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Income inequality in America has been growing rapidly, and is expected to increase [PDF]. While the widening wealth gap is a hot topic in the media and on the campaign trail, there's quite a disconnect between the perceptions of economists and those of the general public.
For instance, surveys show people tend to underestimate the income disparity between the top and bottom 20% of Americans, and overestimate the opportunity for poor individuals to climb the social ladder. Additionally, a majority of adults believe that corporations conduct business fairly despite evidence to the contrary and that the government should not act to reduce income inequality.
Even though inequality is increasing, Americans seem to believe that our social and economic systems work exactly as they should. This perspective has intrigued social scientists for decades. My colleague Andrei Cimpian and I have demonstrated in our recent research that these beliefs that our society is fair and just may take root in the first years of life, stemming from our fundamental desire to explain the world around us.
http://theconversation.com/lifes-not-fair-so-why-do-we-assume-it-is-45981
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2015, @07:39PM
If it can be strongly correlated to other factors, like average education level, or IQ it would certainly not be random. Then you would have to ask yourself what exactly do you want to fix.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2015, @07:45PM
> If it can be strongly correlated to other factors, like average education level, or IQ it would certainly not be random.
Yes, absolutely. All those factors are the result of having far less opportunity.
> Then you would have to ask yourself what exactly do you want to fix.
Make sure they have equal opportunity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 11 2015, @12:00AM
So u want them to have equal opportunity with no regard to their IQ or educations? So basically you want to hire people too fuckin dumb for the job. Yeah that will fix EVERYTHING, especially when they are fired 3 months later because they are utterly useless. Also giving people more money than they can make in their market place normally will not result in them misusing the funds or being taken for a ride with any number of scams because they are too dumb to hold on to the wealth. You will fix NOTHING, and just make a mess. I'm smart enough to figure out that if now dumbass brown people are being hired for my job "just because", that I can turn into a scam artist that takes them for a ride and separates them from their new-found money. I rather have an honest job, but if everything is fucked why not?