United States of Inequality. Aspects of Inequality in the USA Today

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: USA, grade: 1,0, University of Applied Sciences Sudwestfalen; Meschede, language: English, abstract: If you switched on your TV on September 17th 2011 to watch the 8 o'clock news, there is no doubt you have heard about a movement called Occupy Wall Street . A group of people started occupying Zuccotti Park in New York’s financial district in Lower Manhattan. But what is this all about? According to the movement’s website, the aim is to denounce the tremendous inequality dividing the USA’s population and to fight against the corruption and greed of the Top 1%. The distribution of income among the income groups has drastically changed over time. While the income of the bottom 99% of people increased only slightly, that of the Top 1% skyrocketed, creating a massive divergence. This is the main problem that the Occupy Wall Street movement addresses, which is not only up-to-date in the USA, but also in many other countries of the world. Additionally, apart from income there are also other important aspects to inequality like education and health care that are required to form a bigger context, which is the goal of this thesis.