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Cassie Normand Professor Martha Gardner LIB.133.G April 27, 2013 Inequality in the United States In the United States, inequality has been promoted by globalization. During the time of the Bracero Program thousands of Mexican men and their families were mistreated my American farmers. Major corporations like Walmart, Electrolux, Hostess/Wonder Bread and Coca Cola have helped in the process of promoting this inequality. The CEOs receive more money every year while the employees dont get anymore despite the sinking economy. This has caused an increasing income gap between the rich and the average man. As Henry Kissinger said, What is called globalization is really just another name for the dominant role of the United States. Globalization has caused the average man in the United States to suffer. In the United States we have taken advantage of Mexican population. This is shown in the documentary The Harvest of Loneliness: The Bracero Program. During the time of braceros farmers took advantage of the fact that they were willing to work for almost nothing so that they could send every penny back to their families in Mexico. And in a lot of cases that is exactly what did occur. These men would work all day for these farmers and receive maybe a penny to a few dollars a week and very poor living quarters. Sometimes they had to share a tin hut with hundreds of other men in the dead heat of summer and cook their dinners outside with a campfire because they were not provided with a kitchen area. The Bracero Program was set up to provide

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these men with work and fair living and it was not upheld. If a bracero was to pass away while in the United States compensation money was supposed to be sent back to the family in Mexico of the man who died. In a lot of cases that money was never sent and the wives were left with nothing. Despite the program being put in place to prevent the mistreatment of the braceros farmers used them and treated them like they werent even human beings. The United States has become the lead country in the world in globalization. But because of this the people, the workers of the United States have suffered. The United States is known for its outsourcing. This is discussed in Is Walmart Good for America?. To make more money Walmart started to outsource to China where labor was cheaper which caused the companies that sell to Walmart to either open factories in China or lose Walmart as a buyer and potentially lose their company. This is seen when Rubbermaid had to sell their original factory. Big companies like Walmart have influenced American to use, the globalization if advocates as justification for keeping workers jobs insecure, pay and benefits relatively low. (434, Powell and Udayakumar) Walmart has had its problems in the past with its employees. Even though the company makes a large sum of money per year its employees receive very low wages and almost no benefits as far as health care and the like. So even though those at the top of the company are continuing to make more and more money those and the bottom, the employees that work in the actual stores dont receive a part of that pay boost. This happens in a lot of companies in the United States and is why globalization might not be whats actually best for the majority of the people in the United States. The United States as a whole hasnt done so bad as far as economic growth in the most recent years but as to where that growth is going to is the issue at hand. In 2010, the top 1 percent of Americans captured 93 percent of the income gains. (2, Porter) If almost all the

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growth goes towards the one percent and only seven percent goes to the entire rest of the ninetynine percent then there is a major issue. The rich are just becoming richer and the poor are becoming poorer as prices rise. In the United States there is a large income gap between the average man and the top one percent. Companies, such as Walmart for example, have helped keep this gap where it is. They outsource, which hurts local American manufacturers, so that they can get their products through cheap labor and therefore make more of a profit. But they dont share this increase in profit with the working man it stays within the top one percent. This is also shown when braceros would come over from Mexico and the American farmers would pay them ridiculously low wages for back breaking work.

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Works Cited Harvest of Loneliness: The Bracero Program. Dir. Gilbert Gonzalez and Vivian Price. Films for the Humanities and Science, 2010. DVD. Is Walmart Good for America? Dir. Rick Young. Frontline and Hedrick Smith Productions, 2004. Online. Porter, Eduardo. "Inequality Undermines Democracy." Race, Class, and Gender in the United States: An Integrated Study. By Paula S. Rothenberg. New York: St. Martin's, 1998. 2. Print. Powell, John A., and S. P. Udayakumar. "Race, Poverty and Globalization." Race, Class, and Gender in the United States: An Integrated Study. By Paula S. Rothenberg. New York: St. Martin's, 1998. 434. Print.