Most Americans, regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status are aware of the wealth gap that exists in our country. There is no reason for a very small group’s collective wealth to be larger than the collective wealth of a massive group of people, but this is the reality. Unfortunately, this gap is getting larger for a number of reasons, some we will touch on here. The massive wealth gap has prompted many people to try and come up with solutions to fix the problem, some more successful than others. We will look at some of these as well.
While our original plan was to focus on the wealth gap of the entire United States, we decided to narrow our focus to Vancouver, Washington, the hometown of our group. This allowed us to draw from personal experiences, even from our own group members, as seen in the comparative video below. Group members Megan Strickland and Phil Nelson discuss their upbringing in two very different socioeconomic classes and the things they learned as a result.
The wealth gap is very statistic-heavy, which can be daunting for the average person to read and make connections from. To ease the load, we have imported the most relevant statistics into colorful and helpful infographics, seen below. While the infographics are not a comprehensive overview of all of the statistics that are relevant to the wealth gap, they each focus on a core element of the overall project.
Some past proposed solutions to fixing the wealth gap have been trickle-down economics, which simply does not work, and the implementation of a Universal Basic Income, which does not take America’s diversity into consideration. Fortunately, there are some promising alternatives. Realizing that the wealth gap is a deeply rooted issue and ending corporate interference in political policy are likely to close the wealth gap. As seen in Bill Moyers’ “Free Speech for Sale”, the wealthy can and have paid politicians and media companies to promote certain policies, proving that money talks.
One of the biggest problems in the United States is the blaring wealth gap between the rich and the poor. While this is not as much of a problem in Vancouver compared to the national average, a wealth gap of any size is too big. Roughly 15% of Vancouver residents live in poverty. Most people would agree that that number should be closer to zero. When you take things like race and gender into consideration, the gap looks even different, and not in a good way. By reading our website, watching our incredibly personal videos, and taking in the information presented in our infographics, we hope that you understand the severity of the wealth gap. While this is not an issue that just one person can fix, we hope that our project can educate more people and leave them with a need for change. The problem starts, and ends, at home.