Fifty years after Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, America is still fighting for equal opportunity. This continuous struggle is not just coming from the gap between black and white, but the gap between rich and poor.

Our grandparents worked hard to give our parents a better life, and our parents worked to give us a better life. But if most of  Americans’ wealth is in the hands of one percent of the country, how can we expect to keep improving?

Even if your parents have provided you a happy and comfortable life so far, is it wrong to worry that we won’t be able to do the same for our kids?

Imagine a poor boy who grew up dreaming of receiving a four-year degree, moving out of the small bedroom he shares with his three brothers, and becoming the CEO of a major company.

The sad truth is that CEO position will most likely be given to the current position holder’s son or daughter, while the poor boy who dreamed of breaking through the glass ceiling of the one percent drops out of school and gets stuck back in the 99 percent, working a minimum wage job to help his family pay bills.

America has built its foundation around the notion that “hard work pays off” and “if you work hard you’ll get ahead,” that upward mobility is possible and you can rise above the circumstances of your birth. This may be true for the few who are lucky enough to be born into the one percent, but for the remaining 99 percent those who work hard may merely get rewarded with the luxury of making ends meet.

Economic class begins at birth. People from less privileged families are predisposed to living in a rougher neighborhood. These neighborhoods are likely to have less funding and as a result have less prestigious schools.

Even those students working hard in the less prestigious schools are struggling to make the jump from lower to middle class. For example, even if a student coming from poverty excels academically, how is his/her family supposed to pay for college when they can barely afford to live modestly?

Many economically disadvantaged Americans propose raising the minimum wage because those living on it barely get by. You can’t deny that raising wages will help people live more comfortably, but it still does little to allow those who work hard to transcend the class they are born into, because it does nothing to bridge the income gap. The idea then should be to bridge these gaps at the most basic level, so that the disparity between a poor child and a rich child is much smaller. This would mean, in an ideal society, all schools should be treated as equally important, receive equal funding, and be close in caliber.

While the fight for racial equality during the civil rights movement produced new legislation protecting all individuals, the struggle for economic equality continues. As the gap between economic classes keeps increasing, the attitude that merit determines success, which built this country, seems to be less and less true.

Many do work hard and get by, but as the top one percent expands their wealth the majority is left fighting for what little money is left. For those who, like myself, are not part of the one percent, this makes it harder and harder to survive.

 

About The Author

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.