Midterm NR - Self Awareness: Wealth Gap and Art

When Barack Obama was president The White House had a sponsored BET party, filled with "black people" artists stated. You could look inside the White House, and on the wall there were pictures of all the presidents in the White House, which were all white. The first person invited to the White House was Fredrick Douglass (August 1863), they stopped him at the gate and Abraham Lincoln had to walk out himself, and welcome Fredrick Douglass into the white house.  It didn't happen again until roosevelt was president. When that happened the media went into an uproar and Roosevelt exclaimed, "I will never have a n****** in this house again! (1901)" Looking back at the BET sponsored party within the white house, people of color have been historically disenfranchised, but with Obama in office we can see change.

How does this relate to wealth gap, and wealth inequality? Simply because we're playing catch up with our past, with slavery, and all prejudice and hate. In my project I will use real data and analytics to furthur understand why the poor stay poor, and the rich, get richer. Over time as a society we began to realize our faults. Everything moves foward, from technology, learning, medicine, even mental health and self awareness. As a society, ethically speaking, we are moving in a foward direction. Albeit it's slow and an uphill battle- it's still growth. 

Wealth Gap, Wealth inequality

The wealth disparity in the United States is growing. Currently, the top 1% of the US own as much wealth as the poorest 90%. The common reply for why this isn't an issue (despite it being philosophically unfair) and should even be welcomed is that Americans overall are benefitting from the rich getting richer: they claim they create jobs/wealth that trickles down to the lower classes. They claim that the quality of life for Americans overall has increased.

But from what I can tell, poverty is actually increasing in the United States:

From 1980 to 2014, the number of people living in poverty in the United States grew from about 29.3 million to 46.7 million. Over this same period, the pre-tax income of the bottom quintile of earnings grew 4 percent while incomes of the top 1 percent grew 194 percent. From 1980 to 2016, growth in the number of people in poverty has come largely from working-age adults.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/who-is-poor-in-the-united-states-a-hamilton-project-annual-report/

Does the rise in wealth for the 1% proportionally translate into rising wealth/jobs/living standards for Americans? I'd argue, no, it doesn't, you can see it statistically above. If you disagree, please tell me at what point you consider a wealth disparity to have an issue. Many who disagree typically think whatever the economic system offers is fair. But what if .001% have 99% of the wealth?

Financial Literacy

Financial literacy is the confluence of financial, credit and debt management and the knowledge that is necessary to make financially responsible decisions – decisions that are integral to our everyday lives.

Money comes along with power, and there is power in money. 

 Financial literacy is crucial to help consumers (or us) save enough to provide income for retirement, savings for emergency, or just the overall betterment of life. TIAA-CREF showed that those with high financial literacy plan for retirement and, in essence, have double the wealth of people who do not plan for retirement. Conversely, those with low financial literacy borrow more, have less wealth and end up paying unnecessary fees for financial products. In other words, those with lower financial literacy tend to buy on credit, and are unable to pay their full balance each month and end up spending more in interest. This group also does not invest, has trouble with debt and a poor understanding of the terms of their mortgages or loans. Even more worrisome, many consumers believe that they are far more financially literate than they really are. And while this may seem like an individual problem, it is broader in nature and more influential on the entire population than previously believed. All one needs to do is look at the financial crisis of 2008 to see the financial impact on the entire economy that arose from a lack of understanding of mortgage products. (For more, see: The 2007-08 Financial Crisis in Review.) Financial literacy is an issue with broad implications for economic health and an improvement can lead the way to a global economy that is competitive and strong.

If we can educate those more (our generation) on this topic, imagine how much wealth the lower class would have?

5 artists on wealth

 Steve Green Berg "The levels of economic income are staggaring, the rich get richer and poorer get poorer"

David Revoy "Enough food is produced in the world today to feed everyone, but it's not the case"

 Pawel Kuczynski "Shows the difference between economic classes in the way that while one boy gets to spend his time playing with toy trains, the other has to have a job and work to help support his family."

Jack Delano "During the 1960s when segregation was legal and economic inequalities made it to where woman had little to no job opporunities other than maids."

Bruno Catalano "Sculpture depticts the hardship of an immigrant who is new to America. The sculpture looks unfinished but the artists purposly left a gap in the artwork to symbolize the fact that immigrants have to recreate themselves and almost start over in America."


Execution: