Analysis of "Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer".
According to the organization of Business and Professional Women/USA, the United Sates has the most uneven distribution of income and wealth out of any industrialized nation (Facts 1). This fact is nothing new to us. Many economists have analyzed the issue on the poverty gap and still our government supposedly can not find a way to fix it. This hardly makes sense. One economist that I felt had some very good points to make about the poverty gap is Robert Reich. In Reich's essay, "Why the Rich Are getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer" he uses a metaphor to describe poverty. He uses a boat rising and sinking with the tide to describe how the rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer. Reich's essay was very relevant in 1991 and is still very relevant today.
Reich starts his metaphor with, "A boat containing routine producers is sinking rapidly" (Reich 290). What Reich means by this is that the demand for production workers is decreasing with great speed. Although, at one point in time the need for these kind of workers was very high and they were paid extremely well. Unfortunately for the producers, this soon changed with the introduction of factories and machines. Machines started to do the work of the producers, at twice the speed and without any pay. This was very beneficial for the factory owner, but unfortunate for the producer. Therefore, many people lost their jobs and fell into extreme poverty. We can also see this rise in poverty right here in Pittsfield. One particular good example of this is the loss of G.E. (General Electric). Losing G.E. had a tremendously negative effect on Pittsfield, mainly because more then half the workforce in Pittsfield depended on their jobs at G.E. Since we lost this major factory, we no longer manufacture anything in the Berkshires. This is one of the reasons that the producers, as well as the Pittsfield economy as a whole, are "sinking rapidly" (Reich 290).
