Income Inequality
Possibly the single biggest issue in America currently is that of income inequality. During the extended period starting in the early 1940s and lasting into the 1970s, economic inequality was substantially reduced as the wealth and income disparities between the rich and poor reached some of the lowest levels in US history. However, this progress towards economic equality has essentially been reversed as the disparity has continued to grow since the 1970s, and has actually reached historically high levels as shown by the Gini coefficient. The Gini coefficient is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income distribution of a nation's residents, and in turn capture the level of income and wealth inequality as a numerical value between 0 and 1 (0% and 100%). In fact, the United States currently ranks first among all of the countries composing the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), with a post-tax Gini coefficient of 0.42. The OECD is comprised of 34 countries, most of which have high-income economies and a high Human Development Index and are thus considered to be of the world's most developed countries. Being atop of such countries, the United States is effectively the most economically inequitable country in the First World. This has led to much recent activism and countless calls for social and economic reform in an attempt to consolidate these socioeconomic disparities.
The Occupy Movement is one such example of this. After first receiving widespread attention following the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York in September 2011 where thousands of people gathered and even camped out in the City's Zuccotti Park in order to bring to light the issues of social and economic inequality, and the greed, corruption, and undue influence of big business on government, the movement quickly spread to over 600 communities in the United states and 950 cities across 82 countries globally. The slogan for this campaign was "We Are the 99%", which is a statement meant to describe the income disparity between the top 1% of Americans and the other 99%. This top 1% holds approximately 35% of the entire country's wealth , with the lowest income to qualify for inclusion in this elite group being $344,000 and the average income being $960,000. This group also saw their post-tax income increase by 275% over the period from 1979 to 2007, as compared to the 40% increase received by the middle 60% of the income distribution during this same period. To give a more complete picture of the true extent to the overall economic disparities in America, it should be noted that the next 19% of the population, defined as those with yearly incomes above $92,000 but below that $344,000 mark, hold about 50% of the country's wealth themselves. However, despite the fact that 50% of the nation's wealth is held by this next 19%, many families falling outside of the top 5% (167,000 or more) would classify themselves as middle-class. And with 85% of the country's wealth being held amongst the top 20% of its citizens, one can only begin to imagine the hardships faced by the bottom 80% of the population who are only manage to hold the remaining 15% of wealth, especially those faced by the 16% of Americans living below the poverty line. This income inequality has severe effects on the quality of life for those who are not fortunate enough to be wealthy in America, from their homes and the neighborhoods they live in, to their health and the healthcare provided to them, and to the quality of the education that their children receive. And as one can probably imagine, this income inequality has much more pervasive effects on minority groups in America, which are most densely represented in the lower socioeconomic classes.