In the United States, a mounting problem on the rise is economic inequality. Economic inequality can be described as the gap between the rich and the poor; it’s when the rich get richer and poor get poorer. In America the economy is run on the Capitalist system.

Capitalism can be defined as the ability to buy and sell in a free market. In the Capitalist system there are classes; upper class, middle class and lower class. Upper class are those who are wealthier than most. Middle class, also referred to as the working class, are the people who work and falls right between those who are rich and wealthy and those who are poor. Last is the lower class. This class includes people who are in poverty and are barely making it. While it might seem like the United States’ economy is improving on this system, the disparity among the classes is getting further apart.

Within the Capitalist system there is the trickle down theory where the middle class works for the upper class and provides them with money. Upper class then returns this money with jobs. Middle class also pays taxes to the government which goes into programs such as public education. This theory is supposed to generate money through the economy.

Although it seems like this theory should work, it is not. Upper class has begun to save their money by moving jobs Americans need to other third world countries where workers will work for close to nothing. Upper class has also started to move their money into stocks and this prevents them from being taxed over 13-17 percent, while those in the middle class can be taxed 35 percent.

With the middle class being taxed more, they can’t pay off all of their taxes. This causes our middle class to get even more poor than they already are. If the middle class is poor, the gap between the upper class and the middle class is growing further apart. This is when we see even more economic inequality in our Capitalist system.

If no change occurs in the United States’ economic inequality, other factors such as public education, projects on roads, and our military could be affected because those who are paying the most amount of taxes have no money.