Is the United States a Land of Opportunity or Limitations?
In his article titled “U.S.A., Land of Limitations?”, author Nicholas Kristof argues that the United States is not the land of opportunity. Although America was founded on being the land of opportunity, and so many people immigrated to America because of this, Kristof states, “I fear that by 2015 we’ve become the socially rigid society our forebears fled, replicating the barriers and class gaps that drove them away.” According to Kristof, the United States is not the land of opportunity we pride ourselves on being.
In the United States, it is near impossible for those who are at the bottom economically to ever make their way to the top. Despite talent, intelligence, and hard work, many people will never make their way out of the bottom ten percent. Kristof includes a quote by economist Alan Krueger that reads, “The chance of a person who was born to a family in the bottom 10 percent of the income distribution rising to the top ten percent as an adult is about the same as the chance that a dad that is 5 feet 6 inches tall having a son who grows up to be over 6 feet 1 inch tall…it happens, but not often.” Kristof acknowledges that there are exceptions; there are people who do rise from the bottom ten percent all the way to the top. However, as Kristof points out, these people are the outliers.
This photo represents the struggle of trying to climb your way from the bottom to the top. It comes from Newsday.
According to calculations by Sean Reardon of Stanford University, “the race gap in student test scores has diminished, but the class gap has widened. A half-century ago, the black-white test score gap was 50 percent greater than the gap between the richest 10 percent and the poorest 10 percent. Now it is the other way around, with the class gap almost twice that of the race gap." We have learned through reading Delpit and listening to her speak that the issue of unequal education in terms of race is a significant one. According to Reardon, the class gap is even bigger than the race gap in test scores. Not only that, but it has grown increasingly bigger over the past fifty years instead of improving. I find it alarming that there is such an awareness of this class gap, yet proper steps to solve this problem are not being taken. There is no dispute as to whether or not this problem exists, so why aren't we trying to close up the gap? As Kristof mentions in his article, this is a problem that presidential candidates should be discussing. In my opinion, the wealth gap is not discussed nearly as often as it should be by politicians.
For those who are interested, this is a link to additional facts on the wealth gap by the Center on Budget and Policy.
The question I would like to pose to the class is truly an overwhelming question: So how do we fix it? Although I am not sure one of my peers will solve the class gap (although I hope one of them does), I would love to hear their ideas on the matter.
Amanda, I enjoyed reading your blog, you choose good quotes from this article and I thought the picture that you attached added some good visual representation of the wealth gap. As far as your question, I asked myself the same thing while writing my blog. Overall very good job!
ReplyDeleteI really liked all of the quotes that you chose, especially the one saying explaining how America has become a very socially rigid, much like the society that our predecessors fled from, and its interesting how we have become like the one thing that we hate.
ReplyDeleteI believe you did a good job explaining the points explained in the article. And in my opinion the issue of class gaps comes down to a matter of opportunities in life. In many cases a child coming from poverty going to a poorly funded school is often going to have less opportunity than a middle or upper class child attending a well funded or even a gifted school where more opportunities are available to them. In finding a way to equally distribute this opportunity it could push students to achieve better paying jobs and deplete the wage gap.
ReplyDeleteI love all the quotes from the article you chose. The connection you made to the Delpit reading and her speaking about unequal education in terms of education, was especially really great. I agree with you that is it awful and alarming that people are so aware of this class gap, yet there is not significant change. Great blog post :)
ReplyDeleteHi Amanda,
ReplyDeleteThis is very well written. I love the quotes you've chosen and you did an excellent job explaining them. I also love the question that you've raised. It may be a difficult one, but it is an important one to discuss. Good job!
We need to focus more on the economy rather than looking at everything like a business. People are like workers in a factory. and the 1 percent our the owners. We need to focus on rebuilding this nation as more of a democratic society, rather the a dictatorship. The people are not what is important. The money an power is, which makes this state blind to its own corruption.
ReplyDelete