Income Inequality

An unfair income gap in the United States prevents people with lower incomes from obtaining the same opportunities than those with higher incomes.

Cultural Beliefs and Biases

"Oh, people don’t even know. If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets." -Chris Rock, 2014

"At the core of the American Dream is the belief that anyone who works hard can move up economically regardless of his or her social circumstances."

Social Roles

Presidential Nominees:
Hillary Clinton & Donald Trump
As nominees, who both average millions of dollars of income a year, still managed to raise billions for their presidential campaigns. Half of the money raised came from 158 different families. This means that these families were able to fund half of these high priced campaigns.

Bernie Sanders
As a presidential nominee, who's average income is significantly less than Hillary or Trump's (Bernie makes around $200,000 a year), he only raised $1.7 million.

Since Hillary and Trump had so much money at hand, from their own incomes and contributions, they were able to control the national media and bring more attention to their campaigns. Bernie Sanders had much less money, which doesn't help him gain support from contributors who have more money. He also rebuffed contributions from Super PACS. This difference in income helped Hillary and Donald Trump gain the nominations in their political party's.

http://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2016-02-09/the-costs-of-inequality-the-rich-and-the-rest

https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cycle=2016&cid=N00000528&type=I

Lower & Upper Class:
People will typically remain in the same social class that they were born in to. Regardless of their education or work experience, most people will have trouble gaining entry into a higher class.

50% of people are barely averaging $50,000 a year, and then 49% of people after that are barely making over $50,000. If you are just one person, with no debt, not having to pay for college, a mortgage, or car payment, then you are doing pretty well. But if you are working full time and making that while trying to raise a family or pay for a house, you're hardly scraping by. You may be making a decent amount of money, but you still can not live comfortably.

Existing Social Conditions

Racial Inequality:
400 wealthy Americans have the same amount of wealth that 16 million Black households and 5 million Latino households.

Since the great depression, the average difference in income between white families and non-white families has more than doubled.

Latino and Black families tend to live in lower-income housing more than white families. When you grow up in lower-income neighborhoods and families, you tend to receive less opportunity than the wealthy. This happens even if you work full-time and receive an education. Leaving your social class is easier said than done.