Income Inequality Part two

Fall 2017

Designing a Sustainable Future: A New economy as if People Mattered

Session Five: Income Inequality /part 2

Music: "Money, Money, Money" ABBA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjbd3Bjtaw4
"The Ghost of Tom Joad," Bruce Springsteen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SN1UK8ghGw

Essential questions:

• What is a sustainable income level? (Living wage)

• Who will have access to the goods and services that are available in the economy?

• How is income currently distributed in the US Economy?

• What happens when the income gap widens? To he individuals? To the society?

• How does one define a fair distribution of income in a society?

• What are some remedies to lessening the income gap?

 Gathering: After looking at the Preferred State, Present State or Incubator ideas that we have created, I would like to add the following idea…”

Video: Richard Wilkinson, “How economic inequality harms societies,” Ted Talk, 2011 https://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson?language=en

            • Refective Sentence Starters

           

 Pairs Exercise:

           • identify an idea that that might remedy the inequality issue

            • explain something that you can do to take action on this issue

           

Closing: Something that I learned in this session was…..

Readings:

• Robert Reich, “How to Shrink Inequality,” The Nation, May 2014https://www.thenation.com/article/how-shrink-inequality/

Resources:

•Video: Jacob Hecker & Paul Pierson, “Engineered Inequality,”  Moyers and Company, March 1, 2012
• Chuck Collins, "Reversing Inequality," Summary, The Next Systems Project , 2017 http://www.ips-dc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/ReversingInequalitySummary.pdf
• article on guaranteed universal income  https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/10/04/how-fund-universal-basic-income-without-increasing-taxes-or-inflation

Reality must keep step with possibility, morality with capacity. We may have to narrow the gap between the poor and the rich or democracy may not survive, human affairs may lapse into widespread social disintegration.

                                    James Grant, Executive Director, UNICEF