USA, Inflation Devouring the Middle Class: Inequality Can Become a Problem

Inflation creates serious anxiety in the United States, especially within the middle class. According to research by the Pew Research Center, one of the largest research centers in the world, seven out of ten Americans consider inflation a very serious problem for the country, followed by access to health care (55%) and violent crime (54%). ). The middle class, which was once an economic class with a clear majority of the American adult population, has shrunk steadily over the past 50 years, going from 61% in 1971 to 50% in 2021. One of the more interesting elements is that in the At the same time, the percentage of the population of the “upper class”, and therefore the most affluent, increased from 7 to 14%, but at the same time the proportion of the less affluent population also increased (from 25 to 29%). Therefore, in general, the country’s wealth is increasing, salaries are increasing, but the disparities are increasing. In any context of economic development, a dose of structural inequality can be considered. Consider, for example, a country in which wealth is distributed quite equally among all people: it could be a very poor country, or a country that provides authoritarian regimes of withdrawal or distribution. Wealth distribution is measured by the GINI index, which is an important indicator for predicting potential social and political problems in a country: if excess equality can be seen as an element that must be kept in check, an increase in inequality can generate resentment, clashes, guerrilla warfare, violence. The United States, at this point, is experiencing very strong economic shocks, due to the pandemic, financial volatility, and problems with the supply chain. Also, according to Pew Research data, nearly one in five middle-class families received unemployment benefits in 2020, and about a third of low-income adults (31%) said the family’s financial situation…