How Economic Inequality Harms Societies

How Economic Inequality Harms Societies
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Economic inequality is one of the biggest reasons dragging the progress of society. It has a direct impact on virtually everything that affects the day-to-day lives of individuals. For example, it dictates expenditure, social well-being, healthcare, and even education. A rise in economic inequality, in turn, results in low spending power, which in turn results in several other low downs like low education levels, poor healthcare, and even insecurity. Insecurity can arise from the individuals who are economically disadvantaged scavenging on those who are way better economically. Richard Wilkinson's TED talk is quite informative, as he speaks in much detail about the impacts of economic inequality in a given society.
Richard Wilkinson claims that the intuition that inequality is alienating and socially corrosive has existed since the French Revolution. Furthermore, Wilkinson focuses on comparing societies to examine the implications of inequality. He offers practical comparisons between various countries in an attempt to make his point clear. It is critical to note that countries such as the United States and Norway are twice as rich as Portugal and Greece, but that does not influence life expectancy among these countries. He has established that poor people may have good health and higher life expectancy than wealthy individuals. It is crucial to comprehend that people are concerned about their income, social position, and social status, and they tend to disregard other critical features such as health.
Wilkinson argues that well-being is not dependent on national income and economic growth. This perception is beneficial to poorer states and not among the rich and developed countries. Wilkinson claims that some of the things that matter the most include trust, and he presents data that shows that in more equal societies, about 60 to 65 % of the people trust others while only 15% of the people who can trust others in unequal societies (Wilkinson, 2011). Additionally, other essential aspects include community life involvement where more it can be argued that a high percentage of the population in more equal societies are likely to take part in community life. In contrast, only a small portion of highly unequal societies are actively involved in community life.
Further, Wilkinson has highlighted some of the common issues that affect unequal societies. One of the issues was education and its quality. For example, the kids are more disadvantaged in an unequal society; this is likely to influence the quality of education that children have access to. In equal societies, young people have equal access to opportunities. Due to unequal economic status, there will be a situation whereby some children attend school without any financial hiccups. In contrast, others will miss a lot of days away from class due to the same. This will, in turn, greatly impact the specific nature of education in the sense that some students will have an advantage over others over something that they have no control over.
Besides, in unequal societies, people trust other individuals less and are not likely to participate in community life (Wilkinson, 2011). Furthermore, social mobility is ess...