ADDRESSING THE FORCES DRIVING INEQUALITY IN THE UNITED STATES

Health System Reform in the United States

In 2010, the United States adopted its first-ever comprehensive set of health system reforms in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Implementation of the law, though politically contentious and controversial, has now reached a stage where reversal of most elements of the law is no longer feasible. The controversial portions of the law that expand affordable health insurance coverage to most U.S. cit...

Wealth Inequality in the United States

■ Abstract Wealth ownership in the United States has long been concentrated in the hands of a small minority of the population, yet researchers have paid relatively little attention to the causes and consequences of this inequality. In this essay, we review the literature that does exist on wealth accumulation and distribution. We begin with an examination of the reasons that wealth inequality ...

Happiness Inequality in the United States

This paper examines how the level and dispersion of self-reported happiness has evolved over the period 1972–2006. While there has been no increase in aggregate happiness, inequality in happiness has fallen substantially since the 1970s. There have been large changes in the level of happiness across groups: two-thirds of the black-white happiness gap has been eroded, and the gender happiness ga...

Inequality in the United States Healthcare System

Race, Education Attainment, and Happiness in the United States

Background and aims: As suggests by the Minorities’ Diminished Returns (MDR) theory, educationattainment and other socioeconomic status (SES) indicators have a smaller impact on the health andwell-being of non-White than White Americans. To test whether MDR also applies to happiness, in thepresent study, Blacks and Whites were compared in terms of the effect of education attai...