Why is it the poor gets poorer and the rich become richer?

Answer 1

~Ambition and intellegence, wise investments and control of production on the part of the rich. Ignorance, lassitude, and the "the world owes me a living" attitude of the poor. The Horatio Alger myth always was a myth, but every once in awile a Bill Gates comes along to keep it alive.

Answer 2

Rich get Richer and Poor get Poorer

In today's world people want to be healthy, happy and well educated and most want to own some type of capital. They also want to be well paid for the work that they do and they prefer to pay as little tax as possible. While everybody is happier when the rate of inflation is low and when the economy is growing and everyone is getting better off. In booming economic times, such as we recently have enjoyed, the only problem is that "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer." Because company profits have been down but the head executives are still getting all the perks, like, stock options, and bonuses that's ... Showed first 120 words of 1218 Size (words) ...

Or you can equally take this.

Rich get richer, poor get poorer...

Class Mobility within America - The mythology surrounding Horatio Alger is a powerful force within American culture: the idea that anyone can pull oneself up by the bootstraps to become financially successful. Surprising research by statistician Miles Corak shows that Americans have no more income mobility than Europeans — contradicting cultural presumptions of egalitarianism — and even less than Scandinavian countries, despite their heavy taxation. Marketing slowly meets reality in the American Dream...

Answer 3

Your statement is not very clear. Do you mean people in the same country or countries. In either case you statement in general it is not correct.

In the first case, for people in the same country, this is not always the case and you should examine each country seperately. In EU countries for example, the poor people are getting richer (not rich) through large benefits, subsidies and grants. In other countries I do not know if this is the case.

Again if you examine the first world and the thrid world countries again is not correct. If you look through the OECD ranking (which have qualitative data) and World Bank's data (purely economical data) the third world countries are actualy getting richer.

The problem is that the other countries or the other people are getting richer much faster. Think about it, you have 100$ to invest with an premium of 10% so you will have a profit of 10$ in a year. Another person is poor and has only 10$ to invest with the same premium. In one year he will have a profit of only 1$.

My point is that you refer to money and money has value and buying power. The poor are getting richer but not as fast as the rich so they keep having problems buying the goods the later can buy. You wealth also pushes the prices up so it is harder for them to reach you.

Neverthelles the best source to look at the subject is the OECD index that takes under consideration education quality, healthcare, quality of public services etc. OECD index shows that third world countries are improving, slowly but improving. The problem is that the rest of the countries are improving much faster so the third world can not become competitve.

Answer 4

The rich get richer because it takes money to make money. If you start off with a million bucks, the interest alone would $50K a year (based on a very modest 5% return).

The poor get poorer is subjective - however, if you are only making enough to just get by, you will never get ahead.

Answer 5

Because rich people know how to make money and poor people don't. That's how they got to be rich and poor in the first place. :)

That's the facetious answer. Actually the truth is more complex. People look at numbers about "the rich" and "the poor" and assume the people in these categories are the same people from year to year. They aren't. People are moving around those categories all the time. As you get older you tend to accumulate wealth, so the same person who was "poor" when he was 19 can be "rich" by the time he's 50. It works the other way too; people can have a period of prosperity when they are "rich" and then a business downturn makes them "poor." People who make a lot of money over their lifetimes tend to experience more ups and downs, because of the greater risk involved. So the idea of a permanent, unchanging group of "rich" people who exploit a similarly static group of "poor" is an error, fostered by ignorance of economics and statistics, and propagated by equally economically illiterate media coverage.

Answer 6

'Cause it takes money to make money.
The most profitable ways to get richer involve investing money in places that pay high rates of returns -- stocks, for example. People with disposable income can do that, poor people with no disposable income cannot. It's really that simple.

Many poor people *could* put aside at least a little money (even 5 dollars a month is a start), but they have never had the kind of financial education that would let them take advantage of the investment opportunities available to them. That's the real shame. All it takes to have significant savings is to start with SOMETHING, no matter how small, and consistently add to it. It may take many years, but the money will grow even in a crummy bank savings account...

Answer 7

The rich are naturally good at attracting wealth into their lives. The poor are not good at all at attracting wealth into their lives. You could take all the worlds weath and distribute it equally and in a few months to a year the rich would be rich again and the poor would be poor again. If you want wealth, you have to work at it, just like anything worth having in life. Its a lot easier to be poor, you just don't do anything to benefit yourself and expect the government to take care of you. If the government really wanted to help, they would do away with welfare programs and put the money into educating the poor. Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime.

Answer 8

It is very expensive to be poor, leaving no money to become rich. The ONLY reason there are poor people is because there are rich people. This earth has plenty of resources but the hoarding of resources creates poverty in some and wealth in others. Greed. Why is everyone not in a constant state of outrage? Why is even one person allowed to die of hunger? We live in a very privileged society in America but it is at the cost of many who suffer and, now, a good many of our own people are visibly poor.

Answer 9

The rich have greater control of resources. It often takes surplus resource to create ones own opportunities to make money. The poor are not only lacking in the ability to "spend money to make money", but they also lack the connections rich people often have to get resources at a below market cost.

Also, the rich have greater political clout by virtue of their positions in communities. This allows them to encourage law that favors thos who are already wealthy. Some examples might be laws restricting overtime pay or laws giving tax breaks to a wealthy tax bracket.

Answer 10

It's a fact:

If you have money, it's easier to make money.

The sad fact is once those rich people have money, they hog it instead of helping the poor. Honestly, if I had a billion dollars, I know I couldn't spend it all, so I would hand some down, it's just a shame that not many rich people care.