Solutions that could solve the income inequality problem
More and more Americans are becoming concerned for the consequences that the income gap is producing since the effects are much more visible than they were a few decades ago. As the gap continues to grow, the more Americans will begin to notice and feel just how much of a problem that this can be for the future of America. The view of the system and the way it is now is an eerie reminder of what causes drove the French Revolution. Since aristocracy involves only a small number of people and poverty continues to include more of the masses, those below the poverty line can put their hands up and overrun the higher power with their larger numbers. Yet this remains only as a possible outcome, but it could very much become a closer reality if change doesn't happen at a better rate.
Talkpoverty.org took it upon themselves to get a better idea of what could be done to fix inequality in America. They had a few experts list their ideas as to how change could be executed to bring about a healthier United States for all. Below are a few of those expert's lists, provided by talkpoverty.org, of what is believed to be possible solutions. |
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Jared Bernstein’s Top 10 to Address Economic Inequality
- If the private market fails to provide enough jobs to achieve full employment, the government must become the employer of last resort.
- When growth is below capacity and the job market is slack, apply fiscal and monetary policies aggressively to achieve full employment. Right now, this means not raising interest rates pre-emptively at the Fed and investing in public infrastructure.
- Take actions against countries that manage their currencies to subsidize their exports to us and tax our exports to them. Such actions can include revoking trade privileges, allowing for reciprocal currency interventions, and levying duties on subsidized goods.
- Support sectoral training, apprenticeships, and earn-while-you-learn programs.
- Implement universal pre-K, with subsidies that phase out as incomes rise.
- Raise the minimum wage to $12/hour by 2020 and raise the overtime salary threshold (beneath which all workers get overtime pay) from $455/week to $970/week and index it to inflation.
- Provide better oversight of financial markets: mandate adequate capital buffers, enforce a strong Volcker Rule against proprietary trading in FDIC-insured banks, strengthen the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and encourage vigilant oversight of systemic risk in the banking system by the Federal Reserve.
- Level the playing field for union elections to bolster collective bargaining while avoiding, at the state-level, anti-union, so-called “right-to-work” laws.
- Maintain and strengthen safety net programs like the EITC and CTC, SNAP, and Medicaid.
- In order to generate needed revenue and boost tax fairness: reduce the rate at which high-income taxpayers can take tax deductions, impose a small tax of financial market transactions, increase IRS funding to close the “tax gap” (the difference between what’s owed and what’s paid), and repeal “step-up basis” (a tax break for wealthy inheritors).
Melissa Boteach and Rebecca Vallas: Top 10 Policy Solutions for Tackling Income Inequality and Reducing Poverty in America
- Create jobs by investing in infrastructure, developing renewable energy sources, renovating abandoned housing and significantly increasing affordable housing investments, and making other commonsense investments to revitalize neighborhoods.
- Improve job quality and strengthen families by raising the minimum wage to $12/hour by 2020; ensuring pay equity by passing the Paycheck Fairness Act; strengthening collective bargaining; and enacting basic labor standards such as fairer overtime rules, paid sick and family leave, and right to request flexible and predictable schedules.
- Make the tax code work better for low-wage working families by making permanent the 2009 Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit improvements and expanding the EITC for childless workers and noncustodial parents.
- Invest in human capital by expanding access to high-quality and affordable childcare and early education; creating pathways to good jobs such as apprenticeships, national service opportunities, and a nationalsubsidized jobs program; and implementing College for All to ensure that any student attending public college or university does not need to pay any tuition and fees during enrollment.
- Ensure that workers with disabilities have a fair shot at employment and economic security.
- Reform the criminal justice system to end mass incarceration and remove barriers to economic security and mobility for the one in three Americans with criminal records.
- Enact comprehensive immigration reform that provides a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
- Expand Medicaid and ensure that all Americans can access high-quality, affordable health coverage.
- Close tax loopholes that benefit the wealthy and special interests and raise taxes on capital income.
- Protect and strengthen investments in basic living standards such as nutrition, health, and income insurance. This includes reforming counterproductive asset limits, and ensuring that programs such as unemployment insurance are there for more workers if they lose their job.
Olivia Golden: Policies to Reduce Income Inequality
- Make work pay for all workers, including childless adults, by raising the minimum wage and strengthening the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit.
- Ensure stability for workers and their families through access to paid leave and predictable job schedules. Pass federal bills such as the FAMILY Act, Schedules That Work Act, and Healthy Families Act that mirror strong state and local laws.
- Identify and tear down the systemic barriers that people face because of race, ethnicity, language, and immigration status, for example by making college prep courses equally available in high schools attended mostly by students of color or by providing work authorization and a path to citizenship for immigrant parents.
- Ensure that every working family can afford high-quality child care through significant investments in the Child Care and Development Block Grant, Head Start and Early Head Start, and preschool for all three- and four-year-olds.
- Give children and their parents a simultaneous boost through two-generational policies and investments, including home visiting, support for parental mental health, and support for parents’ career development coupled with high-quality early care and education for children.
- Help low-income youth and adults access employment and training opportunities that lead to economic success by fully funding the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) as well as subsidized and summer jobs programs.
- Fully fund Pell Grants to help low-income students access higher education and develop the skills needed to compete in a competitive job market.
- Ensure that everyone, including low-wage working families and single adults, has access to basic health and nutrition by expanding Medicaid in every state and increasing SNAP benefits.
- Strengthen capacity of states to employ more streamlined and integrated approaches to delivering key public work supports (such as health coverage, nutrition benefits, and child care subsidies) so low-income working families can stabilize their lives and advance their career
- Rebuild unemployment insurance and cash assistance to ensure a strong safety net that supports poor and low-income children, families, and individuals when they need it.