Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Economic inequality has surged to the forefront of U.S. policy debates, driven by rising income and wealth gaps.This paper examines strategies to foster economic growth and reduce income inequality, drawing insights from experiences in Scandinavia, Europe, and Singapore.It assesses the effectiveness of education, tax, and welfare policies in promoting growth, evaluating their costs, benefits, and ease of implementation.The paper also delves into proposed wealth tax plans and their potential to address inequality.Universal Basic Income (UBI) is also examined as a response to workforce challenges, discussing its benefits, costs, and effects on labor supply.Assessing the evidence for each, the paper recommends education reforms, such as doubling the Pell Grants program and implementing conditional tax transfers to low-income families to support education for underprivileged children.Universal basic income shows high potential for reducing inequality, but its implementation is not feasible due to the substantial costs involved.Moreover, more research is needed on wealth taxes to gauge their effects on innovation and entrepreneurship before they can be considered seriously for implementation.
DOI: 10.36838/v6i10.9
Author: Neel Mathur
Institution: Hunter College
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4406907497