Major Sociocultural Trends Shaping the Contemporary World

CHAPTER 9

The Inequality, the Wealth Concentration, and the Super-Rich

1. The Rise of Economic Inequality in America

2. The Economic Inequality across the World

3. The Causes of Inequality

4. The Consequences of Inequality

5. The Plutocrats or the Global Super-Rich

6. The Popular Myths About Wealth and Poverty

The Rise of Economic Inequality in America

For most of the 20th century, inequality in the United States was flat or falling [1]. After the Second World War between 1947 and the early 1970s, all income groups, particularly the poor, benefited from the national economic growth and experienced growth in real annual income [3]. During this period, government policies were linking productivity to workers’ compensation, full employment was a ...