1. “YOU’RE THE ECONOMIST: Pulling Back the Curtain on Income and Wealth Distribution” in Chapter 12. After reading the above case, answer the following two questions: (1) What would happen to the Lorenz curve if it also included wealth distribution? (2) Do you think income and wealth are fairly or unfairly distributed? Should we be concerned with this issue? If you think we should be concerned with growing income and wealth inequality, what remedies would you recommend?

2. Read the assigned Scriptures and use them, or other relevant Scriptures, to discuss what the Bible says about the rich and the poor? What are the differences between the roles of the government in helping the poor in the Bible and the market economy?

Each question should be 250 words

Answer  preview

An economist like Professor Robert Reich has demonstrated concerns regarding the increased rate of income and wealth inequality. With time, the expansion of inequality in society may pose a threat to the economy. From his perspective, inequality is a threat to the economy since when people lack the income to spend, the economy contracts due to less spending (Tucker, 2012). As observed in a specific region, the Lorenz curve establishes how income or wealth is unequally distributed. As illustrated in the case study, wealth compared to income is more unequally distributed and is concentrated in a population of the selected few. If wealth were included in the Lorenz curve, in my view, it would portray a disproportionately larger percentile of approximately ten percent of the wealthy population compared to the same percentage of people at the bottom.

679  words