The last two articles defined plutocracy and then how that with income inequality impacts the economy. Now, the immense divide in income inequality obstructs social mobility, destroying hopes for the American Dream.

Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times reports, “Income inequality produces stagnating wages for middle- and working-class employees […] causing low growth and less employment […] which create obstacles to social mobility.” Social mobility is the ability for any citizen to move about the low, middle, and upper classes—also thought of as the American Dream. Americans left and right chant the rule: any citizen who works hard and earns a quality education can get a job, earn a living, and live a successful life.

But believers that education is the way out of abject poverty are mistaken. It is true that on average higher levels of education correlates to higher incomes, but that does not apply completely to the extreme poor. As David Rohde reports in Reuters, the average income of the bottom fifth of Massachusetts households dropped nine percent in the last 20 years despite a 7.5 percent increase in bachelor’s degrees while the top quintile gained a 17 percent income increase with higher attainments in education.

Even higher education levels cannot fill the income gap or help break the cycle of poverty. Across the nation since 1989, 43 states saw increases in poverty, median incomes fell in 28 states, and the top quintile in every state made far greater income gains than any other quintile. If this continues, the classes are going to become more polarized, and the middle class will continue to shrink—creating less room for Americans to transition from working to wealthy quintiles. Income inequality is causing the middle class to disappear, and is creating a binary class system: the extremely privileged and incredibly poor.

As the middle-class shrinks, it becomes difficult for the poor to escape the cycle of poverty. President Obama stated, “A child born in the top 20% has about a 2-in-3 chance of staying at or near the top. A child born into the bottom 20% has a less than 1-in-20 shot at making it to the top."

The difference in income between the top and bottom classes makes it almost impossible for average and poor Americans to socially mobilize. Since the government of the past three decades cut spending so the privileged have more income caused funding for social programs to plunge.

Kristina Cooke published in Reuters, “America has slashed the number of people on cash welfare by two-thirds since 1996.” Social programs, like welfare, are not much of a part of the incoming plutocracy’s agenda. Politicians are starting to mimic President Herbert Hoover’s idea of rugged individualism where it is the individual’s responsibility—not the government’s—to find ways to improve his/her life. It cannot be forgotten, though, that Black Tuesday, the start of the Great Depression, happened under Hoover in 1929 where income inequality was at its highest peak until this trend.

When income inequality prevents the poor from breaking the poverty cycle, the consequences affects the American people. Richard Wilkinson, a social epidemiologist, found lifespans for the rich are longer than the poor. The supply of medicine is available, but the prices are out of range for poor Americans—decreasing healthcare access for lower quintiles and shortening lifespans.

Wilkinson also found due to high rates of income inequality, the United States ranks among the top in rates of imprisonment, homicides, mental illness, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, and obesity. The United States places among the worst in math and literacy rates among developed nations, life expectancy, social mobility, and child well-being.

When income inequality does not help the poor, it does not help America. The government has been giving money back to the affluent and not the Americans who need it most. The wealthiest one percent do not subsidize colleges, food stamps, child care, housing facilities, or projects to gentrify neighborhoods that resemble Dresden after being bombed in 1945. The gap between privileged and poor must close for the good of all Americans.

Income inequality turns the nation into a plutocracy so the affluent can influence the legislature, control the economic system, and maintain all wealth. The other three-hundred million Americans are left to struggle.

Among developed nations, the social divide in the United States is among the world’s worst, causing less people to mobilize from the bottom classes to the top. If income inequality is not fought and America becomes a complete plutocracy like it is now, the few rich will stay rich and the majority poor will remain poor.

To eliminate extreme income inequality, the electorate must vote for progressive candidates trusted to represent all Americans, not the top one percent. Politicians, like Senator Bernie Sanders, suggests ending income inequality entails a higher minimum wage, a progressive estate tax, job creation, trade outsourcing policies reversed, equal pay between men and women, public colleges made tuition free, healthcare and childcare guaranteed, unions expanded, and massive financial institutions broken up.

The hundreds of millions of middle and working class Americans must advocate these policies to finally terminate income inequality, make the incoming plutocracy help rebuild the middle and boost the lower classes, and create a government that works for all Americans. The government should benefit the entire public, or as President Theodore Roosevelt stated, “The government is us; we are the government, you and I.”