Cotye Allen

ENG 170-31

Dylan Haughton

6th March 2023 

Equality Manifesto

Everyone has a different situation. Whether that be wealthy or poor, sickly or healthy, all of that boils down to the luck our universe dishes out. However, what is provided to an individual without resources that others have access to can change one’s opportunity to make their life easier to live, as well as make our society a better one. Equality is the most important thing to obtain, and if done so, we will be one step closer to achieving utopia. 

Our world is founded on knowledge, so it is important that everyone gets an education. Without learning, there would be no progression to our society nor technology. Though one is provided years of free education throughout elementary and highschool, it is important to note that such education is only a foundation. From kindergarten to senior year, one is learning the basics of several subjects and learning what they enjoy doing or are good at. However, it provides little to no opportunities for one to actually hone a skill- including those considered very valuable- without furthering their education through college or trade schools. What is the purpose of introducing students to potential skills they could enhance without providing the means to do it? Many people cannot afford higher education, and so they don’t get it. Several individuals want to increase their knowledge or skills on what they found interest in, but money is an obstacle for them.  It delivers a belief that only those with money are allowed access to further information or skill, which is in some form true. If a financially unstable family somehow is able to get their child through college, many are still stuck with gross amounts of debt after the schooling period is over. 20% of all American adults reported having outstanding undergraduate debt, as well as 7% having outstanding post-graduate debt. Despite those percentages seeming small in comparison to the 100%, keep in mind that just 1% of the American population is around 3 million people, and a great percentage of Americans never attend college or obtain a degree in the first place, likely because of the dooming notion of needing to pay off debt. (educationdata.org)

When taking into consideration the large sum of the population who can’t afford their education, it makes job requirements that much more daunting. Nearly 60% of jobs in the U.S require you to have a form of higher education. (americanradioworks.publicradio.org) Taking a step back to look at the current set-up of our country, a job is required to make money and live. But in order to get that job, you need to have an education. However, that education is not freely provided to you and you have to pay loads of money in order to attend and continue paying off that money into your work life afterwards where you are meant to be getting money to build your future. So all in all,  you need money to make money and need the money you make to pay off the money you still haven’t paid off AND to get yourself a place to live, eat, pay bills, and of the sort. In what world does that make sense? How does one expect someone to make enough money to live comfortably and pay off the education required for them to get a stable job. Many jobs are also important to the progression of our society, such as the manufacturing of various types of technology or treating diseases. So why is it not a priority to make sure there are as many of these people as possible? It is known that there has been a doctor shortage within the 2000’s and one of those reasons is the cost of all the education needed to become a doctor. (nationalreview.com) The average doctor holds around $200,000 in student debt just so they can learn the necessary skills or receive the certifications to essentially save peoples lives. (educationdata.org)

So what do I propose is done about this absurdity in our education system? I say that all undergraduate education, trade school education as well, should be free. Anything in the medical field or that which is deemed highly important to our society should be free above an undergraduate degree. This includes engineering, all forms of health-related degrees, and education degrees. This gives all an ample opportunity to garner skills or degrees in what is necessary for them to work the job they want, as well as prioritizes the skills that are most valuable. Yes there would be favoritism for certain degrees, however the main goal is to triage that which will keep our society progressing and healthy over what is not necessarily the most vital to living. I believe that this system would be a lot more fair in terms of educating our youth who are responsible for building our world’s future.

As stated previously, being a doctor is one of the most important jobs one can have. And the reason for that is because health is a vital thing to our being. Just as it is necessary for our mind to grow with knowledge, it is necessary for our minds- and the body that contains it- to be healthy. It should be a priority for the people of our country to be in top shape, as a healthy person: is educated easier, produces finer work, and brings more improvement to the world. The toll for bad health has a clear impact on the workplace and in school, which shows how paramount it is to our future as a society. 

When mental health goes untreated, students face a variety of issues in the core years of their development. “Left unaddressed, students with mental health challenges can experience multiple negative outcomes in their young life, including trouble making friends, learning, concentrating, and completing work as well as poor grades, absences, suspension, expulsion, and suicide.” (groveslearning.org) This statement defines the impact that bad mental health has on a child in school. A student’s grades and life in school is a definitive formation of their future, as jobs are even harder to obtain without a highschool diploma than a degree which you cannot get either without a highschool diploma or by passing a GED test permitting you have the equivalent education to a highschool graduate. 

Many neglected health issues carry on into adulthood as well. It is proven that these issues negatively impact the workplace, and lowers the individual’s quality of work. “Nearly 1 in 5 US adults aged 18 or older (18.3% or 44.7 million people) reported any mental illness in 2016. In addition, 71% of adults reported at least one symptom of stress, such as a headache or feeling overwhelmed or anxious.” (cdc.gov) This clarifies that there is a large handful of people dealing with mental illness, which shows that it is not a small issue one can ignore. Further into the article, it states that many of those affected by mental health disorders also need treatment for physical health conditions. Heart disease, diabetes, respiratory illness, ecs. Are all conditions that need treatment, and those that double mental and health disorders are 2 to 3 times higher cost as compared to having either or. When combining services for mental and physical health, the United States could save $37.6 billion to $67.8 billion a year. In addition, about 63% of Americans are part of the US labor force, where one’s wellness is important to productivity due to it containing physical labor and having untreated joint pain decreases the speed one is able to work as well as what the individual is capable of.

When you take into consideration how important health is to our functioning in daily routines like learning and labor, treatment for anything inhibiting a person’s health should be seen as a worthwhile investment. One would think that treatments would be affordable, given how valuable an able body is. However, there is a large amount of people who cannot afford treatment for these issues. “Overall, 16.9% of Americans report at least 1 financial barrier. Among those with private insurance, the poor (28.4%), near poor (24.3%), and those with functional impairments (22.9%) were more likely to report avoiding care due to cost.” (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) Because of the lack of affordability, a grand portion of people don’t get treatment with the belief that the cost will be too much for them to afford. If so many people are neglecting their health for the unaffordability, then those same people are going into work and performing poorly- or are completely unable to go into work at all- because they are not being attended to. Due to the importance of health, healthcare should be free for all. Any surgery- including gender affirming surgeries, therapy, or doctor’s visit should not have a price tag on it for those seeking treatment and instead should be fully paid for by the government. Though this will seem  pricey, increased productivity in the workforce will better the economy and the minds of our young will be able to flourish.

To achieve free healthcare and education, there is one sure thing and that is the effect the government’s funding of them would have on taxes. Without action, the taxes likely would be raised for everyone. But there is a solution that wouldn’t greatly affect the taxes on lower income households, and that is an implementation of a wealth tax. The richest 1 percent garnered roughly twice the amount as the rest of the world combined between the years 2020 and 2022. “A tax of up to 5 percent on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7 trillion a year, enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty.” (reliefweb.int) This clearly defines just how much more wealthy individuals make when compared to those in the other 99%. Money that is more often than not used by the rich to buy second or third homes could be put back into our country to give thousands of people the opportunity at just one home as well as more equal opportunities such as education which is behind a financial barrier. “Elite taxation can change the distribution of income in society, support equitable growth, and finance public goods and services that improve the quality of life for everyone.” (equitablegrowth.org) It is commonly agreed that placing taxes on those who are extraordinarily rich would have a lot of benefits for our society, giving all a more equal standard of living. A wealth tax would be a reasonable resolution, and has been proposed in other instances by people such as Bernie Sanders and Elizbeth Warren. In those, taxes would be applied to the assets of the mega-rich as opposed to the income from wealth. However, in my proposal I would say that both assets and income wealth would need to be taxed. The rate at which one who is considered to be in the 1% of mega-rich would be taxed at higher rates. “According to a 2021 White House study, the wealthiest 400 billionaire families in the US paid an average federal individual tax rate of just 8.2 percent. For comparison, the average American taxpayer in the same year paid 13 percent.” (oxfamamerica.org) Within the same article, it mentions that the 25 richest Americans paid $13.6 billion in taxes from 2014-2018 with a tax rate of only 3.4 percent on a $401 billion income. These statements show that the rich are unfairly being taxed lower than the income of the average, lower income, household and therefore the taxation rate should be raised for them. Assets would need to be taken into consideration and taxed more accordingly, however the greatest issue is the income tax rate which should be the priority and the majority of where the taxing is done. With a few number changes, it could be the start of demolishing the current inequalities of the current system.

 

Overall, I truly believe with each of these steps will come improvement. Some of the happiest places in the world including Finland, Denmark, and Norway have access to free healthcare and education, which says a lot to how valuable such change could be for the United States or any other country. (cnbc.com) An equal country is a happy country, and a happy country is what I consider to be utopia. 

 

Work Cited:

“4 Out of 10 Americans Can’t Access Mental Health Care When They Need…” Fountain House, 30 Aug. 2022, https://www.fountainhouse.org/news/4-out-of-10-americans-cant-access-mental-health-care-when-they-need-it-community-based-support-is-an-immediate-solution. 

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Hanson, Melanie, and Fact Checked. “Average Medical School Debt [2023]: Student Loan Statistics.” Education Data Initiative, 1 Jan. 2023, https://educationdata.org/average-medical-school-debt. 

Hanson, Melanie, and Fact Checked. “Student Loan Debt Statistics [2023]: Average + Total Debt.” Education Data Initiative, 10 Feb. 2023, https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-statistics. 

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“The Many Ways to Tax the Rich.” Tax Policy Center, 31 Mar. 2022, https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/many-ways-tax-rich. 

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