wealth gap - CathNews New Zealand https://cathnews.co.nz Catholic News New Zealand Mon, 22 Jul 2013 01:36:56 +0000 en-NZ hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://cathnews.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/cropped-cathnewsfavicon-32x32.jpg wealth gap - CathNews New Zealand https://cathnews.co.nz 32 32 70145804 US survey: are capitalism and government working? https://cathnews.co.nz/2013/07/23/us-survey-are-capitalism-and-government-working/ Mon, 22 Jul 2013 19:12:25 +0000 http://cathnews.co.nz/?p=47396

he top four most important economic issues cited by Americans today are the lack of jobs (26%), the budget deficit (17%), the rising cost of health care (18%), and the increasing gap between the rich and poor (15%). About 1-in-10 say that social security (9%) or the rising costs of education (9%) is the country's Read more

US survey: are capitalism and government working?... Read more]]> he top four most important economic issues cited by Americans today are the lack of jobs (26%), the budget deficit (17%), the rising cost of health care (18%), and the increasing gap between the rich and poor (15%). About 1-in-10 say that social security (9%) or the rising costs of education (9%) is the country's most important economic problem.

While roughly one-quarter of Republicans (26%) and Democrats (25%) say the lack of jobs is America's most important economic problem, Republicans and Democrats strongly differ in their views of the importance of the budget deficit (31% vs. 7% most important) and the increasing gap between the rich and the poor (6% vs. 21% most important).

Americans are generally pessimistic about upward economic mobility. Nearly half (47%) of Americans believe that their generation is worse off financially than their parents' generation, compared to 16% who believe their generation is doing about the same, and 36% who believe they are better off than their parents' generation.

The Silent Generation (ages 66-88) is the only generation in which a majority (59%) believe they are better off than their parents' generation. Only one-quarter (26%) of the Silent Generation believe their generation is worse off than their parents' generation. Baby Boomers (ages 49-67) are divided (45% worse off vs. 40% better off). Majorities of younger Americans in Generation X (ages 34-48) (51%) and Millennials (ages 18-33) (58%) believe they are worse off than their parents' generation.

A majority (54%) of Americans agree that hard work and determination are no guarantee of success for most people, while 45% disagree.

There are substantial divisions by income level. Nearly 6-in-10 (59%) Americans with household incomes under $30,000 a year believe hard work and determination are no guarantee of success, a view held by less than half (48%) of Americans with household incomes in excess of $100,000 a year.

Less than one-third of Americans believe the federal government is either generally working (7%) or working with some major problems (24%). Roughly two-thirds say the federal government is broken but working in some areas (40%) or completely broken (26%). Continue reading

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US survey: are capitalism and government working?]]> 47396 Why the wealth gap is bad for everyone https://cathnews.co.nz/2013/06/21/why-the-wealth-gap-is-bad-for-everyone/ Thu, 20 Jun 2013 19:13:00 +0000 http://cathnews.co.nz/?p=45870

Charles Clark probably doesn't win a lot of friends in his chosen profession when he says that most economists don't really understand the economy. But even though he earns a living teaching economics at St. John's University in New York, Clark believes that understanding how the economy really works requires more than just a classroom Read more

Why the wealth gap is bad for everyone... Read more]]> Charles Clark probably doesn't win a lot of friends in his chosen profession when he says that most economists don't really understand the economy. But even though he earns a living teaching economics at St. John's University in New York, Clark believes that understanding how the economy really works requires more than just a classroom education.

"I've probably learned more about economics working in factories than I did from my Ph.D. program," says Clark. Working on an assembly line in a motor oil canning factory for $2.35 an hour, he saw how racial and ethnic minorities are treated differently in the workplace. A job at a wire striping factory helped to illustrate Adam Smith's theory on the division of labor. And earning $9.10 an hour to wash pots at a nursing home helped Clark appreciate the power of unions.

In the real world Clark found that ideologies proposed by economists fail to hold up. "This is really the big problem with my profession," he says. "We look at markets as if they're like the ones we teach in textbooks and they're all the same. But they're not. Every market has to be established with a set of rules."

Too often, Clark argues, those rules favor the rich at the expense of the poor. But applying Catholic social teaching to real world economics may just offer a solution that benefits everyone. Hopefully his students are taking good notes.

What do most economists get wrong about the economy?

They have this one theory, which they don't know well enough to know that it doesn't hold together, and they just keep on applying it. It's all based on this idea that the market will always lead you toward full employment if you get out of the way. But there's no evidence of this working. Continue reading

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Why the wealth gap is bad for everyone]]> 45870