The Growing Gap between the Rich and the Poor

            We all know there is a growing gap between the rich and the poor; we see it all the time with big corporate heads driving around in $80,000 cars while a growing number ride the bus. Some might think this is something new, but it isn’t. It happened before the revolutionary war. We see it both now a days and during the 1700s because of economic shifts. During the 1700s, the British milked the colonies for the money and the people who were struggling became poor, while the rich were able to stay afloat. It was also because of growing enterprises putting small businesses out of business. Now a days it is because of the recession; many businesses are laying people off and using the saved money to pay the corporate workers more.

            During the late 1700s life in the colonies was flourishing, for some people. It was a rough time, economically, for those who came from Europe to the colonies because many had trouble finding jobs. A substantial amount of people came over as indentured servants, but were not able to find work because many colonists had turned to slave labor. Slave labor helped many plantation owners become rich because they had a reproducing work force that could never quit and that were never paid. All the profits went straight to the plantation owner.

            People who came to the colonies to get into the tobacco growing industry also had a rough time. There wasn’t a lot of land available for use and as a new business most of your products will be more expensive than a business that has been around for many years, which will make it hard to find buyers. This all made it increasingly hard for new colonists to get started and become prosperous in the new land. Most who were rich were those who had been in the colonies for a few decades. But that is how the free market works, some fail and some exceed.

            Cities built workhouses to help the poor get jobs and get paid. Towns also collected money for the poor in greater amounts than ever before. Many of the poor were old or sick with no family to help them out. Poverty in the colonies was not even close to being as worse as it was in England or any other European countries. As much as one third of England was in poverty while only one tenth of the population in the colonies was needed public assistance in the worst of times. This was because, unlike in England, the colonies had a very large surplus of land, mainly taken from the Natives. Many people saw the widening gap between the rich and the poor as a good thing because it meant that the country was maturing and would become more stable and prosperous.

            This decade has been crippled by the economic downturn that has been witnessed by probably every country on the globe. Here in America we see it as more and more people lose their jobs and can’t find any others. The rich, though, have been able to survive and even prosper during this economic downturn. Many companies outsource and by outsourcing they are able to pay employees less money and therefore make more money for themselves. Corporate jobs are never outsourced, though, so the rich have their jobs secured.

            Our economy cannot grow with only the rich making money, and so we will be stuck in this economic downturn until someone can figure out how to get jobs for the poor. This is the main topic covered by Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.  Many large corporations are eating up the smaller ones because the smaller ones cannot survive this economic downturn while the larger ones have millions of dollars in reserve and have been around long enough that they know how to survive economic shifts. According to a 2010 analysis of Internal Revenue Service tax data by economist Emmanuel Saez of the University of California, Berkeley, the top 1% of families in America took in 52% of total income gains from 1993 to 2010.

            Tons more people are on food stamps and welfare then ever before. Many people think that the welfare system needs to be run by the state government rather than the national government so the welfare will better serve the people it was made for. Many people who are poor are old, sick, handicapped, or hooked on drugs. There are others who worked hard all their life but lost their job and have slipped into poverty. In this decade the poverty population has become more and more diverse.

            Many immigrants, who come into our country, are poor and are looking for a better life, and most find it. What they find is not exactly great in our eyes, but it is better than what it is like their countries. Many immigrants take jobs that normal Americans wouldn’t take, like sanitation jobs, lawn care, and other jobs. These jobs do not pay a lot and so many immigrants still live in poverty, but they are okay with it because it is better than their old life. Other immigrants who come to America looking for jobs can’t find any either because there aren’t any available or because of racial differences.

            Looking over these past paragraphs one can come to the realization that the economy in the late 1700s is much like that of the economy of today. In both times America is in poverty, but it is better than other countries so it still gets an influx of immigrants. During the late 1700s the poor was made up of old, sick, and laborers who couldn’t find jobs. Today the poor is made up of about the same people. The laborers in the 1700s couldn’t get jobs because a new cheaper labor source was available, slavery. In our economy, outsourcing to countries where we can pay them almost nothing is the new cheaper labor source.

            As like plantation owners of the 1700s, big business eats up its competitors and makes it very hard for a small business to start up and become prosperous. Where in the 1700s towns collected money for the poor and built workhouses, today the national government just gives money to the poor and look where that’s landed us. Welfare should be handled on a state level so that the people running it know the needs of the poor better. Immigrants back then came for a better life and often couldn’t find job, and immigrants now come in search for a better life and often cannot find jobs, but still more come anyway. This just adds to the population of the poor while the rich population stays about the same.

            The economy today is much as it was right before the Revolutionary War. With big business making no room for the little guy, immigrants not finding jobs, and the old having no one to take care of them. Back then the Revolutionary War helped solve this problem, while today a politicians promise will supposedly help solve the problem. In a few years if the economy is not getting any better, I am betting there will be some major changes in leadership. Although some might argue that this is just the way the capitalist economy works.