If there was any question before, there is no longer a question today: inequality, discrimination, poverty, and mobility are prominent national issues. The notion of "The American Dream" has been sold to generations of young Americans as the idea that working hard and following your dreams will allow you to break through any barriers in your path and inevitably lead to success. However, recent findings on inequality, discrimination, poverty, and mobility show that "The American Reality" is...

This book provides a one-stop resource for understanding the full dimensions of income inequality in the USA, including chief socioeconomic drivers of inequality and proposals to reduce the widening gap between rich and poor in America.Carefully researched and scrupulously nonpartisan, this resource examines the history and current state of income inequality in the USA, with a particular focus on key issues, events, and political/economic philosophies relevant to t...

This authoritative reference work explores the factors driving the much-debated increase in economic inequality in U.S. society, as well as the impact that this divide is having on U.S. culture, politics, families, communities, and institutions.This reference work provides an authoritative and comprehensive resource for both students and scholars who are interested in learning more about the rich-poor divide in the United States-a divide regarded by many lawmakers,...

REA’s Essentials provide quick and easy access to critical information in a variety of different fields, ranging from the most basic to the most advanced. As its name implies, these concise, comprehensive study guides summarize the essentials of the field covered. Essentials are helpful when preparing for exams, doing homework and will remain a lasting reference source for students, teachers, and professionals. Macroeconomics I includes economic problems, demand and supply, economic system...

What is the "American Dream"? This book's author argues that contrary to what many believe, it is not achieving the wealth necessary to enter the top one percent but rather becoming members of the great middle class by dint of hard work and self-discipline.Americans of all classes consider themselves to be "middle class." There are Americans who by any objective standard should be considered poor who would insist they are middle class, just as other Americans who s...

Leading scholars examine the conflicting paradigms of affluence and destitution in the United States—as well as other free societies—and discuss the influence of education, race, and status on economic mobility.While recent catastrophic events in New Orleans and Haiti may have magnified issues of social inequity, leaders have debated over poverty and discrimination for decades. Are the poor disadvantaged by the institutions of society or by the choices they make? T...

An " engrossing collection of rigorously researched articles" from Elizabeth Warren, Jared Bernstein, William Julius Wilson, and more ( Publishers Weekly).Can the wealthiest nation in the world do anything to combat the steadily rising numbers of Americans living in poverty—or the tens of millions of Americans living in "near poverty"? In this book, some of the country's most prominent scholars, businesspeople, and community activists answ...

America is the one of the wealthiest nations on earth. So why do so many Americans struggle to make ends meet? Why is it so difficult for those who start at the bottom to reach the middle class? And why, if a rising economic tide lifts all boats, have middle-class incomes been growing so slowly? Social Democratic America explains how this has happened and how we can do better. Lane Kenworthy convincingly argues that we can improve economic security, expand opportunity, and ensure ...

Americans’ relationship to the federal government is paradoxical. Polls show that public opinion regarding the government has plummeted to all-time lows, with only one in five saying they trust the government or believe that it operates in their interest. Yet, at the same time, more Americans than ever benefit from some form of government social provision. Political scientist Suzanne Mettler calls this growing gulf between people’s perceptions of government and the actual role it plays in ...

Leading Issues in Black Political Economy brings together the foremost experts on issues ranging from employment, training, and education of African Americans. It also emphasizes macro-economic concerns of business development with special emphasis on long-term trends of black-owned businesses. The work emphasizes welfare considerations in an anti-welfare epoch, and the role of affirmative action now that it is under attack. Attention is given to the role of race in the continuing disparit...

Dream Hoarders sparked a national conversation on the dangerous separation between the upper middle class and everyone else. Now in paperback and newly updated for the age of Trump, Brookings Institution senior fellow Richard Reeves is continuing to challenge the class system in America.In America, everyone knows that the top 1 percent are the villains. The rest of us, the 99 percent?we are the good guys. Not so, argues Reeves. The real class divide is not between the upper...

Some groups participate in politics more than others. Why? And does it matter for policy outcomes? In this richly detailed and fluidly written book, Andrea Campbell argues that democratic participation and public policy powerfully reinforce each other. Through a case study of senior citizens in the United States and their political activity around Social Security, she shows how highly participatory groups get their policy preferences fulfilled, and how public policy itself helps create pol...