Because the rich have the connections and possibilities to insulate themselves into a closed world. And if you once are poor, you have nearly no chance to change your status by own force.

Because the rich have the connections and possibilities to insulate themselves into a closed world. And if you once are poor, you have nearly no chance to change your status by own force.

Good question.

Well, on this question we can go throw some points like captalism, opportunities of study, culture and etc.

Critics argue that capitalism is associated with the unfair distribution of wealth and power; a tendency toward market monopoly or oligopoly (and government by oligarchy); imperialism, counter-revolutionary wars and various forms of economic and cultural exploitation; repression of workers and trade unionists, and phenomena such as social alienation, economic inequality, unemployment, and economic instability. Critics have argued that there is an inherent tendency toward oligopolistic structures when laissez-faire is combined with capitalist private property. Capitalism is regarded by many socialists to be irrational in that production and the direction of the economy are unplanned, creating many inconsistencies and internal contradictions and thus should be controlled through public policy.

The radical upward redistribution of wealth and income as a result of neoliberal economic policies.

Few reasons are:

1. Faulty economic policies

2. Poor governance

3. Greed of the rich people

4. Fate of the poor people

5. Etc. ... .

Basically the main reason for this is 

The rich try to become more rich by any means which is proving to be a fatal factor for the poor to become more poorer.

I hope all the rich people try to maintain their calm and try to improve the economic position of the poor by either helping them financially or donating the things which are a daily must for a common man's livelihood

I agree with dr. Krieger: the rich have increased power and access to information and opportunities, while the poor are stuck in the poverty trap and cannot release easily by themselves...they need financial help and wise socio-economic policies and strategies...

It is simply because of more resources with richer to protect them and venture in more risky ways of enhancing their wealth as compared to poor's. Thanks

Dear @Pahlaj, we do have a gap between poor and rich at  the level of nation, within country, among countries ... which bring us to the global issue that you have raised! "There are many reasons for economic inequality within societies, and they are often interrelated. Acknowledged factors that impact economic inequality include, but are not limited to:

Inequality in wages and salaries;

The income gap between highly skilled workers and low-skilled or no-skills workers;

Wealth concentration in the hands of a few individuals or institutions;

Labor markets;

Globalization;

Technological changes;

Policy reforms;

Taxes;

Education;

Computerization and growing technology;

Racism;

Gender;

Culture;

Innate ability...."

It is clear that globalization tends to widen the gap between rich and poor!

https://www.boundless.com/sociology/textbooks/boundless-sociology-textbook/stratification-inequality-and-social-class-in-the-u-s-9/social-mobility-76/growing-gap-between-rich-and-poor-450-2081/

Greed.

In my opinion, the main reason behind the widening gap between rich & poor is that the systems all over the world are really capitalist. Such systems are actually managed by highly rich companies or families or persons and the “projected” politicians are true servants of the rich “elite”. If the rich has “a mountain of gold”, the greediness will push for acquiring a second mountain. Acquisition of more wealth is usually done by “smart” robbing from the poor, e.g. by an increasing the price of a basic commodity or a land or by raising taxes in such a way that guarantees harming the “non-rich” particularly.

Dear Nelson Orringer, you have very well answered my question, in one word  "Greed". 

Speaking about Globalization, Nikita Mikhalkov, world famous Russian film director has said about globalization: 'Globalization is very dangerous, we see where the world goes! You need to move from words to deeds. Small impact of words! We should not only defend but also to attack! It takes courage and incorruptibility of the wolf, the bear strength and cunning of fox! ' 

Fighting Globalisation will stop widening gap between rich and poor!

It is supposed that this happened accidentally and there exist not theories about a holistic design of this evolution (actually all relevant theories are marked as 'conspiracy theories'). If we bypass this not so irrelevant detail, then the reason is the old well known 'virtue of greed'.

I agree with almost all above answers, especially the "greed" aspect.

I add the lack of equity that is supposed to come from a void consciouness of aristotelic notion of justice: the middle way between  lack and excess, and the awareness that is better being unfair with ourselves than with others, although this is a complex practice due diverse belief systems. In Ethics to Nicomacus, Aristotle says that the best justice is someone elses"  justice. 

The image that we have about wealth and poverty. We all have some things that make us poor and rich people. By this reason a bad concept about it locks our mind to think that wealth or poverty is a measure of money.

That idea produces in our mind the thought about with money we can produce much more money and we cannot do anything without it. By this reason "poor people" can not see all its strengths to generate wealth and so they are focuses on obtain suficient money to survive one more day while rich people have another thinking... and after all our bigger force is what we think about ourselves.

The gap is the same as it has always been. The valuation system is severely flawed.

Dear Bradut,

Thank you so much for your very interesting answer. Could you kindly elaborate a bit about the flaws in the valuation system? 

Facts & figures confirm that there is a widening gap between rich & poor. As an old man, I have observed this as time passed by: In the 1960s, the average income of a poor family in my country was < 50 $/month while the average income of a rich family was ~ 150 $/month. At the moment, the average income of a poor family is less than 300$/month while the average income of a "rare" rich family is > 10,000 $/month.

This observation has similarities in most if not all countries. The link below explains why it is widening in the USA. Similar articles appeared about other countries.

http://www.salary.com/why-the-gap-between-rich-poor-is-widening/

The consequences of such trends are obvious! Rich Get Richer, Poor Get More Stress: Report Finds Growing Gap In Levels!

http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2015/02/rich-poor-stress-levels

The following document may be very helpful: How can ethical market economies be encouraged to help reduce the gap between rich and poor? "The world needs a long-term strategic plan for a global partnership between rich and poor. Such a plan should use the strength of free markets and rules based on global ethics. Conventional approaches to poverty reduction (technical assistance and credit) that work in low- and middle-income stable countries do not work in fragile countries, which need stability first."

http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/Global_Challenges/chall-07.html

Dear Pahlaj Moolio,

Sorry for the brief message but i had very little time when i wrote-it.

We assume the value of money is similar in all goods. We assume that the price of an asset is the market price. Here is the first flaw in valuation, as financial assets have a highly fluctuating value, and they support each-other in an almost closed circuit. This inflates the value of the assets being a sizable part of the fortune of the rich.

The second flaw in valuation is the utility related value. Owning a super-car has some utility, owning 100 has the same utility. So in economic terms value of a huge variety of goods is cut from its utility, especially for highly valuable goods. A family car has more utility than a super-car, but has less value. In these terms the rich have relatively the same utility as they always have compared to the poor. 

The third valuation flaw is generated by different values for the same utility. A mega-rich pays for one steak the equivalent of one month income of a poor person.  does that means that he makes use of the goods with the same efficiency?

In terms of needs and their satisfaction the gap is the same as it has always been. The advantages of being rich have not changed significantly, even if apparently the fortune value increases, as the rich get diminishing satisfaction returns for their money.

One simple example, for a poor person purchasing a 5000 USD used family car generates more satisfaction compared to a super-rich purchasing his 10'th 500.000 super-car because of diminishing satisfaction returns. Are super-rich happier? That's debatable.

What is true is that some measures, such as pro-capita income-earned as compared over time and among peoples can be fraught with biases and misunderstanding.

However, we can make important generalizations on certain facets of livelihood in any case.

In other words, the fog of memory over time and the fog among comparative variables  in practice are important to recognize, but evidence of increases in disparity among wealth-possessors in any society can lead to clear comparability, in general.

On the other hand, we can also use quality-of-life variables more effectively than monetary ones.

https://lemosandcrane.co.uk/resources/Social%20Indicators%20Research%20Measuring%20quality%20of%20life.pdf

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00352944

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00352944#page-1

A little, but I think "important" addition to my previous contribution, is: For a good comparison between the 1960s & the present time, I shall take a basic food as a sample. With income of < 50 $ /month, the poor family used to eat lamb meat 12-15 times/month then but with income of  < 300 $/month nowadays, the poor family "dreams!" of eating lamb meat once every 3 months. The rich family, on the other hand, was capable of buying 3 lambs/month then but it can buy 20 lambs/month now if it wants without frugality on other items. The gap has really widened enormously. 

Faulty and rich supportive policies, illiteracy, ignorance, etc are some factors/reasons behind widening gap between rich and poor.

One of the reasons: low accessibility to growth points by the poor

"Resources are enough in the world to meet the need of every one, not the greed".

Greedy and powerful people --- snatch the resources of less powerful people, and caused poverty and widens the gap.

To reduce that gap, the resources must be used rationally and ensure the availability to every one.

Don't let the poor people at the prey of the fate!

"Rich are getting richer and richer, while poor are getting poorer and poorer."

This is simply not true.  There is progressively less absolute poverty in all countries, and in the last few years hundreds of millions have been raised out of poverty in China.  Whilst in some rich countries the very rich are doing best of all, and the income gap between rich and poor is growing,  inequality on a world-wide basis is decreasing.

N.Byanyima: "It's time our leaders took on the powerful vested interests that stand in the way of a fairer and more prosperous world" in the article "Very rich get very richer: wealthiest 20 % hold 94.5 % of world's money" http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/01/19/very-rich-get-very-richer-wealthiest-20-hold-94-5-of-worlds-money/

Thank you, Tareq Alasadi, for your useful comment and uploading PFD. 

Regards

Pahlaj

US story dear @Pahlaj.

"There are several ways to measure the growing U.S. wealth gap, but almost any way you look at it, the rich are getting richer.

Of the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, the Bridgeport, Conn., metro, which includes nearby Stamford and Norwalk, has the largest gap between rich and poor, according to an analysis by Bloomberg. We ranked cities on the difference between the top 20 percent of wage earners and the bottom 20 percent, in average household income. In 2014 that gap in the Bridgeport area was $397,500 a year. San Jose ranks second..."

Bridgeport, San Jose Metro Areas Have Biggest Rich-to-Poor Gap!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-18/what-it-means-to-be-rich-in-cities-across-the-country

http://briefs.blpprofessional.com/viz/Income-Gap-Swells-Most-in-San-Jose/index.html

Within reasonable efforts to institutionalize equitable distributions...

"Fortune favors the bold." Boldness entails different courses of actions under different contexts. In general, boldness is "the courage to be different." Evident in either Schumpeterian opportunism or iron-clad perseverance on endeavors that matter in the long run.