Our Organization

THE PROBLEMS: INCOME INEQUALITY AND SOCIAL DISPARITIES

Income inequality is a wide gap between the money earned by the richest people in an economy when compared to the poorest. Income includes wages, investment earnings, rent, and sales of real estate. Broadly speaking, income inequality refers to the fact that different people earn different amounts of money. The wider those earnings are dispersed, the more unequal they are. But that intuitive concept of dispersal can be defined in several different ways. Indeed, income itself is a somewhat ambiguous idea that can be defined in different ways.

 

In economics, income inequality is the large disparity in how income is distributed between individuals, groups, populations, social classes, or countries. It is a major part of how we understand socioeconomic statuses, being how we identify the upper class, middle class, and working class. It is impacted by many other forms of inequality, including wealth, political power, and social status. Income is a major factor in managing quality of life, as it serves as a means of access to healthcare, education, housing, and so on.

 

Income inequality varies by social factors such as race, gender identity, age, and ethnicity, leading to a wider gap between the upper and working class.

 

Large economic and social disparities may lead to social instability, thus damaging economic development. Social disparities affect human dignity. Economic development that does not deal with reducing economic and social disparities is not worth pursuing.

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Social disparities may have many causes. At different times in history, a variety of factors have combined to determine an individual’s lot. At present, income inequality largely determines social disparities, while other factors such as social class and aristocratic titles no longer matter. In other words, economic disparities determine social disparities, no matter whether these disparities are reflected in terms of inequality between urban and rural, between men and women, or between coastal and inland regions.

 

Social disparity in terms of income inequality was not a cause of widespread concern, as long as economic growth was not jeopardized. Indeed, under the influence of some economic theories, people believed that there was a trade-off between equity and efficiency: to distribute income too equally would undermine incentives, thus lowering the rate of economic growth, so that everyone’s income would decline in the end.

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Reducing income inequality and narrowing social disparities have for several years been the focus of public opinion. Governments of developed countries as well as of developing countries have had to pay attention to the reduction of poverty and a more equitable social distribution. All of this is because people have suddenly realized that despite a relatively rapid and sustained economic growth rate in the world, social disparities have increased in many countries, the United States of America being one of them.

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Income inequality also has other implications, particularly in the field of the environment. Economic growth has been considered by some to be the remedy for poverty both in rich and poorer countries. Economic growth, however, does not always reduce income inequalities between rich and poorer. Instead, it tends to enlarge social disparities.

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Racial injustice is the act of being unjust to an individual or group based on race, particularly concerning legally recognized rights. It includes historical artificial barriers enshrined in Jim Crow legislation across the country that fostered discrimination based on race or ethnicity which severely restricted access to education, voting rights, employment, housing and the administration of justice. Regarding criminal laws, it refers to conduct such as racial profiling and the imposition of harsher penalties on convicted criminals, including the death penalty, based on race.

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OUR SOLUTIONS

The Institute for Enhanced Equity (TIEE) will foster economic development by strengthening existing businesses thereby creating and retaining jobs in minority communities. TIEE seeks to address economic and social disparities in minority communities through: 

 

1) fiscal sponsorship services supporting social and environmental justice organizations

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2) designing and implementing programs that expand economic development opportunities for minority businesses and individuals, and

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3) fostering financial education and training for minority businesses and individuals.