The document discusses how America's wealth gap originated during slavery and has persisted due to systemic inequalities. Slaves were unable to be compensated for their work, pass on wealth, or gain financial knowledge, putting African Americans at a long-term economic disadvantage compared to whites. Centuries later, statistics still show large disparities in net worth, homeownership, and the impacts of recessions between black and white households. Contributing factors discussed include tax policies that benefit the wealthy, bailouts of major corporations that prioritized shareholder profits over workers, and influence of wealthy donors on political decisions. The document argues these types of actions have exacerbated the wealth gap in America.

1. By: Leon Clarke Jr

2. • America’s wealth gap started during slavery times.
• Blacks and other minorities that helped build America during slavery were not
compensated for their work during that time period.
• Since slaves were not paid they were not able to pass on their wealth to their
children like White slave owners were able too.
• Slaves were not able to educate themselves so they could not pass down knowledge
to their children such as financial resources, loop holes in the system, investment
ideas, and the like.
• Because minorities could not pass down wealth and knowledge to their children for
the future generations living conditions for them is not so good for them as it is for
the ancestors of passed slave owners. As it shows today, Whites are living better in
America than other races.

3. • The median net worth of Black households was $2,200,compared with a median net
worth of $97,900 for white households...in 2001.
• The median net worth for a Black household was $12,500, $124,600 for a white one.
As one can see the net worth of these households increase over the years but there is
still a huge gap between the households of Blacks and Whites.
• Roughly 11 percent of African- American homeowners are in or are facing imminent
foreclosure,...1.1 million Black families will lose their homes by 2012. By comparison,
just 7 percent of white homeowners are in foreclosure.
• From 2005 to 2009,median wealth plummeted 66 percent among Black households
and 31 percent among Asian households compared with 16 percent among White
households.
• A third of Black(35 percent) and Hispanic(31 percent) households had zero or
negative net worth, compared with 15 percent of white-households

5. • George W. Bush's Federal Tax Reform in 2005 with saving incentives that were told only to the
higher-income class.
• The wealthy do not pay their share of taxes and most of the tax burden are left on the middle
class.
• The wealthy are aware of tax loopholes and they exploit it each year and the lower class are not
informed of these holes in the system.
• The middle class never get a tax break ;however, the wealthy do even though they only pay one
percent of their taxes.
• Higher- income makers should pay more taxes because they have access to various resources
than lower income makers do and will be able to get back the money they lost during tax time.

6. • America as a whole did not get a tax break or a bail out from backed up bills ; however, the major
corporations and banks .
• The government used hard working tax payers money to bail out the corporations and banks
that they felt are an asset to them instead of using tax payers money to help out the public
during and after the recession
• When the government bailed out the major corporations it was the shareholders who became
even richer while, the middle class and poor grew poorer.
• Corporations major goal is no longer to benefit the people but to maximize the wealth of their
shareholders which is called shareholder primacy.
• America cannot grow strong together if corporations do not give back to the community and stop
focusing on shareholders’ wealth.
• Actions such as this leads layoffs, off shoring , outsourcing, and lower pay for workers. All to
keep shareholders happy. Reckless actions such as this increases America’s wealth gap.

7. • Mitt Romney held two fundraisers at which he raised almost $10 million from the oil and gas
industry and then announced that as president he would end more than 100 years of federal
restraint of oil and gas drilling on public lands.
• Supply-side economics the theory embraced by President Ronald Reagan that the more you cut
taxes, the more tax revenue...Cutting taxes, especially at the top, would spark such economic
growth that people's incomes would rise even faster than their tax rates would fall.
• George W. Bush’s decision to finance the war on Iraq by using tax payers dollars to find weapons
of mass destruction which never existed which many Americans are still suffering from until this
day.
• Although the democrats try to benefit the public it is negated by the Republicans who are
legislators.
• Political faces favor the wealthy and how they can increase their wealth and limit the wealth of
the rest.

8. • Educate one’s self and major in entrepreneurship
because it will help create more jobs.
• Get rid of shareholders in the corporations so that
businesses can go back to the days when it was all about
the wellness of the people.
• Let the rich pay more taxes.
• Manage the capitalist system better or create a new
system.