Why talk about inequality?

Inequality is rampant in today's society. In fact, it has been rampant for centuries. But why should we bother to write about it?

Americans like to think and talk about the "American Dream" -- the idealized notion that anyone can have money and a house and a stable life if they are willing to work hard to achieve it. That is not possible in all cases, though. Most kids have the same chances as their parents did to achieve upward mobility, according to a study led by Raj Chetty of Harvard. The odds of moving up on the income scale have not gotten any better over the last 50 years.

As cited by the Washington Post, the average wealth in the United States is between $250,000 and $300,000. However, median wealth in the US, which is not susceptible to outliers, is only $45,000. There are a lot of rich people in the US, but there are even more people who are poor. These are the people who are striving to be upwardly mobile, but something is stopping them.

In his article The Intergenerational Transmission of Context, Patrick Sharkey discusses upward mobility. On average, it takes seven generations for a family who is earning 50% of the median income to work their way up to median income, as demonstrated in Sharkey's graph below.

Seven generations is not the American Dream. Seven generations is the effect of social structures that don't allow for upward mobility or equality of opportunity.

This is why we need to talk about inequality. Something is preventing people from being upwardly mobile, and we need to change that if we want to have a fair society.