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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 Friday September 11 2015, @03:27AM
> What you get is nothing to do with how hard you work. Compare Paris Hilton vs your typical Farmer.
No, hard work is always necessary. Its just that some people get a lot more return on their hard work than others.
Paris Hilton works her ass off. She's not working a white-collar job in some office somewhere, but guaranteed she puts in more than 40 hours a week constantly managing her brand. Same thing with the kardashians. You might not think their work contributes to society, but that's irrelevant because its still a lot of time and effort spent working the system.