Iman E. Lab Middle School

 As I am sure you are well aware, the United States has far more problems than any of us would like to admit. Because of some of these problems, our country has become one of inequality, whether in terms of social mobility, or even something as simple as job salary. One of the issues revolving around inequality that I find fairly interesting, is the issue of our country’s income gap.

Being someone from the middle class, this problem does not personally affect me as much as it does a large fraction of the U.S., although I am capable of perceiving the consequences of this issue within my surroundings. I want to see the income gap between the wealthy and the poor in the U.S decrease. I think it is unfair for society to hold such high expectations for the lower classes, when the government is not doing enough to try and give the people in this country equality in terms of income.

In 2013, the federal reserve discovered that by wealth, the lower half of U.S households held 1% of the total gains, meanwhile the wealthiest 5% held 63%. Anyone can be educated enough to know that this is unfair. Evidently, studies also show that houses with financial issues have a higher tendency of not paying their bills, as well as higher divorce rates. This goes to show that not only is income inequality a personal issue for low class families, but this is also an issue to our economy. The government gets caught up in trying to find a solution for these consequential problems, rather than trying to eliminate the root of them all. Though it may seem extremely difficult, there is a lot one can do to both benefit our country, and all of its people at the same time.

For example, an article by the New York times writes about how a few years ago, Walmart began to receive disturbing reviews about their cleanliness and customer service. Rather than firing their employees, Walmart made the decision of raising their salaries, giving them better training, and providing them with better advancement opportunities. By 2016, the probability of stores hitting their targeted customer service ratings had rebounded to 75%. The company also began making better profit. By improving the lives of their employees, Walmart began doing better as a whole. This shows that by improving the lives of the people in the lower classes, we can build up our economy and nation as a whole, rather than only helping a small fraction of this country, and neglecting the majority. After all, how can our country’s workers be expected to do their best, when they will not be benefitting from their hard work anyways? How can they be expected to become successful, when there is nobody willing to help them improve their incomes, or wellbeings?

Living in New York City, I am constantly being surrounded by both wealth and poverty, whether I am watching the news, or walking down the street, and have seen the way people treat each other. In most cases, the poor aren’t treated as equals. Most low wage workers are not even provided with health insurance, sick days, or pension plans. I find this extremely unfair, considering that we all want what is best for ourselves, but not all of us actually have the ability to do so, because those who get what they want, do not consider the lives of those less fortunate. I think this is something that should be changed, for the sake of our country.

In my 12 years of life, there have been a countless amount of times where I wanted to be able to make a difference, or knew the solution to a problem I would never be able to solve on my own. This country has elected you as our president so you can do something to improve our lives, not only as individuals, but as a whole country. Unlike a lot of us, you can see a problem, and with enough effort, make it history. With this, I am hoping that as our country’s next president, you can change the way our country is divided, and treat us all as equals by trying to improve the lowest, and middle class in terms of income.

Your’s truly,

Iman Elwafi

Sources:

https://newsela.com/articles/overview-income-inequality/id/21222/

https://www.thebalance.com/income-inequality-in-america-3306190

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/upshot/how-did-walmart-get-cleaner-stores-and-higher-sales-it-paid-its-people-more.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FIncome%20Inequality&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=collection&_r=0