Spring of my junior year (2015), my economics teacher decided to show us a documentary. With my ignorance and still complete immature approach to real world situations I thought it would be another boring video we had to fill out a worksheet on while watching and turn it in for credit. But boy was I wrong. The documentary was called “Inequality For All.” Narrated by former Secretary of Labor, economist, and professor Robert Reich, you get a perspective by which many are never told: the truth. Watching the documentary changed my view forever. As soon as I watched it, it opened a room full of issues I had never paid attention to, and it is something I can’t unsee. The facts stated, and information presented will forever have me concerned and interested.

For millennials, I constantly see an error in judgement and information when it comes to topics like this. The economy and the one thing that always comes with it as a packaged deal: politics. Something everyone has an opinion on regardless of their intelligence on it. It is easy to misunderstand what is really happening. There were so many issues I’d hear about from either teachers or my parents that I never really understood or knew where the root of the problem came from. The film opened my eyes to see why and how everything has been happening the way it is.

While “Inequality For All” was made three years ago, the issues are still just as prominent. The film takes you on a roller coaster of economic concerns of the decades of U.S history. The main idea the creators are trying to get across is the income gap is widening and how it is hurting ourselves and our economy. It talks about right before both the crash of 1929 (the great depression) and the crash of 2008 (the great recession) the income inequality in our country was the highest it had ever been. It really gets you thinking and wondering how big of an issue this really is.There is no believing there isn’t a problem after watching this film.

Reich is seen teaching his lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, showing graphics of the decades of a widening gap and flat wages. The film isn’t hard to comprehend which is why everyone should watch it. I’ve watched certain films on the economy before and it’s almost as if they want to speak in terms that make the average American feel less intelligent or less likely to understand what is occurring. Every fact is laid out on the table plain and simple easy for anyone to get it.

Now as politics were stated before, this documentary is completely non-partisan, while certain administrations and policies are thrown in there to complete the time frame, it sticks to all the facts: the economics. Which is why it is so truthful, it isn’t an opinion that is being stated over and over again.

So what’s really happening? Well, ever since the 1970s the rich is getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. I’m guessing a phrase everyone has heard in the election season (hint: Bernie Sanders). I wish I could say it is an overstated phrase, but sadly it is the brutal truth. The top 1 percent is occupying more than half the wealth of the United States. The problem is who cheating the game, who is playing it fairly and the effect it has on all of us.

Reich tries to implement the importance in every viewer’s head of how the middle class is shrinking and it is hurting our economy as a whole. The film connects with real people, presenting Americans who are middle class citizens making 50 thousand dollars a year to the top of the food chain, making over 10 million. It cites the issue with the taxing system and how it is working against the middle class and for the wealthy. For example, Nick Hanauer, an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, states how he made 10-30 million dollars the year prior and paid only 11 percent in taxes. Warren Buffett, the third richest person in the world, paid only 17.7 percent in taxes on an income of 86 billion dollars at the time. While some middle-class working Americans shown in the film had a tax rate of 33 percent. If you don’t see the issue with that you are completely blindsided. And if that doesn’t want to make you watch the documentary to see what is going on, I don’t know what would.

As I don’t want to give everything away, watch the documentary. It will make you see things in a new light that the media especially doesn’t always show. Again, it isn’t opinion based, it is fact based, and there is nothing more reliable than that. If you want to understand today’s economics and why our system is the way it is, and want some change in this country, take a second out of your day to view it, you will not regret it.