Africa

Taking Sides Summary-Analysis Form

Name:

Title and Author of Article: Christopher Jencks

Briefly state the main idea of this article: The main idea of this article is that economic inequality has steadily risen in the United States between the richest people and the poorest people. And this inequality affects the people in more ways than buying power; it also affects education, life expectancy, living conditions and possibly happiness. Another idea that he brought up was that the American government tends to give less help to the unemployed than other rich countries.

List 2-4 supporting points or arguments the author uses to bolster the main ideas: A good supporting point that Jencks used to show that the American government tends to give less help to poor than other countries, is a study done using the 90/10 ratio. In the study it showed that within the English-speaking world the United States was the most unequal of all. Another supporting point that helps his argument is when he talks about the United States doing little to limit wage inequality.

List three facts the author uses to support the main idea: Jencks included a lot of studies and charts into his article that helped his argument. One of the studies that he included is on the percent of household income going to the richest one percent. In this study it showed that in 1979 7.5% of household income went to the top one percent, and in 1997 it jumped to 13.6 %. Another fact from the article is a study conducted by Lars Osberg from Dalhousie University. It found that the poor in America worked more hours than their poor counterpart in Canada, Britain, Sweden, France, and Germany. The third fact that I think is relatively important is that since 1979 the tuition at America's public colleges has risen faster than most parent's income. Thus giving the poor even less of a chance to receive a higher education.

What is a good counterargument to the thesis of this article?

I think a good counterargument would be that inequality these days is different, not very many people these days live with out completely no material nesacities. The ones that do are due to their own downfalls, whether they are mentally ill or have a drug problem or any other number of illness's. The United States provides less help to the poor, but it's not no help. It still provides the poor with public housing social security and welfare. There still is economic inequality but