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Sydney Brooks
Cornelius- 3rd Hour
Honors Junior English
April 14th, 2014
The Heartbreaking Unequal Distribution of Wealth in America
(Wealth, Power, and Poverty)

The distribution of wealth in America is drastically unequal. I am hoping to successfully
analyze the economic disparity of the United States of America in five different quintiles: The
lowest fifth, second fifth, middle fifth, fourth fifth, and the highest fifth. In the first part of this
essay, I will discuss six different demographics pertaining to each of the five quintiles. Following
those statistics, I will evaluate the importance of each of the demographics and compare them
to how people act in life, such as in the movie Crash. I will also disclose how being exposed to
the movie Crash, The Power Game, and The One Percent documentary have changed my life
and how I view the world.
The first demographic presented is average annual income. The lowest of the quintiles,
or the poorest part of America makes about $12,000 in twelve months. The second fifth makes
an average of $30,000 a year. The middle fifth makes up to $50,000 annually. The average
income of the top 40%, or the fourth fifth, may bring in $100,000 a year. Finally, the average
income of the top fifth or top 20% in the United States makes $200,000-$300,000 (Perry, 2013).
That is leaving out that the mean annual income of the top one percent is over a million dollars
per year (Domhoff, 2005).

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The second demographic is racial background or ethnic group. The bottom quintile is
made up of about 75% White, 3% Asian, 20% Black, and 14% Hispanic people. The second
quintile consists of 82% White, 2% Asian, 15% Black, and 14% Hispanic. The middle fifth is 84%
White, 4% Asian, 12% Black, and 12% Hispanic. The fourth fifth is made up of about 85% White,
4% Asian, 9% Black, and 9% Hispanic. The top twenty percent is made up of about 87% White,
6% Asian, 6% Black, and 6% Hispanic (Current Population Survey (CPS), 2011).
Another important demographic is job/work status. In the lowest fifth of America, about
70% of the people do not have jobs and about 20% work full time. In the second quintile, about
45% of people work full time, but the same amount of people (43.5%) do not have work at all.
The middle quintile, or middle class, has an unemployment rate of 30%. Sixty one percent of
people that have full time jobs in the middle class. The fourth fifth of the United States consists
of about 75% of people that have full time jobs. In the top quintile, 80% of people work full
time, while about 13% do not work (Perry, 2013).
The fourth demographic is the marital status of citizens in each quintile. Out of all
households in the United States, about 50% are owned or rented by married couples, 5% are
single male families, and 13% are single female families. In the bottom quintile, roughly 17% of
homes are owned by married couples, 4% by single men, and 20% by single women. In the
second fifth, 36% of households are owned by married couples, 6% by single men, and 17%
single females. In the middle quintile, or middle class, a little over 48% of homes are occupied
by married people, 6% are single males, and 14% are single female families. The fourth quintile
has about 65% of the houses being owned by married people, 5% single male families, and 9%

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single female families. In the top quintile, over 80% of houses are owned by married couples,
4% by single males, and 5% by single females.
The fifth demographic I would like to present is the distribution of age in each quintile.
In the lowest quintile, 5,759 thousand householders are 15-34 years of age, 6,518 thousand
householders in the bottom fifth are 35-54 years old, 7,347 thousand householders are 55-74,
and 4,586 thousand householders are 75 and older. In the second quintile, 5,720 thousand are
15-34, 7,126 thousand houses are owned by people from the ages of 35-54, 55-74 year olds
make up 7,508 thousand households, people over 75 make up 3,865 thousand. In the middle
quintile, 5,795 thousand of the homeowners are 15-34, ages 35-54 make up 9,051 thousand of
houses, 7,433 thousand people ages 55-74 owns house, and 1,940 of the households are
owned by people over 75. In the fourth fifth of America, 5,198 thousand make up the 15-34 age
group, 10,391 thousand people are in the 35-54 group, the 55-74 age group owns 7,414
thousand homes, and 1,210 thousand houses are owned by people over 75. In the top 20% of
the United States, people ranging from 15 years old to 34 years of age make up about 3553
thousand households, 12,348 thousand houses in the top quintile are owned by people 35-54,
7,594 thousand homes are owned by people 55-74, and 725 thousand people over 75 own
households (Current Population Survey (CPS), 2011).
The last important demographic is education level of different quintiles. In the bottom
quintile, about 27% of people have less than a high school degree, 36% have a high school
diploma, 25% have some college and 13% have a Bachelors degree or more. In the second fifth
of the United States, 16% did not finish high school, 36% have their diploma, 30% have some
college, and 18% have at least a Bachelors degree. The middle class of America, has about 8%

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of people that did not complete high school, 30% with a diploma, 33% with some college, and
30% with a Bachelors degree or more. The fourth fifth has 4% of people who did not graduate,
21% with a high school diploma, 31% with some college experience, and 45% at least a
Bachelors degree, and the top quintile has only 1% of people who did not graduate high school,
8% with a high school diploma, 14% with some college experience, and 77% with at least a
Bachelors degree in college (Perry, 2013).
Now that we have discussed the demographics of income, racial or ethnic background,
job or work status, marital status, age, and education level, we can begin to analyze the
differences between quintiles. In all of the six demographics, the white, rich, and married
people have the advantages over everyone else. This is not right, but that is the way many
people are taught to think. Because of this, I have learned that I cannot blame people for
thinking what and how they do. Many people have strong opinions about how everything
should be. In essence, that is not a bad thing as long as they can still see the other persons
point of view even if they do not agree with them.
After researching the six demographics, I have learned that life is not fair. Wealth being
unequally distributed is good in moderation. When one person is making $15,000 a year
working hard at their minimum wage job, not making nearly enough to support a family, and
another person is making a million dollars or more a year not doing much of anything, there is
something wrong. If a person is not born into a wealthy family and they are not given the same
chances as the wealthy, it is very hard for them to produce the same outcome of a person who
is born into a rich wealthy family with all of the connections that they could ever need.

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For this reason, people of different quintiles and backgrounds often have different views
of the world. A lot of the time they discriminate and look down upon each other, but they
simply cannot see that there is more than one side to every situation. People of higher quintiles
with more money in the household often have more opportunities. They receive better living
conditions, schooling, jobs, and are viewed as better or more valuable by the government. But
what happened to The American Dream? The American Dream is the idea that every person is
made equally, that everyone, even those who have no money, can be just as successful as those
who are born into a family with money. Is the American Dream really only a dream?
The Power Game was about power being distributed unfairly. Some people were
given an envelope with 1 power (poker chip) in it, while others had chips worth over a hundred
powers. The object of the game was to get more power. It was hard for anyone to get more
power because many people did not wish to give theirs up. However, some people were
charitable, which was how I increased from 4 to 10 powers. The game made everyone who was
at the bottom feel like they were not being treated fairly, and everyone at the top feel good
because they had all of the power, and therefore control.
The movie Crash had many different characters in it. Some characters were very poor
while others were wealthy. All of them had different jobs, were at different ages, had different
backgrounds, and had different views of the world. The movie was very much like real life in the
ways that people reacted in different situations. The stereotypes that members of different
groups had of each other greatly affected the way the people reacted. Many people can not put
aside the cultural stereotypes as well as preconceptions and treat everyone as an individual

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person. Most people do not recognize that their may be another side to the story, or that there
may be good reasons that the person acts the way that they do.
In the movie, the non-racist police officers name was Tom Hansen, actor Ryan
Phillipe. In the beginning of the movie, Hansens partner the racist police officer, John Ryan,
sexually assaults a black woman in front of her husband. Officer Hansen thinks that his partner
is a terrible person so he asks to be given a single car. Later in the movie, Tom Hansen proves to
think stereotypically about an innocent black man when character, Peter Waters, needs a ride
one night. Hansen picks him up because it is cold outside, but he is nervous because Peter is
black. Officer Hansen has a little statue on the dashboard. When Peter sees it he is excited to
show the officer that he has the same figurine, but when he reaches into his pocket to get it
out, Hansen assumes Peter is reaching for a gun. Hansen shoots and kills Peter Waters. Officer
Hansen then proceeded to push Peters body out of the car, drive the car down the road, and
set it on fire. Hansens racial assumptions cost Peter his life.
The racist police officer, John Ryan, has done and seen many bad things in his life. The
assault in the beginning of the movie is just one example something terrible that he did. His
character changed majorly at the end of the movie when he saves Christine Thayers life. He
comes across a car accident and goes to help. One of the cars is catching on fire. The person has
already been removed from the first car and is fine. In the other car, Officer Ryan finds the very
woman that he assaulted in the beginning. Mrs. Thayer is stuck in her car and Officer Ryan
decides to help her. Her car is leaking fuel. When the fuel catches on fire, the other firemen and
police officers pull Ryan out of the burning car, but Mrs. Thayer is still stuck inside. Most
officers would have given up right then and backed away from the car. Ironically, Officer Ryan

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jumps back into the flames, risking his life to save her. They both escape just three seconds
before the car explodes. It took a lot of courage for John Ryan to save that woman, but that
does not necessarily mean that he has totally changed for the better. Maybe the experience
caused him to live a better life, but he may have just gone on living the same way he was
before.
The things that make people different like money, education, jobs, and skin color, make
me notice that maybe people are not actually all that different. We are all very similar when it
comes to life-or-death situations. Everyone makes their own decisions and can choose whether
or not to recognize that there is a yellow side of the legal pad and that everyone sees things
differently for different reasons. We are all still people that do good things, make mistakes, and
deserve to be treated equally no matter what our monetary income or nationality is.