Wealth inequality in the United States has been growing at an alarming rate since the nineteen seventies (Friedman). This wealth inequality is commonly referred to as the wealth gap, which is the difference in wealth between social classes. Naturally you would expect the upper-class to have more wealth than that of the underclasses, and in an ideal society this difference would be a positively sloped line which starts at the poor and leads to the wealthy. Imagining this ideal distribution of wealth should come naturally to anyone who has heard of the American dream. The ideal positively sloped line is the ladder to success that anyone who has the disciple, morals, and luck may climb. However, something happened in the late twentieth century that has turned the American dream truly into a dream. The wealth gap has become so large between the upper and the lower-classes that the ladder to success is almost impossible to climb (“Middle”). Wealth inequality in the United States is now responsible for negative and drastic effects on social issues such as social relations, human capital, and general health. In the late seventies and early eighties the United States embraced a form economics known as “The Trickledown Effect,” which gave tax breaks to the upper-class while continuing taxation on the under-classes (Neuman). In theory, the wealthy would re-invest their lucrative earnings back into the economy, thusly, jobs for the middle-class would be created, allowing a more prosperous way of life. However, globalization was about to change all that. Globalization allowed the wealthy to take their ever increasing wealth and invest it into foreign markets. These foreign markets produced the same products, which originally would have been made in the United States, at a fraction of the cost. Consequently, the rich became even richer while leaving the other eighty percent of Americans to squabble over the dwindling jobs while paying higher taxes (Richardson). The need for a rich and thriving middle class is paramount to the success of the nation’s economy. A healthy middle class provides the work force for large corporations and manufactures, while also being the number one consumer of products. This consumption nets sixty five percent of profits seen in our economy (Epstein). According to ex-secretary of state Robert Reich, salaries of the middle calls have been stagnate since the late nineteen seventies, and in some cases have even decreased, meanwhile the cost of higher education and property has more than tripled (Reich). Our ever weakening middle class has amplified the decaying state of our social relations within the United States. The human capital of societies, in which there is a large wealth gap, is becoming less and less valuable. This is because the Un