Is a Society Working if Its People Are Struggling to Survive?

By Anonymous / Summer 2021

One of my best friends, Mark, that I have known since second grade, has always struggled growing up. He and his sister were raised by their single mother. As a kid, my family were fortunate enough to receive government housing assistance; therefore, we were able to live a decent life without having to worry about food and shelter. I didn’t understand how fortunate we were at that time, nor did I understand that the waiting list for such assistance was upwards of around seven years. One of the things that confused me as a kid was that Mark ate ramen noodles almost every day. My parents were able to afford takeout or cook, so my naive younger self wondered why he wasn’t able to receive the same luxury. On top of this, Mark and his family had to move often due to increased rent. There was a day where I visited him for the first time at his new home only to find out how run down it was. I was shocked when he told me how much his mom pays for rent. How could anyone work so hard just to live like this? It wasn’t until I got older that I realized that this was the reality for many Americans. The minimum wage is not able to keep up with the rising prices in the market. Many government assistance is required to stay above the poverty line, yet the large demand for them results in a long waiting time such as the housing assistance program. Mark’s Mom could not afford to drop her responsibility in pursuit of a higher education; which is what society generally advocates for as a means of a better life. While Mark’s family and the general public slowly descends towards the poverty line, many of the top one percent continue to unfairly expand their wealth off the backs of the American workers. Today, there is a huge problem with the wealth distribution that is slowly sinking many Americans under the poverty line.

Issues as big as this cannot be addressed and fixed if the general public does not have a deep insight on the root causes. There are many different superficial views today that are partly to blame for the complacent attitude many people have towards this wealth distribution problem. One of the most common views is the notion that you need to work harder in order to climb the social ladder. There are some good points to this view. The idea of working hard and being in control of your own destiny is a powerful and motivating voice that is generally welcomed; however, what does “working harder” mean to people? If a person has kids and works two jobs just to stay afloat, does working harder mean that they pick up a third job? Does this mean they need to drop one of the jobs and go back to school? Or maybe it means that they need to invest their free time and savings into starting a risky business or investment. It should be pretty easy to see that many people do not have the luxury to just “work harder” and miraculously make their struggles disappear. In order to climb the social ladder from the poverty line, there will always be a certain degree of risks involved. These risks can include going into debt in order to get a college degree, investing into a business, or playing with stocks. The biggest risk of all is the risk to a person’s time. If someone who is already at the poverty line attempts to climb the social ladder and fails, they will be set back further than where they started. And we’re not even considering the fact that many people will not have the savings to even attempt to climb the social ladder. How could they when the minimum wage salary forces people to live paycheck to paycheck.

Another common superficial view is that rich people deserve their wealth, and they got there through hard work. This is similar to the first superficial view. It is true that many rich people are hard workers, but we are overlooking the fact that many of them were born into favorable circumstances. Additionally, there have been many policies that were lobbied by the top one percent that hinders the working class people and helps the wealthy keep their wealth.

To be more precise, it could be appropriate to say that most of the top one percent deserve to be richer than their employees; however, the massive amount of wealth that they have accumulated results from neoliberalism policies that undermine the working class. According to an article “Neoliberalism-the ideology at the root of all our problems,” George Monbiot mentions that neoliberalism aims to limit government involvement in the market in order to avoid totalitarian control. This allows companies to have more freedom and control on how they treat their workers. Further examples can be seen when Monbiot stated that such freedom allows companies to suppress wages, endanger workers, and skew the wealth distribution towards the top one percent. This abuse allows companies to inflate their profit at the expense of the workers. Additionally, they can also outsource their jobs to other countries for a much lower cost (Monbiot). This will create a larger demand for jobs here in America for less pay. We can also see from places such as Amazon, one of the wealthiest companies in America, that their working conditions are deemed unsafe. According to an article on The Guardian, “ ‘I’m not a robot’:Amazon workers condemn unsafe, grueling conditions at warehouse,” Michael Sainato retells an experience from one of the workers who claims that Amazon has not made any improvements in regards to the high injury report. It is quite unacceptable for such a powerful company to stand by and let their employees work in such dangerous conditions. This goes back to how the wealthy may deserve to be rich, but not in a way where the tradeoff is the suffering of the working class people. Mark’s mom will continue to work in back breaking conditions for the rest of her life. If she ever gets injured, then the same neoliberalism policies that put her at risk for the injury will also be the same policies that prevent her from getting affordable health care. It would be safe to conclude here that no, the rich do not deserve their wealth; not as long as neoliberalism policies are still around.

It is true that the skewed wealth distribution today can be attributed to the emergence of computers. It is of no surprise that tech companies have taken advantage of this to create empires that revolve around the use of software. With everything going online, it becomes easier for people to purchase things from the comfort of their own home. There is a larger flux of money mobility; It became more efficient to sell or buy things. Despite this, the age of technology is only a part of the story. The deeper story is that the wealth distribution problem of today has been laid out since the late 19th century and possibly beyond, when electricity and machinery became a staple in America’s economic production.

We can see parallels of the 19th century and today. There is a general concern about social mobility today where it seems almost impossible to move up the social ladder. As this social mobility gets progressively worse overtime, it is easy to think that this only began recently. According to “A People’s History,” Howard Zinn mentions that in the 1870s, ninety percent of multimillionaires came from wealthy backgrounds and that the saying “rags to riches” was generally a myth (254.) We can see from this that social mobility was never an easy thing to accomplish for the general public. Additionally, there were not many regulations on working conditions back then. People can work long hard hours (more than today) in their respective jobs which leaves almost no time for anything else. Safety was also a really big concern for workers during this time. During the late 19th century, the rich and powerful had already begun laying the groundwork for a system that would continue to put more burden on the working class people.

Taking a closer look at some of the groundworks that were laid out around the same time as above, we can see that there were early actions of lobbying that benefited the rich. A specific case was the Continental Railroad construction. Zinn recounts that The Central Pacific, railroad company, spent $200,000 to bribe the government into giving them 9 million acres of land for free, $24 million in bonds as well as paying an excess of $36 million to a construction company that they owned (Zinn 254.)  Hard earned tax payer’s money were given out in the millions and all it took was a $200,000 bribe from The Central Pacific. This showed that rich and powerful companies had an influence on the policies that are created. Naturally, if they were to create beneficial circumstances for themselves, that generally means that the working class would be the one to suffer because of it. During this time, the late 19th century, the abuse of power from these powerful companies would create a society where there was negligence for the health and safety of workers (Zinn 255). Such negligence was only allowed to exist due to the large demand for work. According to an article, “Gilded Age,” An example of this comes from the gilded age era where workers were paid almost nothing to work in dangerous conditions for the railroad companies (Gilded Age). When there is such a large demand for work, it becomes easy for these companies to neglect the health of their workers. Why should they care when the next replacement is so readily available to work for less? We can see parallels of this in today’s society from many different companies; a notorious offender is Amazon.

These abuses of power can happen due to the fact that competition was very scarce during the late 19th century. Around this time when America’s technological advancement was blooming, Robber Barons emerged where they would use fraud, intimidation, violence, and political connections to crush competitors and accumulate massive amounts of wealth (Gilded Age). This allowed a small number of companies to control and dominate the market. This will trickle down to how the workers are treated. With no competition in sight for these companies, it forced workers to accept the low wages and possibly dangerous work conditions that were offered. Additionally, these companies, having no competition, are given more influence in politics; therefore, they would continue lobbying many policies that would progressively undermine the workers while putting more money in their own pockets. Going back to today, we can see similarities with companies such as Amazon.  According to an article on CNBC, “Why Amazon paid no 2018 US federal income tax,” Andrew Davis mentions that despite earning more than 11 billion dollar profit as well as 129 million dollar tax rebate, Amazon did not pay any federal tax. It is common knowledge that many local run businesses were closed down due to being crushed out by Amazon. With many businesses beginning to shut down, Amazon now has a larger pool of unemployed workers who are forced to accept backbreaking work in their warehouses. Amazon is only one example of many in today’s society. If people refuse to stand up and demand change, these companies will continue to maneuver and mend the law to their own advantage and further push the working class below poverty.

Looking deeply, we can see that the groundworks had already been laid out for more than a century now. This is not just a modern issue that recently emerged. It is not something that is the fault of the working class. The start of every new technological era is the most sensitive to people forming powerful companies that go on to influence policies that would continue to undermine the working class.

There are many obstacles today that prevent us from solving this issue. The biggest obstacle would be ignorance. I am guilty of this as I have once thought that people’s circumstances are the product of their hard work. I generally sided with the idea that the top one percent deserved their wealth and that the working class people should keep their heads low and continue working hard in hopes that they will reach the same height as these billionaires. This was my view, a view that existed despite having an education. I am certain that there are countless others in today’s society that share the same views. We cannot even begin to see and address the other obstacles if we don’t have everyone on the same page. The wealth distribution issue is something that affects 99% of us; therefore, how can we push for change when so many of us are billionaire sympathizers. The notion of sympathizing with billionaires is also related to the idea of competitive individualism; this is another obstacle that prevents our society from addressing the wealth distribution issue. Competitive individualism is the idea that success is proportional to hard work and abilities. This is a toxic idea that is very prevalent in today’s society as it places the blame on the lower class people’s absence of talent or their inability to work hard. It hides the main issues that were discussed earlier in this essay and so conveniently benefits the rich; the more people that believe in competitive individualism, the more rich people can abuse their wealth. If the lower class people were to address the issues that are to blame for their descent towards or below the poverty line, they need to first become aware of the existence of these issues. Only then can we begin to take a step in the right direction.

This is an issue that is so complex that there isn’t really one solution that can solve everything. If I were to be honest, I believe that this is an issue that has to do with human’s tendency to choose greed over compassion; as a result of this, any issue that pertains to human nature becomes very difficult to solve. A possible solution where we will see the quickest progress would be to raise the minimum wage. Raising the minimum wage is in of itself a vastly complex issue in today’s society. There are many pros and cons to doing this, and the tug of war between these pros and cons contributes to why the fight for this is still ongoing today. One of the main arguments against raising the minimum wage to fifteen dollars is that it will cause inflation, essentially making the wage increase almost pointless. However, based on past statistics, this isn’t exactly true. According to an article “Does increasing the minimum wage lead to higher prices?,” Justin Carinci mentions that from 1978 to 2015, restaurant food pricing increased by about .36 percent for every 10 percent increase in wage. Of course, it is important to note that this may not reflect the full effect of raising the minimum wage on inflation. There are many factors that go into inflation and wage increase is just a small part of it. Based on this data, it makes sense to raise the minimum wage as it gives an almost immediate effect while having minimal influence on inflation. This would pull many people away from the poverty line and perhaps encourage more spending which will in turn stimulate the economy. It is also important to note that the prices for goods are already rising in today’s market. With the minimum wage remaining static as it is, it becomes clear that many working class people will eventually be unable to have their basic needs met. This solution won’t solve everything, but it’s a start. At the end of the day, the major influence in this wealth distribution issue comes from how the wealthy use their power to manipulate the implementation of laws and policies that benefit them. If this doesn’t somehow get addressed in the future, things will never fully change.

This is an issue that affects 99% of society. More people need to be aware of this issue as ignorance will allow it to continue its rampage into future generations. Like Mark’s Mom, there are many people today who are working in backbreaking environments with little hope for a better future. As more and more Americans continue to sink under the poverty line, the situation can only get worse if we continue to ignore the underlying causes. Being able to stand up for and fight against this type of corruption also ensures that it becomes more difficult for such corruption to rise up again in the future. This issue makes it difficult for people who are at or under the poverty line to even survive. Basic necessities are not being met. Is a society truly working as intended if its people are struggling to survive? Refusing to educate oneself on the matter is a complete contribution to the problem.

Works Cited

Carinci, Justin. “Does increasing the minimum wage lead to higher prices?” W.E. UPJOHN INSTITUTE For Employment Research. Accessed 3 Aug. 2021

Davis, Andrew. “Why Amazon paid no 2018 US federal income tax” CNBC, 4 April 2019. Accessed 3 Aug. 2021

“Gilded Age” History, 13 February 2018. Accessed 3 Aug. 2021

Monbiot, George. “Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems,” The Guardian, 15 April 2016. Accessed 3 Aug. 2021

Sainato, Michael. “‘I'm not a robot’: Amazon workers condemn unsafe, grueling conditions at

warehouse,” The Guardian, 5 Feb. 2020. Accessed 3 Aug. 2021

Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States. Harper Collins, 2003, pp 254-255