Analytical Thinking Exercise

Find Figure 16-2 in your text and look at the array of income inequalities that exist in the United States. Describe the ratio of rich to poor in the U.S. by looking at which percentage of the public receive which levels of income. What percent of total national income is received by the bottom 20 percent of people? What percent of total national income is receive by the top 5% of people in the U.S.? Are you comfortable with the gap between these two sectors and the knowledge that the gap is widening?
Look at Figure 16-4 in your text and answer the following questions about information contained in it: a) what forms of federal welfare spending are the most costly? b) does the data presented in this figure support the claim that welfare does not go to the truly needy? c) did the information from this table present a new perspective to what you already knew about federal spending?
Use the analytical thinking format from Chapter One of this Study Guide to discuss the reading "Saving Social Security" by Robert Reischauer. How does information presented in this article square with that presented in Chapter Sixteen?

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