In addition, their median net asset worth was just $1.2 million. Using this data as an indicator only several thousand of the over 14 million African American households have more than $1.2 million in net assets… Relying on data from Credit Suisse and Brandeis University's Institute on Assets and Social Policy, the Harvard Business Review in the article "How America's Wealthiest Black Families Invest Money" recently took the analysis above a step further.

In the piece the author stated "If you're white and have a net worth of about $356,000, that's good enough to put you in the 72nd percentile of white families. If you're black, it's good enough to catapult you into the 95th percentile." This means 28 percent of the total 83 million white homes, or over 23 million white households, have more than $356,000 in net assets. While only 700,000 of the 14 million black homes have more than $356,000 in total net worth."

According to Inequality.org, the median black family is actually only worth $1,700 when you deduct these durables. In contrast, the median white family holds $116,800 of wealth using the same accounting methods.

Some historical context: In South Africa, during the atrocities of apartheid, the median black family held about 7 percent of typical white South African family net worth. Today, using Wolff’s analysis, the median African American family holds a mere 1.5 percent of median white American family wealth.

A recent piece on Eurweb/Electronic Urban Report "Black Wealth Hardly Exists, Even When You Include NBA, NFL and Rap Stars" stated this about the difference between black middle class families and white middle class families. "Going even further into the data, a recent study by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and the Corporation For Economic Development (CFED) found that it would take 228 years for the average black family to amass the same level of wealth the average white family holds today in 2016.

All while white families create even more wealth over those same two hundred years. In fact, this is a gap that will never close if America stays on its current economic path. According to the Institute on Assets and Social Policy, for each dollar of increase in average income an African American household saw from 1984 to 2009 just $0.69 in additional wealth was generated, compared with the same dollar in increased income creating an additional $5.19 in wealth for a similarly situated white household."

Author Lilian Singh wrote on why the perceptions about black life created by media are misleading in the American Prospect piece "Black Wealth On TV: Realities Don’t Match Perceptions". "Black programming features TV shows that collectively create false perceptions of wealth for African-American families. The images displayed are in stark contrast to the economic conditions the average black family is battling each day."

In an article on Huffington Post by Antonio Moore "The Decadent Veil: Black America's Wealth Illusion" the question of inequity is taken another critical step forward and the piece digs into how celebrity is masking this massive inequality.

Excerpt:
  • "The decadent veil looks at black Americans through a lens of group theory and seeks to explain an illusion that has taken form over a 30-year span of financial deregulation and new found access to unsecured credit. This veil is trimmed with million-dollar sports contracts, Roc Nation tour deals and designer labels made for heads of state.
  • As black celebrity invited us into their homes through shows like MTV cribs, we forgot the condition of overall African American financial affairs. Despite a large section of the 14 million black households drowning in poverty and debt the stories of a few are told as if they represent those of millions, not thousands.
  • It is this new veil of economics that has allowed for a broad swath of America to become not just desensitized to black poverty, but also hypnotized by black celebrity… The decadent veil not only warps the black community's vision outward to a larger economic world, but it also distorts outside community's view of Black America's actual financial reality."

According to an article by the Pew research Center, the median wealth of non-Hispanic black households fell nearly 38% from 2010 to 2013. During that time, the median wealth of those households fell from $16,600 to $13,700. The median wealth of Hispanic families fell 14.3 % as well, from $16,000 to $14,000.

Despite the median net worth of all households in the United States decreasing with time, as of 2013, white households had a median net worth of $141,900 while black house households had a median net worth of just $11,000.

Hispanic households had a median net worth of just $13,700 over that time as well.

Effect on democracy:
​See also: Income inequality in the United States § Effects on democracy and society

A 2014 study by researchers at Princeton and Northwestern concludes that government policies reflect the desires of the wealthy, and that the vast majority of American citizens have "minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy … when a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose."

When Fed chair Janet Yellen was questioned by Bernie Sanders about the study at a congressional hearing in May 2014, she responded "There’s no question that we’ve had a trend toward growing inequality" and that this trend "can shape [and] determine the ability of different groups to participate equally in a democracy and have grave effects on social stability over time."

In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, French economist Thomas Piketty argues that "extremely high levels" of wealth inequality are "incompatible with the meritocratic values and principles of social justice fundamental to modern democratic societies" and that "the risk of a drift towards oligarchy is real and gives little reason for optimism about where the United States is headed."

According to Jedediah Purdy, a researcher at the Duke School of Law, the inequality of wealth in the United States has constantly opened the eyes of the many problems and shortcomings of its financial system over at least the last fifty years of the debate. For years, people believed that distributive justice would produce a sustainable level of wealth inequality. It was also thought that a certain state would be able to effectively diminish the amount of inequality that would occur.

Something that was for the most part not expected is the fact that the inequality levels created by the growing markets would lessen the power of that state and prevent the majority of the political community from actually being able to deliver on its plans of distributive justice, however it has just lately come to attention of the mass majority.

Effect on health and well being:

The 2019 World Happiness Report shows the US slipping to 19th place due to increasing wealth inequality, along with rising healthcare costs, surging addiction rates, and an unhealthy work–life balance.

Proposals to reduce wealth inequality:

Taxation of wealth: 

Senator Elizabeth Warren proposed an annual tax on wealth in January 2019, specifically a 2% tax for wealth over $50 million and another 1% surcharge on wealth over $1 billion.

Wealth is defined as including all asset classes, including financial assets and real estate.

Economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman estimated that about 75,000 households (less than 0.1%) would pay the tax. The tax would raise around $2.75 trillion over 10 years, roughly 1% GDP on average per year. This would raise the total tax burden for those subject to the wealth tax from 3.2% of their wealth under current law to about 4.3% on average, versus the 7.2% for the bottom 99% families.

For scale, the federal budget deficit in 2018 was 3.9% GDP and is expected to rise towards 5% GDP over the next decade. The plan received both praise and criticism. Two billionaires, Michael Bloomberg and Howard Schultz, criticized the proposal as "unconstitutional" and "ridiculous," respectively. Warren was not surprised by this reaction, stating: "Another billionaire who thinks that billionaires shouldn't pay more in taxes." Economist Paul Krugman wrote in January 2019 that polls indicate the idea of taxing the rich more is very popular.

Limit or tax stock buybacks:

Senators Charles Schumer and Bernie Sanders advocated limiting stock buybacks in January 2019. They explained that from 2008-2017, 466 of the S&P 500 companies spent $4 trillion on stock buybacks, about 50% of profits, with another 40% going to dividends.

During 2018 alone, a record $1 trillion was spent on buybacks. Stock buybacks shift wealth upwards, because the top 1% own about 40% of shares and the top 10% own about 85%.

Further, corporations directing profits to shareholders are not reinvesting the money in the firm or paying workers more. They wrote: "If corporations continue to purchase their own stock at this rate, income disparities will continue to grow, productivity will suffer, the long-term strength of companies will diminish — and the American worker will fall further behind."

Their proposed legislation would prohibit buybacks unless the corporation has taken other steps first, such as paying workers more, providing more benefits such as healthcare and pensions, and investing in the community. To prevent corporations from shifting from buybacks to dividends, they proposed limiting dividends, perhaps by taking action through the tax code.

See also:







Causes of Income Inequality in the United States
Causes of income inequality in the United States describes why changes in the country's income distribution are occurring. This topic is subject to extensive ongoing research, media attention, and political interest, as it involves how the national income of the country is split among its people at various income levels.

Overview:
​
Income inequality in the United States (previous topic) has grown significantly since the early 1970s, after several decades of stability, and has been the subject of study of many scholars and institutions. The U.S. consistently exhibits higher rates of income inequality than most developed nations, arguably due to the nation's relatively enhanced support of free market capitalism.

According to the CBO and others, "the precise reasons for the [recent] rapid growth in income at the top are not well understood", but "in all likelihood," an "interaction of multiple factors" was involved. "Researchers have offered several potential rationales." Some of these rationales conflict, some overlap. They include:
  • the globalization hypothesis – low skilled American workers have been losing ground in the face of competition from low-wage workers in Asia and other "emerging" economies;
  • skill-biased technological change – the rapid pace of progress in information technology has increased the demand for the highly skilled and educated so that income distribution favored brains rather than brawn;
  • the superstar hypothesis – modern technologies of communication often turn competition into a tournament in which the winner is richly rewarded, while the runners-up get far less than in the past;
  • immigration of less-educated workers – relatively high levels of immigration of low skilled workers since 1965 may have reduced wages for American-born high school dropouts;
  • changing institutions and norms – Unions were a balancing force, helping ensure wages kept up with productivity and that neither executives nor shareholders were unduly rewarded. Further, societal norms placed constraints on executive pay. This changed as union power declined (the share of unionized workers fell significantly during the Great Divergence, from over 30% to around 12%) and CEO pay skyrocketed (rising from around 40 times the average workers pay in the 1970s to over 350 times in the early 2000s).
  • policy, politics and race – movement conservatives increased their influence over the Republican Party beginning in the 1970s, moving it politically rightward. Combined with the Party's expanded political power (enabled by a shift of southern white Democrats to the Republican Party following the passage of Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s), this resulted in more regressive tax laws, anti-labor policies, and further limited expansion of the welfare state relative to other developed nations (e.g., the unique absence of universal healthcare).

Paul Krugman put several of these factors into context in January 2015: "Competition from emerging-economy exports has surely been a factor depressing wages in wealthier nations, although probably not the dominant force. More important, soaring incomes at the top were achieved, in large part, by squeezing those below: by cutting wages, slashing benefits, crushing unions, and diverting a rising share of national resources to financial wheeling and dealing ... Perhaps more important still, the wealthy exert a vastly disproportionate effect on policy. And elite priorities — obsessive concern with budget deficits, with the supposed need to slash social programs — have done a lot to deepen [wage stagnation and income inequality]."

Divergence of productivity and compensation:
​
Overall:

One view of economic equity is that employee compensation should rise with productivity (defined as real output per hour of labor worked). In other words, if the employee produces more, they should be paid accordingly. If pay lags behind productivity, income inequality grows, as labor's share of the output is falling, while capital's share (generally higher-income owners) is rising.

According to a June 2017 report from the non-partisan Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), productivity rose in tandem with employee compensation (a measure which includes wages as well as benefits such as health insurance) from the 1940s through the 1970s. However, since then productivity has grown faster than compensation.

BLS refers to this as the "productivity-compensation gap", an issue which has garnered much attention from academics and policymakers. BLS reported this gap occurs across most industries: "When examined at a detailed industry level, the average annual percent change in productivity outpaced compensation in 83 percent of 183 industries studied" measured from 1987-2015.

For example, in the information industry, productivity increased at an annual average rate of 5.0% over the 1987-2015 period, while compensation increased at about a 1.5% rate, resulting in a 3.5% productivity gap. In Manufacturing, the gap was 2.7%; in Retail Trade 2.6%; and in Transportation and Warehousing 1.3%. This analysis adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index or CPI, a measure of inflation based on what is consumed, rather than what is produced.

Analyzing the gap:

BLS explained the gap between productivity and compensation can be divided into two components, the effect of which varies by industry: 1) Recalculating the gap using an industry-specific inflation adjustment ("industry deflator") rather than consumption (CPI); and 2) The change in labor's share of income, defined as how much of a business' revenue goes to workers as opposed to intermediate purchases (i.e., cost of goods) and capital (owners) in that industry. 

The difference in deflators was the stronger effect among high productivity growth industries, while the change in labor's share of income was the stronger effect among most other industries. For example, the 3.5% productivity gap in the information industry was composed of a 2.1% difference in deflators and about a 1.4% due to change in labor share.

The 2.7% gap in Manufacturing included 1.0% due to deflation and 1.7% due to change in labor share.

Reasons for the gap:

BLS explained the decline in labor share as likely driven by three factors that vary by industry:
  • Globalization: Income that might have gone to domestic workers is going to foreign workers due to offshoring (i.e., production and service activities in other countries).
  • Increased automation: More automation means more share of income attributed to capital.
  • Faster capital depreciation: Information assets depreciate more rapidly than machinery; the latter were the greater share of the capital base in the past. This may require a higher capital share to generate income than in the past.

Market Factors:

Globalization:
​
Globalization refers to the integration of economies in terms of trade, information, and jobs. Innovations in supply chain management enabled goods to be sourced in Asia and shipped to the United States less expensively than in the past. This integration of economies, particularly with the U.S. and Asia, had dramatic impacts on income inequality globally.

Economist Branko Milanovic analyzed global income inequality, comparing 1988 and 2008. His analysis indicated that the global top 1% and the middle classes of the emerging economies (e.g., China, India, Indonesia, Brazil and Egypt) were the main winners of globalization during that time.

The real (inflation adjusted) income of the global top 1% increased approximately 60%, while the middle classes of the emerging economies (those around the 50th percentile of the global income distribution in 1988) rose 70–80%.

For example, in 2000, 5 million Chinese households earned between $11,500 and $43,000 in 2016 dollars. By 2015, 225 million did. On the other hand, those in the middle class of the developed world (those in the 75th to 90th percentile in 1988, such as the American middle class) experienced little real income gains.

The richest 1% contains 60 million persons globally, including 30 million Americans (i.e., the top 12% of Americans by income were in the global top 1% in 2008), the most out of any country.

While economists who have studied globalization agree imports have had an effect, the timing of import growth does not match the growth of income inequality. By 1995 imports of manufactured goods from low-wage countries totalled less than 3% of US gross domestic product.

It wasn't until 2006 that the US imported more manufactured goods from low-wage (developing) countries than from high-wage (advanced) economies. Inequality increased during the 2000–2010 decade not because of stagnating wages for less-skilled workers, but because of accelerating incomes of the top 0.1%. Author Timothy Noah estimates that "trade", increases in imports are responsible for just 10% of the "Great Divergence" in income distribution.

Journalist James Surowiecki notes that in the last 50 years, companies and the sectors of the economy providing the most employment in the US – major retailers, restaurant chains, and supermarkets – are ones with lower profit margins and less pricing power than in the 1960s; while sectors with high profit margins and average salaries – like high technology – have relatively few employees.

Some economists claim that it is WTO-led globalization and competition from developing countries, especially China, that has resulted in the recent decline in labor's share of income and increased unemployment in the U.S. And the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Economic and Policy Research argue that some trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership could result in further job losses and declining wages.

One argument contrary to the globalization/technology hypothesis relates to variation across countries. Japan, Sweden and France did not experience significant increases in income inequality during the 1979–2010 period, although the U.S. did.

The top 1% income group continued to receive less than 10% of the income share in these countries, while the U.S. share rose from 10% to over 20%. Economist Emmanuel Saez wrote in 2014: "Differences across countries rule out technical change/globalization as the sole explanation ... Policies play a key role in shaping inequality (tax and transfer policies, regulations, education)."

​Superstar hypothesis:

Eric Posner and Glen Weyl point out that inequality can be predominantly explained by the superstar hypothesis. In their opinion Piketty fails to observe the accelerated turnover that is occurring in the Forbes 400; only 35 people from the original 1982 list remain today. Many have fallen off as a result of heavy spending, large-scale philanthropy, and bad investments.

The current Forbes 400 is now primarily made up of newly wealthy business owners, not heirs and heiresses. In parallel research, the University of Chicago's Steven Kaplan and Stanford University's Joshua Rauh note that 69% of those on the Forbes list are actually first generation wealth creators. That figure has risen dramatically since 1982 when it stood at 40%.

Ed Dolan supports the globalization and superstar hypothesis but points out that the high earnings are based, to some extent, on moral hazard like "Bonus-based compensation schemes with inadequate clawback for losses" and the shift of losses to shareholders, unsecured creditors, or taxpayers.

Paul Krugman argues that for the US the surge in inequality to date is mainly due to supersalaries but capital has nonetheless been significant too. And when the current generation of the 1% turn over their wealth to their heirs these become rentiers, people who live off accumulated capital. Two decades from now America could turn into a rentier-dominated society even more unequal than Belle Époque Europe.

One study extended the superstar hypothesis to corporations, with firms that are more dominant in their industry (in some cases due to oligopoly or monopoly) paying their workers far more than the average in the industry. Another study noted that "superstar firms" is another explanation for the decline in the overall share of income (GDP) going to workers/labor as opposed to owners/capital.

Education:
Main article: Educational attainment in the United States

Income differences between the varying levels of educational attainment (usually measured by the highest degree of education an individual has completed) have increased. Expertise and skill certified through an academic degree translates into increased scarcity of an individual's occupational qualification which in turn leads to greater economic rewards.

As the United States has developed into a post-industrial society more and more employers require expertise that they did not a generation ago, while the manufacturing sector which employed many of those lacking a post-secondary education is decreasing in size.

In the resulting economic job market the income discrepancy between the working class and the professional with the higher academic degrees, who possess scarce amounts of certified expertise, may be growing.

Households in the upper quintiles are generally home to more, better educated and employed working income earners, than those in lower quintiles. 

Among those in the upper quintile, 62% of householders were college graduates, 80% worked full-time and 76% of households had two or more income earners, compared to the national percentages of 27%, 58% and 42%, respectively. Upper-most sphere US Census Bureau data indicated that occupational achievement and the possession of scarce skills correlates with higher income.

Average earnings in 2002 for the population 18 years and over were higher at each progressively higher level of education ... This relationship holds true not only for the entire population but also across most subgroups. Within each specific educational level, earnings differed by sex and race. This variation may result from a variety of factors, such as occupation, working full- or part-time, age, or labor force experience.

​The "college premium" refers to the increase in income to workers with four-year college degrees relative to those without. The college premium doubled from 1980 to 2005, as the demand for college-educated workers has exceeded the supply.

Economists Goldin and Katz estimate that the increase in economic returns to education was responsible for about 60% of the increase in wage inequality between 1973 and 2005. The supply of available graduates did not keep up with business demand due primarily to increasingly expensive college educations.

Annual tuition at public and private universities averaged 4% and 20% respectively of the annual median family income from the 1950s to 1970s; by 2005 these figures were 10% and 45% as colleges raised prices in response to demand.

Economist David Autor wrote in 2014 that approximately two-thirds of the rise in income inequality between 1980 and 2005 was accounted for by the increased premium associated with education in general and post-secondary education in particular.

Two researchers have suggested that children in low income families are exposed to 636 words an hour, as opposed to 2,153 words in high income families during the first four formative years of a child's development. This, in turn, led to low achievement in later schooling due to the inability of the low income group to verbalize concepts.

A psychologist has stated that society stigmatizes poverty. Conversely, poor people tend to believe that the wealthy have been lucky or have earned their money through illegal means. She believes that both attitudes need to be discarded if the nation is to make headway in addressing the issue of inequality. She suggests that college not be a litmus test of success; that valorizing of one profession as more important than another is a problem.

Skill-biased technological change:

As of the mid- to late- decade of the 2000s, the most common explanation for income inequality in America was "skill-biased technological change" (SBTC) – "a shift in the production technology that favors skilled over unskilled labor by increasing its relative productivity and, therefore, its relative demand".

For example, one scholarly colloquium on the subject that included many prominent labor economists estimated that technological change was responsible for over 40% of the increase in inequality.

Other factors like international trade, decline in real minimum wage, decline in unionization and rising immigration, were each responsible for 10–15% of the increase.
​
Education has a notable influence on income distribution. In 2005, roughly 55% of income earners with doctorate degrees – the most educated 1.4% – were among the top 15 percent earners. Among those with Master's degrees – the most educated 10% – roughly half had incomes among the top 20 percent of earners. Only among households in the top quintile were householders with college degrees in the majority.

But while the higher education commonly translates into higher income, and the highly educated are disproportionately represented in upper quintile households, differences in educational attainment fail to explain income discrepancies between the top 1 percent and the rest of the population.

Large percentages of individuals lacking a college degree are present in all income demographics, including 33% of those with heading households with six figure incomes. From 2000 to 2010, the 1.5% of Americans with an M.D., J.D., or M.B.A. and the 1.5% with a PhD saw median income gains of approximately 5%.

Among those with a college or master's degree (about 25% of the American workforce) average wages dropped by about 7%, (though this was less than the decline in wages for those who had not completed college). Post-2000 data has provided "little evidence" for SBTC's role in increasing inequality. The wage premium for college educated has risen little and there has been little shift in shares of employment to more highly skilled occupations.

Approaching the issue from occupations that have been replaced or downgraded since the late 1970s, one scholar found that jobs that "require some thinking but not a lot" – or moderately skilled middle-class occupations such as cashiers, typists, welders, farmers, appliance repairmen – declined the furthest in wage rates and/or numbers. Employment requiring either more skill or less has been less affected.

However the timing of the great technological change of the era – internet use by business starting in the late 1990s – does not match that of the growth of income inequality (starting in the early 1970s but slackening somewhat in the 1990s).

Nor does the introduction of technologies that increase the demand for more skilled workers seem to be generally associated with a divergence in household income among the population. Inventions of the 20th century such as AC electric power, the automobile, airplane, radio, television, the washing machine, Xerox machine, each had an economic impact similar to computers, microprocessors and internet, but did not coincide with greater inequality.
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Another explanation is that the combination of the introduction of technologies that increase the demand for skilled workers, and the failure of the American education system to provide a sufficient increase in those skilled workers has bid up those workers' salaries.

An example of the slowdown in education growth in America (that began about the same time as the Great Divergence began) is the fact that the average person born in 1945 received two more years of schooling than his parents, while the average person born in 1975 received only half a year more of schooling.

​Author Timothy Noah's "back-of-the-envelope" estimation based on "composite of my discussions with and reading of the various economists and political scientists" is that the "various failures" in America's education system are "responsible for 30%" of the post-1978 increase in inequality.

Race and Gender Disparities:
Further information: Gender pay gap in the United States and Racial wage gap in the United States

Income levels vary by gender and race with median income levels considerably below the national median for females compared to men with certain racial demographics.

Despite considerable progress in pursuing gender and racial equality, some social scientists like Richard Schaeffer attribute these discrepancies in income partly to continued discrimination.

Among women, part of the wage gap is due to employment choices and preferences. Women are more likely to consider factors other than salary when looking for employment. On average, women are less willing to travel or relocate, take more hours off and work fewer hours, and choose college majors that lead to lower paying jobs. Women are also more likely to work for governments or non-profits which pay less than the private sector.

According to this perspective certain ethnic minorities and women receive fewer promotions and opportunities for occupation and economic advancement than others. In the case of women this concept is referred to as the glass ceiling keeping women from climbing the occupational ladder.

In terms of race, Asian Americans are far more likely to be in the highest earning 5 percent than the rest of Americans. Studies have shown that African Americans are less likely to be hired than White Americans with the same qualifications. 

The continued prevalence of traditional gender roles and ethnic stereotypes may partially account for current levels of discrimination. In 2005, median income levels were highest among Asian and White males and lowest among females of all races, especially those identifying as African American or Hispanic.

Despite closing gender and racial gaps, considerable discrepancies remain among racial and gender demographics, even at the same level of educational attainment. The economic success of Asian Americans may come from how they devote much more time to education than their peers. Asian Americans have significantly higher college graduation rates than their peers and are much more likely to enter high status and high income occupations.

Since 1953 the income gap between male and female workers has decreased considerably but remains relatively large. Women currently earn significantly more Associate's, Bachelor's, and Master's degrees than men and almost as many Doctorates. Women are projected to have passed men in Doctorates earned in 2006–2007, and to earn nearly two thirds of Associate's, Bachelor's, and Master's degrees by 2016.

Though it is important to note that income inequality between sexes remained stark at all levels of educational attainment. Between 1953 and 2005 median earnings as well as educational attainment increased, at a far greater pace for women than for men. Median income for female earners male earners increased 157.2% versus 36.2% for men, over four times as fast.

Today the median male worker earns roughly 68.4% more than their female counterparts, compared to 176.3% in 1953. The median income of men in 2005 was 2% higher than in 1973 compared to a 74.6% increase for female earners.

Racial differences remained stark as well, with the highest earning sex-gender demographic of workers aged 25 or older, Asian males (who were roughly tied with white males) earning slightly more than twice as much as the lowest-earning demographic, Hispanic females.

As mentioned above, inequality between races and gender persisted at similar education levels. Racial differences were overall more pronounced among male than among female income earners. In 2009, Hispanics were more than twice as likely to be poor than non-Hispanic whites, research indicates. 

Lower average English ability, low levels of educational attainment, part-time employment, the youthfulness of Hispanic household heads, and the 2007–09 recession are important factors that have pushed up the Hispanic poverty rate relative to non-Hispanic whites.

During the early 1920s, median earnings decreased for both sexes, not increasing substantially until the late 1990s. Since 1974 the median income for workers of both sexes increased by 31.7% from $18,474 to $24,325, reaching its high-point in 2000.

Incentives:
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In the context of concern over income inequality, a number of economists, such as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, have talked about the importance of incentives: "... without the possibility of unequal outcomes tied to differences in effort and skill, the economic incentive for productive behavior would be eliminated, and our market-based economy ... would function far less effectively."

Since abundant supply decreases market value, the possession of scarce skills considerably increases income. Among the American lower class, the most common source of income was not occupation, but government welfare.

Stock buybacks:

Writing in the Harvard Business Review in September 2014, William Lazonick blamed record corporate stock buybacks for reduced investment in the economy and a corresponding impact on prosperity and income inequality.

Between 2003 and 2012, the 449 companies in the S&P 500 used 54% of their earnings ($2.4 trillion) to buy back their own stock. An additional 37% was paid to stockholders as dividends. Together, these were 91% of profits. This left little for investment in productive capabilities or higher income for employees, shifting more income to capital rather than labor.

Lazonick blamed executive compensation arrangements, which are heavily based on stock options, stock awards and bonuses for meeting earnings per share (EPS) targets (EPS increases as the number of outstanding shares decreases). Restrictions on buybacks were greatly eased in the early 1980s. He advocates changing these incentives to limit buybacks.

U.S. companies are projected to increase buybacks to $701 billion in 2015 according to Goldman Sachs, an 18% increase over 2014. For scale, annual non-residential fixed investment (a proxy for business investment and a major GDP component) was estimated to be about $2.1 trillion for 2014.

Journalist Timothy Noah wrote in 2012 that: "My own preferred hypothesis is that stockholders appropriated what once belonged to middle-class wage earners." Since the vast majority of stocks are owned by higher income households, this contributes to income inequality.

Journalist Harold Meyerson wrote in 2014 that: "The purpose of the modern U.S. corporation is to reward large investors and top executives with income that once was spent on expansion, research, training and employees."

Tax and transfer policies:

​Main article: Tax policy and economic inequality in the United States

Background:

U.S. income inequality is comparable to other developed nations pre-tax, but is among the worst after-tax and transfers. This indicates the U.S. tax policies redistribute income from higher income to lower income households relatively less than other developed countries.

Journalist Timothy Noah summarized the results of several studies his 2012 book The Great Divergence:
  • Economists Piketty and Saez reported in 2007, that U.S. taxes on the rich had declined over the 1979–2004 period, contributing to increasing after-tax income inequality. While dramatic reductions in the top marginal income tax rate contributed somewhat to worsening inequality, other changes to the tax code (e.g., corporate, capital gains, estate, and gift taxes) had more significant impact. Considering all federal taxes, including the payroll tax, the effective tax rate on the top 0.01% fell dramatically, from 59.3% in 1979 to 34.7% in 2004. CBO reported an effective tax rate decline from 42.9% in 1979 to 32.3% in 2004 for the top 0.01%, using a different income measurement. In other words, the effective tax rate on the very highest income taxpayers fell by about one-quarter.
  • CBO estimated that the combined effect of federal taxes and government transfers reduced income inequality (as measured by the Gini Index) by 23% in 1979. By 2007, the combined effect was to reduce income inequality by 17%. So the tax code remained progressive, only less so.
  • While pre-tax income is the primary driver of income inequality, the less progressive tax code further increased the share of after-tax income going to the highest income groups. For example, had these tax changes not occurred, the after-tax income share of the top 0.1% would have been approximately 4.5% in 2000 instead of the 7.3% actual figure.

Income taxes:
​​
A key factor in income inequality/equality is the effective rate at which income is taxed coupled with the progressivity of the tax system. A progressive tax is a tax in which the effective tax rate increases as the taxable base amount increases. Overall income tax rates in the U.S. are below the OECD average, and until 2005 have been declining.

How much tax policy change over the last thirty years has contributed to income inequality is disputed. In their comprehensive 2011 study of income inequality (Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007), the CBO found that the top fifth of the population saw a 10-percentage-point increase in their share of after-tax income.

Most of that growth went to the top 1 percent of the population. All other groups saw their shares decline by 2 to 3 percentage points. In 2007, federal taxes and transfers reduced the dispersion of income by 20 percent, but that equalizing effect was larger in 1979. The share of transfer payments to the lowest-income households declined. The overall average federal tax rate fell.

However, a more recent CBO analysis indicates that with changes to 2013 tax law (e.g., the expiration of the 2001-2003 Bush tax cuts for top earners and the increased payroll taxes passed as part of the Affordable Care Act), the effective federal tax rates for the highest earning household will increase to levels not seen since 1979.

According to journalist Timothy Noah, "you can't really demonstrate that U.S. tax policy had a large impact on the three-decade income inequality trend one way or the other. The inequality trend for pre-tax income during this period was much more dramatic." Noah estimates tax changes account for 5% of the Great Divergence.

But many – such as economist Paul Krugman – emphasize the effect of changes in taxation – such as the 2001 and 2003 Bush administration tax cuts which cut taxes far more for high-income households than those below – on increased income inequality.

Part of the growth of income inequality under Republican administrations (described by Larry Bartels) has been attributed to tax policy. A study by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez found that "large reductions in tax progressivity since the 1960s took place primarily during two periods: the Reagan presidency in the 1980s and the Bush administration in the early 2000s."

During Republican President Ronald Reagan's tenure in office the top marginal income tax rate was reduced from over 70 to 28 percent, high top marginal rates like 70% being the sort in place during much of the period of great income equality following the "Great Compression". 

The lowest marginal rate for the bottom fell from 14 to 11 percent. However the effective rate on top earners before Reagan's tax cut was much lower because of loopholes and charitable contributions.

Taxes on capital:

​Taxes on income derived from capital (e.g., financial assets, property and businesses) primarily affect higher income groups, who own the vast majority of capital. For example, in 2010 approximately 81% of stocks were owned by the top 10% income group and 69% by the top 5%.

Only about one-third of American households have stock holdings more than $7,000. Therefore, since higher-income taxpayers have a much higher share of their income represented by capital gains, lowering taxes on capital income and gains increases after-tax income inequality.

Capital gains taxes were reduced around the time income inequality began to rise again around 1980 and several times thereafter. During 1978 under President Carter, the top capital gains tax rate was reduced from 49% to 28%. President Ronald Reagan's 1981 cut in the top rate on unearned income reduced the maximum capital gains rate to only 20% – its lowest level since the Hoover administration, as part of an overall economic growth strategy.

The capital gains tax rate was also reduced by President Bill Clinton in 1997, from 28% to 20%. President George W. Bush reduced the tax rate on capital gains and qualifying dividends from 20% to 15%, less than half the 35% top rate on ordinary income.

CBO reported in August 1990 that: "Of the 8 studies reviewed, five, including the two CBO studies, found that cutting taxes on capital gains is not likely to increase savings, investment, or GNP much if at all." Some of the studies indicated the loss in revenue from lowering the tax rate may be offset by higher economic growth, others did not.

Journalist Timothy Noah wrote in 2012 that: "Every one of these changes elevated the financial interests of business owners and stockholders above the well-being, financial or otherwise, or ordinary citizens." So overall, while cutting capital gains taxes adversely affects income inequality, its economic benefits are debatable.

Other tax policies:

Rising inequality had also been attributed to President Bush's veto of tax harmonization, as this would have prohibited offshore tax havens.

Debate over effects of tax policies:

One study found reductions of total effective tax rates were most significant for individuals with highest incomes. (see "Federal Tax Rate by Income Group" chart) For those with incomes in the top 0.01 percent, overall rates of Federal tax fell from 74.6% in 1970, to 34.7% in 2004 (the reversal of the trend in 2000 with a rise to 40.8% came after the 1993 Clinton deficit reduction tax bill), the next 0.09 percent falling from 59.1% to 34.1%, before leveling off with a relatively modest drop of 41.4 to 33.0% for the 99.5–99.9 percent group.

​Although the tax rate for low-income earners fell as well (though not as much), these tax reductions compare with virtually no change – 23.3% tax rate in 1970, 23.4% in 2004 – for the US population overall.

The study found the decline in progressivity since 1960 was due to the shift from allocation of corporate income taxes among labor and capital to the effects of the individual income tax. Paul Krugman also supports this claim saying, "The overall tax rate on these high income families fell from 36.5% in 1980 to 26.7% in 1989."

From the White House's own analysis, the federal tax burden for those making greater than $250,000 fell considerably during the late 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, from an effective tax of 35% in 1980, down to under 30% from the late 1980s to 2011.

Many studies argue that tax changes of S corporations confound the statistics prior to 1990. However, even after these changes inflation-adjusted average after-tax income grew by 25% between 1996 and 2006 (the last year for which individual income tax data is publicly available).

This average increase, however, obscures a great deal of variation. The poorest 20% of tax filers experienced a 6% reduction in income while the top 0.1 percent of tax filers saw their income almost double. Tax filers in the middle of the income distribution experienced about a 10% increase in income. Also during this period, the proportion of income from capital increased for the top 0.1 percent from 64% to 70%.

Transfer payments:

Transfer payments refer to payments to persons such as social security, unemployment compensation, or welfare. CBO reported in November 2014 that: "Government transfers reduce income inequality because the transfers received by lower-income households are larger relative to their market income than are the transfers received by higher-income households.

Federal taxes also reduce income inequality, because the taxes paid by higher-income households are larger relative to their before-tax income than are the taxes paid by lower-income households. The equalizing effects of government transfers were significantly larger than the equalizing effects of federal taxes from 1979 to 2011.

CBO also reported that less progressive tax and transfer policies have contributed to greater after-tax income inequality: "As a result of the diminishing effect of transfers and federal taxes, the Gini index for income after transfers and federal taxes grew by more than the index for market income.

Between 1979 and 2007, the Gini index for market income increased by 23 percent, the index for market income after transfers increased by 29 percent, and the index for income measured after transfers and federal taxes increased by 33 percent."

Tax expenditures:

Tax expenditures (i.e., exclusions, deductions, preferential tax rates, and tax credits) cause revenues to be much lower than they would otherwise be for any given tax rate structure.

The benefits from tax expenditures, such as income exclusions for healthcare insurance premiums paid for by employers and tax deductions for mortgage interest, are distributed unevenly across the income spectrum. They are often what the Congress offers to special interests in exchange for their support. According to a report from the CBO that analyzed the 2013 data:
  • The top 10 tax expenditures totalled $900 billion. This is a proxy for how much they reduced revenues or increased the annual budget deficit.
  • Tax expenditures tend to benefit those at the top and bottom of the income distribution, but less so in the middle.
  • The top 20% of income earners received approximately 50% of the benefit from them; the top 1% received 17% of the benefits.
  • The largest single tax expenditure was the exclusion from income of employer sponsored health insurance ($250 billion).
  • Preferential tax rates on capital gains and dividends were $160 billion; the top 1% received 68% of the benefit or $109 billion from lower income tax rates on these types of income.

Understanding how each tax expenditure is distributed across the income spectrum can inform policy choices.

​Other Causes:

​Shifts in political power:

Paul Krugman wrote in 2015 that: "Economists struggling to make sense of economic polarization are, increasingly, talking not about technology but about power."

This market power hypothesis basically asserts that market power has concentrated in monopolies and oligopolies that enable unusual amounts of income ("rents") to be transferred from the many consumers to relatively few owners. This hypothesis is consistent with higher corporate profits without a commensurate rise in investment, as firms facing less competition choose to pass a greater share of their profits to shareholders (such as through share buybacks and dividends) rather than re-invest in the business to ward off competitors.

One cause of this concentration of market power was the rightward shift in American politics toward more conservative policies since 1980, as politics plays a big role in how market power can be exercised.

Policies that removed barriers to monopoly and oligopoly included anti-union laws, reduced anti-trust activity, deregulation (or failure to regulate) non-depository banking, contract laws that favored creditors over debtors, etc. Further, rising wealth concentration can be used to purchase political influence, creating a feedback loop.

Decline of unions:
Further information: Labor unions in the United States

The era of inequality growth has coincided with a dramatic decline in labor union membership from 20% of the labor force in 1983 to about 12% in 2007. Classical and neoclassical economists have traditionally thought that since the chief purpose of a union is to maximize the income of its members, a strong but not all-encompassing union movement would lead to increased income inequality.

​However, given the increase in income inequality of the past few decades, either the sign of the effect must be reversed, or the magnitude of the effect must be small and a much larger opposing force has overridden it.

​However, more recently, research has shown that unions' ability to reduce income disparities among members outweighed other factors and its net effect has been to reduce national income inequality. 

The decline of unions has hurt this leveling effect among men, and one economist (Berkeley economist David Card) estimating about 15–20% of the "Great Divergence" among that gender is the result of declining unionization.

According to scholars, "As organized labor's political power dissipates, economic interests in the labor market are dispersed and policy makers have fewer incentives to strengthen unions or otherwise equalize economic rewards." 

Unions were a balancing force, helping ensure wages kept up with productivity and that neither executives nor shareholders were unduly rewarded. Further, societal norms placed constraints on executive pay.

This changed as union power declined (the share of unionized workers fell significantly during the Great Divergence, from over 30% to around 12%) and CEO pay skyrocketed (rising from around 40 times the average workers pay in the 1970s to over 350 times in the early 2000s). 

A 2015 report by the International Monetary Fund also attributes the decline of labor's share of GDP to de-unionization, noting the trend "necessarily increases the income share of corporate managers' pay and shareholder returns ... Moreover, weaker unions can reduce workers' influence on corporate decisions that benefit top earners, such as the size and structure of top executive compensation."

Still other researchers think it is the labor movement's loss of national political power to promote equalizing "government intervention and changes in private sector behavior" has had the greatest impact on inequality in the US. Sociologist Jake Rosenfeld of the University of Washington argues that labor unions were the primary institution fighting inequality in the United States and helped grow a multiethnic middle class, and their decline has resulted in diminishing prospects for U.S. workers and their families.

Timothy Noah estimates the "decline" of labor union power "responsible for 20%" of the Great Divergence. While the decline of union power in the US has been a factor in declining middle class incomes, they have retained their clout in Western Europe.

In Denmark, influential trade unions such as Fagligt Fælles Forbund (3F) ensure that fast-food workers earn a living wage, the equivalent of $20 an hour, which is more than double the hourly rate for their counterparts in the United States.

Critics of technological change as an explanation for the "Great Divergence" of income levels in America point to public policy and party politics, or "stuff the government did, or didn't do". They argue these have led to a trend of declining labor union membership rates and resulting diminishing political clout, decreased expenditure on social services, and less government redistribution. Moreover, the United States is the only advanced economy without a labor-based political party.

As of 2011, several state legislatures have launched initiatives aimed at lowering wages, labor standards, and workplace protections for both union and non-union workers.

​The economist Joseph Stiglitz argues that "Strong unions have helped to reduce inequality, whereas weaker unions have made it easier for CEOs, sometimes working with market forces that they have helped shape, to increase it." The long fall in unionization in the U.S. since WWII has seen a corresponding rise in the inequality of wealth and income.

Political parties and presidents:

Liberal political scientist Larry Bartels has found a strong correlation between the party of the president and income inequality in America since 1948. (see below) Examining average annual pre-tax income growth from 1948 to 2005 (which encompassed most of the egalitarian Great Compression and the entire inegalitarian Great Divergence).

Bartels shows that under Democratic presidents (from Harry Truman forward), the greatest income gains have been at the bottom of the income scale and tapered off as income rose.

Under Republican presidents, in contrast, gains were much less but what growth there was concentrated towards the top, tapering off as you went down the income scale.

Summarizing Bartels's findings, journalist Timothy Noah referred to the administrations of Democratic presidents as "Democrat-world", and GOP administrations as "Republican-world":

In Democrat-world, pre-tax income increased 2.64% annually for the poor and lower-middle-class and 2.12% annually for the upper-middle-class and rich. There was no Great Divergence. Instead, the Great Compression – the egalitarian income trend that prevailed through the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s – continued to the present, albeit with incomes converging less rapidly than before.

In Republican-world, meanwhile, pre-tax income increased 0.43 percent annually for the poor and lower-middle-class and 1.90 percent for the upper-middle-class and rich. Not only did the Great Divergence occur; it was more greatly divergent. Also of note: In Democrat-world pre-tax income increased faster than in the real world not just for the 20th percentile but also for the 40th, 60th, and 80th.

We were all richer and more equal! But in Republican-world, pre-tax income increased slower than in the real world not just for the 20th percentile but also for the 40th, 60th, and 80th. We were all poorer and less equal! Democrats also produced marginally faster income growth than Republicans at the 95th percentile, but the difference wasn't statistically significant.

The pattern of distribution of growth appears to be the result of a whole host of policies,
including not only the distribution of taxes and benefits but also the government's stance toward unions, whether the minimum wage rises, the extent to which the government frets about inflation versus too-high interest rates, etc., etc.

Noah admits the evidence of this correlation is "circumstantial rather than direct", but so is "the evidence that smoking is a leading cause of lung cancer."

In his 2017 book The Great Leveler, historian Walter Scheidel point out that, starting in the 1970s, both parties shifted towards promoting free market capitalism, with Republicans moving further to the political right than Democrats to the political left. He notes that Democrats have been instrumental in the financial deregulation of the 1990s and have largely neglected social welfare issues while increasingly focusing on issues pertaining to identity politics.

The Clinton Administration in particular continued promoting free market, or neoliberal, reforms which began under the Reagan Administration.

Non-party political action:
Further information: Executive pay in the United States
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According to political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson writing in the book Winner-Take-All Politics, the important policy shifts were brought on not by the Republican Party but by the development of a modern, efficient political system, especially lobbying, by top earners – and particularly corporate executives and the financial services industry. 

The end of the 1970s saw a transformation of American politics away from a focus on the middle class, with new, much more effective, aggressive and well-financed lobbyists and pressure groups acting on behalf of upper income groups. Executives successfully eliminated any countervailing power or oversight of corporate managers (from private litigation, boards of directors and shareholders, the Securities and Exchange Commission or labor unions).

The financial industry's success came from successfully pushing for deregulation of financial markets, allowing much more lucrative but much more risky investments from which it privatized the gains while socializing the losses with government bailouts. (the two groups formed about 60% of the top 0.1 percent of earners.) All top earners were helped by deep cuts in estate and capital gains taxes, and tax rates on high levels of income.

Arguing against the proposition that the explosion in pay for corporate executives – which grew from 35X average worker pay in 1978 to over 250X average pay before the 2007 recession – is driven by an increased demand for scarce talent and set according to performance, Krugman points out that multiple factors outside of executives' control govern corporate profitability, particularly in short term when the head of a company like Enron may look like a great success.

Further, corporate boards follow other companies in setting pay even if the directors themselves disagree with lavish pay "partly to attract executives whom they consider adequate, partly because the financial market will be suspicious of a company whose CEO isn't lavishly paid." Finally "corporate boards, largely selected by the CEO, hire compensation experts, almost always chosen by the CEO" who naturally want to please their employers.

Lucian Arye Bebchuk, Jesse M. Fried, the authors of Pay Without Performance, critique of executive pay, argue that executive capture of corporate governance is so complete that only public relations, i.e. public `outrage`, constrains their pay. This in turn has been reduced as traditional critics of excessive pay – such as politicians (where need for campaign contributions from the richest outweighs populist indignation), media (lauding business genius), unions (crushed) – are now silent.

In addition to politics, Krugman postulated change in norms of corporate culture have played a factor. In the 1950s and 60s, corporate executives had (or could develop) the ability to pay themselves very high compensation through control of corporate boards of directors, they restrained themselves.

But by the end of the 1990s, the average real annual compensation of the top 100 C.E.O.'s skyrocketed from $1.3 million – 39 times the pay of an average worker – to $37.5 million, more than 1,000 times the pay of ordinary workers from 1982 to 2002.

Journalist George Packer also sees the dramatic increase in inequality in America as a product of the change in attitude of the American elite, which (in his view) has been transitioning itself from pillars of society to a special interest group.

Author Timothy Noah estimates that what he calls "Wall Street and corporate boards' pampering" of the highest earning 0.1% is "responsible for 30%" of the post-1978 increase in inequality.

Immigration:
​
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 increased immigration to America, especially of non-Europeans. From 1970 to 2007, the foreign-born proportion of America's population grew from 5% to 11%, most of whom had lower education levels and incomes than native-born Americans.

But the contribution of this increase in supply of low-skill labor seem to have been relatively modest. One estimate stated that immigration reduced the average annual income of native-born "high-school dropouts" ("who roughly correspond to the poorest tenth of the workforce") by 7.4% from 1980 to 2000.

The decline in income of better educated workers was much less. Author Timothy Noah estimates that "immigration" is responsible for just 5% of the "Great Divergence" in income distribution, as does economist David Card.

While immigration was found to have slightly depressed the wages of the least skilled and least educated American workers, it doesn't explain rising inequality among high school and college graduates. 

Scholars such as political scientists Jacob S. Hacker, Paul Pierson, Larry Bartels and Nathan Kelly, and economist Timothy Smeeding question the explanation of educational attainment and workplace skills point out that other countries with similar education levels and economies have not gone the way of the US, and that the concentration of income in the US hasn't followed a pattern of "the 29% of Americans with college degrees pulling away" from those who have less education.

Wage theft:

A September 2014 report by the Economic Policy Institute claims wage theft is also responsible for exacerbating income inequality: "Survey evidence suggests that wage theft is widespread and costs workers billions of dollars a year, a transfer from low-income employees to business owners that worsens income inequality, hurts workers and their families, and damages the sense of fairness and justice that a democracy needs to survive."

Corporatism:
See also: Corporatocracy
​
​Edmund Phelps published an analysis in 2010 theorizing that the cause of income inequality is not free market capitalism, but instead is the result of the rise of corporatism.

Corporatism, in his view, is the antithesis of free market capitalism. It is characterized by semi-monopolistic organizations and banks, big employer confederations, often acting with complicit state institutions in ways that discourage (or block) the natural workings of a free economy.

The primary effects of corporatism are the consolidation of economic power and wealth with end results being the attrition of entrepreneurial and free market dynamism.

His follow-up book, Mass Flourishing, further defines corporatism by the following attributes:
  • power-sharing between government and large corporations (exemplified in the U.S. by widening government power in areas such as financial services, healthcare, and energy through regulation),
  • an expansion of corporate lobbying and campaign support in exchange for government reciprocity, escalation in the growth and influence of financial and banking sectors,
  • increased consolidation of the corporate landscape through merger and acquisition (with ensuing increases in corporate executive compensation),
  • increased potential for corporate/government corruption and malfeasance,
  • and a lack of entrepreneurial and small business development leading to lethargic and stagnant economic conditions.

Today, in the United States, virtually all of these economic conditions are being borne out. With regard to income inequality, the 2014 income analysis of University of California, Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez confirms that relative growth of income and wealth is not occurring among small and mid-sized entrepreneurs and business owners (who generally populate the lower half of top one per-centers in income), but instead only among the top .1 percent of income distribution ... whom Paul Krugman describes as "super-elites - corporate bigwigs and financial wheeler-dealers." ... who earn $2,000,000 or more every year.

For example, measured relative to GDP, total compensation and its component wages and salaries have been declining since 1970. This indicates a shift in income from labor (persons who derive income from hourly wages and salaries) to capital (persons who derive income via ownership of businesses, land and assets).

Wages and salaries have fallen from approximately 51% GDP in 1970 to 43% GDP in 2013. Total compensation has fallen from approximately 58% GDP in 1970 to 53% GDP in 2013.

To put this in perspective, five percent of U.S. GDP was approximately $850 billion in 2013. This represents an additional $7,000 in wages and salaries for each of the 120 million U.S. households. Larry Summers estimated in 2007 that the lower 80% of families were receiving $664 billion less income than they would be with a 1979 income distribution (a period of much greater equality), or approximately $7,000 per family.

Not receiving this income may have led many families to increase their debt burden, a significant factor in the 2007-2009 subprime mortgage crisis, as highly leveraged homeowners suffered a much larger reduction in their net worth during the crisis. Further, since lower income families tend to spend relatively more of their income than higher income families, shifting more of the income to wealthier families may slow economic growth.

In another example, The Economist propounds that a swelling corporate financial and banking sector has caused Gini Coefficients to rise in the U.S. since 1980: "Financial services' share of GDP in America doubled to 8% between 1980 and 2000; over the same period their profits rose from about 10% to 35% of total corporate profits, before collapsing in 2007–09. Bankers are being paid more, too. In America the compensation of workers in financial services was similar to average compensation until 1980. Now it is twice that average."

The summary argument, considering these findings, is that if corporatism is the consolidation and sharing of economic and political power between large corporations and the state ... then a corresponding concentration of income and wealth (with resulting income inequality) is an expected by-product of such a consolidation.

Neoliberalism:
See also: Market fundamentalism

Some economists, sociologists and anthropologists argue that neoliberalism, or the resurgence of 19th century theories relating to laissez-faire economic liberalism in the late 1970s, has been the significant driver of inequality. 

More broadly, according to The Handbook of Neoliberalism, the term has "become a means of identifying a seemingly ubiquitous set of market-oriented policies as being largely responsible for a wide range of social, political, ecological and economic problems."

Vicenç Navarro points to policies pertaining to the deregulation of labor markets, privatization of public institutions, union busting and reduction of public social expenditures as contributors to this widening disparity. 

The privatization of public functions, for example, grows income inequality by depressing wages and eliminating benefits for middle class workers while increasing income for those at the top. The deregulation of the labor market undermined unions by allowing the real value of the minimum wage to plummet, resulting in employment insecurity and widening wage and income inequality.

David M. Kotz, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, contends that neoliberalism "is based on the thorough domination of labor by capital." As such, the advent of the neoliberal era has seen a sharp increase in income inequality through the decline of unionization, stagnant wages for workers and the rise of CEO supersalaries.

According to Emmanuel Saez: The labor market has been creating much more inequality over the last thirty years, with the very top earners capturing a large fraction of macroeconomic productivity gains.

A number of factors may help explain this increase in inequality, not only underlying technological changes but also the retreat of institutions developed during the New Deal and World War II - such as progressive tax policies, powerful unions, corporate provision of health and retirement benefits, and changing social norms regarding pay inequality.

Pennsylvania State University political science professor Pamela Blackmon attributes the trends of growing poverty and income inequality to the convergence of several neoliberal policies during Ronald Reagan's presidency, including the decreased funding of education, decreases in the top marginal tax rates, and shifts in transfer programs for those in poverty.

Journalist Mark Bittman echoes this sentiment in a 2014 piece for The New York Times:
"The progress of the last 40 years has been mostly cultural, culminating, the last couple of years, in the broad legalization of same-sex marriage. But by many other measures, especially economic, things have gotten worse, thanks to the establishment of neo-liberal principles — anti-unionism, deregulation, market fundamentalism and intensified, unconscionable greed — that began with Richard Nixon and picked up steam under Ronald Reagan. Too many are suffering now because too few were fighting then."

Fred L. Block and Margaret Somers, in expanding on Karl Polanyi's critique of laissez-faire theories in The Great Transformation, argue that Polanyi's analysis helps to explain why the revival of such ideas has contributed to the "persistent unemployment, widening inequality, and the severe financial crises that have stressed Western economies over the past forty years." 

​John Schmitt and Ben Zipperer of the Center for Economic and Policy Research also point to economic liberalism as one of the causes of income inequality. They note that European nations, in particular the social democracies of Northern Europe with extensive and well funded welfare states, have lower levels of income inequality and social exclusion than the United States.

​See also:







Capitalism or Socialism? Pictured below: ​​Socialism is not seen as compatible with American values,
but opinion is not overwhelmingly negative (Monmouth University 5/6/2019)
[Your Web Host: during the 2020 elections, President Trump and his Republican allies attempted to paint a negative picture of Democrats as seeking Socialism, e.g., socialized medicine. For the purposes of this web page, below you will find the Wikipedia articles on each for your own understanding. My Take: Capitalism is much better to the average citizen than socialism, although capital markets must be regulated to avoid the worst human trait capitalism can cause: greed!]

​Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.

Characteristics central to capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary exchange, a price system and competitive markets.

In a capitalist market economy, decision-making and investments are determined by every owner of wealth, property or production ability in financial and capital markets, whereas prices and the distribution of goods and services are mainly determined by competition in goods and services markets.

Economists, political economists, sociologists and historians have adopted different perspectives in their analyses of capitalism and have recognized various forms of it in practice. These include laissez-faire or free-market capitalism, welfare capitalism and state capitalism.

Different forms of capitalism feature varying degrees of free markets, public ownership, obstacles to free competition and state-sanctioned social policies. The degree of competition in markets, the role of intervention and regulation, and the scope of state ownership vary across different models of capitalism. 

The extent to which different markets are free as well as the rules defining private property are matters of politics and policy. Most existing capitalist economies are mixed economies which combine elements of free markets with state intervention and in some cases economic planning.

Market economies have existed under many forms of government and in many different times, places and cultures. Modern capitalist societies—marked by a universalization of money-based social relations, a consistently large and system-wide class of workers who must work for wages, and a capitalist class which owns the means of production—developed in Western Europe in a process that led to the Industrial Revolution. 

Capitalist systems with varying degrees of direct government intervention have since become dominant in the Western world and continue to spread. Over time, capitalist countries have experienced consistent economic growth and an increase in the standard of living.

Critics of capitalism argue that it establishes power in the hands of a minority capitalist class that exists through the exploitation of the majority working class and their labor; prioritizes profit over social good, natural resources and the environment; and is an engine of inequality, corruption and economic instabilities.

Supporters argue that it provides better products and innovation through competition, disperses wealth to all productive people, promotes pluralism and decentralization of power, creates strong economic growth and yields productivity and prosperity that greatly benefit society.

Background:

​The term "capitalist", meaning an owner of capital, appears earlier than the term "capitalism" and it dates back to the mid-17th century. "Capitalism" is derived from capital, which evolved from capitale, a late Latin word based on caput, meaning "head"—also the origin of "chattel" and "cattle" in the sense of movable property (only much later to refer only to livestock). 

Capitale emerged in the 12th to 13th centuries in the sense of referring to funds, stock of merchandise, sum of money or money carrying interest. By 1283, it was used in the sense of the capital assets of a trading firm and it was frequently interchanged with a number of other words—wealth, money, funds, goods, assets, property and so on.

The Hollandische Mercurius uses "capitalists" in 1633 and 1654 to refer to owners of capital. In French, Étienne Clavier referred to capitalistes in 1788, six years before its first recorded English usage by Arthur Young in his work Travels in France (1792). 

In his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817), David Ricardo referred to "the capitalist" many times. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an English poet, used "capitalist" in his work Table Talk (1823). Pierre-Joseph Proudhon used the term "capitalist" in his first work, What is Property? (1840), to refer to the owners of capital. Benjamin Disraeli used the term "capitalist" in his 1845 work Sybil.


The initial usage of the term "capitalism" in its modern sense has been attributed to Louis Blanc in 1850 ("What I call 'capitalism' that is to say the appropriation of capital by some to the exclusion of others") and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1861 ("Economic and social regime in which capital, the source of income, does not generally belong to those who make it work through their labor").

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels referred to the "capitalistic system" and to the "capitalist mode of production" in Capital (1867). The use of the word "capitalism" in reference to an economic system appears twice in Volume I of Capital, p. 124 (German edition) and in Theories of Surplus Value, tome II, p. 493 (German edition).

Marx did not extensively use the form capitalism, but instead those of capitalist and capitalist mode of production, which appear more than 2,600 times in the trilogy The Capital. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the term "capitalism" first appeared in English in 1854 in the novel The Newcomes by novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, where he meant "having ownership of capital". Also according to the OED, Carl Adolph Douai, a German American socialist and abolitionist, used the phrase "private capitalism" in 1863.

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​​Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterized by social ownership of the means of production and workers' self-management, as well as the political theories and movements associated with them. 

Social ownership can be public, collective or cooperative ownership, or citizen ownership of equity. There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them, with social ownership being the common element shared by its various forms.

Socialist systems are divided into non-market and market forms.

Non-market socialism involves replacing factor markets and money with engineering and technical criteria based on calculation performed in-kind, thereby producing an economic mechanism that functions according to different economic laws from those of capitalism (above).

Non-market socialism aims to circumvent the inefficiencies and crises traditionally associated with capital accumulation and the profit system. By contrast, market socialism retains the use of monetary prices, factor markets and in some cases the profit motive, with respect to the operation of socially owned enterprises and the allocation of capital goods between them.

Profits generated by these firms would be controlled directly by the workforce of each firm, or accrue to society at large in the form of a social dividend. The socialist calculation debate concerns the feasibility and methods of resource allocation for a socialist system.

Socialist politics has been both internationalist and nationalist in orientation; organised through political parties and opposed to party politics; at times overlapping with trade unions, and at other times independent and critical of unions; and present in both industrialized and developing nations.

Originating within the socialist movement, social democracy has embraced a mixed economy with a market that includes substantial state intervention in the form of income redistribution, regulation, and a welfare state. Economic democracy proposes a sort of market socialism where there is more decentralised control of companies, currencies, investments, and natural resources.

The socialist political movement includes a set of political philosophies that originated in the revolutionary movements of the mid-to-late 18th century and out of concern for the social problems that were associated with capitalism. By the late 19th century, after the work of Karl Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels, socialism had come to signify opposition to capitalism and advocacy for a post-capitalist system based on some form of social ownership of the means of production. 

By the 1920s, social democracy and communism had become the two dominant political tendencies within the international socialist movement. By this time, socialism emerged as "the most influential secular movement of the twentieth century, worldwide.

It is a political ideology (or world view), a wide and divided political movement" and while the emergence of the Soviet Union as the world's first nominally socialist state led to socialism's widespread association with the Soviet economic model, some economists and intellectuals argued that in practice the model functioned as a form of state capitalism or a non-planned administrative or command economy. 

Socialist parties and ideas remain a political force with varying degrees of power and influence on all continents, heading national governments in many countries around the world. Today, some socialists have also adopted the causes of other social movements, such as environmentalism, feminism and progressivism.

​For Andrew Vincent, "[t]he word ‘socialism’ finds its root in the Latin sociare, which means to combine or to share. The related, more technical term in Roman and then medieval law was societas. This latter word could mean companionship and fellowship as well as the more legalistic idea of a consensual contract between freemen".

The term "socialism" was created by Henri de Saint-Simon, one of the founders of what would later be labelled "utopian socialism". Simon coined the term as a contrast to the liberal doctrine of "individualism", which stressed that people act or should act as if they are in isolation from one another. 

The original "utopian" socialists condemned liberal individualism for failing to address social concerns during the industrial revolution, including poverty, social oppression and gross inequalities in wealth, thus viewing liberal individualism as degenerating society into supporting selfish egoism that harmed community life through promoting a society based on competition.

They presented socialism as an alternative to liberal individualism based on the shared ownership of resources, although their proposals for socialism differed significantly. Saint-Simon proposed economic planning, scientific administration and the application of modern scientific advancements to the organisation of society.

By contrast, Robert Owen proposed the organization of production and ownership in cooperatives.

The term "socialism" is also attributed to Pierre Leroux and to Marie Roch Louis Reybaud in France; and to Robert Owen in Britain who became one of the fathers of the cooperative movement.

The modern definition and usage of "socialism" settled by the 1860s, becoming the predominant term among the group of words "co-operative", "mutualist" and "associationist", which had previously been used as synonyms. The term "communism" also fell out of use during this period, despite earlier distinctions between socialism and communism from the 1840s.

An early distinction between socialism and communism was that the former aimed to only socialise production while the latter aimed to socialise both production and consumption (in the form of free access to final goods). However, Marxists employed the term "socialism" in place of "communism" by 1888, which had come to be considered an old-fashion synonym for socialism.

It was not until 1917 after the Bolshevik Revolution that "socialism" came to refer to a distinct stage between capitalism and communism, introduced by Vladimir Lenin as a means to defend the Bolshevik seizure of power against traditional Marxist criticisms that Russia's productive forces were not sufficiently developed for socialist revolution.

A distinction between "communist" and "socialist" as descriptors of political ideologies arose in 1918 after the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party renamed itself to the All-Russian Communist Party, where communist came to specifically mean socialists who supported the politics and theories of Leninism, Bolshevism and later Marxism–Leninism, although communist parties continued to describe themselves as socialists dedicated to socialism.

The words "socialism" and "communism" eventually accorded with the adherents' and opponents' cultural attitude towards religion. In Christian Europe, communism was believed to be the atheist way of life. In Protestant England, the word "communism" was too culturally and aurally close to the Roman Catholic communion rite, hence English atheists denoted themselves socialists.

Friedrich Engels argued that in 1848, at the time when The Communist Manifesto was published, that "socialism was respectable on the continent, while communism was not".

The Owenites in England and the Fourierists in France were considered "respectable" socialists, while working-class movements that "proclaimed the necessity of total social change" denoted themselves communists. This latter branch of socialism produced the communist work of Étienne Cabet in France and Wilhelm Weitling in Germany.

The British moral philosopher John Stuart Mill also came to advocate a form of economic socialism within a liberal context. In later editions of his Principles of Political Economy (1848), Mill would argue that "as far as economic theory was concerned, there is nothing in principle in economic theory that precludes an economic order based on socialist policies".

​While democrats looked to the Revolutions of 1848 as a democratic revolution, which in the long run ensured liberty, equality and fraternity, Marxists denounced 1848 as a betrayal of working-class ideals by a bourgeoisie indifferent to the legitimate demands of the proletariat.

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White Americans in the United States
White Americans are Americans who are considered or reported as White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East-North Africa." 

Like all official U.S. racial categories, "White" has a "not Hispanic or Latino" and a "Hispanic or Latino" component, the latter consisting mostly of White Mexican Americans and White Cuban Americans. The term "Caucasian" is often used interchangeably with "White", although the terms are not synonymous.

The largest ancestries of American Whites are: 
However, the English-Americans and British-Americans demography is considered a serious under-count as the stock tend to self-report and identify as simply 'Americans' (6.9%), due to the length of time they have inhabited America.

Whites (including Hispanics who identify as White) constitute the majority, with a total of about 246,660,710, or 77.35% of the population as of 2014. Non-Hispanic Whites totaled about 197,870,516, or 62.06% of the U.S. population.

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​
​Hispanic and Latino Americans, including a List by ProfessionPictured below: (L) Mónica Ponce de León (Dean of Princeton's School of Architecture); (R) Tom Perez (Chair of the Democratic National Committee since 2017)
Click here for a List of Hispanic and Latino Americans by Profession

​Hispanic Americans and Latin Americans are Americans who are descendants of the Spanish- countries of Latin America and Spain. More generally, it includes all persons in the United States who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino, whether of full or partial ancestry.

For the 2010 United States Census, people counted as "Hispanic" or "Latino" were those who identified as one of the specific Hispanic or Latino categories listed on the census questionnaire ("Mexican," "Puerto Rican," or "Cuban") as well as those who indicated that they were "other Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino."

The national origins classified as Hispanic or Latino by the United States Census Bureau are the following: 
​Other U.S. government agencies have slightly different definitions of the term, including Brazilians and other Portuguese-speaking groups. The Census Bureau uses the terms Hispanic and Latino interchangeably.

"Origin" can be viewed as the ancestry, nationality group, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the person's parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States. People who identify as Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino may be of any race. As the only specifically designated category of ethnicity in the United States (other than non-Hispanic/Latino), Hispanics form a pan-ethnicity incorporating a diversity of inter-related cultural and linguistic heritages.

Most Hispanic Americans are of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Salvadoran, Dominican, Guatemalan, or Colombian origin. The predominant origin of regional Hispanic populations varies widely in different locations across the country.

Hispanic Americans are the second fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States after Asian Americans. Hispanic/Latinos overall are the second-largest ethnic group in the United States, after non-Hispanic Whites (a group which, like Hispanics and Latinos, is composed of dozens of sub-groups of differing national origin).

Hispanics have lived within what is now the United States continuously since the founding of St. Augustine by the Spanish in 1565. After Native Americans, Hispanics are the oldest ethnic group to inhabit much of what is today the United States. Many have Native American ancestry. Spain colonized large areas of what is today the American Southwest and West Coast, as well as Florida. Its holdings included present-day California, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and Texas, all of which were part of the Republic of Mexico from its independence in 1821 until the end of the Mexican–American War in 1848.

A study published in 2015 in the American Journal of Human Genetics, based on 23andMe data from 8,663 self-described Latinos, estimated that Latinos in the United States carried a mean on 65.1% European ancestry, 18.0% Native American ancestry, and 6.2% African ancestry. The study found that self-described Latinos from the Southwest, especially those along the Mexican border, had the highest mean levels of Native American ancestry, while self-described Latinos from the South, Midwest, and Atlantic Coast had the highest mean levels of African ancestry.

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​
​African Americans including a List of the 100 Greatest African Americans along with Afro-American HistoryPictured: Clockwise, from upper left: President Barack Obama, Muhammad Ali,  Martin Luther King, Jr. and Shirley Chisholm
100 Greatest African Americans is a biographical dictionary of one hundred historically great Black Americans (in no particular order; that is, they are not ranked), as assessed by Temple University professor Molefi Kete Asante in 2002.

Asante used five factors in establishing the list:
  • "significance in the general progress of African-Americans toward full equality in the American social and political system"
  • "self-sacrifice and a willingness to take great risks for the collective good"
  • "unusual will and determination in the face of great danger and against the most stubborn odds"
  • "a consistent posture toward raising the social, cultural and economic status of African Americans"
  • "personal achievement that reveals the best qualities of the African American people"

African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans or Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group of Americans with total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. The term may also be used to include only those individuals who are descended from enslaved Africans. As a compound adjective the term is usually hyphenated as African-American.

Black and African Americans constitute the third largest racial and ethnic group in the United States (after White Americans and Hispanic and Latino Americans). Most African Americans are of West and Central African descent and are descendants of enslaved peoples within the boundaries of the present United States. 

The vast majority of African Americans also have some European and Native American ancestry. According to US Census Bureau data, African immigrants generally do not self-identify as African American. The overwhelming majority of African immigrants identify instead with their own respective ethnicities (~95%). Immigrants from some Caribbean, Central American and South American nations and their descendants may or may not also self-identify with the term.

African-American history starts in the 16th century, with peoples from West Africa forcibly taken as slaves to Spanish America, and in the 17th century with West African slaves taken to English colonies in North America. After the founding of the United States, black people continued to be enslaved, with four million denied freedom from bondage prior to the Civil War. 

Believed to be inferior to white people, they were treated as second-class citizens. The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited U.S. citizenship to whites only, and only white men of property could vote. 

These circumstances were changed by Reconstruction, development of the black community, participation in the great military conflicts of the United States, the elimination of racial segregation, and the Civil Rights Movement which sought political and social freedom. In 2008, Barack Obama became the first African American to be elected President of the United States.

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African-American history:

African-American history is the part of American history that looks at the history of African Americans or Black Americans.

​Of the 10.7 million Africans who were brought to the Americas by white Europeans until the 1880s, 450 thousand were shipped to what is now the United States.

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​
​Asian Americans in the United States Pictured Below: Two Charts indicating Population Makeup of Asian Americans in the United States
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The term refers to a panethnic group that includes diverse populations who have ancestral origins in East Asia, Southeast Asia, or South Asia, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. This includes people who indicate their race(s) on the census as "Asian" or reported entries such as "Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Other Asian." Asian Americans with no other ancestry comprise 4.8% of the U.S. population, while people who are Asian alone or combined with at least one other race make up 5.6%.

Although migrants from Asia have been in parts of the contemporary United States since the 17th century, large-scale immigration did not begin until the mid-18th century. Nativist immigration laws during the 1880s-1920s excluded various Asian groups, eventually prohibiting almost all Asian immigration to the continental United States.

After immigration laws were reformed during the 1940s-60s, abolishing national origins quotas, Asian immigration increased rapidly. Analyses of the 2010 census have shown that Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial or ethnic minority in the United States.

Starting in the first few years of the 2000 decade, Asian American earnings began exceeding all other racial groups for both men and women. For example, in 2008 Asian Americans had the highest median household income overall of any racial demographic. 

In 2012, Asian Americans had the highest educational attainment level and median household income of any racial demographic in the country. In 2015, Asian American men were the highest earning racial group as they earned 117% as much as white American men and Asian-American women earned 106% as much as white American women.

​Despite this, a 2014 report from the Census Bureau reported that 12% of Asian Americans were living below the poverty line, while only 10.1% of non-Hispanic white Americans live below the poverty line. Once country of birth and other demographic factors are taken into account, Asian Americans are no more likely than non-Hispanic whites to live in poverty.

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Native Americans in the United States*- Smithsonian Institution
Pictured: Location of Native American Tribes in the Contiguous United States (all states except Alaska and Hawaii)
In the United States, Native Americans (also known as American Indians, Indigenous Americans or simply Indians; see §Terminology differences) are people who belong to one of the over 500 distinct Native American tribes that survive intact today as partially sovereign nations within the country's modern boundaries. These tribes and bands are descended from the pre-Columbian indigenous population of North America.

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​​
Affirmative Action in the United States Pictured: Movements for Affirmative Action include (L) Feminism and (R) Civil Rights, including spokesman Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ​
Affirmative action in the United States is a set of laws, policies, guidelines, and administrative practices "intended to end and correct the effects of a specific form of discrimination." These include government-mandated, government-sanctioned, and voluntary private programs that tend to focus on access to education and employment, specifically granting special consideration to historically excluded groups such as racial minorities or women.

The impetus toward affirmative action is redressing the disadvantages associated with past and present discrimination. Further impetus is a desire to ensure public institutions, such as universities, hospitals, and police forces, are more representative of the populations they serve.

In the United States, affirmative action tends to emphasize not specific quotas but rather "targeted goals" to address past discrimination in a particular institution or in broader society through "good-faith efforts ... to identify, select, and train potentially qualified minorities and women." For example, many higher education institutions have voluntarily adopted policies which seek to increase recruitment of racial minorities. Another example is executive orders requiring some government contractors and subcontractors to adopt equal opportunity employment measures, such as outreach campaigns, targeted recruitment, employee and management development, and employee support programs.

Affirmative action policies were developed to address long histories of discrimination faced by minorities and women, which reports suggest produced corresponding unfair advantages for whites and males. 

They first emerged from debates over non-discrimination policies in the 1940s and during the Civil Rights Movement. These debates led to federal executive orders requiring non-discrimination in the employment policies of some government agencies and contractors in the 1940s onwards, and to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibited racial discrimination in firms with over 25 employees.

The first federal policy of race-conscious affirmative action was the Revised Philadelphia Plan, which required government contractors to set "goals and timetables" for integrating and diversifying their workforce.

Similar policies began to emerge through a mix of voluntary practices and federal and state policies in employment and education. Affirmative action as a practice was partially upheld by the Supreme Court in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), while the use of racial or gender quotas for college admissions was concurrently ruled unconstitutional by the Court in Gratz v. Bollinger (2003).

Affirmative action is a subject of controversy in American politics. Opponents of affirmative action argue that these policies are outdated and lead to reverse discrimination which entails favoring one group over another based upon racial preference rather than achievement, and many believe that the diversity of current American society suggests that affirmative action policies succeeded and are no longer required.

Some policies adopted as affirmative action, such as racial quotas or gender quotas, have been criticized as a form of reverse discrimination. Scholars have also questioned whether quota systems and "targeted goals" can be clearly distinguished from each other.

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Poverty in the United States including Low Income Communities along with Growing up in the ProjectsPictured below:
TOP: the Pruitt-Igoe Public Housing in St. Louis;
BOTTOM: Comparison of Poverty Rates by Age, 1959 and 2015   
Click here for a List of lowest-income places in the United States

Poverty is a state of deprivation, lacking the usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. The most common measure of poverty in the U.S. is the "poverty threshold" set by the U.S. government. This measure recognizes poverty as a lack of those goods and services commonly taken for granted by members of mainstream society. The official threshold is adjusted for inflation using the consumer price index.

Most Americans will spend at least one year below the poverty line at some point between ages 25 and 75. Poverty rates are persistently higher in rural and inner city parts of the country as compared to suburban areas.

In 2015, 13.5% (43.1 million) Americans lived in poverty. Starting in the 1930s, relative poverty rates have consistently exceeded those of other wealthy nations. The lowest poverty rates are found in New Hampshire, Vermont, Minnesota and Nebraska, which have between 8.7% and 9.1% of their population living in poverty.

In 2009 the number of people who were in poverty was approaching 1960s levels that led to the national War on Poverty. In 2011 extreme poverty in the United States, meaning households living on less than $2 per day before government benefits, was double 1996 levels at 1.5 million households, including 2.8 million children.

In 2012 the percentage of seniors living in poverty was 14% while 18% of children were. The addition of Social Security benefits contributed more to reduce poverty than any other factor.

Recent census data shows that half the population qualifies as poor or low income, with one in five Millennials living in poverty. Academic contributors to The Routledge Handbook of Poverty in the United States postulate that new and extreme forms of poverty have emerged in the U.S. as a result of neoliberal structural adjustment policies and globalization, which have rendered economically marginalized communities as destitute "surplus populations" in need of control and punishment.

In 2011, child poverty reached record high levels, with 16.7 million children living in food insecure households, about 35% more than 2007 levels. A 2013 UNICEF report ranked the U.S. as having the second highest relative child poverty rates in the developed world.

According to a 2016 study by the Urban Institute, teenagers in low income communities are often forced to join gangs, save school lunches, sell drugs or exchange sexual favors because they cannot afford food.

There were about 643,000 sheltered and un-sheltered homeless people nationwide in January 2009. Almost two-thirds stayed in an emergency shelter or transitional housing program and the other third were living on the street, in an abandoned building, or another place not meant for human habitation.

About 1.56 million people, or about 0.5% of the U.S. population, used an emergency shelter or a transitional housing program between October 1, 2008 and September 30, 2009. Around 44% of homeless people are employed.

In June 2016, the IMF warned the United States that its high poverty rate needs to be tackled urgently by raising the minimum wage and offering paid maternity leave to women to encourage them to enter the labor force.

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Public housing in the United States is administered by federal, state and local agencies to provide subsidized assistance for low-income households. Public housing is priced well below the market rate, allowing people to live in more convenient locations rather than move away from the city in search of lower rents.

Now increasingly provided in a variety of settings and formats, originally public housing in the U.S. consisted primarily of one or more concentrated blocks of low-rise and/or high-rise apartment buildings. These complexes are operated by state and local housing authorities which are authorized and funded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. More than 1.2 million households currently live in public housing of some type.

Subsidized apartment buildings, often referred to as housing projects or colloquially "the projects", have a complicated and often notorious history in the United States. While the first decades of projects were built with higher construction standards and a broader range of incomes and applicants, over time, public housing increasingly became the housing of last resort in many cities.

Several reasons have been cited for this negative trend including the failure of Congress to provide sufficient funding, a lowering of standards for occupancy, and mismanagement at the local level. Furthermore, housing projects have also been seen to greatly increase concentrated poverty in a community, leading to several negative externalities.

Crime, drug usage, and educational underperformance are all widely associated with housing projects, particularly in urban areas.

As a result of their various problems and diminished political support, many of the traditional low-income public housing properties constructed in the earlier years of the program have been demolished.

Beginning primarily in the 1970s the federal government turned to other approaches including the Section 8 project-based program, Section 8 certificates, and the Housing Choice Voucher Program.

In the 1990s the federal government accelerated the transformation of traditional public housing through HUD's HOPE VI Program. Hope VI funds are used to tear down distressed public housing projects and replace them with mixed communities constructed in cooperation with private partners.

In 2012, Congress and HUD initiated a new program called the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program. Under the demonstration program, eligible public housing properties are redeveloped in conjunction with private developers and investors.

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​Immigration Law in the United States, including a List of Immigration LawsPictured: Bastions of Immigration include (L) Statue of Liberty (R) Ellis Island
Click here for a List of Immigration Laws in the United States

Immigration law refers to national government policies controlling the immigration and deportation of people, and other matters such as citizenship.

Immigration law regarding the citizens of a country is regulated by international law. The United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights mandates that all countries allow entry to its own citizens.

Certain countries may maintain rather strict laws which regulate both the right of entry and internal rights, such as the duration of stay and the right to participate in government. Most countries have laws which designate a process for naturalization, by which foreigners may become citizens.

Immigration Law in the United States:

During the colonial period, independent colonies created their own immigration laws. The first law governing the naturalization of foreigners was the Naturalization Act of 1790. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act was passed to stop the immigration of Chinese people.

The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924 put a quota on how many immigrants were permitted, based on nationality and the numbers of persons who had immigrated in previous years. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 led to the creation of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The Department of Homeland Security, which replaced the Immigration and Naturalization Service, enforces immigration laws. The United States allows more than 1 million undocumented immigrants to become Legal Permanent Residents every year. The United States also issues more Visas than any other country in the world.

Visas in the United States can be broadly separated into two categories: immigrant visas, and non-immigrant visas. The former are subject to "per country-caps", whereas the latter is not. Most non-immigrant visas are for work purposes, and usually require an offer of employment from a US employer. Such immigration may involve restrictions such as a labor certification to ensure that no American workers are able to fill the role of the job.

Other categories include student, family and tourist visas. Each visa category is further divided into numerous subcategories; the large number of specific categories has been recommended as a main area for comprehensive immigration reform.

George W. Bush advocated for immigration amnesty in 2007 and sent a bill to senate where it was shot down.

Obama took a different approach, on the other hand, instead of moving directly to senate with an amnesty bill, he worked to override and to get rid of many immigration enforcement policies already in place. While there were fewer removals and returns under the Obama administration than each of the two prior administrations, those declines must be understood against the backdrop of a significant reduction in border apprehensions that resulted from a sharp decrease in unauthorized inflows, in particular of Mexicans. (Click here for more about Obama's policies).
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​Immigration to the United States including  Illegal Immigration and its Illegal Immigration PopulationPictured: Immigrants including (L) Illegal Immigrants and (R) Naturalized Citizens
Immigration to the United States is the international movement of individuals who are not natives or do not possess citizenship in order to settle, reside, study or to take-up employment in the United States. It has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States. The economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have caused controversy regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, jobs for non-immigrants, settlement patterns, impact on upward social mobility, crime, and voting behavior.

Prior to 1965, policies such as the national origins formula limited immigration and naturalization opportunities for people from areas outside Western Europe.

Exclusion laws enacted as early as the 1880s generally prohibited or severely restricted immigration from Asia, and quota laws enacted in the 1920s curtailed Eastern European immigration.

The Civil Rights Movement led to the replacement of these ethnic quotas with per-country limits. Since then, the number of first-generation immigrants living in the United States has quadrupled.

As for economic effects, research suggests that immigration to the United States is beneficial to the US economy. Research, with few exceptions, finds that immigration on average has positive economic effects on the native population, but is mixed as to whether low-skilled immigration adversely affects low-skilled natives. Research finds that immigration either has no impact on the crime rate or that it reduces the crime rate in the United States. Research shows that the United States excels at assimilating first- and second-generation immigrants relative to many other Western countries.

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Illegal immigration is the entry of a person or a group of persons across a country's border, in a way that violates the immigration laws of the destination country, with the intention to remain in the country.

Illegal immigration, as well as immigration in general, is overwhelmingly upward, from a poorer to a richer country. However, it is also noted that illegal immigrants tend not to be the poorest within the populations they emigrate from.

Reasons for taking the risk of living illegally in another country are not only the expected improvements in income and living conditions, but also the hope of eventually being allowed to remain in the country legally, as there may be a path to becoming naturalized. Living in another country illegally includes a variety of restrictions as well as the risk of being detained and deported or of facing other sanctions. If the status of being illegal is any way perceivable to host community residents, illegal migrants may additionally face visible or verbal disdain.

Click here for Illegal immigrant population of the United States.

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​Approximately 11 million illegal immigrants are estimated to be living in the United States. Estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center show the number of illegal immigrants has declined to 11.1 million in March 2009 from a peak of 12 million in March 2007. The majority of the illegal immigrants are from Mexico. The issue of illegal immigration has long been controversial in the United States.

In 2007, President George W. Bush called for Congress to endorse his guest worker proposal, stating that illegal immigrants took jobs that Americans would not take.

The Pew Hispanic Center notes that while the number of legal immigrants arriving has not varied substantially since the 1980s, the number of illegal immigrants has increased dramatically and, since the mid-1990s, has surpassed the number of legal immigrants. Penalties for employers of illegal immigrants, of $2,000–$10,000 and up to six months' imprisonment, go largely unenforced.

Political groups like Americans for Legal Immigration have been formed to demand enforcement of immigration laws and secure borders. ALIPAC has also called for "safe departure" border checkpoints, free of criminal checks.

In a 2011 news story, the Los Angeles Times reported:
"... illegal immigrants in 2010 were parents of 5.5 million children, 4.5 million of whom were born in the U.S. and are citizens. Because illegal immigrants are younger and more likely to be married, they represented a disproportionate share of births—8% of the babies born in the U.S. between March 2009 and March 2010 were to at least one illegal immigrant parent.

Immigration from Mexico to the United States has slowed in recent years. This has been attributed to the slowing of the U.S. economy, the buildup in security along the border and increased violence on the Mexican side of the border.







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​​Gender Inequality in the United States Pictured: ​Women's median usual weekly earnings as percentage of men's, for full-time workers, by industry, 2009  (Courtesy of Sonicyouth86 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0​
Gender inequality in the United States has been diminishing throughout its history and significant advancements towards equality have been made beginning mostly in the early 1900s.

However, despite this progress, gender inequality in the United States continues to persist in many forms, including the disparity in women's political representation and participation, occupational segregation, the gender pay gap, and the unequal distribution of household labor.

In the past 20 years there have been emerging issues for boys/men, an achievement and attainment gap in education is a discussed subject. The alleviation of gender inequality has been the goal of several major pieces of legislation since 1920 and continuing to the present day.

As of 2017, the World Economic Forum ranked the United States 49th best in terms of gender equality out of 144 countries.

In addition to the inequality faced by transgender women, inequality, prejudice, and violence against transgender men and women, as well as gender nonconforming individuals and individuals who identify with genders outside the gender binary, are also prevalent in the United States.

Transgender individuals suffer from prejudices in the workforce and employment, higher levels of domestic violence, higher rates of hate crimes, especially murder, and higher levels of police brutality when compared to the cisgender population.

​Current Issues for Women:

​Political participation:

The Center for American Women and Politics reports that, as of 2013, 18.3% of congressional seats are held by women and 23% of statewide elective offices are held by women; while the percentage of Congress made up of women has steadily increased, statewide elective positions held by women have decreased from their peak of 27.6% in 2001.

Women also make up, as of 2013, 24.2% of state legislators in the United States. Among the one hundred largest cities in the United States, ten had female mayors as of 2013.

In 1977, political science professor Susan Welch presented three possible explanations for this under-representation of women in politics:
  • One, that women are socialized to avoid careers in politics;
  • two, that women's responsibilities in the home keep them away out of both the work force and the political arena;
  • and three, women are more often than men members of other demographic groups with low political participation rates.

​In 2001, M. Margaret Conway, political science professor at the University of Florida, also presented three possible explanations for the continuation of this disparity: one, similar to Welch's first explanation, sociological and societal norm discourages women from running; two, women less frequently acquire the necessary skills to hold a political leadership position from nonpolitical activities; and three, gate-keeping in party politics prevents women from running.

Work life and economics:

The United States is falling behind other Western countries in the percentage of women engaged in the workforce.

Researchers from the Institute for Women's Policy Research at the University of California Hastings College of Law argue that this growing gap is due to a lack of governmental, business and societal support for working women. They ranked the United States last out of 20 industrialized countries in an index that measured such programs as family leave, alternative work arrangements, part-time employment, and other means to make workplaces more flexible and family-friendly.

The United States is also the only industrialized nation that does not have a paid parental leave policy mandated by law, and is one of only four countries worldwide that does not; in addition, fully paid maternity leave is only offered by around 16 percent of employers in the United States.

Sex discrimination in employment:

According to a study conducted by researchers at California State University, Northridge, when an individual with a PhD applies for a position at a university, that individual is significantly more likely to be offered a higher level of appointment, receive an offer of an academic position leading to tenure, and be offered a full professorship if they are a man when compared to a woman of comparable qualifications. 

However, these findings have been disputed, with one study finding universities pushed to hire more women, resulting in females being given a 2:1 advantage over males in science, technology engineering and mathematics fields.

Another study found that women were significantly less likely to receive a job offer or an interview for a high-paying waiter position when compared to equally qualified men; this study also found that such hiring discrimination may be caused in part by customer's discrimination of preference for male wait staff.

Similarly, research conducted at the University of California, Davis focusing on academic dermatology revealed a significant downward trend in the number of women receiving funding from the National Institutes of Health, which the authors concluded was due to a lack of support for women scientists at their home institutions.

Research from Lawrence University has found that men were more likely to be hired in traditionally masculine jobs, such as sales management, and women were more likely to be hired in traditionally feminine jobs, such as receptionist or secretary. However, individuals of either gender with masculine personality traits were advantaged when applying for either masculine or feminine jobs, indicating a possibly valuing of stereotypically male traits above stereotypically female traits.
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Occupational segregation by gender:
Main article: Occupational segregation

Occupational gender segregation takes the form of both horizontal segregation (the unequal gender distribution across occupations) and vertical segregation (the overrepresentation of men in higher positions in both traditionally male and traditionally female fields).

According to William A. Darity, Jr. and Patrick L. Mason, there is a strong horizontal occupational division in the United States on the basis of gender; in 1990, the index of occupational dissimilarity was 53%, meaning 53% of women or 47% of men would have to move to different career field in order for all occupations to have equal gender composition.

While women have begun to more frequently enter traditionally male-dominated professions, there have been much fewer men entering female-dominated professions; professor of sociology Paula England cites this horizontal segregation of careers as a contributing factor to the gender pay gap.
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Pay gap:
Main article: Gender pay gap in the United States

​With regards to the gender pay gap in the United States, International Labour Organization notes as of 2010 women in the United States earned about 81% of what their male counterparts did. While the gender pay gap has been narrowing since the passage of the Equal Pay Act, the convergence began to slow down in the 1990s. 

In addition, overall wage inequality has been increasing since the 1980s as middle-wage jobs are decreasing replaced by larger percentages of both high-paying and low-paying jobs, creating a highly polarized environment.

However numerous studies dispute the claim that discrimination accounts for the majority of the pay gap. When adjusting for industries commonly chosen, hours worked, and benefits received, the pay gap returns to 5%, which has been attributed to less aggressive pay negotiating in women.

One study actually found that before 30, females made more than males, and hypothesized that choosing a family over a career resulted in the drop of the female wage advantage during the thirties.

According to researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the primary cause of this gap is discrimination manifested in the tendency of women to be hired more frequently in lower paying occupations, in addition to the fact that male dominated occupations are higher paying than female dominated occupations, and that, even within comparable occupations, women are often paid less than men.

In medicine, female physicians are compensated less, despite the fast that evidence suggest that the quality of care female physicians provide may be higher than that of male physicians.

In addition to the gender pay gap, a "family gap" also exists, wherein women with children receive about 10-15% less pay when compared to women without children. According to Jane Waldfogel, professor of social work and public affairs at Columbia University, this family gap is a contributing factor to the United States' large gender pay gap. She also noted that men did not seem to be affected by this gap, as married men (who are more likely to have children) generally earned higher than unmarried men.

Social life:

Researchers from the University of Michigan have found that from 1970 to 1985, the percentage of men and women who supported traditional social roles for wives and believed that maternal employment damages mother-child relationships or children's development decreased.

Similarly, Jane Wilke from the University of Connecticut found that men's support the idea that men should be the sole source of income in a married couple decreased from 32 to 21 percent from 1972 to 1989; in practice only 15 percent of households were supported by a male spouse's income alone at the time of the study.

However, more recent research in 2011 has found that attitudes towards gender and societal roles have changed very little since the mid-1990s, with attitudes hovering at about sixty to seventy percent egalitarian. This study theorized that a "egalitarian but traditional" gender frame emerged in popular culture during this period, which supports each gender assuming their traditional roles without appearing sexist or discriminatory, and is responsible for this backlash.

Stephanie Coontz, a professor of family history at Evergreen State College, noted that one of the factors contributing to the gender inequality in the United States is that most men still expect women and men to assume traditional gender roles in the households and for women to carry out a larger share of the housework.

This has been confirmed by a number of other studies; for example Makiko Fuwa from University of California, Irvine noted that while there has been movement towards greater equality, "in 1995 American women still spent nearly twice as much time on housework than men" and there is also a segregation of household tasks. 

This gendered division of household labor creates what is known as the second shift or double burden, where working women in a heterosexual couple with a working partner spend significally more time on childcare and household chores.

Researchers from the University of Maryland have found that while men have steadily begun to perform more household labor since 1965, most of the essential and traditionally feminine tasks are still carried out by women; men generally carry out more nonessential or infrequent tasks, such as taking out the trash or mowing the lawn. 

While both genders tend to have roughly equal amounts of leisure time, men have more uninterrupted leisure time when compared to women. Working mothers also tend to get less sleep when compared to their working husbands.

Education:

Literacy and enrollment in primary and secondary education are at parity in the United States, and women are over-represented in tertiary education. There is, however, a notably gender segregation in degree choice, correlated with lower incomes for graduates with "feminine" degrees, such as education or nursing, and higher incomes for those with "masculine" degrees, such as engineering.

In addition, men have a statistically significant advantage over women when applying for highly selective universities, despite the fact that women generally outperform men in high school. 

Females started outnumbering males in higher education in 1992.

Other issues:

Research conducted at Lycoming College has found the enjoyment of sexist humor to be strongly correlated with sexual aggression towards women among male college students. In addition, studies have shown that exposure to sexist humor, particularly humor related to sexual assault, can increase male aggression and their tendency to discriminate against women. 

One study also asserted that the attitudes behind such humor creates an environment where such discriminatory and possibly violent behavior is acceptable. Men's tendency to self-report the likelihood that they would commit sexually violent acts has also been found to increase after exposure to sexist humor, as reported by researchers from the University of Kent.

Benevolent sexism, sometimes referred to as chivalry, which holds women as something to be protected, also has psychological effects. Women who hold these views are more likely to have less ambitious career goals and men who hold these views tend to have a polarized and stereotyped view of women, made up of both very favorable and very unfavorable traits.

In such cases, the stereotyped view of women is "favorable in content and yet prejudicial in [its] consequences," and attempts to provide justification for discriminatory behaviors presented as helpful or paternal.

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Gender Pay Gap in the United States including the Gender Gap Report by the World Economic ForumPicture: Chart showing gains in income that women have made in comparison to income by men, 1979-2005
The gender pay gap in the United States is the ratio of female-to-male median yearly earnings among full-time, year-round workers.
The average woman's unadjusted annual salary has been cited as 78% to 82% of that of the average man's.

However, after adjusting for choices made by male and female workers in college major, occupation, working hours, and parental leave, multiple studies find that pay rates between males and females varied by 5–6.6% or, females earning 94 cents to every dollar earned by their male counterparts.

The remaining 6% of the gap has been speculated to originate from gender discrimination and a gender difference in ability and willingness to negotiate salaries.
The extent to which discrimination plays a role in explaining gender wage disparities is somewhat difficult to quantify, due to a number of potentially confounding variables.

A 2010 research review by the majority staff of the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee reported that studies have consistently found unexplained pay differences even after controlling for measurable factors that are assumed to influence earnings – suggestive of unknown/unmeasurable contributing factors of which gender discrimination may be one. Other studies have found direct evidence of discrimination – for example, more jobs went to women when the applicant's sex was unknown during the hiring process.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Gender Pay Gap in the United States: ___________________________________________________________________________

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Gender Gap Report by the World Economic Forum (see below)

The Global Gender Gap Report was first published in 2006 by the World Economic Forum. The 2016 report covers 144 major and emerging economies. The Global Gender Gap Index is an index designed to measure gender equality.

The report’s Gender Gap Index ranks countries according to calculated gender gap between women and men in four key areas: health, education and survival to gauge the state of gender equality in a country.

The report measures women's disadvantage compared to men, and is not strictly a measure of equality. Gender imbalances to the advantage of women do not affect the score. So, for example, the indicator "number of years of a female head of state (last 50 years) over male value" would score 1 if the number of years was 25, but would still score 1 if the number of years was 50.

Due to this methodology, gender gaps that favor women over men are reported as equality, for example the life expectancy of women being longer than men in a country would not cause deficits of equality in other areas to become less visible in the score.

The three highest ranking countries have closed over 84% of their gender gaps, while the lowest ranking country has closed only a little over 50% of its gender gap. It "assesses countries on how well they are dividing their resources and opportunities among their male and female populations, regardless of the overall levels of these resources and opportunities," the Report says.

"By providing a comprehensible framework for assessing and comparing global gender gaps and by revealing those countries that are role models in dividing these resources equitably between women and men, the Report serves as a catalyst for greater awareness as well as greater exchange between policymakers."

The report examines four overall areas of inequality between men and women in 130 economies around the globe, over 93% of the world’s population:
  • Economic participation and opportunity – outcomes on salaries, participation levels and access to high-skilled employment
  • Educational attainment – outcomes on access to basic and higher level education
  • Political empowerment – outcomes on representation in decision-making structures
  • Health and survival – outcomes on life expectancy and sex ratio. In this case parity is not assumed, there are assumed to be fewer female births than male (944 female for every 1,000 males), and men are assumed to die younger. Provided that women live at least six percent longer than men, parity is assumed. But if it is less than six percent it counts as a gender gap.

Thirteen out of the fourteen variables used to create the index are from publicly available "hard data" indicators from international organizations, such as the International Labour Organization, the United Nations Development Programme and the World Health Organization.

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About the World Economic Forum

​The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a Swiss nonprofit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva, Switzerland.

Recognized in 2015 by the Swiss authorities as an "other international body" under Switzerland's Host State Act 2007 (HSA, SR 192.12), its mission is cited as "committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas".

The forum is best known for its annual meeting at the end of January in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland. The meeting brings together some 2,500 top business leaders, international political leaders, economists, celebrities and journalists for up to four days to discuss the most pressing issues facing the world.

Often this location alone is used to identify meetings, participation, and participants, with such phrases as "a Davos panel" and "Davos man" being used.
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The organization also convenes some six to eight regional meetings each year in locations across Africa, East Asia, and Latin America, and holds two further annual meetings in China, India and the United Arab Emirates. Beside meetings, the foundation produces a series of research reports and engages its members in sector-specific initiatives.

Click here for more about the World Economic Forum.

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Tax policy and its economic inequality in the United States Pictured below: Policy Implications from Rising Economic Inequality
Tax policy and economic inequality in the United States discusses how tax policy affects the distribution of income and wealth in the United States. Income inequality can be measured before- and after-tax; this article focuses on the after-tax aspects.

Income tax rates applied to various income levels and tax expenditures (i.e., deductions, exemptions, and preferential rates that modify the outcome of the rate structure) primarily drive how market results are redistributed to impact the after-tax inequality. After-tax inequality has risen in the United States markedly since 1980, following a more egalitarian period following World War II.

Overview:

Tax policy is the mechanism through which market results are redistributed, affecting after-tax inequality. The provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code regarding income taxes and estate taxes have undergone significant changes under both Republican and Democratic administrations and Congresses since 1964.

Since the Johnson Administration, the top marginal income tax rates have been reduced from 91% for the wealthiest Americans in 1963, to a low of 35% under George W Bush, rising recently to 39.6% (or in some cases 43.4%) in 2013 under the Obama Administration.

Capital gains taxes have also decreased over the last several years, and have experienced a more punctuated evolution than income taxes as significant and frequent changes to these rates occurred from 1981 to 2011. Both estate and inheritance taxes have been steadily declining since the 1990s. 

Economic inequality in the United States (see previous topic) has been steadily increasing since the 1980s as well and economists such as Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, and Peter Orszag, politicians like Barack Obama and Paul Ryan, and media entities have engaged in debates and accusations over the role of tax policy changes in perpetuating economic inequality.

Tax expenditures (i.e., deductions, exemptions, and preferential tax rates) represent a major driver of inequality, as the top 20% get roughly 50% of the benefit from them, with the top 1% getting 17% of the benefit.

For example, a 2011 Congressional Research Service report stated, "Changes in capital gains and dividends were the largest contributor to the increase in the overall income inequality." CBO estimated tax expenditures would be $1.5 trillion in fiscal year 2017, approximately 8% GDP; for scale, the budget deficit historically has averaged around 3% GDP.

Scholarly and popular literature exists on this topic with numerous works on both sides of the debate. The work of Emmanuel Saez, for example, has concerned the role of American tax policy in aggregating wealth into the richest households in recent years while Thomas Sowell and Gary Becker maintain that education, globalization, and market forces are the root causes of income and overall economic inequality.

The Revenue Act of 1964 and the "Bush Tax Cuts" coincide with the rising economic inequality in the United States both by socioeconomic class and race

Changes in economic inequality:

​Income inequality:
Main article: Income inequality in the United States

Economists and related experts have described America's growing income inequality as "deeply worrying", unjust, a danger to democracy/social stability, and a sign of national decline. Yale professor Robert Shiller, who was among three Americans who won the Nobel prize for economics in 2013, said after receiving the award, "The most important problem that we are facing now today, I think, is rising inequality in the United States and elsewhere in the world."

Inequality in land and income ownership is negatively correlated with subsequent economic growth. A strong demand for redistribution may occur in societies where a large section of the population does not have access to the productive resources of the economy. Voters may internalize such issues. 

High unemployment rates have a significant negative effect when interacting with increases in inequality. Increasing inequality harms growth in countries with high levels of urbanization. High and persistent unemployment also has a negative effect on subsequent long-run economic growth.

Unemployment may seriously harm growth because it is a waste of resources, generates redistributive pressures and distortions, depreciates existing human capital and deters its accumulation, drives people to poverty, results in liquidity constraints that limit labor mobility, and because it erodes individual self-esteem and promotes social dislocation, unrest and conflict. Policies to control unemployment and reduce its inequality-associated effects can strengthen long-run growth.

Gini coefficient:
Main article: Gini coefficient

The Gini Coefficient, a statistical measurement of the inequality present in a nation's income distribution developed by Italian statistician and sociologist Corrado Gini, for the United States has increased over the last few decades. The closer the Gini Coefficient is to one, the closer its income distribution is to absolute inequality.

​In 2007, the United Nations approximated the United States' Gini Coefficient at 41% while the CIA Factbook placed the coefficient at 45%. The United States' Gini Coefficient was below 40% in 1964 and slightly declined through the 1970s. However, around 1981, the Gini Coefficient began to increase and rose steadily through the 2000s.

​Wealth distribution:
Main article: Wealth inequality in the United States

Wealth, in economic terms, is defined as the value of an individual's or household's total assets minus his or its total liabilities.

The components of wealth include assets, both monetary and non-monetary, and income. Wealth is accrued over time by savings and investment. Levels of savings and investment are determined by an individual's or a household's consumption, the market real interest rate, and income.

Individuals and households with higher incomes are more capable of saving and investing because they can set aside more of their disposable income to it while still optimizing their consumption functions. It is more difficult for lower-income individuals and households to save and invest because they need to use a higher percentage of their income for fixed and variable costs thus leaving them with a more limited amount of disposable income to optimize their consumption.

Accordingly, a natural wealth gap exists in any market as some workers earn higher wages and thus are able to divert more income towards savings and investment which build wealth.

The wealth gap in the United States is large and the large majority of net worth and financial wealth is concentrated in a relatively very small percentage of the population. Sociologist and University of California-Santa Cruz professor G. William Domhoff writes that "numerous studies show that the wealth distribution has been extremely concentrated throughout American history" and that "most Americans (high income or low income, female or male, young or old, Republican or Democrat) have no idea just how concentrated the wealth distribution actually is."

In 2007, the top 1% of households owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth and the next 19% possessed 50.5% of all privately held wealth. Taken together, 20% of Americans controlled 85.1% of all privately held wealth in the country.

In the same year, the top 1% of households also possessed 42.7% of all financial wealth and the top 19% owned 50.3% of all financial wealth in the country. Together, the top 20% of households owned 93% of the financial wealth in the United States. Financial wealth is defined as "net worth minus net equity in owner-occupied housing."

In real money terms and not just percentage share of wealth, the wealth gap between the top 1% and the other quartiles of the population is immense. The average wealth of households in the top 1% of the population was $13.977 million in 2009. This is fives times as large as the average household wealth for the next four percent (average household wealth of $2.7 million), fifteen times as large as the average household wealth for the next five percent (average household wealth of $908,000), and twenty-nine times the size of the average household wealth of the next ten percent of the population (average household wealth of $477,000) in the same year.

Comparatively, the average household wealth of the lowest quartile was -$27,000 and the average household wealth of the second quartile (bottom 20-40th percentile of the population) was $5,000. The middle class, the middle quartile of the population, has an average household wealth level of $65,000.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the real, or inflation-adjusted, after-tax earnings of the wealthiest one percent of Americans grew by 275% from 1979 to 2007.

Simultaneously, the real, after-tax earnings of the bottom twenty percent of wage earnings in the United States grew 18%. The difference in the growth of real income of the top 1% and the bottom 20% of Americans was 257%. The average increase in real, after-tax income for all U.S. households during this time period was 62% which is slightly below the real, after-tax income growth rate of 65% experienced by the top 20% of wage earners, not accounting for the top 1%.

Data aggregated and analyzed by Robert B. Reich, Thomas Piketty, and Emmanuel Saez and released in a New York Times article written by Bill Marsh shows that real wages for production and non-supervisory workers, which account for 82% of the U.S. workforce, increased by 100% from 1947 to 1979 but then increased by only 8% from 1979–2009. Their data also shows that the bottom fifth experienced a 122% growth rate in wages from 1947 to 1979 but then experienced a negative growth rate of 4% in their real wages from 1979–2009.

The real wages of the top fifth rose by 99% and then 55% during the same periods, respectively. Average real hourly wages have also increased by a significantly larger rate for the top 20% than they have for the bottom 20%. Real family income for the bottom 20% increased by 7.4% from 1979 to 2009 while it increased by 49% for the top 20% and increased by 22.7% for the second top fifth of American families.

As of 2007, the United Nations estimated the ratio of average income for the top 10% to the bottom 10% of Americans, via the Gini Coefficient, as 15.9:1. The ratio of average income for the top 20% to the bottom 20% in the same year and using the same index was 8.4:1.

According to these UN statistics, the United States has the third highest disparity between the average income of the top 10% and 20% to the bottom 10% and bottom 20% of the population, respectively, of the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries.

​Only Chile and Mexico have larger average income disparities between the top 10% and bottom 10% of the population with 26:1 and 23:1, respectively. Consequently, the United States has the fourth highest Gini Coefficient of the OECD countries at 40.8% which is lower than Chile's (52%), Mexico's (51%), and just lower than Turkey's (42%).

​Tax structure:

A 2011 Congressional Research Service report stated, "Changes in capital gains and dividends were the largest contributor to the increase in the overall income inequality.

Taxes were less progressive in 2006 than in 1996, and consequently, tax policy also contributed to the increase in income inequality between 1996 and 2006. But overall income inequality would likely have increased even in the absence of tax policy changes."

Since 1964, the U.S. income tax, including the capital gains tax, has become less progressive (although recent changes have made the federal tax code the most progressive since 1979). The estate tax, a highly progressive tax, has also been reduced over the last decades.

​A progressive tax code is believed to mitigate the effects of recessions by taking a smaller percentage of income from lower-income consumers than from other consumers in the economy so they can spend more of their disposable income on consumption and thus restore equilibrium. This is known as an automatic stabilizer as it does not need Congressional action such as legislation. It also mitigates inflation by taking more money from the wealthiest consumers so their large level of consumption does not create demand-driven inflation.

One argument against the view that tax policy increases income inequality is analysis of the overall share of wealth controlled by the top 1%.

Income Tax:
Main article: Income tax in the United States

The Revenue Act of 1964 was the first bill of the Post-World War II era to reduce marginal income tax rates.

This reform, which was proposed under John F. Kennedy but passed under Lyndon Johnson, reduced the top marginal income (annual income of $2.9 million+ adjusted for inflation) tax rate from 91% (for tax year 1963) to 77% (for tax year 1964) and 70% (for tax year 1965) for annual incomes of $1.4 million+.

It was the first tax legislation to reduce the top end of the marginal income tax rate distribution since 1924. The top marginal income tax rate had been 91% since 1946 and had not been below 70% since 1936.

The "Bush Tax Cuts," which are the popularly known names of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 passed during President George W. Bush's first term, reduced the top marginal income tax rate from 38.6% (annual income at $382,967+ adjusted for inflation) to 35%.

These rates were continued under the Obama Administration and will extend through 2013. The number of income tax brackets declined during this time period as well but several years, particularly after 1992, saw an increase in the number of income tax brackets. In 1964, there were 26 income tax brackets.

The number of brackets was reduced to 16 by 1981 and then collapsed into 13 brackets after passage of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. Five years later, the 13 income tax brackets were collapsed into five under the Reagan Administration. By the end of the G. H. W. Bush administration in 1992, the number of income tax brackets had reached an all-time low of three but President Bill Clinton oversaw a reconfiguration of the brackets that increased the number to five in 1993.

The current number of income tax brackets, as of 2011, is six which is the number of brackets configured under President George W. Bush.

The New York Times reported in July 2018 that: "The top-earning 1 percent of households — those earning more than $607,000 a year — will pay a combined $111 billion less this year in federal taxes than they would have if the laws had remained unchanged since 2000. That's an enormous windfall. It's more, in total dollars, than the tax cut received over the same period by the entire bottom 60 percent of earners." This represents the tax cuts for the top 1% from the Bush tax cuts and Trump tax cuts, partially offset by the tax increases on the top 1% by Obama.

Effective tax rates:
​
Ronald Reagan made very large reductions in the nominal marginal income tax rates with his Tax Reform Act of 1986, which did not make a similarly large reduction in the effective tax rate on marginal incomes.

Noah writes in his ten part series entitled "The Great Divergence," that "in 1979, the effective tax rate on the top 0.01 percent was 42.9 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office, but by Reagan's last year in office it was 32.2%."

This effective rate held steadily until the first few years of the Clinton presidency when it increased to a peak high of 41%. However, it fell back down to the low 30s by his second term in the White House. This percentage reduction in the effective marginal income tax rate for the wealthiest Americans, 9%, is not a very large decrease in their tax burden, according to Noah, especially in comparison to the 20% drop in nominal rates from 1980 to 1981 and the 15% drop in nominal rates from 1986 to 1987.

In addition to this small reduction on the income taxes of the wealthiest taxpayers in America, Noah discovered that the effective income tax burden for the bottom 20% of wage earners was 8% in 1979 and dropped to 6.4% under the Clinton Administration.

This effective rate further dropped under the George W. Bush Administration. Under Bush, the rate decreased from 6.4% to 4.3%. Reductions in the effective income tax burden on the poor coinciding with modest reductions in the effective income tax rate on the wealthiest 0.01% of tax payers could not have been the driving cause of increased income inequality that began in the 1980s.

These figures are similar to an analysis of effective federal tax rates from 1979-2005 by the Congressional Budget Office. The figures show a decrease in the total effective tax rate from 37.0% in 1979 to 29% in 1989. The effective individual income tax rate dropped from 21.8% to 19.9% in 1989. However, by 2010, the top 1 percent of all households an average federal tax rate of 29.4 percent, with 2013 rates to be significantly higher.

Capital gains tax:
Main article: Capital gains tax in the United States

Capital gains are profits from investments in capital assets such as bonds, stocks, and real estate. These gains are taxed, for individuals, as ordinary income when held for less than one year which means that they have the same marginal tax rate as the marginal income tax rate of their recipient. This is known as the capital gains tax rate on a short-term capital gains.

Accordingly, the capital gains tax rate for short-term capital gains paid by an individual is equal to the marginal income tax rate of that individual. The tax rate then decreases once the capital gain becomes a long-term capital gain, or is held for 1 year or more.

In 1964, the effective capital gains tax rate was 25%. This means that the actual tax percentage of all capital gains realized in the U.S. in 1964 was 25% as opposed to the nominal capital gains tax rate, or the percentage that would have been collected by the government prior to deductions and evasions.

This effective rate held constant until a small rise in 1968 up to 26.9% and then began steadily increasing until it peaked at 39.875% in 1978. This top rate then fell to 28% in 1979 and further dropped to 20% in 1982.

This top capital gains rate held until 1986 when the Tax Reform Act of 1986 re-raised it to 28% and 33% for all individuals subject to phase-outs. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 shifted capital gains to income for the first time thus establishing equal short-term capital gains taxes and marginal income tax rates. The top rate of 28%, not taking into account taxpayers under the stipulations of a phase-out, remained until 1997, despite increases in marginal income tax rates, when it was lowered to 28%.

Starting in May 1997, however, long-term capital gains were divided into multiple subgroups based on the duration of time investors held them. Each new subgroup had a different tax rate. This effectively reduced the top capital gains tax rate on a long-term capital good held for over 1 year from 28% to 20%.

These multiple subgroups were reorganized into less than one year, one to five years, and five years or more and were in place from 1998 to 2003. In 2003, the divisions reverted to the less than one year and more than one year categories until 2011 when then reverted to the three divisions first implemented in 1998. This rate, 20%, remained until 2003 when it was further reduced to 15%.

The 15% long-term capital gains tax rate was then changed back to its 1997 rate of 20% in 2011. Capital gains taxes for the bottom two and top two income tax brackets have changed significantly since the late 1980s. The short-term and long-term capital gains tax rates for the bottom two tax rates, 15% and 28%, respectively, were equal to those tax payers' marginal income tax rates from 1988 until 1997.

In 1997, the capital gains tax rates for the bottom two income tax brackets were reduced to 10% and 20% for the 15% and 28% income tax brackets, respectively. These rates remained until 2001. President Bush made additional changes to the capital gains tax rates for the bottom two income tax brackets in 2001, which were lowered from 15% and 28% to 10% and 15%, respectively, by lowering the tax on long-term capital gains held for more than five years from 10% to 8%.

Bush also reduced the tax on short-term capital gains from 28% to 15% for the 15% tax bracket as well as lowered the tax on long-term capital goods from 20% to 10%. In 2003, the capital gains tax on long-term capital goods decreased from 10% to 5% for both of the bottom two tax brackets (10% and 15%). In 2008, these same rates were dropped to 0% but were restored to the 2003 rates in 2011 under President Obama via the extension of the Bush Tax Cuts.

Overall, capital gains tax rates decreased significantly for both the bottom two and the top two income tax brackets. The top two income tax brackets have had a net decrease in their long-term capital gains tax rates of 13% since 1988, while the lowest two income tax brackets' long-term capital gains tax rates have changed by 10% and 13%, respectively, in that time.

​The difference between income and long-term capital gains taxes for the top two income tax brackets (5% in 1988 and 18% and 20%, respectively, in 2011), however, is larger than the difference between the income and long-term capital gains tax rates for the bottom two income tax brackets (0% in 1988 and 5% and 10%, respectively, in 2011). As of the 2013 tax year, all investment income for high earning households will be subject to a 3.8% surtax bringing the top capital gains rate to 23.8%.

Gift tax:
Main article: Gift tax in the United States

The inheritance tax, which is also known as the "gift tax", has been altered in the Post-World War II era as well.

First established in 1932 as a means to raise tax revenue from the wealthiest Americans, the inheritance tax was put at a nominal rate of 25% points lower than the estate tax which meant its effective rate was 18.7%. Its exemption, up to $50,000, was the same as the estate tax exemption.

Under current law, individuals can give gifts of up to $13,000 without incurring a tax and couples can poll their gift together to give a gift of up to $26,000 a year without incurring a tax. The lifetime gift tax exemption is $5 million which is the same amount as the estate tax exemption.

These two exemptions are directly tied to each other as the amount exempted from one reduces the amount that can be exempted from the other at a 1:1 ratio. The inheritance/gift tax generally affects a very small percentage of the population as most citizens do not inherit anything from their deceased relatives in any given year.

In 2000, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland published a report that found that 1.6% of Americans received an inheritance of $100,000 or more and an additional 1.1% received an inheritance worth $50,000 to $100,000 while 91.9% of Americans did not receive an inheritance.

A 2010 report conducted by Citizens for Tax Justice found that only 0.6% of the population would pass on an inheritance in the event of death in that fiscal year. Accordingly, data shows that inheritance taxes are a tax almost exclusively on the wealthy. In 1986, Congress enacted legislation to prevent trust funds of wealthy individuals from skipping a generation before taxes had to be paid on the inheritance.

Estate tax:
Main article: Estate tax in the United States

Estate taxes, while affecting more taxpayers than inheritance taxes, do not affect many Americans and are also considered to be a tax aimed at the wealthy. In 2007, all of the state governments combined collected $22 billion in tax receipts from estate taxes and these taxes affected less than 5% of the population including less than 1% of citizens in every state. 

In 2004, the average tax burden of the federal estate tax was 0% for the bottom 80% of the population by household. The average tax burden of the estate tax for the top 20% was $1,362. The table below gives a general impression of the spread of estate taxes by income.

A certain dollar amount of every estate can be exempted from tax, however. For example, if the government allows an exemption of up to $2 million on an estate then the tax on a $4 million estate would only be paid on $2 million worth of that estate, not all $4 million.

This reduces the effective estate tax rate. In 2001, the "exclusion" amount on estates was $675,000 and the top tax rate was 55%. The exclusion amount steadily increased to $3.5 million by 2009 while the tax rate dropped to 45% when it was temporarily repealed in 2010.

The estate tax was reinstated in 2011 with a further increased cap of $5 million for individuals and $10 million for couples filing jointly and a reduced rate of 35%. The "step-up basis" of estate tax law allows a recipient of an estate or portion of an estate to have a tax basis in the property equal to the market value of the property.This enables recipients of an estate to sell it at market value without having paid any tax on it.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, this exemption costs the federal government $715 billion a year.

Sales tax:
Main article: Sales tax in the United States

Sales taxes are taxes placed on the sale or lease of goods and services in the United States. While no national general sales tax exists, the federal government levies several national selective sales taxes. States also may levy selective sales taxes on the sale or lease of particular goods or services. States may also delegate to local governments the authority to impose additional general or selective sales taxes.

Tax expenditures:

The term "tax expenditures" refers to income exclusions, deductions, preferential rates, and credits that reduce revenues for any given level of tax rates in the individual, payroll, and corporate income tax systems. Like conventional spending, they contribute to the federal budget deficit. They also influence choices about working, saving, and investing, and affect the distribution of income.

The amount of reduced federal revenues are significant, estimated by CBO at nearly 8% GDP or about $1.5 trillion in 2017, for scale roughly half the revenue collected by the government and nearly three times as large as the budget deficit. Since eliminating a tax expenditure changes economic behavior, the amount of additional revenue that would be generated is somewhat less than the estimated size of the tax expenditure.

CBO reported that the following were among the largest individual (non-corporate) tax expenditures in 2013:
  • The exclusion from workers' taxable income of employers' contributions for health care, health insurance premiums, and premiums for long-term care insurance ($248B);
  • The exclusion of contributions to and the earnings of pension funds such as 401k plans ($137B);
  • Preferential tax rates on dividends and long-term capital gains ($161B); and
  • The deductions for state and local taxes ($77B), mortgage interest ($70B) and charitable contributions ($39B).

In 2013, CBO estimated that more than half of the combined benefits of 10 major tax expenditures would apply to households in the top 20% income group, and that 17% of the benefit would go to the top 1% households. The top 20% of income earners pay about 70% of federal income taxes, excluding payroll taxes.

For scale, 50% of the $1.5 trillion in tax expenditures in 2016 was $750 billion, while the U.S. budget deficit was approximately $600 billion. In other words, eliminating the tax expenditures for the top 20% might balance the budget over the short-term, depending on economic feedback effects.

Credits and exemptions:

Education:
Further information: Educational attainment in the United States

Economist Gary Becker has described educational attainment as the root of economic mobility. The United States offers several tax incentives for education, such as the American Opportunity Tax Credit and Hope credit along with tax exemptions for scholarships and grants.

Those who do not qualify for such aid can obtain a low-interest student loan, which may be subsidized based on financial need, and tuition can often be deducted from the federal income tax. Such loans were created with the goal of encouraging greater social mobility and equality of opportunity.

According to Becker, the rise in returns on investments in human capital is beneficial and desirable to society because it increases productivity and standards of living. However, the cost for college tuition has increased significantly faster than inflation, leading the United States to have one of the most expensive higher education systems in the world.

It has been suggested that tax policy could be used to help reduce these costs, by taxing the endowment income of universities and linking the endowment tax to tuition rates. The United States spends about 7.3% of GDP ($1.1 trillion in 2011 - public and private, all levels) annually on education, with 70% funded publicly through varying levels of federal, state, and local taxation.

Healthcare:
Further information: Health insurance coverage in the United States
​
​​The United States tax code includes deductions and penalties with regard to health insurance coverage. The number of uninsured in the United States, many of whom are the working poor or unemployed, are one of the primary concerns raised by advocates of health care reform.

The costs of treating the uninsured must often be absorbed by providers as charity care, passed on to the insured via cost shifting and higher health insurance premiums, or paid by taxpayers through higher taxes. The federal income tax offers employers a deduction for amounts contributed health care plans.

In 2014, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act encourages states to expand Medicaid for low income households, funded by additional federal taxes. Some of the taxes specifically target wealthier households. Income from self-employment and wages of single individuals in excess of $200,000 annually will be subject to an additional tax of 0.9%.

The threshold amount is $250,000 for a married couple filing jointly (threshold applies to joint compensation of the two spouses), or $125,000 for a married person filing separately. 

In addition, a Medicare tax of 3.8% will apply to unearned income, specifically the lesser of net investment income or the amount by which adjusted gross income exceeds $200,000 ($250,000 for a married couple filing jointly; $125,000 for a married person filing separately.)

In March 2018, the CBO reported that the ACA had reduced income inequality in 2014, saying that the law led the lowest and second quintiles (the bottom 40%) to receive an average of an additional $690 and $560 respectively while causing households in the top 1% to pay an additional $21,000 due mostly to the net investment income tax and the additional Medicare tax. The law placed relatively little burden on households in the top quintile (top 20%) outside of the top 1%.
​
Compression and divergence in tax code changes:

​Princeton economics professor, Nobel laureate, and John Bates Clarke Award winner Paul Krugman argues that politics not economic conditions have made income inequality in the United States "unique" and to a degree that "other advanced countries have not seen."

According to Krugman, government action can either compress or widen income inequality through tax policy and other redistributive or transfer policies. Krugman illustrates this point by describing "The Great Compression" and "The Great Divergence."

Krugman states that the end of the Great Depression to the end of World War II, from 1939–1946, saw a rapid narrowing of the spread of the income distribution in America which effectively created the middle class. Krugman calls this economic time period "The Great Compression" because the income distribution was compressed.

Krugman attributes this phenomenon to intrinsically equalizing economic policy such as increased tax rates on the wealthy, higher corporate tax rates, a pro-union organizing environment, minimum wage, Social Security, unemployment insurance, and "extensive government controls on the economy that were used in a way that tended to equalize incomes."

This "artificial[ly]" created middle class endured due to the creation of middle class institutions, norms, and expectations that promoted income equality. Krugman believes this period ends in 1980, which he points out as being "interesting" because it was when "Reagan came to the White House."

From 1980 to the present, Krugman believes income inequality was uniquely shaped by the political environment and not the global economic environment. For example, the U.S. and Canada both had approximately 30% of its workers in unions during the 1960s. However, by 2010, around 25% of Canadian workers were still unionized while 11% of American workers were unionized.

Krugman blames Reagan for this rapid decline in unionization because he "declared open season on unions" while the global market clearly made room for unions as Canada's high union rate proves.

Contrary to the arguments made by Chicago economists such as Gary Becker, Krugman points out that while the wealth gap between the college educated and non-college educated continues to grow, the largest rise in income inequality is between the well-educated-college graduates and college graduates, and not between college graduates and non-college graduates.

The average high school teacher, according to Krugman, has a post-graduate degree which is a comparable level of education to a hedge fund manager whose income is several times that of the average high school teacher. In 2006, the "highest paid hedge fund manager in the United States made an amount equal to the salaries of all 80,000 New York City school teachers for the next three years."

Accordingly, Krugman believes that education and a shifting global market are not the sole causes of increased income inequalities since the 1980s but rather that politics and the implementation of conservative ideology has aggregated wealth to the rich. Some of these political policies include the Reagan tax cuts in 1981 and 1986.

Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz asserts in a Vanity Fair article published in May 2011 entitled "Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%" that "preferential tax treatment for special interests" has helped increase income inequality in the United States as well as reduced the efficiency of the market. He specifically points to the reduction in capital gains over the last few years, which are "how the rich receive a large portion of their income," as giving the wealthy a "free ride."

Stiglitz criticizes the "marginal productivity theory" saying that the largest gains in wages are going toward in his opinion, less than worthy occupations such as finance whose effects have been "massively negative." Accordingly, if income inequality is predominately explained by rising marginal productivity of the educated then why are financiers, who are responsible for bringing the U.S. economy "to the brink of ruin."

Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez wrote in their work "Income Inequality in the United States,1913–1998" that "top income and wages shares(in the United States) display a U-shaped pattern over the century" and "that the large shocks that capital owners experienced during the Great Depression and World War II have had a permanent effect on top capital incomes...that steep progressive income and estate taxation may have prevented large fortunes from recovery form the shocks."

Saez and Piketty argue that the "working rich" are now at the top of the income ladder in the United States and their wealth far out-paces the rest of the country. Piketty and Saez plotted the percentage share of total income accrued by the top 1%, top 5%, and the top 10% of wage earners in the United States from 1913-2008. According to their data, the top 1% controlled 10% of the total income while the top 5% owned approximately 13% and the top 10% possessed around 12% of total income.

By 1984, the percentage of total income owned by the top 1% rose from 10% to 16% while income shares of the top 5% and top 10% controlled 13.5% and 12%, respectively. The growth in income for the top 1% then rose up to 22% by 1998 while the income growth rates for the top 5% and top 10% remained constant (15% total share of income and 12% total share of income, respectively).

The percentage share of total income owned by the top 1% fell to 16% during the post-9/11 recession but then re-rose to its 1998 level by 2008. In 2008, the wealth gap in terms of percentage of total income in the United States between the top 1% and 5% was 7% and the gap between the top 1% and top 10% was 9%. This is an 11% reversal from the respective percentage shares of income held by these groups in 1963. Income inequality clearly accelerated beginning in the 1980s.

Larry Bartels, a Princeton political scientist and the author of Unequal Democracy, argues that federal tax policy since 1964 and starting even before that has increased economic inequality in the United States. He states that the real income growth rate for low and middle class workers is significantly smaller under Republican administrations than it is under Democratic administrations while the real income growth rate for the upper class is much larger under Republican administrations than it is for Democratic administrations.

Bartels finds that from 1948 to 2005, pre-tax real income growth for the bottom 20% grew by 1.42% while pre-tax real income growth for the top 20% grew by 2%. Under the Democratic administrations in this time period, (Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton) the pre-tax real income growth rate for the bottom 20% was 2.64% while the pre-tax real income growth rate for the top 20% was 2.12%.

During the Republican administrations of this time period (Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, G. H. W. Bush, and G. W. Bush), the pre-tax real income growth rate was 0.43% for the bottom 20% and 1.90% for the top 20%.

The disparity under Democratic presidents in this time period between the top and bottom 20% pre-tax real income growth rate was -0.52% while the disparity under Republican presidents was 1.47%.

The pre-tax real income growth rate for the wealthiest 40%, 60%, and 80% of population was higher under the Democratic administrations than it was under the Republican administrations in this time period. The United States was more equal and growing wealthier, based on income, under Democratic Presidents from 1948-2005 than it was under Republican Presidents in the same time period.

Additionally, Bartels believes that the reduction and the temporary repeal of the estate tax also increased income inequality by benefiting almost exclusively the wealthiest in America.

​According to a working paper released by the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality entitled "Tax policy and income inequality in the U.S.,1978—2009: A decomposition approach," tax policy can either exacerbate or curtail economic inequality.

This article argues that tax policy reforms passed under Republican administrations since 1979 have increased economic inequality while Democratic administrations during the same time period have reduced economic inequality. The net vector movement of tax reforms on economic inequality since 1979 is essentially zero as the opposing policies neutralized each other.

​Policy responses:

Public policy responses addressing causes and effects of income inequality include: 
Taxes on the wealthy:

The Congressional Budget Office reported that less progressive tax and transfer policies contributed to an increase in after-tax income inequality between 1979 and 2007. This indicates that more progressive income tax policies (e.g., higher income taxes on the wealthy and a higher earned-income tax credit) would reduce after-tax income inequality.

In their World Inequality Report published in December 2017, Piketty, Saez and coauthors revealed that in "Russia and the United States, the rise in wealth inequality has been extreme, whereas in Europe it has been more moderate."

They reported that the tax system in the United States, along with "massive educational inequalities", have grown "less progressive despite a surge in top labor compensation since the 1980s, and in top capital incomes in the 2000s."

The "top 1% income share was close to 10% in the [US and Europe] in 1980, it rose only slightly to 12% in 2016 in Western Europe [where taxation and education policies are more progressive] while it shot up to 20% in the United States."

The "bottom 50% income share decreased from more than 20% in 1980 to 13% in 2016." In 2012, the economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty had recommended much higher top marginal tax rates on the wealthy, up to 50 percent, 70 percent or even 90 percent.

Ralph Nader, Jeffrey Sachs, the United Front Against Austerity, among others, call for a financial transactions tax (also known as the Robin Hood tax) to bolster the social safety net and the public sector.

The Pew Center reported in January 2014 that 54% of Americans supported raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations to expand aid to the poor. By party, 29% of Republicans and 75% of Democrats supported this action.

Senator Elizabeth Warren proposed an annual tax on wealth in January 2019, specifically a 2% tax for wealth over $50 million and another 1% surcharge on wealth over $1 billion. Wealth is defined as including all asset classes, including financial assets and real estate. Economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman estimated that about 75,000 households (less than 0.1%) would pay the tax.

The tax would raise around $2.75 trillion over 10 years, roughly 1% GDP on average per year. This would raise the total tax burden for those subject to the wealth tax from 3.2% of their wealth under current law to about 4.3% on average, versus the 7.2% for the bottom 99% families. For scale, the federal budget deficit in 2018 was 3.9% GDP and is expected to rise towards 5% GDP over the next decade. The plan received both praise and criticism.

Two billionaires, Michael Bloomberg and Howard Schultz, criticized the proposal as "unconstitutional" and "ridiculous," respectively. Warren was not surprised by this reaction, stating: "Another billionaire who thinks that billionaires shouldn't pay more in taxes."

Economist Paul Krugman wrote in January 2019 that polls indicate the idea of taxing the rich more is very popular.

Senators Charles Schumer and Bernie Sanders advocated limiting stock buybacks in January 2019. They explained that from 2008-2017, 466 of the S&P 500 companies spent $4 trillion on stock buybacks, about 50% of profits, with another 40% going to dividends.

During 2018 alone, a record $1 trillion was spent on buybacks. Stock buybacks shift wealth upwards, because the top 1% own about 40% of shares and the top 10% own about 85%.

Further, corporations directing profits to shareholders are not reinvesting the money in the firm or paying workers more. They wrote: "If corporations continue to purchase their own stock at this rate, income disparities will continue to grow, productivity will suffer, the long-term strength of companies will diminish — and the American worker will fall further behind."

​Their proposed legislation would prohibit buybacks unless the corporation has taken other steps first, such as paying workers more, providing more benefits such as healthcare and pensions, and investing in the community. To prevent corporations from shifting from buybacks to dividends, they proposed limiting dividends, perhaps by taking action through the tax code.

See also:







Citizenship in the United States including Immigrants who wish to become Citizens Pictured: Swearing in of New American Citizens
Citizenship of the United States is a status that entails specific rights, duties and benefits. Citizenship is understood as a "right to have rights" since it serves as a foundation of fundamental rights derived from and protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States, such as the rights to freedom of expression, vote, due process, live and work in the United States, and to receive federal assistance.

The implementation of citizenship requires attitudes including allegiance to the republic, participation, and an impulse to promote communities. Certain rights are so fundamental that they are guaranteed to all persons, not just citizens. These include those rights guaranteed by the first 8 Amendments that pertain to individuals. However, not all U.S. citizens, such as those living in Puerto Rico, have the right to vote in federal elections.

There are two primary sources of citizenship: birthright citizenship, in which a person is presumed to be a citizen if he or she was born within the territorial limits of the United States, or—providing certain other requirements are met—born abroad to a U.S. citizen parent, and naturalization, a process in which an eligible legal immigrant applies for citizenship and is accepted.

These two pathways to citizenship are specified in the Citizenship Clause of the Constitution's 1868 Fourteenth Amendment which reads: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

— 14th AmendmentNational citizenship signifies membership in the country as a whole; state citizenship, in contrast, signifies a relation between a person and a particular state and has application generally limited to domestic matters. State citizenship may affect (1) tax decisions and (2) eligibility for some state-provided benefits such as higher education and (3) eligibility for state political posts such as U.S. senator.

In Article One of the Constitution, the power to establish a "uniform rule of naturalization" is granted explicitly to Congress.

U.S. law permits multiple citizenship. A citizen of another country naturalized as a U.S. citizen may retain their previous citizenship, though they must renounce allegiance to the other country. A U.S. citizen retains U.S. citizenship when becoming the citizen of another country, should that country's laws allow it. U.S. citizenship can be renounced by Americans who also hold another citizenship via a formal procedure at a U.S. embassy.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Citizenship of the United States: ​___________________________________________________________________________

United States Nationality Law:

The United States nationality law refers to the uniform rule of naturalization of the United States set out in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, enacted under the power of Article I, section 8, clause 4 of the United States Constitution (also referred to as the Nationality Clause), which grants the Congress the power to "establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization..."

The 1952 Act sets forth the legal requirements for the acquisition of, and divestiture from, American nationality. The requirements have become more explicit since the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, with the most recent changes to the law having been made by Congress in 2001.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the United States Nationality Law:






​
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Pictured below: Top Female Players Accuse U.S. Soccer of Wage Discrimination
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that administers and enforces civil rights laws against workplace discrimination.

The EEOC investigates discrimination complaints based on an individual's race, children, national origin, religion, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, and retaliation for reporting, participating in, and/or opposing a discriminatory practice.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC):







Democratic Ideals, including Living the American Dream Pictured below: POLL: New American Dream Poll 2014
Democratic ideals is an expression used to reflect personal qualities or standards of government behavior that are felt to be essential for the continuation of a democratic policy.

Advocates for causes across the political spectrum use this expression in attempting to engage in persuasion, particularly by contrasting some situation which has been allowed to continue for pragmatic or social reasons, but which those advocating an opportunity, and that equality is a democratic ideal.

Other times, advocates of one political outlook or another will use the expression to energize support among their constituencies, despite knowing that their political opponents use precisely the same phrase to do precisely the same thing.

Frequently the importance of human rights is listed as a central democratic ideal, as well as instilling in military and civilian governmental personnel the attitudes and methods which will prevent their actions from infringing on those rights.

​Democratic ideals are often cited as a reason for patriotism, for example Woodrow Wilson's argument that America needed to enter World War I in order to make the world "safe for democracy".

Other uses of the term

In historical texts, the phrase is often used to denote aspirations or norms of behavior, separate from a functioning democracy, including egalitarianism, self-government, self-determination and freedom of conscience.

See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

American Dream

The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States, the set of ideals (democracy, rights, liberty, opportunity and equality) in which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, as well as an upward social mobility for the family and children, achieved through hard work in a society with few barriers.

In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement" regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.

The American Dream is rooted in the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims that "all men are created equal" with the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Also, the U.S. Constitution promotes similar freedom, in the Preamble: to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity".

Click on any of the  following blue hyperlinks for more about "living the American Dream"







Civil Discourse and The Golden RulePictured below:
TOP: A Forum Space Dedicated to Public Debate and Civil Discourse
​BOTTOM: The Top 5 Rules of Love
[Your Web Host: These two topics were spliced together as the (largely) religious significance of the Golden Rule helps to make civil discourse more possible in civil exchanges between humans]

Civil discourse is engagement in discourse (conversation) intended to enhance understanding. Kenneth J. Gergen describes civil discourse as "the language of dispassionate objectivity", and suggests that it requires respect of the other participants, such as the reader.

It neither diminishes the other's moral worth, nor questions their good judgment; it avoids hostility, direct antagonism, or excessive persuasion; it requires modesty and an appreciation for the other participant's experiences.

In Book III of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), John Locke contrasts between civil and philosophical discourse (or rhetorical discourse) with the former being for the benefit of the reader, and the public good: 
  • “First, By, their civil use, I mean such a communication of thoughts and ideas by words, as may serve for the upholding common conversation and commerce, about the ordinary affairs and conveniences of civil life, in the societies of men, one amongst another. Secondly, by the philosophical use of words,
  • I mean such a use of them as may serve to convey the precise notions of things, and to express in general propositions certain and undoubted truths, which the mind may rest upon and be satisfied with in its search after true knowledge. These two uses are very distinct; and a great deal less exactness will serve in the one than in the other, as we shall see in what follows."

See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

The Golden Rule is the principle of treating others as you want to be treated. It is a maxim that is found in many religions and cultures. It can be considered an ethic of reciprocity in some religions, although other religions treat it differently. The maxim may appear as a positive or negative injunction governing conduct:
  • Treat others as you would like others to treat you (positive or directive form)
  • Do not treat others in ways that you would not like to be treated (negative or prohibitive form)
  • What you wish upon others, you wish upon yourself (empathic or responsive form)

The idea dates at least to the early Confucian times (551–479 BC), according to Rushworth Kidder, who identifies that this concept appears prominently in Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, and "the rest of the world's major religions".

The concept of the Rule is codified in the Code of Hammurabi steele and tablets (1754-1790 BC). 143 leaders of the world's major faiths endorsed the Golden Rule as part of the 1993 "Declaration Toward a Global Ethic". According to Greg M. Epstein, it is "a concept that essentially no religion misses entirely", but belief in God is not necessary to endorse it. Simon Blackburn also states that the Golden Rule can be "found in some form in almost every ethical tradition".

The term "Golden Rule", or "Golden law", began to be used widely in the early 17th century in Britain by Anglican theologians and preachers; the earliest known usage is that of Anglicans Charles Gibbon and Thomas Jackson in 1604.

Click here for more about "The Golden Rule"








The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and "Black Lives Matter" Pictured below:
TOP: "Is the NAACP Becoming Irrelevant in 2018?"
BOTTOM: "The meaning of Black Lives Matter, one year later"
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as a bi-racial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington and Moorfield Storey.

Its mission in the 21st century is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination." National NAACP initiatives include political lobbying, publicity efforts and litigation strategies developed by its legal team.

The group enlarged its mission in the late 20th century by considering issues such as police misconduct, the status of black foreign refugees and questions of economic development. Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, uses the once common term colored people, referring to those with some African ancestry.

The NAACP bestows annual awards to African Americans in two categories: Image Awards are for achievement in the arts and entertainment, and Spingarn Medals are for outstanding achievement of any kind. Its headquarters is in Baltimore, Maryland.

Organization

The NAACP is headquartered in Baltimore, with additional regional offices in New York, Michigan, Georgia, Maryland, Texas, Colorado and California. Each regional office is responsible for coordinating the efforts of state conferences in that region. Local, youth, and college chapters organize activities for individual members.

In the U.S., the NAACP is administered by a 64-member board, led by a chairperson. The board elects one person as the president and one as chief executive officer for the organization. Julian Bond, Civil Rights Movement activist and former Georgia State Senator, was chairman until replaced in February 2010 by health-care administrator Roslyn Brock.

For decades in the first half of the 20th century, the organization was effectively led by its executive secretary, who acted as chief operating officer. James Weldon Johnson and Walter F. White, who served in that role successively from 1920 to 1958, were much more widely known as NAACP leaders than were presidents during those years.

The organization has never had a woman president, except on a temporary basis, and there have been calls to name one. Lorraine C. Miller served as interim president after Benjamin Jealous stepped down. Maya Wiley was rumored to be in line for the position in 2013, but Cornell William Brooks was selected.

Departments within the NAACP govern areas of action. Local chapters are supported by the 'Branch and Field Services' department and the 'Youth and College' department. The 'Legal' department focuses on court cases of broad application to minorities, such as systematic discrimination in employment, government, or education.

The Washington, D.C., bureau is responsible for lobbying the U.S. government, and the Education Department works to improve public education at the local, state and federal levels. The goal of the Health Division is to advance health care for minorities through public policy initiatives and education.

As of 2007, the NAACP had approximately 425,000 paying and non-paying members.
The NAACP's non-current records are housed at the Library of Congress, which has served as the organization's official repository since 1964. The records held there comprise approximately five million items spanning the NAACP's history from the time of its founding until 2003.

In 2011, the NAACP teamed with the digital repository ProQuest to digitize and host online the earlier portion of its archives, through 1972 – nearly two million pages of documents, from the national, legal, and branch offices throughout the country, which offer first-hand insight into the organization's work related to such crucial issues as lynching, school desegregation, and discrimination in all its aspects (in the military, the criminal justice system, employment, housing).

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the NAACP: ___________________________________________________________________________

​Black Lives Matter (BLM) is an international activist movement, originating in the African-American community, that campaigns against violence and systemic racism towards black people.

BLM regularly holds protests speaking out against police killings of black people, and broader issues such as racial profiling, police brutality, and racial inequality in the United States criminal justice system.

In 2013, the movement began with the use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin in February 2012.

Black Lives Matter became nationally recognized for its street demonstrations following the 2014 deaths of two African Americans: Michael Brown—resulting in protests and unrest in Ferguson, a city near St. Louis—and Eric Garner in New York City. Since the Ferguson protests, participants in the movement have demonstrated against the deaths of numerous other African Americans by police actions or while in police custody.

In the summer of 2015, Black Lives Matter activists became involved in the 2016 United States presidential election. The originators of the hashtag and call to action, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, expanded their project into a national network of over 30 local chapters between 2014 and 2016. The overall Black Lives Matter movement, however, is a decentralized network and has no formal hierarchy.

There have been many reactions to the Black Lives Matter movement. The U.S. population's perception of Black Lives Matter varies considerably by race. The phrase "All Lives Matter" sprang up as a response to the Black Lives Matter movement, but has been criticized for dismissing or misunderstanding the message of "Black Lives Matter". 

Following the shooting of two police officers in Ferguson, the hashtag Blue Lives Matter was created by supporters of the police. Some black civil rights leaders have disagreed with tactics used by Black Lives Matter activists.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about "Black Lives Matter":







American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)Pictured below: Get Involved to Support Migrant Families at the border.
​The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States."

Officially nonpartisan, the organization has been supported and criticized by liberal and conservative organizations alike. The ACLU works through litigation and lobbying and it has over 1,200,000 members and an annual budget of over $100 million.

Local affiliates of the ACLU are active in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

The ACLU provides legal assistance in cases when it considers civil liberties to be at risk. Legal support from the ACLU can take the form of direct legal representation or preparation of amicus curiaebriefs expressing legal arguments when another law firm is already providing representation.

In addition to representing persons and organizations in lawsuits, the ACLU lobbies for policy positions that have been established by its board of directors. Current positions of the ACLU include:
Legally, the ACLU consists of two separate but closely affiliated nonprofit organizations: the American Civil Liberties Union, a 501(c)(4) social welfare group, and the ACLU Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity.

Both organizations engage in civil rights litigation, advocacy, and education, but only donations to the 501(c)(3) foundation are tax deductible, and only the 501(c)(4) group can engage in unlimited political lobbying. The two organizations share office space and employees.

​Overview:

The ACLU was founded in 1920 by a committee including the following: 
ACLU's focus was on freedom of speech, primarily for anti-war protesters. During the 1920s, the ACLU expanded its scope to include protecting the free speech rights of artists and striking workers, and working with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to decrease racism and discrimination.

During the 1930s, the ACLU started to engage in work combating police misconduct and supporting Native American rights. Many of the ACLU's cases involved the defense of Communist Party members and Jehovah's Witnesses.

In 1940, the ACLU leadership voted to exclude communists from its leadership positions, a decision rescinded in 1968.

During World War II, the ACLU defended Japanese-American citizens, unsuccessfully trying to prevent their forcible relocation to internment camps. During the Cold War, the ACLU headquarters was dominated by anti-communists, but many local affiliates defended members of the Communist Party.

By 1964, membership had risen to 80,000, and the ACLU participated in efforts to expand civil liberties. In the 1960s, the ACLU continued its decades-long effort to enforce separation of church and state. It defended several anti-war activists during the Vietnam War.

The ACLU was involved in the Miranda case, which addressed conduct by police during interrogations, and in the New York Times case, which established new protections for newspapers reporting on government activities. In the 1970s and 1980s, the ACLU ventured into new legal areas, involving the rights of homosexuals, students, prisoners, and the poor.

In the twenty-first century, the ACLU has fought the teaching of creationism in public schools and challenged some provisions of anti-terrorism legislation as infringing on privacy and civil liberties. Fundraising and membership spiked after the 2016 election; the ACLU's current membership is more than 1.2 million.

Organization:

Leadership:

The ACLU is led by a president and an executive director, Susan N. Herman and Anthony Romero, respectively, in 2015.

The president acts as chair of the ACLU's board of directors, leads fundraising, and facilitates policy-setting.

The executive director manages the day-to-day operations of the organization.

The board of directors consists of 80 persons, including representatives from each state affiliate, as well as at-large delegates. The organization has its headquarters in 125 Broad Street, a 40-story skyscraper located in Lower Manhattan, New York City.

The leadership of the ACLU does not always agree on policy decisions; differences of opinion within the ACLU leadership have sometimes grown into major debates. In 1937, an internal debate erupted over whether to defend Henry Ford's right to distribute anti-union literature.

In 1939, a heated debate took place over whether to prohibit communists from serving in ACLU leadership roles. During the early 1950s and Cold War McCarthyism, the board was divided on whether to defend communists. 

In 1968, a schism formed over whether to represent Benjamin Spock's anti-war activism.

In 1973, there was internal conflict over whether to call for the impeachment of Richard Nixon.

In 2005, there was internal conflict about whether or not a gag rule should be imposed on ACLU employees to prevent publication of internal disputes.

Funding:

​In the year ending March 31, 2014, the ACLU and the ACLU Foundation had a combined income from support and revenue of $100.4 million, originating from grants (50.0%), membership donations (25.4%), donated legal services (7.6%), bequests (16.2%), and revenue (0.9%).

Membership dues are treated as donations; members choose the amount they pay annually, averaging approximately $50 per member per year.

In the year ending March 31, 2014, the combined expenses of the ACLU and ACLU Foundation were $133.4 million, spent on programs (86.2%), management (7.4%), and fundraising (8.2%). (After factoring in other changes in net assets of +$30.9 million, from sources such as investment income, the organization had an overall decrease in net assets of $2.1 million.)

Over the period from 2011 to 2014 the ACLU Foundation, on the average, has accounted for roughly 70% of the combined budget, and the ACLU roughly 30%.

The ACLU solicits donations to its charitable foundation. The ACLU is accredited by the Better Business Bureau, and the Charity Navigator has ranked the ACLU with a four-star rating.

The local affiliates solicit their own funding; however, some also receive funds from the national ACLU, with the distribution and amount of such assistance varying from state to state.

At its discretion, the national organization provides subsidies to smaller affiliates that lack sufficient resources to be self-sustaining; for example, the Wyoming ACLU chapter received such subsidies until April 2015, when, as part of a round of layoffs at the national ACLU, the Wyoming office was closed.

In October 2004, the ACLU rejected $1.5 million from both the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation because the foundations had adopted language from the USA PATRIOT Act in their donation agreements, including a clause stipulating that none of the money would go to "underwriting terrorism or other unacceptable activities." The ACLU views this clause, both in federal law and in the donors' agreements, as a threat to civil liberties, saying it is overly broad and ambiguous.

​Due to the nature of its legal work, the ACLU is often involved in litigation against governmental bodies, which are generally protected from adverse monetary judgments; a town, state or federal agency may be required to change its laws or behave differently, but not to pay monetary damages except by an explicit statutory waiver.

In some cases, the law permits plaintiffs who successfully sue government agencies to collect money damages or other monetary relief. In particular, the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Award Act of 1976 leaves the government liable in some civil rights cases. Fee awards under this civil rights statute are considered "equitable relief" rather than damages, and government entities are not immune from equitable relief.

Under laws such as this, the ACLU and its state affiliates sometimes share in monetary judgments against government agencies. In 2006, the Public Expressions of Religion Protection Act sought to prevent monetary judgments in the particular case of violations of church-state separation.

The ACLU has received court awarded fees from opponents, for example, the Georgia affiliate was awarded $150,000 in fees after suing a county demanding the removal of a Ten Commandments display from its courthouse; a second Ten Commandments case in the state, in a different county, led to a $74,462 judgment. The State of Tennessee was required to pay $50,000, the State of Alabama $175,000, and the State of Kentucky $121,500, in similar Ten Commandments cases.

State Affiliates:

​Most of the organization's workload is performed by its local affiliates. There is at least one affiliate organization in each state, as well as one in Washington, DC, and in Puerto Rico. California has three affiliates.

The affiliates operate autonomously from the national organization; each affiliate has its own staff, executive director, board of directors, and budget. Each affiliate consists of two non-profit corporations: a 501(c)(3) corporation that does not perform lobbying, and a 501(c)(4) corporation which is entitled to lobby.

ACLU affiliates are the basic unit of the ACLU's organization and engage in litigation, lobbying, and public education. For example, in a twenty-month period beginning January 2004, the ACLU's New Jersey chapter was involved in fifty-one cases according to their annual report—thirty-five cases in state courts, and sixteen in federal court.

They provided legal representation in thirty-three of those cases, and served as amicus in the remaining eighteen. They listed forty-four volunteer attorneys who assisted them in those cases.

​Positions:

The ACLU's official position statements, as of January 2012, included the following policies:
  • Affirmative action – The ACLU supports affirmative action.
  • Birth control and abortion – The ACLU supports the right to abortion, as established in the Roe v. Wade decision. The ACLU believes that everyone should have affordable access to the full range of contraceptive options. The ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project manages efforts related to reproductive rights.
  • Campaign funding – The ACLU believes that the current system is badly flawed, and supports a system based on public funding. The ACLU supports full transparency to identify donors. However, the ACLU opposes attempts to control political spending. The ACLU supported the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which allowed corporations and unions more political speech rights.
  • Child pornography – The Arizona chapter of the ACLU believes that production of child pornography should be illegal, but that possessing it is protected by the right to privacy. "Our policy is that possessing even pornographic material about children should not itself be a crime. The way to deal with this issue is to prosecute the makers of child pornography for exploiting minors."
  • Criminal law reform – The ACLU seeks an end to what it feels are excessively harsh sentences that "stand in the way of a just and equal society". The ACLU's Criminal Law Reform Project focuses on this issue.
  • Death penalty – The ACLU is opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances. The ACLU's Capital Punishment Project focuses on this issue.
  • Free speech – The ACLU supports free speech, including the right to express unpopular or controversial ideas, such as flag desecration, racist or sexist views, etc. However, a leaked memo from June 2018 said that speech that can "inflict serious harms" and "impede progress toward equality" may be a lower priority for the organization.
  • Gun rights – The national ACLU's position is that the Second Amendment protects a collective right to own guns rather than an individual right, despite the 2008 Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment is an individual right. The national organization's position is based on the phrases "a well regulated Militia" and "the security of a free State". However, the ACLU opposes any effort to create a registry of gun owners and has worked with the National Rifle Association to prevent a registry from being created, and it has favored protecting the right to carry guns under the 4th Amendment.
  • HIV/AIDS – The policy of the ACLU is to "create a world in which discrimination based on HIV status has ended, people with HIV have control over their medical information and care, and where the government's HIV policy promotes public health and respect and compassion for people living with HIV and AIDS." This effort is managed by the ACLU's AIDS Project.
  • Human rights – The ACLU's Human Rights project advocates (primarily in an international context) for children's rights, immigrants rights, gay rights, and other international obligations.
  • Immigrants' rights – The ACLU supports civil liberties for immigrants to the United States.
  • Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights – The ACLU's LGBT Rights Project supports equal rights for all gays and lesbians, and works to eliminate discrimination. The ACLU supports equal employment, housing, civil marriage and adoption rights for LGBT couples.
  • National security – The ACLU is opposed to compromising civil liberties in the name of national security. In this context, the ACLU has condemned government use of spying, indefinite detention without charge or trial, and government-sponsored torture. This effort is led by the ACLU's National Security Project.
  • Prisoners' rights – The ACLU's National Prison Project believes that incarceration should only be used as a last resort, and that prisons should focus on rehabilitation. The ACLU works to ensure that prisons treat prisoners in accordance with the Constitution and domestic law.
  • Privacy and technology – The ACLU's Project on Speech, Privacy, and Technology promotes "responsible uses of technology that enhance privacy protection", and opposes uses "that undermine our freedoms and move us closer to a surveillance society".
  • Racial issues – The ACLU's Racial Justice Program combats racial discrimination in all aspects of society, including the educational system, justice system, and the application of the death penalty. However, the ACLU opposes state censorship of the Confederate flag.
  • Religion – The ACLU supports the right of religious persons to practice their faiths without government interference. The ACLU believes the government should neither prefer religion over non-religion, nor favor particular faiths over others. The ACLU is opposed to school-led prayer, but protects students' right to pray in school. It opposes the use of religious beliefs to discriminate, such as refusing to provide abortion coverage or providing services to LGBT people.
  • Single sex public education – The ACLU opposes single sex public education options. It believes that single-sex education contributes to gender stereotyping and compares single-sex education to racial segregation.
  • Voting rights – The ACLU believes that impediments to voting should be eliminated, particularly if they disproportionately impact minority or poor citizens. The ACLU believes that misdemeanor convictions should not lead to a loss of voting rights. The ACLU's Voting Rights Project leads this effort.
  • Women's rights – The ACLU works to eliminate discrimination against women in all realms. The ACLU encourages government to be proactive in stopping violence against women. These efforts are led by the ACLU's Women's Rights project.

Support and opposition:

The ACLU is supported by a variety of persons and organizations. There were over 1,000,000 members in 2017, and the ACLU annually receives thousands of grants from hundreds of charitable foundations.

Allies of the ACLU in legal actions have included:
The ACLU has been criticized by liberals, such as when it excluded communists from its leadership ranks, when it defended Neo-Nazis, when it declined to defend Paul Robeson, or when it opposed the passage of the National Labor Relations Act.

Conversely, it has been criticized by conservatives, such as when it argued against official prayer in public schools, or when it opposed the Patriot Act. The ACLU has supported conservative figures such as Rush Limbaugh, George Wallace, Henry Ford, and Oliver North; and it has supported liberal figures such as Dick Gregory, Rockwell Kent, and Benjamin Spock.

A major source of criticism are legal cases in which the ACLU represents an individual or organization that promotes offensive or unpopular viewpoints, such a:s
​The ACLU responded to these criticisms by stating "It is easy to defend freedom of speech when the message is something many people find at least reasonable. But the defense of freedom of speech is most critical when the message is one most people find repulsive."

Click on any of the following blue  hyperlinks for more about the ACLU:







Tax Havens and Offshore Banks Pictured below: Over 10% of the World GDP is in Offshore Bank Tax Havens
A tax haven is defined as a country or place with very low "effective" rates of taxation for foreign investors ("headline" rates may be higher).

In some traditional definitions, a tax haven also offers financial secrecy. However, while countries with high levels of secrecy but also high rates of taxation (e.g. the United States and Germany in the Financial Secrecy Index ("FSI") rankings), can feature in some tax haven lists, they are not universally considered as tax havens.

In contrast, countries with lower levels of secrecy but also low "effective" rates of taxation (e.g. Ireland in the FSI rankings), appear in most § Tax haven lists. The consensus around effective tax rates has led academics to note that the term "tax haven" and "offshore financial centre" are almost synonymous.

Traditional tax havens, like Jersey, are open about zero rates of taxation, but as a consequence have limited bilateral tax treaties. Modern corporate tax havens
have non-zero "headline" rates of taxation and high levels of OECD–compliance, and thus have large networks of bilateral tax treaties.

However, their base erosion and profit shifting ("BEPS") tools enable corporations to achieve "effective" tax rates closer to zero, not just in the haven but in all countries with which the haven has tax treaties; putting them on tax haven lists.

According to modern studies, the § Top 10 tax havens include corporate-focused havens like the Netherlands, Singapore, Ireland and the U.K., while Luxembourg, Hong Kong, the Caribbean (the Caymans, Bermuda, and the British Virgin Islands) and Switzerland feature as both major traditional tax havens and major corporate tax havens. Corporate tax havens often serve as "conduits" to traditional tax havens.

Use of tax havens results in a loss of tax revenues to countries which are not tax havens. Estimates of the § Financial scale of taxes avoided vary, but the most credible have a range of US$100–250 billion per annum. In addition, capital held in tax havens can permanently leave the tax base (base erosion).

Estimates of capital held in tax havens also vary: the most credible estimates are between US$7–10 trillion (up to 10% of global assets). The harm of traditional and corporate tax havens has been particularly noted in developing nations, where the tax revenues are needed to build infrastructure.

Over 15% of countries are sometimes labelled tax havens. Tax havens are mostly successful and well-governed economies, and being a haven has brought prosperity. The top 10–15 GDP-per-capita countries, excluding oil and gas exporters, are tax havens.

Because of § Inflated GDP-per-capita (due to accounting BEPS flows), havens are prone to over-leverage (international capital misprice the artificial debt-to-GDP). This can lead to severe credit cycles and/or property/banking crises when international capital flows are repriced.

Ireland's Celtic Tiger, and the subsequent financial crisis in 2009–13, is an example. Jersey is another. Research shows § U.S. as the largest beneficiary, and use of tax havens by U.S corporations maximized long-term U.S. exchequer receipts.

The focus on combating tax havens (e.g. OECD–IMF projects) has been on common standards, transparency and data sharing. The rise of OECD-compliant corporate tax havens, whose BEPS tools are responsible for most of the lost taxes, has led to criticism of this approach, versus actual taxes paid.

​Higher-tax jurisdictions, such as the United States and many member states of the European Union, departed from the OECD BEPS Project in 2017–18, to introduce anti-BEPS tax regimes, targeted raising net taxes paid by corporations in corporate tax havens (e.g. the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 ("TCJA") GILTI–BEAT–FDII tax regimes and move to a hybrid "territorial" tax system, and proposed EU Digital Services Tax regime, and EU Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base).

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Tax Havens: ​__________________________________________________________________________

​An offshore bank is a bank regulated under international banking license (often called offshore license), which usually prohibits the bank from establishing any business activities in the jurisdiction of establishment.

Due to less regulation and transparency, accounts with offshore banks were often used to hide undeclared income. Since the 1980s, jurisdictions that provide financial services to nonresidents on a big scale, can be referred to as offshore financial centres. Since OFCs often also levy little or no tax corporate and/or personal income and offer, they are often referred to as tax havens.

With worldwide increasing measures on CFT (combatting the financing of terrorism) and AML (anti-money laundering) compliance, the offshore banking sector in most jurisdictions was subject to changing regulations. Since 2000 the Financial Action Task Force issues the so-called FATF blacklist of "Non-Cooperative Countries or Territories" (NCCTs), which it perceived to be non-cooperative in the global fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.

An account held in a foreign offshore bank, is often described as an offshore account. Typically, an individual or company will maintain an offshore account for the financial and legal advantages it provides, including:
While the term originates from the Channel Islands being "offshore" from the United Kingdom, and while most offshore banks are located in island nations to this day, the term is used figuratively to refer to any bank used for these advantages, regardless of location. Thus, some banks in landlocked Andorra, Luxembourg, and Switzerland may be described as "offshore banks".

Offshore banking has often been associated with the underground economy and organized crime, tax evasion and money laundering; however, legally, offshore banking does not prevent assets from being subject to personal income tax on interest. Except for certain people who meet fairly complex requirements (such as perpetual travelers), the personal income tax laws of many countries (e.g., France, Malaysia, and the United States) make no distinction between interest earned in local banks and that earned abroad.

Persons subject to US income tax, for example, are required to declare, on penalty of perjury, any foreign bank accounts—which may or may not be numbered bank accounts—they may have. Although offshore banks may decide not to report income to other tax authorities and have no legal obligation to do so, as they are protected by bank secrecy, this does not make the non-declaration of the income by the taxpayer or the evasion of the tax on that income legal.

​Following the 9/11 attacks, there have been many calls to increase regulation on international finance, in particular concerning offshore banks, tax havens, and clearing houses such as Clearstream, based in Luxembourg, which are possible crossroads for major illegal money flows.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Offshore Banks:







Discrimination in America TodayPictured below: National poll finds discrimination prevalent in the United States
Discrimination is the act of someone being prejudiced towards another. This term is used to highlight the difference in treatment between members of different groups when one group is intentionally singled out and treated worse, or not given the same opportunities.

Attitudes toward minorities have been marked by discrimination historically in the United States. Many forms of discrimination have come to be recognized in U.S. society, on the basis of national origin, race, gender, and sexuality in particular.

History:
​
Racism:
Main articles: Racism in the United States and Racial inequality in the United States
​
​Skin of Color  is a form of racially-based discrimination where people are treated unequally due to skin color. It initially came about in America during slavery. Lighter skinned slaves tend to work indoors, while dark skinned worked outdoors.

In 1865, during the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed and it abolished slavery. This was soon followed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that granted citizenship to all persons "born or naturalized in the United States", and the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that protected the rights to vote for everyone.

These Amendments passed during the Reconstruction period extended protection to the newly emancipated slaves. However, in the 1870s Jim Crow laws were introduced in the Southeastern United States. These laws promoted the idea of "Separate but equal" which was first brought about from the Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, meaning that all races were equal, but they had to have separate public facilities.

The mixing of races was illegal in most places such as public schools, public transportation and restaurants. These laws increased discrimination and segregation in the United States.

Often times, the products and sections designated for the "Colored" were inferior and not as nice for the "White Only". Water fountains, bathrooms, and park benches were just a few of the areas segregated by Caucasians due to Jim Crow laws. Furthermore, the Jim Crow laws systematically made life harder for African-Americans and people of color. It made voting harder to accomplish, due to the fact that African-Americans had to do literacy tests and go through other obstacles before getting the chance to vote.

​In the modern United States, gay black men are extremely likely to experience intersectional discrimination. In the United States, the children of gay African-American men have a poverty rate of 52 percent, the highest in the country. Gay African-American men in partnerships are also six times more likely to live in poverty than gay white male couples.

​Fighting back:

Major figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Rosa Parks were involved in the fight against the race-based discrimination of the Civil Rights Movement. Rosa Parks's refusal to give up her bus seat in 1955 sparked the Montgomery bus boycott—a large movement in Montgomery, Alabama that was an integral period at the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement.

The Bus Boycott lasted a total of 381 days before the Supreme Court deemed that segregated seating is unconstitutional. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a peaceful activist and pastor, led many such protests, advocating for the improvement of African-Americans in American's society. His role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott helped to launch his role in the Civil Rights Movement. King organized many protests attended not only by African-American, but also Caucasians.

While King organized peaceful protests, Malcolm X went a different route. His main supporters, The Nation of Islam, and him stressed the idea of black power, and black pride.

Although Malcolm X's actions were radical, especially when they contradicted that of Dr. King, but he is still considered one of the pioneers in fighting back against racial discrimination in daily life and not just from a political standpoint. His ideas of black nationalism and the use of violence to fight back helped to spark the political group in the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, which later became known as the Black Panther Party.

Formed by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton, the organization was created in October of 1966 in Oakland, California. Usually seen in all black and armed, as a group, the Black Panthers first started off patrolling police activity in Oakland, but soon grew to widespread support in cities like Los Angeles, and Chicago. Although they were seen as a violent gang and a danger to society, the Black Panthers brought numerous social programs such as free breakfast for school children and free clinics across numerous cities.

What the Black Panthers were fighting for was outlined in their Ten Point Program. They were ultimately taken down by the FBI, led by J. Edgar Hoover, in the early 1970s. Other factors such as internal tensions, and financial struggles also played into the demise of the Black Panther Party and by 1982 they were completely gone.

In the education system, the Civil Rights Movement further became huge after the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Oliver Brown challenged the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas when his daughter was not allowed to enroll in any of the all white schools claiming that "separate but equal" violates the protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 

Ruby Bridges, along with the Little Rock Nine, dealt with discrimination from Caucasian peers, their parents, and the community in general during the desegregation of schools. The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine African-American students who volunteered to attend school at the Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. They continuously had problems with the public and faced harsh treatment from other students, parents, and even the Little Rock National Guard.

However, a change occurred when President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened by sending federal troops to escort the students. For Ruby Bridges, she joined the Civil Rights Movement in the November 14, 1960 when she became enrolled in William Frantz Elementary School.

Due to many parents not allowing their children in her class, Bridges was in class by herself, which was taught by Barbara Henry, and often times ate alone and had recess alone. Ruby, along with her family, did face a lot of backlash throughout Louisiana from the desegregation; however, they did receive support from numerous people in the North and Bridges was able to finish the year.

​Contemporary society:

Gender discrimination:
Further information: 
Gender discrimination is another form of discrimination. Women are often seen as an expense to their employers because they take days off for children, need time off for maternity leave and are stereotyped as "more emotional". The theory that goes hand in hand with this is known as the glass escalator or the glass ceiling, which holds that while women are being held down in male-dominated professions, men often rise quickly to positions of authority in certain fields.

Men are pushed forward into management, even surpassing women who have been at the job longer and have more experience in the field.

Men's rights deals with discrimination against men in the areas of family law, such as divorce and child custody, labor such as paternity leave, paternity fraud, health, education, conscription, and other areas of the law such as domestic violence, genital integrity, and allegations of rape.

Discrimination against immigrants:

Immigrants to the United States are affected by a totally separate type of discrimination. Some people feel as though the large numbers of people being allowed into the country are cause for alarm, therefore discriminate against them.

Arizona recently passed a law that forces people to carry documents with them at all times to prove their citizenship. This is only one controversy over immigrants in the United States, another is the claim that immigrants are stealing "true Americans'" jobs.

Immigration restrictions are among the biggest government interventions in the economy. They prevent millions of people from taking jobs, renting homes, and pursuing a wide range of opportunities that they could otherwise have.

Violent hate crimes have increased drastically. Recent social psychological research suggests that this form of prejudice against migrants may be partly explained by some fairly basic cognitive processes.

According to Soylu, some argue that immigrants constantly face being discriminated against because of the color of their skin, the sound of their voice, the way they look and their beliefs. Many immigrants are well educated, some argue that they are often blamed and persecuted for the ills in society such as overcrowding of schools, disease and unwanted changes in the host country's culture due to the beliefs of this "unwelcomed" group of people.

According to Soylu, there was an open immigration policy up until 1924 in America until the National Origins Act came into effect. According to the Immigration Act of 1924 which is a United States federal law, it limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the United States in 1890, down from the 3% cap set by the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, according to the Census of 1890.

It superseded the 1921 Emergency Quota Act. The law was primarily aimed at further restricting immigration of Southern Europeans and Eastern Europeans. According to Buchanan, later in the 1930s with the advent of opinion polling, immigration policy analysis was carried out by collecting public thoughts and opinions on the issue. These factors encouraged a heated debate on immigration policy.

These debates continued even into the 2000s, and were intensified by George W. Bush's immigration proposal. Some argue that the 9/11 terrorist attacks left the country in a state of paranoia and fear that strengthened the views in favor of having closed borders.

Discrimination in the workplace:

Immigration to the United States can be difficult due to immigrants' lack of access to legal documents and the expensive nature of immigration. The United States has historically been a major target destination for people seeking work and continues to be so today.

As Graciela, a 47-year-old married woman who had lived in the US for 4 years, stated, “My husband,…he lost his job. Things were beginning to get tough…We came with the need to find work and better life possibilities.” Worldwide, the workforce has become increasingly pluralistic and ethnically diverse as more and more people migrate across nations.

Although race- or ethnicity-based discriminatory employment practices are prohibited in most developed countries, according to feminist scholar Mary Harcourt, actual discrimination is still widespread. Sahagian Jacqueline, an author, argues that one example of this act of discrimination occurred at Macy's a department store.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, Macy's used unfair documentation practices against legal immigrant employees who had proper work authorizations. During an eligibility re-verification process, Macy's broke immigration law that prohibits employers from discriminating against immigrant employees during re-verification by asking for more or different documents than other employees are required to submit based on a worker's immigration status or national origin.

Some of the affected employees lost seniority, were suspended, or even let go due to the illegal re-verification. While their opinions are controversial, researchers Moran, Tyler and Daranee argue that with immigrants' growing numbers and their expanding economic role in U.S. society, addressing challenges and creating opportunities for immigrants to succeed in the labor force are critical prerequisites to improve the economic security for all low-wage working families and ensure the future vitality of our economy.

Discrimination based on sexual orientation:

Another type of discrimination is that against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals. For personal reasons such as religious beliefs, employers sometimes choose to not hire these people. LGBT rights have been protested against for various reasons; for example, one topic of controversy related to LGBT people is marriage, which was legalized in all states in June 2015 following the Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges.

See also:


​




Social StatusPictured below: Society, Social Structure, and Interaction
Social status is the relative level of respect, honor, assumed competence, and deference accorded to people, groups, and organizations in a society. Some writers have also referred to a socially valued role or category a person occupies as a "status" (e.g., gender, race, having a criminal conviction, etc.).

Status is based in beliefs about who members of a society believe holds comparatively more or less social value. By definition, these beliefs are broadly shared among members of a society. As such, people use status hierarchies to allocate resources, leadership positions, and other forms of power. In doing so, these shared cultural beliefs make unequal distributions of resources and power appear natural and fair, supporting systems of social stratification.

Status hierarchies appear to be universal across human societies, affording valued benefits to those who occupy the higher rungs, such as better health, social approval, resources, influence, and freedom.

Status hierarchies depend primarily on the possession and use of status symbols. These are cues people use to determine how much status a person holds and how they should be treated.

Such symbols can include the possession of socially valuable attributes, like being conventionally beautiful or having a prestigious degree. Other status symbols include wealth and its display through conspicuous consumption. Status in face-to-face interaction can also be conveyed through certain controllable behaviors, such as assertive speech, posture, and emotional displays.

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Ideology, including a List of Political Ideologies Pictured below: A Political Ideology is a certain set of ethical ideals, principles, doctrines, myths or symbols of a social movement, institution, class, and/or large group that explains how society  should work, and offers some political and cultural blueprint for a certain social order.
An ideology is a collection of normative beliefs and values that an individual or group holds for other than purely epistemic reasons. In other words, these rely on basic assumptions about reality that may or may not have any factual basis.

The term is especially used to describe systems of ideas and ideals which form the basis of economic or political theories and resultant policies. In these there are tenuous causal links between policies and outcomes owing to the large numbers of variables available, so that many key assumptions have to be made. In political science the term is used in a descriptive sense to refer to political belief systems.

The term was coined by Antoine Destutt de Tracy, a French Enlightenment aristocrat and philosopher, who conceived it in 1796 as the "science of ideas" during the French Reign of Terror by trying to develop a rational system of ideas to oppose the irrational impulses of the mob.

However, in contemporary philosophy it is narrower in scope than that original concept, or the ideas expressed in broad concepts such as worldview, The Imaginary and in ontology.

In the sense defined by French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, ideology is "the imagined existence (or idea) of things as it relates to the real conditions of existence".

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Anti-discrimination Laws, including a List of Anti-Discrimination Laws in the United StatesPictured below: How to Prove Discrimination in the Workplace
Anti-discrimination law or non-discrimination law refers to legislation designed to prevent discrimination against particular groups of people; these groups are often referred to as protected groups or protected classes.

Anti-discrimination laws vary by jurisdiction with regard to the types of discrimination that are prohibited, and also the groups that are protected by that legislation. Commonly, these types of legislation are designed to prevent discrimination in employment, housing, education, and other areas of social life, such as public accommodations.

Anti-discrimination law may include protections for groups based on any of the following:
Anti-discrimination laws are rooted in principles of equality, specifically, that individuals should not be treated differently due the characteristics outlined above.

Anti-discrimination laws are designed to protect against both individual discrimination (committed by individuals) and from structural discrimination (arising from policies or procedures that disadvantage certain groups).

Courts may take into account both discriminatory intent and disparate impact in determining whether a particular action or policy constitutes discrimination.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks fore more about Anti-discrimination Laws: ___________________________________________________________________________

​The following is a List of Anti-discrimination Laws in the United States: See also:






​
Immigration Policies of Donald Trump, including Illegal Immigration to the United States, along with the NY Times  (12/11/2018) article "8 Million People Are Working Illegally in the U.S. Here’s Why That’s Unlikely to Change." Pictured below: Donald Trump wants to deport every single illegal immigrant - could he? For more information, see BBC article below.
[Your WebHost: 3/10/2021 Update: While this topic may not seem irrelevant anymore since Trump  was ousted with the 2021 elections, we leave this in to ensure that America never chooses another racist President like Trump.]​

Donald Trump wants to deport every single illegal immigrant - could he?
(BBC 11/11/2015)

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump wants to deport every illegal immigrant from the United States. The other Republican candidates say it can't be done - one called it a "silly argument".

And the majority of US Republican voters disagree with Mr Trump: according to a 2015 survey by the Pew Research Center, 56% believe undocumented immigrants should be allowed to stay if they meet certain criteria.

So who's right? And what would happen if US authorities attempted to carry out Mr Trump's audacious plan?

A huge task:

There are approximately 11.3 million undocumented immigrants in the US. Rounding them up and deporting them would present a huge logistical and financial challenge to America's military, law enforcement, and border control agencies.

​Mr Trump hasn't set out a timeframe for his mass deportation strategy, but a 2015 study by the American Action Forum (AAF), a conservative think tank, estimates it would take about 20 years to find and deport that many people.

Using good old-fashioned American school buses, 650 would have to run every month, without a seat to spare, for two decades. Plus continuous operations from a variety of law enforcement and other government bodies - with all the cost that entails.

So how much is that? Based on an analysis for 5 million people, the Centre for American Progress estimates that a mass deportation from the US would cost an average of $10,070 (£6,624) per person. For 11.3 million people, that's $114bn (£75bn).

And that would cover only the basic operational costs - apprehension, detention, legal processing, and deportation. According to the AAF, the total cost of a 20-year mass deportation programme would be somewhere between $420 and $620 billion.

But we're not finished yet, there's still the impact on the economy. The AAF report, published earlier this year, estimates that undocumented immigrants made up 6.4% of the country's labour force - about 11 million workers - in 2014.

It predicts that deporting all of those workers would shrink the US economy by nearly 6%, or $1.6 trillion, by 2035.

That's not to mention the enormous potential for lawsuits and reparations claims filed against the government.

And what about... society?This massive deportation programme would have to be done with the support - or at least tacit consent - of the American people, many of whom will have lived and worked with, befriended and loved undocumented immigrants.

According to a 2013 study by Pew, illegal immigrant adults had been in the country for a median of 13 years at the time the study was carried out.

Would ordinary Americans turn a blind eye while neighbors, colleagues and friends were rounded up and taken away? Or would it precipitate mass civil unrest? In 2010, Arizona introduced a law that allowed police to check the legal status of anyone they suspected of being an illegal immigrant, and 100,000 people hit the streets to protest.

And then there is the thorny issue of how this would all look. In an age when nearly everyone has a video camera in their pocket, could soldiers really round people up - young and old, entire families - and force them on to buses and trains? Would the soldiers have machine guns and dogs? Could the average American stomach those images, with all their attendant historical echoes?

Are there any other options?The majority of US citizens - especially Hispanics, younger Americans and Democrats - support a path to either citizenship or permanent residency for undocumented immigrants.

Under plans first put forward by President Obama in 2014, about five million undocumented immigrants would have been allowed to apply for work permits and eventually permanent residency.

The program would have shielded immigrants who have been in the US since 2010, have not been convicted of a serious crime and have ties to US citizens.

Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate to succeed Mr Obama, supported the plan and pledged to expand it. Mr Trump made it clear he was firmly against the idea.

But Mr Obama's plan was rejected by Congress and then by the Supreme Court.

[End of BBC Article]
___________________________________________________________________________

New York Times (12/11/2018) Article "8 Million People Are Working Illegally in the U.S. Here’s Why That’s Unlikely to Change."

​They make beds in inns across the country. They pick oranges in Florida, strawberries in California and vegetables in Ohio. And they have built new subdivisions in Phoenix, Atlanta and Charlotte.

For years, policymakers have talked about shutting off the influx of undocumented workers.

But the economy has grown to rely on them.

Ending illegal immigration, say many of those who have studied the issue, could mean that American workers would lose their jobs, companies would close and the economy would contract.

In recent years, though, border security has tightened considerably, a strong economy has driven down unemployment, and many employers, particularly those offering low-paid jobs, say there are few alternatives to hiring workers without legal documents.

President Trump, it turns out, is caught on both sides of the balance between border security and economic prosperity.

The president has vowed to erect a wall to keep out undocumented immigrants and has ramped up the deportation of those already in the United States. His administration has conducted payroll audits and workplace raids, which have resulted in the arrest of thousands of workers.

But four undocumented workers have recently come forward at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., and the federal E-Verify database suggests that the Trump Organization does not use heightened employment document verification procedures at several other of its properties across the country, meaning that the chances of employing undocumented workers are high.

Like undocumented workers across the country, the former Bedminster employees interviewed by The New York Times said they used counterfeit Social Security and green cards to get hired.

The Trump Organization has vowed to terminate any undocumented workers it finds on its payroll, and the fate of any of its workers who do not have legal working papers remains unclear.

What is clear, however, is that at a time of extremely low unemployment, 3.7 percent nationally, Mr. Trump’s golf club might struggle to recruit legal workers to replace any undocumented workers who are terminated.

Most undocumented immigrants are in the labor forceAbout eight million of the nearly 11 million immigrants unlawfully in the United States — down from a high of 12.2 million in 2007 — participate in the labor force. They account for about 5 percent of all workers, according to the Pew Research Center.

“Our economy has absorbed these workers and employers would like more of them, given the low unemployment rate,” said Madeline Zavodny, an economist at the University of North Florida who is an expert on the economics of immigration.

Undocumented immigrants are over-represented in low-skilled jobs such as farming, construction and child care,e.g., unauthorized workers represent about 15 percent of those employed in construction.

Often, these are jobs their employers have trouble filling with American workers.
Anabele Garcia, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, toils in the vineyards of Sonoma County in California, earning about $15 an hour. When the season ends each year, she finds work cleaning houses and wine estates, earning about $20 an hour. Her husband, Jorge Romero, works in the cow pastures nearby.

“We are here to do any work,” said Ms. Garcia, 39. “There are no Americans in the fields.”
Raising wages is not a catchall solutionWhat would happen if all the undocumented immigrants went away?

Steve Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports curbs on immigration, believes that wages would rise and motivate many chronically unemployed Americans to get back to work.

But wage rates are not the main issue, some economists say, because there still would not be enough Americans willing to do blue-collar jobs.

Expectations and status play a role, said Chris Tilly, a labor economist at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Not everybody will do dirty work,” he said.

They might prefer to make a low wage working inside an Amazon distribution center to putting shingles on a roof.

A survey conducted in late 2017 by the Associated Contractors of America found that 70 percent of construction companies were having difficulty hiring roofers, bricklayers and electricians, among others. The accommodation and food services sector reported a record number of vacancies this October.

A closed border could mean a shrinking economy:

Historically, the regulation of the border with Mexico, the main source of migration, “has always been driven by the needs of the economy,” Mr. Tilly said.

That’s less true now, under the Trump administration, which has sought to check illegal border crossings by all means possible.

Giovanni Peri, an economist who studies immigration labor at the University of California, Davis, said that with a true cutoff in illegal immigration, the economy would contract. The impact, he said, would fall not just on immigrants — because their work sustains sectors that employ many Americans.

“Some sectors, like construction, agriculture, housing and personal services would be drastically reduced,” Mr. Peri said. “There would be companies closing and relocating. There would be jobs lost. There will be towns and cities that would see half their population disappear.”

“It definitely would trigger a recession,” he said. “We are talking about a lot of job loss.”
It is very unlikely that weak, vulnerable American workers would benefit from jobs previously held by immigrants because some of these jobs themselves would disappear, he said.

Some Americans are unemployed for a reason:

“Very few of the jobs these immigrants have would be taken by these Americans,” Mr. Peri said. “The ones who are not employed have complicated circumstances like drug addiction, alcohol addiction or criminal records.”

​Especially at a time of low unemployment, he added, “This would be the worst time to lose them. There are no unemployed Americans ready to do their jobs.”

In some sectors, “there might be people who would do these jobs at much higher wages,” said Ms. Zavodny, the economist in Florida. “But it is not clear those jobs would exist at much higher wages.”

​Agriculture, construction and service would be hard-hit:

The agriculture industry has begun to invest in automation and robotics to compensate for a worsening labor shortage.

In the lettuce fields of California’s Salinas Valley, a new machine plies row after row of romaine lettuce, doing the backbreaking work, long performed by people, of lobbing heads of romaine lettuce from the field. It saves time and human labor.

Still, more than half of all field workers are undocumented, according to the Farm Bureau, which has said that their sudden disappearance would deal a catastrophic blow to American agriculture.

Since the 1990s, undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America have flocked to towns like Dalton, Ga., to work in the carpet mills. Across the South and in fast-growing cities like Denver, hundreds of thousands have been absorbed by the construction industry as roofers, painters and bricklayers.

Unauthorized immigrants in 2016 represented 10.6 percent of the labor force in Nevada, 8.6 percent in California and 8.2 percent in Texas, according to a study released last month by the Pew Research Center.

In states like Georgia and North Carolina, their presence has grown rapidly to represent 5.4 percent and 4.5 percent, respectively, of the labor force.

In all but four states, service occupations, such as being a waiter, dishwasher or maid, together draw the largest number of undocumented immigrants, the Pew report found.

About 31 percent of all undocumented immigrant workers were in service occupations in 2016, according to the estimates, which were based on data gathered by the Census Bureau.

Unauthorized immigrants represent about 24 percent of all workers in farming, fishing and forestry and 15 percent of those employed in construction, which is the industry that uses the most undocumented immigrant workers overall, at 1.35 million.

Nearly one quarter of restaurant workers in 2016 were foreign-born compared with 18.5 percent for all sectors, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, compiled by the National Restaurant Association. A large share are likely undocumented, economists say.

“These workers are often long-tenured and skilled,” said Craig Regelbrugge, senior vice president of industry advocacy and research at AmericanHort, which represents the nursery industry. “They are nothing short of vital to farms, businesses, and rural economies.”

“Each job they perform sustains two to three jobs in the surrounding economy, so even though few Americans seek this field and farm work, the jobs of many Americans and many communities are sustained by their contributions.”

[End of NY Times Article]​
___________________________________________________________________________

Immigration policy of Donald Trump

​​Immigration policy and, specifically, illegal immigration to the United States, was a signature issue of U.S. President Donald Trump's presidential campaign, and his proposed reforms and remarks about this issue generated much publicity. 

Trump has repeatedly said that some illegal immigrants are criminals. A 2015 study by the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute had concluded that around 820,000 unauthorized immigrants had criminal records; however, increasing evidence indicates that immigration does not correlate with higher crime rates.

A hallmark promise of his campaign was to build a substantial wall on the United States–Mexico border and to force Mexico to pay for the wall. Trump has also expressed support for a variety of "limits on legal immigration and guest-worker visas", including a "pause" on granting green cards, which Trump says will "allow record immigration levels to subside to more moderate historical averages".

​Trump's proposals regarding H-1B visas frequently changed throughout his presidential campaign, but as of late July 2016, he appeared to oppose the H-1B visa program.

As president, Trump imposed a travel ban that prohibited issuing visas to citizens of seven largely-Muslim countries. In response to legal challenges he revised the ban twice, with his third version being upheld by the Supreme Court in June 2018.

He attempted to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, but a legal injunction has allowed the policy to continue while the matter is the subject of legal challenge. He imposed a "zero tolerance" policy to require the arrest of anyone caught illegally crossing the border, which resulted in separating children from their families.

Tim Cook and 58 other CEOs of major American companies warned of harm from Trump's immigration policy. The "zero tolerance" policy was reversed in June 2018, but multiple media reports of continued family separations were published in the first half of 2019.

In his first State of the Union address on January 30, 2018, Trump outlined his administration's four pillars for immigration reform:
(1) a path to citizenship for DREAMers;
(2) increased border security funding;
(3) ending the diversity visa lottery;
(4) restrictions on family-based immigration.

The Four Pillars reinforce Trump's campaign slogan to "Buy American, Hire American" and 2017 executive order by the same name, and tracks with previously outlined immigration policy priorities.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Immigration Policies of Donald Trump: ___________________________________________________________________________

​Myths and facts about immigration to the United States

Excerpt from The New Colossus, as engraved at the Statue of Liberty, greeting millions of immigrants at Ellis Island:
  • "Give me your tired, your poor,
  • Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
  • The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
  • Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
  • I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Anti-immigration proponents in the United States make many claims about illegal immigration from Mexico that are based on exaggerations, misconceptions, myths and outright lies.

Some of their complaints may be true on a very small scale, but by and large, most of their assertions do not reflect the actual trends in illegal immigration into the U.S.

Further, those who oppose illegal immigration tend to focus their rhetoric on appeals to emotion with scant evidence, such as claiming illegal immigrants are "taking our jobs" and "threatening our security".

Their only "solution" seems to be, "kick out the wetbacks and build a wall" (which would actually cause major damage to the U.S. economy).

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about "The Myths​ and  the Facts About Immigration to  the United States": ___________________________________________________________________________

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly known by its initials ICE, is an agency of the Department of Homeland Security tasked with enforcing the United States' immigration laws.

It should be noted that ICE does not patrol the US borders; that task is handled by its sister agency, the United States Customs and Border Protection. Instead, ICE is responsible for arresting, detaining, and deporting undocumented immigrants already within the United States.

Under the presidency of Donald Trump, the agency has become unreasonably aggressive in its task of removing unwanted individuals to the point that it has become responsible for an ongoing human rights fiasco.

It wasn't all Trump's fault, however; ICE's abuses against undocumented immigrants happened under President Obama's watch as well.

ICE was established in 2003 by the Homeland Security Act, which created the Department of Homeland Security and integrated the former Immigration and Naturalization Service into what is now ICE.

​Abuses:

Family separation policy and child detention centers:

As part of the Trump Administration's zero-tolerance immigration policy, the family separation policy of migrant children from their parents was officially adopted from April 2018 to June 2018, although it was found that the practice had begun a year prior to the policy's official announcement.

As of December 2018, roughly 15,000 children are currently detained within U.S. custody.

Rape and sexual assault:

ICE has a long history of rape and sexual assault within the agency.

In April 2018, The Intercept reported they had obtained 1,224 complaints of sexual assault filed between 2010 and September 2017, but DHS officials indicated they had received roughly 33,000 complaints between 2010 and 2016 that had not been shared with The Intercept. In February 2019, government documents revealed that over 5,800 migrant children faced alleged sexual abuse while in ICE custody.

Inhumane conditions:
​
Another report from The Intercept found that at the ICE processing center in Adelanto, California, the staff had been ignoring medical emergencies, the food was infested with maggots, and detainees working in the kitchens were being paid only $1 a day.

A report from the DHS Office of Inspector General reported guards mocking survivors of attempted suicide as "suicide failures", inadequate sanitation and food services within the facility, medical staff neglecting detainees, and staff members refusing to allow religious practices, telephone access and visitation.

Another DHS report found that the facility in Newark, New Jersey had kitchens serving raw, spoiled and expired meat and storing moldy bread, leaking roofs in every housing unit, flat and dilapidated bed mattresses held together with tied sheets, and showers with mold, mildew and peeling paint.

Additionally, in response to hunger strikes by eleven detainees at the processing center in El Paso, Texas, ICE officers began force-feeding six of them with nasal tubes, resulting in nosebleeds and vomiting. Immigrant children at Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center in Virginia have said that they were beaten, left in their cells naked, and strapped to chairs by the guards.

ICE regularly inflicts solitary confinement on detainees at the slightest provocation, confining people to tiny cells for 23 hours a day and letting them pace around inside what amounts to a cage for one hour.

A policy adviser at the DHS revealed ICE had been engaging in infliction punishment on gay detainees, transgender detainees, disabled detainees detainees with mental illnesses, and detainees reporting abuses committed by ICE staff, with only half the cases being for rule violations.

The UN has declared that solitary confinement in excess of 15 days or more should be banned, as it is a form of torture. Despite this, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists analyzed more than 8,400 records of ICE using solitary confinement on detainees, finding that more than half of the cases were in excess of 15 days, 573 were in excess of 90 days, 32 stints lasted more than a year (!), and a whopping one-third of detainees placed in solitary were mentally ill (373 of whom had to be placed on suicide watch).

Deaths in detention:

Under the Freedom of Information Act, The New York Times and the American Civil Liberties Union obtained documents revealing 107 deaths occurring in ICE custody from October 2003 to 2007. These deaths included:
  • a man who was left in an isolation for 13 hours following a head fracture,
  • a man who committed suicide after being denied painkillers following a leg surgery after a motorcycle accident,
  • a woman who did not receive treatment for a uterine fibroid tumor,
  • a man who did not receive treatment for a kidney ailment,
  • and a woman who was denied treatment for pancreatic cancer for several weeks.

Since 2007, that number has gone up to 188, with 22 deaths occurring in the last two years.

Of the 24 individuals to die during Trump's term in office, it has been concluded that at least six of those deaths were caused by the agency's failure to provide adequate medical care.

Trump has exacerbated the problem of deaths occurring in ICE custody. 2017, his first year in office, saw 12 detainees die in ICE custody, the greatest number since 2009, Obama's first year in office

Clara Long, a senior researcher for the Human Rights Watch has said that, "ICE has proven unable or unwilling to provide adequately for the health and safety of the people it detains. The Trump administration’s efforts to drastically expand the already-bloated immigration detention system will only put more people at risk."

Religious freedom violations:
See the main article on this topic: Freedom of religion

While the Trump administration touts its commitment to "religious freedom," both ICE and the Border Patrol frequently and intentionally violate the religious rights of their detainees.

Egregious examples of these abuses include:
  1. feeding nothing but pork sandwiches to a devout Muslim once every eight hours
  2. punishing Sikhs for wearing head coverings and forcing them to pray near toilets,
  3. and repeatedly denying prayer services and religious texts for Muslims on the justification that "This is Glades County!"

This conduct is not limited to Muslims and Sikhs; Christians as well are consistently denied access to religious materials, services, and clergy. There are also reports of guards mocking Christian detainees for praying.

These violations of fundamental rights are unnecessary for any security purpose and appear to be intended as a means of harassment and a means of pressuring detainees to give up on their case and accept immediate deportation rather than to wait out the results of their case.

The US government has previously acknowledged how important religion can be for prisoner morale, mental health, and rehabilitation; what ICE is doing is illegal under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, which guarantees religious rights for all prisoners in the United States, whether documented or otherwise.

Incompetence and corruption:

In February 2019, the DHS Office of Inspector General reported that ICE had not been holding private contractors accountable for issues at their detention centers, issuing only two fines in 14,003 cases between October 2015 and June 2018 that included sexual assault, use of tear gas and so on.
​
ICE has also proven to be dangerously vindictive. When citizens in several North Carolina counties elected sheriffs who agreed to the the termination of 287(g) cooperation agreements with ICE that notify federal agents of the immigration status of detained individuals, ICE retaliated with a five-day crackdown in those counties' 200 people, 60 of whom ICE had previously held no interest in.

This was done to cause maximum chaos in order to punish the citizens and sheriffs of those counties for refusing to comply with ICE's draconian anti-immigrant measures. ICE also punishes detainees who have the temerity to cooperate in legal cases against them.

Such was the case of several Iraqi detainees, who were ACLU clients, in Arizona who were told they were about to be released, only for their guards to reveal mid-charade that they were actually only being sent to a different ICE facility. This was an intentional and cruel form of psychological punishment.

ICE's American police state:

Perhaps the most frightening aspect of ICE's enforcement procedures for everyday US citizens is their policy of launching mass raids against anyone who looks too brown to be a real American. This has been a fact of ICE since the mid-Bush administration.

In 2006 ICE started using the excuse of investigating "document fraud" to raid workplaces across the country with ridiculously heavily armed agents. President George W. Bush publicly announced his desire to purge America of all illegal immigrants, directly causing 2008 to be a record year for workplace raids, with 6,287 arrests.

Obama issued a series of executive orders to focus ICE on dangerous criminals, but Trump's "zero tolerance" policy reversed that to target potentially any illegal immigrant.

ICE raids are traumatic events for the communities they target, as ICE rushes in with military equipment and helicopters to whisk away hundreds of people, leaving jobs empty, families torn apart, and local organizations straining to return things to normality.

Although it seems logical that ICE should first go after dangerous criminals, the agency instead targets so-called "low hanging fruit": people without criminal records who visit ICE for routine check-ins in the hope of earning citizenship or testify against criminals in court. The effect of ICE raids is widespread fear among immigrant communities and a complete withdrawal from civil and social life.

ICE also runs roughshod over the law. In the wake of Trump's "zero tolerance" policy, ICE and CBP agents have taken the law into their own hands by ignoring and violating court orders, denying access to legal counsel, and forcing people to sign documents they have not read.

ICE also arrests DACA beneficiaries who are here legally and conducts unwarranted raids in defiance of the Fourth Amendment. Increasing aggressiveness in raiding has resulted in ICE casting a pall over immigrant and minority communities with the threat of "collateral arrests", or arrests of individuals not actually targeted by the raid but who happen to have the wrong skin color.

Even more absurdly, ICE has taken to arresting people while they are in the process of applying for citizenship, a counterproductive policy that discourages people from complying with the law.

Even legal immigrants are now afraid to visit government buildings, as they are afraid that the ICE agents loitering outside are there for them, too.

ICE uses intimidation tactics against US citizens associated with their targets in the hopes of circumventing constitutional rights and getting away with misrepresenting the law.

Widespread racial profiling and aggressive raiding has led to ICE mistakenly arresting almost 1,500 legal United States citizens as of 2018, with ICE agents ignoring and mocking detainees' rightful claims of citizenship.

See also:








Koch Family, including its Political ActivitiesPictured below: Democrats take on the Koch brothers
The Koch family is an American family engaged in business and most noted for their political activities (donating to libertarian, criminal justice reform, and Republican Party causes) and their control of Koch Industries, the second-largest privately owned company in the United States (with 2017 revenues of $100 billion).

The family business was started by Fred C. Koch, who developed a new cracking method for the refinement of heavy crude oil into gasoline. Fred's four sons litigated against each other over their interests in the business during the 1980s and 1990s.

By 2019, Charles G. Koch and the late David H. Koch, commonly referred to as the Koch brothers, were the only ones of Fred Koch's four sons still with Koch Industries. Charles and David Koch built a political network of conservative donors and the brothers funneled financial revenue into television and multi-media advertising.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Koch Family: ___________________________________________________________________________
​

The political activities of the Koch brothers include the financial and political influence of Charles G. and David H. Koch (1940–2019) on United States politics. This influence is seen both directly and indirectly via various political and public policy organizations that were supported by the Koch brothers.
​
The Koch brothers are the sons of Fred C. Koch (1900–1967), who founded Koch Industries, the second-largest privately held company in the United States, of which they own 84% of the stock. Having bought out two other brothers' interests, they remain in control of the family business, the fortune which they inherited from their father, and the Koch family foundations.

The brothers have made significant financial contributions to libertarian and conservative think tanks and have donated primarily to Republican Party candidates running for office."

A network of like-minded donors organized by the Kochs pledged to spend $889 million from 2009–2016 and its infrastructure has been said by Politico to rival "that of the Republican National Committee." 

They actively fund and support organizations that contribute significantly to Republican candidates, and in particular that lobby against efforts to expand government's role in health care and climate change mitigation. By 2010, they had donated more than $100 million to dozens of free-market and advocacy organizations.

In May 2019, the Kochs announced a major restructuring of their philanthropic efforts, stating that the Koch network will henceforth operate under the umbrella of Stand Together, a nonprofit focused on supporting community groups.

The stated priorities of the restructured Koch network include efforts aimed at increasing employment, addressing poverty and addiction, ensuring excellent education, building a stronger economy, and bridging divides and building respect.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Koch Family Political Activities:







George Soros, including his Political ActivitiesPictured below: George Soros is a self-made billionaire known for his investment savvy and his vast body of philanthropic work.
​George Soros, Hon FBA (born Schwartz György; August 12, 1930) is a Hungarian-American investor and philanthropist. As of February 2018, he had a net worth of $8 billion, having donated more than $32 billion to his philanthropic agency, Open Society Foundations.

Born in Budapest, Soros survived Nazi Germany-occupied Hungary and emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1947. He attended the London School of Economics, graduating with a bachelor's and eventually a master's degree in philosophy.

Soros began his business career by taking various jobs at merchant banks in the United Kingdom and then the United States, before starting his first hedge fund, Double Eagle, in 1969. Profits from his first fund furnished the seed money to start Soros Fund Management, his second hedge fund, in 1970. Double Eagle was renamed to Quantum Fund and was the principal firm Soros advised.

At its founding, Quantum Fund had $12 million in assets under management, and as of 2011 it had $25 billion, the majority of Soros's overall net worth.

Soros is known as "The Man Who Broke the Bank of England" because of his short sale of US$10 billion worth of pounds sterling, which made him a profit of $1 billion during the 1992 Black Wednesday UK currency crisis.

Based on his early studies of philosophy, Soros formulated an application of Karl Popper's General Theory of Reflexivity to capital markets, which he claims renders him a clear picture of asset bubbles and fundamental/market value of securities, as well as value discrepancies used for shorting and swapping stocks.

Soros is a well-known supporter of progressive and liberal political causes, to which he dispenses donations through his foundation, the Open Society Foundations. Between 1979 and 2011, he donated more than $11 billion to various philanthropic causes; by 2017, his donations "on civil initiatives to reduce poverty and increase transparency, and on scholarships and universities around the world" totaled $12 billion.

Soros influenced the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and provided one of Europe's largest higher education endowments to the Central European University in his Hungarian hometown. His extensive funding of political causes has made him a "bugaboo of European nationalists".

Numerous American conservatives have promoted false claims that characterize Soros as a singularly dangerous "puppetmaster" behind a variety of alleged global plots, with The New York Times reporting that by 2018 these claims had "moved from the fringes to the mainstream" of Republican politics.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about George Soros:






​
Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989Pictured below: White House Expected to Release Whistleblower Complaint. Here’s What We Know About It So Far (see below for amplification)
White House Expected to Release Whistleblower Complaint. Here’s What We Know About It So Far.

By: ELLIOT HANNON @ Slate Magazine, SEPT 26, 20196:26 AM

It was the Washington Post and New York Times’ reporting on the whistleblower complaint about Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president that prompted the White House to release an approximate transcript of the call and, in turn, Democrats in Congress to launch a formal impeachment inquiry.

The seriousness of the situation accelerated events—and the story—past whistleblower’s account of the initial July call between Donald Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine (see left figure in photograph above), but the contents of what the whistleblower saw and heard, and what the intelligence community inspector general discovered in response to the complaint, could provide vital context for the call, how the White House viewed it at the time, and what happens next.

After initially trying to suppress the complaint, the Trump administration is reportedly set to release it, potentially as early as Thursday. Congressional leaders and members of the intelligence committees were allowed review the complaint, which is still classified, Wednesday night.

Until we have text of the real thing, here’s what we know from the reporting so far about what’s in the complaint and what it means:

• The intelligence officer who filed the complaint did so not only because the official was concerned about what transpired on the call, but, according to the New York Times, was also alarmed by the unusual way the White House handled the internal record of the conversation. The Washington Post reports that at some point, the White House moved records of Trump’s communications with foreign officials from where they are normally kept onto a separate computer network.

• The whistleblower was not, however, personally on the July 25 call, nor did the complainant have access to the readout of the call before coming forward according to Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community.

• The whistleblower instead was made aware of the call by White House officials expressing concern that Trump, according to a Justice Department memo, “abused his authority or acted unlawfully in connection with foreign diplomacy.”

• In the complaint, the whistleblower said there were multiple White House officials who were witness to the call and could corroborate the allegations.

• The inspector general, a Trump appointee who elevated the complaint, interviewed these witnesses.

• The inspector general concluded from his fact-finding that Trump had potentially broken the law by soliciting what amounted to a foreign campaign contribution, which exposed the president “to serious national security and counterintelligence risks.”

Of all of the new data points on the whistleblower complaint, now that the White House’s version of the transcript is out in the open, the most intriguing bit of information is the whistleblower’s apparent concern about how the Trump administration was characterizing and memorializing the contents of the call. Were portions of the call intentionally omitted from the record? Or distorted? That will be an important line of inquiry when the full complaint is released. 

[End of Slate Article]
___________________________________________________________________________

The Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, 5 U.S.C. 2302(b)(8)-(9), Pub.L. 101-12 as amended, is a United States federal law that protects federal whistleblowers who work for the government and report the possible existence of an activity constituting a violation of law, rules, or regulations, or mismanagement, gross waste of funds, abuse of authority or a substantial and specific danger to public health and safety.

A federal agency violates the Whistleblower Protection Act if agency authorities take (or threaten to take) retaliatory personnel action against any employee or applicant because of disclosure of information by that employee or applicant.

​Authorized Federal Agencies:
  • The Office of Special Counsel investigates federal whistleblower complaints. In October 2008, then-special counsel Scott Bloch resigned amid an FBI investigation into whether he obstructed justice by illegally deleting computer files following complaints that he had retaliated against employees who disagreed with his policies. Then-Senator Barack Obama made a campaign vow to appoint a special counsel committed to whistleblower rights. It was not until April 2011 that President Obama's appointee Carolyn Lerner was confirmed by the Senate. Today, the primary mission of OSC is to safeguard the merit system by protecting federal employees and applicants from prohibited personnel practices, especially reprisal for whistleblowing.
  • The Merit Systems Protection Board, a quasi-judicial agency that adjudicates whistleblower complaints, uses appointed administrative law judges who often back the government. Since 2000, the board has ruled for whistleblowers just three times in 56 cases decided on their merits, according to a Government Accountability Project analysis. Obama appointed a new chairperson and vice chairperson with backgrounds as federal worker advocates, but Tom Devine of GAP says, "It's likely to take years for them to turn things around." Currently, this office works to protect the Merit System Principles and promote an effective Federal workforce free of Prohibited Personnel Practices.
  • The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was established under Article III of the Constitution on October 1, 1982. It is the only court empowered to hear appeals of whistleblower cases decided by the merit board, has been criticized by Senator Grassley (R-Iowa) and others in Congress for misinterpreting whistleblower laws and setting a precedent that is hostile to claimants. Between 1994 and 2010, the court had ruled for whistleblowers in only three of 203 cases decided on their merits, GAP's analysis found.

Legal Cases:

The U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Garcetti v. Ceballos, 04-473, ruled in 2006 that government employees do not have protection from retaliation by their employers under the First Amendment of the Constitution when they speak pursuant to their official job duties.

The U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) uses agency lawyers in the place of administrative law judges to decide federal employees' whistleblower appeals. These lawyers, dubbed "attorney examiners," deny 98% of whistleblower appeals; the Board and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals give great deference to their initial decisions, resulting in affirmance rates of 97% and 98%, respectively.

The most common characteristics for a court claim that are encompassed within the protection of the Act include: that the plaintiff is an employee or person covered under the specific statutory or common law relied upon for action, that the defendant is an employer or person covered under the specific statutory or common law relied upon for the action, that the plaintiff engaged in protected whistleblower activity, that the defendant knew or had knowledge that the plaintiff engaged in such activity, that there was retaliatory action taken against the one doing the whistleblowing and that the unfair treatment would not have occurred if the plaintiff hadn't brought to attention the activities.

Robert MacLean blew the whistle on the fact that the TSA had cut its funding for more air marshals. In 2009 MacLean, represented by the Government Accountability Project, challenged his dismissal at the Merit Systems Protection Board, on the grounds that "his disclosure of the text message was protected under the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, because he 'reasonably believe[d]' that the leaked information disclosed 'a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety'." MacLean won the case in a ruling of 7–2 in the Supreme Court in January 2015.

Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act and Presidential Policy Directive 19:

President Barack Obama issued Presidential Policy Directive 19 (PPD-19), entitled "Protecting Whistleblowers with Access to Classified Information". According to the law signed by Obama on October 10, 2012, it is written that "this Presidential Policy Directive ensures that employees (1) serving in the Intelligence Community or (2) who are eligible for access to classified information can effectively report waste, fraud, and abuse while protecting classified national security information. It prohibits retaliation against employees for reporting waste, fraud, and abuse.

However, according to a report that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs submitted to accompany S. 743, "the federal whistleblowers have seen their protections diminish in recent years, largely as a result of a series of decisions by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has exclusive jurisdiction over many cases brought under the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA).

Specifically, the Federal Circuit has accorded a narrow definition to the type of disclosure that qualifies for whistleblower protection. Additionally, the lack of remedies under current law for most whistleblowers in the intelligence community and for whistleblowers who face retaliation in the form of withdrawal of the employee's security clearance leaves unprotected those who are in a position to disclose wrongdoing that directly affects our national security." S. 743 would address these problems by restoring the original congressional intent of the WPA to adequately protect whistleblowers, by strengthening the WPA, and by creating new whistleblower protections for intelligence employees and new protections for employees whose security clearance is withdrawn in retaliation for having made legitimate whistleblower disclosures. S. 743 ultimately became Pub.L. 112-199 (S.Rep. 112-155).

Related legislation:

On July 14, 2014, the United States House of Representatives voted to pass the All Circuit Review Extension Act (H.R. 4197; 113th Congress), a bill that gives authority to federal employees who want to appeal their judgment to any federal court, and which allows whistleblowers to appeal to any U.S. Court of Appeals that has jurisdiction.

The bill would extend from three years after the effective date of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2012 (i.e., December 27, 2012), the period allowed for: (1) filing a petition for judicial review of Merit Systems Protection Board decisions in whistleblower cases, and (2) any review of such a decision by the Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

There is also a bill in its early stages called the FBI Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. This bill was introduced by Senators Grassley and Leahy in 2015. It would protect whistleblowers in the FBI more completely from reprisals by supervisors, by assigning administrative law judges to adjudicate the cases, and enabling FBI employees to appeal their decisions to the courts. 

See also:







Corruption, with a focus on the United States Pictured: A world map of the 2016 Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International (Courtesy of Transparency International and Wikimedia): you will notice that the United States is only #18 in terms of least corruption by country! ​
In general, corruption is a form of dishonesty or criminal activity undertaken by a person or organization entrusted with a position of authority, often to acquire illicit benefit, or, abuse of entrusted power for one's private gain.

Corruption may include many activities including bribery and embezzlement, though it may also involve practices that are legal in many countries. Political corruption occurs when an office-holder or other governmental employee acts in an official capacity for personal gain.

Corruption is most commonplace in kleptocracies, oligarchies, narco-states and mafia states.

Corruption can occur on different scales. Corruption ranges from small favors between a small number of people (petty corruption), to corruption that affects the government on a large scale (grand corruption), and corruption that is so prevalent that it is part of the everyday structure of society, including corruption as one of the symptoms of organized crime.

Corruption and crime are endemic sociological occurrences which appear with regular frequency in virtually all countries on a global scale in varying degree and proportion. Individual nations each allocate domestic resources for the control and regulation of corruption and crime. Strategies to counter corruption are often summarized under the umbrella term anti-corruption.

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Corruption in the United States is the act of a local, state or federal official using some form of influence or being influenced in some way, typically through bribery.

Corruption is used to the advantage of the government official and a person or group of people.

The U.S. is the 18th least corrupt country in the world, according to the 2016 Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International.

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Federal corruption convictions:
Political scandals and crimes: