Economic inequality is one of our nation's greatest current problems and it must be dealt with in a timely manner. Economic inequality encompasses the wage, income, and wealth gap between Americans. Every single person in this country is in one way or another affected by economic inequality. In high school I had a teacher that forced our class to do a bunch of research projects and papers on the topic of economic inequality. I really enjoyed studying the subject and I really got interested in it. I was interested in learning all the ins and outs of economic inequality and how such a huge problem could possibly go so unnoticed in the public eye. I am a conservative republican and many people believe that the republican party does not address economic inequality. I will admit that it is not in the forefront of discussion and the democratic party tries much harder to tackle it head on, but in order to solve the issue the two parties must agree on a plan to lessen the income gap. Economic inequality is a huge issue that has an effect on every single American citizen and it is destroying our economy and yet still has gone relatively unnoticed; America must come together and take action in order to deal with this serious issue.

In the article, 5 Facts About Economic Inequality, Drew Desilver looks into five cold hard facts that he believes sums up inequality in this country. The first fact he looks at compares inequality now to inequality in the late 1920s. Desilver starts with this fact in order to scare the reader into comparing present time to a period in time when our economy was at its very worst. The next fact compares America to other developed countries. America's wealth is not nearly as well distributed as other country's. The third fact looks into how economic inequality affects social inequality. Desilver looks into the wealth gap between races; specifically between blacks and whites. He compares facts the gap between blacks and whites in the 60s versus now. Surprisingly the gap in larger now than before the civil rights movement. The fourth fact looks into how unconcerned Americans are about economic inequality. Desilver believes that Americans are aware of the inequality they just choose to ignore it. The final fact gives reader hope that there might be light at the end of the tunnel. It looks into how wealth inequality is much greater than income inequality(Desilver). This shows that economic inequality might be getting better than people think. Drew Desilver is a senior writer at The Pew Research Center and has been researching and studying economic inequality for years. Desilver is a very credible source for the topic of economic inequality. This article is almost absent of bias due to the fact there really is not much opinion in article. Desilver's article puts the cold hard facts out there for the reader to decipher them on their own and make their own conclusion on economic inequality.

In another article, Economic Inequality: It's Far Worse Than You Think, Nicholas Fitz uses surveys taken by people to try and portrait his point that Americans as a whole do not really know how bad economic inequality really is. Fitz quotes comedian, Chris Rock, "Oh, people don't even know. If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets"(Chris Rock). Fitz agrees with Rock's quote and tells the reader that "we have no idea how unequal our society has become"(Fitz). Fitz looks into three different studies. One study asks citizens of all different social and economic class about the breakup of wealth in our country. The citizens have no idea just how rich, rich people are. Another study looked into the ceo versus average skilled worker earnings, Americans estimated that CEO's earn thirty times what a skilled worker earned. They could not have been more wrong; CEO's make three-hundred-and-fifty-four times what a skilled worker makes (Fitz). Nick Fitz is graduate student at the National Core for Neuroethics at the University of British Columbia. This article just goes to show that Americans really do not know just how bad economic inequality is. 

The final article, my personal favorite, is a very interesting piece written by Jill Lepore. Titled Richer and Poorer, this article looks into a novel about how economic inequality affects children in this country. The novel, Our Kids: the American Dream in Crisis written by Robert Putnam, follows children of all different social and economic classes and how they are all affected by inequality. This article is so interesting because of how original a piece it is. Most articles written on the subject of economic inequality follow the same system:

introduce economic inequality and tell the reader it is bad

state the "shocking" facts 

give a brief description on why those facts are so obviously bad 

then conclude with a weak call to action or no call to action at all

Lepore's article, however, follows its own system; it introduces a completely new way to estimate economic inequality, it responds to a novel written about economic inequality, and it has a strong call to action. Lepore's whole point is that it is not the people's responsibility to solve the issue of inequality in this country, but instead the responsibility of our government to solve the problem. Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper '41 Professor of American History at Harvard University. She is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she has contributed since 2005(Jill Lepore). Jill Lepore's takes a very Democratic stance in this article and this article therefore is an opposition piece that i can use in my final essay. Richer and Poorer is a very fascinating article written by a very credible source and will be a good counterargument piece for my final essay. 

It is hard to argue that economic inequality is a pressing issue in this country, but there are many disagreements on ways it can be solved. Many Democrats believe that different types of debt amounted in people lifetimes are a huge contributing factor as well as a low minimum wage both factor into inequality. Republicans would argue that a higher minimum wage would drive the cost of living through the roof. Republicans believe that government interference with our market could be to blame. There is a lot of disagreement in Washington on how to solve the problem, but one thing can be certain and that is it is a huge issue and it must be solved. The Nick Fitz article and the Drew Desilver article contradict each other. One of Desilver's facts is all about how Americans know about inequality they are just ignoring it. Fitz's article is all about how Americans do not truly know how bad economic inequality is. I have always been a very stubborn person and it really takes a lot in order for me to change my viewpoint; so all the different opinions in these articles will not really have any effect on my overall view of economic inequality. My research question originally was "why is economic inequality ruining our country?" which does not have a very arguable answer. I might change it to "how can we solve the issue of economic inequality?" because this answer is a very disputed topic. The three articles addressed in this exploratory analysis will be crucial to answering my research question in my final essay.

