Haves and Have Nots Seminar - Moody Middle School

"As of August past the disability award (not including Medicare) was about $1,111 per month. So the incentive to do some menial dead end job loses appeal when the new job might or might not have health benefits…….certainly not as grand as Medicare." Type a 2-4 sentence summary of the article and how it is useful. This can be short & sweet.

This article talks about the responsibility of employers whether the person is disabled or not. I think it is a good document because employers represent the haves and their responsibility over the have-nots or the unemployed.

"Students from historically disadvantaged families have just a 51 percent Opportunity to Learn compared to White, non-Latino students. Closing this opportunity gap is essential to closing the academic achievement gaps that separate most Black and Hispanic students from their White and Asian peers." This topic brings up education from a racial perspective because in the United States of America, we have people from all over the world, making us one of the most diverse and cultural societies. I would say that in the United States of America, there are some opportunity gaps, because like I said, we are a diverse country, and everybody doesn't have the same opportunity unless that individual who is at a disadvantage works harder than others. For example, there are people who come to the United States of America and aren't as educated in certain topics compared to the colleagues sitting next to him or her. So I think that it is very valid to say that there is an opportunity gap in the United States of America. I think that you could relate the unfairness of the American education system with the Roman education system in various ways. I think that the biggest point though, is that the Roman education system revolved more around money more than education, because only the wealthiest received an education in Rome, this is because education wasn't a standard in Roman society. The rest of the Romans were laborers. In the United States of America, you don't need to own a mansion in order to be educated in school. Even though there is some difference in who got educated based on either wealth or brains, there's still an opportunity gap in both societies. I think that no matter where you go, someone will be at a disadvantage, but that's life.

This website and article discuses the opportunity gaps in american education. It provides an overview along with details to how big of a problem this is. It also talk about how race can fall into play of the gaps in america.

"Facilities providing jobs for the disabled receiving some scrutiny"

"A brief look at Virginia's education compared to other states"

"Poverty and social dysfunction are what plague us; they cannot be fixed by taking from the haves to give to the have-nots.  To improve the situation, the have-nots must become the do-somethings." This article disputes an article about income inequality being a problem

"Retired Master Cpl. Paul Franklin, who lost both legs in in Afghanistan, says every year he has to prove to Veterans Affairs that he still has no legs and needs a wheelchair. Now, he's waging a fight against the department on behalf of all veterans." I think that there are many people who somewhat over exaggerate their disabilities and other symptoms just like the judge in the "Unfit for Work" article, because here you have a judge who doesn't complain about her blood pressure and diabetes, unlike the whiney man in court, who makes the biggest fuss about having the same exact symptoms. Then there are those people who make a fuss about their symptoms because they really do have a severe disability. Paul Franklin, who is a veteran from Afghanistan, lost both of his legs in combat. Now you have Paul who is back in the United States of America, trying to convince the government that he lost both of his legs and that probably needs a disability check, due to his severe injury. I think that the topic for disabled people in present day and ancient times wouldn't compare. I say this, because in ancient Rome, if a child was born with a disability, they often put it down, because they probably didn't know how to handle it, or if they did, they might've not hand the time and money to take care of it forever. If we were to do something like this today, it would be out of nature and against are morals, because we have the technology, knowledge, and resources to fix most disabilities, or rather put that disabled person in a better position. Therefore, our actions seen in the United States hardly compare to what they did back in ancient Rome.

"A Federal Reserve survey reports that most US families didn't have a wage increase between 2010 and 2013, while income and wealth for the top 3% of US families rose to historically high levels during that period." If I were running for president for United States of America, I would say that this is a big problem that many Americans face, and that it would need to be addressed. You can't have a country that has only 3% of its people functioning at their best while the other 97% is in bad shape, because the country would fall apart. With the bad economy that we live in today, it would seem unreal to not have some sort of fund that would help increase family wages, allowing a much smoother life for Americans without an absorbent amount of wealth in their family. What makes this even more ridiculous, is that the rich benefit from the less wealthy peoples' loss in pay. It may come to the point where the 3% can't benefit anymore because the other 97% has been drained, dry. I think that this topic about our society in America can compare with the situation in the United States of America, because the Plebeians, who are very similar to the 97% of Americans living in harder conditions, had the same issue with their government. The Plebeians protested in Ancient Rome because the Patricians who were the really wealthy people, just like the 3% of rich Americans, didn't let the Plebeians have any say in their government. I think this can relate to the situation here in the United States of America, because it could certainly come to the point where Americans start protesting in the streets about low job wages.

"While incomes have fallen in recent years, the median net worth of American households has taken an even worse hit. The median family had net worth of $135,400 in 2007, adjusted for inflation, according to the Federal Reserve." America is not fair for many families, as inequality has taken a hit as well as taking people out of the middle class. This can happen to anyone, not just blacks and Hispanics. This makes income inequality such a serious thing in the United States of America (Zumbrun).

"Notably, only 10% of Americans identify as lower-class and only 2% as upper-class. By this measure, a vast majority of Americans appears to identify as either middle-class or pretty close to it." This article talks about American social classes. The majority of Americans are middle class. The article talks about the income of the middle class and the differences inside the middle class. There aren't a lot of Americans that are higher than the middle class.

"As individuals, we are each responsible for our own actions and their consequences. If people's actions result in a drop in their well-being, that is their personal responsibility" This article discusses the roll that the government has played in supporting 'have-nots' and the moral and ethical issues that go along with that. It brings up the point that we are responsible for our actions multiple times.

"Income inequality refers to the extent to which income is distributed in an uneven manner among a population. In the United States, income inequality, or the gap between the rich and everyone else, has been growing markedly, by every major statistical measure, for some 30 years." This article talks about the gap between the rich and the poor. It says that the wealthiest people had a national income of 23.5% in 2007, and the Great Recession followed. This is similar to the Great Depression. This shows that income inequality can impact the whole country and should be considered a big problem.

"Income inequality refers to the extent to which income is distributed in an uneven manner among a population. In the United States, income inequality, or the gap between the rich and everyone else, has been growing markedly, by every major statistical measure, for some 30 years." This article gives an in-depth description of the issue of income inequality, comparing different income-related statistics to those of earlier decades. It also informs of how this issue is progressively becoming less of a problem, but still needs to be addressed.

Stats on income inequality.

Describes the overall averages of spending by grades.

"The following table presents unedited data (including corrections, if any) on disabled worker beneficiaries paid from Social Security's Disability Insurance Trust Fund. In particular, unedited award data may contain duplicate cases." This website has a graph which shows the number of people on the disability program.

"In 2010, 15.1 percent of all persons lived in poverty. The poverty rate in 2010 was the highest poverty rate since 1993. Between 1993 and 2000, the poverty rate fell each year, reaching 11.3 percent in 2000." Poverty rates are growing and are at their highest since 1993.

President Obama says that income inequality is also affected by what is going on globally.

"There is no dispute that income inequality has been on the rise in the United States for the past four decades. The share of total income earned by the top 1 percent of families was less than 10 percent in the late 1970s but now exceeds 20 percent as of the end of 2012. A large portion of this increase is due to an upsurge in the labor incomes earned by senior company executives and successful entrepreneurs." This article helps to understand how and why income inequality is a problem and how its growing the the US.

This unique article discusses the gap in income as compared to classes of other countries.

The income level has created a gap between classes that is as big as it was during the Great Depression.

"As out-of-zone students who attend TJ under the system's open-enrollment policy, Gray and his brothers are required to find their own transportation to school. At 6:38 a.m., they catch a city bus that takes them to Fourth and Broad streets, where they await another bus that usually gets them to school late." The school should find a way to put them on a school bus. TJ already houses an IB program, so why couldn't they just adjust a bus route to include the Gray brothers. Also, the city bus could pose a safety issue, as well as the fact that they are arriving at school late, so this is taking valuable education time away from them.

"School census figures back him up on that point - about 30 percent of eligible Richmond residents don't attend city schools. "

"The study, published ahead of this week's annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, suggests that by 2016 the gap between the world's rich and poor will widen to the extent that those at the top of the income pile will control over 50% of total global wealth. That percentage is up from 48% in 2014." According to a study, the richest 1% is expected to own more than half of the world's money by 2016