Blog Post 9

There is growing economic inequality in the United States. The top 10% of the entire country made more than half of the entire country’s income in 2012. There are many different theories on why the gap between rich and poor is increasing such as the globalization hypothesis, the immigration of less educated workers theory, and the policy and politics theory. The globalization theory is that low skilled workers in America are losing jobs to low wageworkers from Asia, so the Asians are out competing the American workers. The immigration of less educated workers theory is the idea that low skilled workers are immigrating into America to find jobs, and they’re causing less job opportunities and lower wages for American high school dropouts. The policy and politics theory is that the government is causing the economic inequality by crushing labor unions and they aren’t doing anything to help the jobless or the increasing gap between the rich and the poor.

On Long Island the majority of people living in poor neighborhoods are either Hispanic or black while the majority of people living in the wealthier neighborhoods are white. I believe this is because in their low income areas, their school districts are not the best; there aren’t many programs and the high school dropout rates are higher than anywhere else. In order to decrease this economic segregation for the minorities they must have better school districts and programs so that they can graduate high school, go to college and get a better paying job than their parents had. Due to community funding some schools have many extra help, sports, and guidance programs but due to a lack of funding some schools do not have those things. In order to remedy inequalities of public schools on Long Island there has to be more money, better teachers, and more resources. The money should come from the communities and from the government. Also to help people’s economic status, mothers should be given more time off after having a baby so they can be home for the children and also make money to support the family. Another solution would be to start better preschool programs so kids can learn to love learning and then they’ll want to stay in school, go to college, get a good paying job and then they’ll be able to pay their taxes in the districts they live in fund better schools for other children.