Cloward 1

Zachary Cloward

James Celestino

English 1010

February 12, 2021

Rhetorical Analysis of “Richer and Poorer Accounting for Inequality”

The article “Richer and Poorer Accounting for Inequality” talks about economic

inequality. In it the author, Jill Lepore, pulls from many sources to explain some of the different

reasons why economic inequality exists and attempts to present some possible solutions. She

uses the book “Our Kids” written by Robert Putnam as her main resource, but also cites other

resources as well. Throughout the article Jill uses all the rhetorical strategies, ethos, pathos, and

logos, to effectively prove her point. 

Ethos is the rhetorical strategy to build your credibility. Jill used ethos very well

throughout, though it does take a bit more thought to find it. One of the examples is in the first

paragraph when she establishes what she knows about the Gini index and the history of how

economic inequality is recorded. “For about a century, economic inequality has been measured

on a scale, from zero to one, known as the Gini index and named after an Italian statistician,

Corrado Gini, who devised it in 1912, when he was twenty-eight and the chair of statistics at the

University of Cagliari.” (Lepore 1) Another example is when she shares how she gained some of

the knowledge she has in order to be able to talk about this subject. “I glanced through the

records of the Ohio chapter of the N.A.A.C.P., which included a branch in Port Clinton.” (Lepore

4) She did a fantastic job of subtly establishing her credibility.

Logos is the use of logic to support your argument. For logos, Jill was a lot more obvious

and uses it all throughout her paper. She relies heavily on logic to show her argument. One
 Cloward 2

example of this is when she talks about two scholars of comparative politics, Alfred Stepan, and

Juan J. Linz. “Stepan and Linz identified twenty-three long-standing democracies with advanced

economies. Then they counted the number of veto players in each of those twenty-three

governments.” A veto player is someone or a group with the power to stop a policy frm

becoming law. (Lepore 9) Jill continues, “More than half of the twenty-three countries Stepan

and Linz studied have only one veto player; most of these countries have unicameral

parliaments. A few countries have two veto players; Switzerland and Australia have three. Only

the United States has four.” (Lepore 9) This is a strong use of logos in favor of her opinion.

Another example of Logos is when she talks about Robert Putnam's book to provide a different

perspective. “Aside from the anecdotes, the bulk of “Our Kids” is an omnibus of social-science

scholarship. The book’s chief and authoritative contribution is its careful presentation for a

popular audience of important work on the erosion, in the past half century, of so many forms of

social, economic, and political support for families, schools, and communities—with

consequences that amount to what Silva and others have called the ‘privatization of risk.’”

(Lepore 5) Jill also talks about how this point of view does not quite get the point across. “But

Putnam’s eagerness to influence Congress has narrative consequences. If you’re going to tell a

story about bad things happening to good people, you’ve got to offer an explanation, and, when

you make your arguments through characters, your reader will expect that explanation in the

form of characters.” (Lepore 6) By using a different perspective and showing its flaws she

strengthens her own argument.

Pathos is the use of emotion to convince others of your argument. Jill does not use this

very often, but one example is when she described numbers as “the appeal of numbers lies in

their remoteness and coldness.” (Lepore 6) While this is not a fantastic example, it does appeal to
 Cloward 3

human emotion. She did not rely very heavily on pathos. I could not find any other strong

examples of Pathos. While Jill did not use many examples of Pathos, the topic in and of itself

might incite one's emotions in a wide range of views of the topic.  This is particularly poignant at

this time in our society as many are seeking to bring about changes that would bring greater

social equality.  The noise created by these movements leads the pathos to think deeper about the

topic Jill is discussing. 

Overall, Jill Lepore used all three rhetorical strategies. She chose to focus on using logos

and ethos to support her argument. By using ethos, she shows the reader how much time and

effort she has put into her research and then uses the knowledge she gained to help others. By

using the logic of the examples, she found in her research she tied into the logos strategy to

strengthen her viewpoint.   She did not really try to appeal to emotions. While Jill does not

appeal heavily to emotions at this time in our society, I believe the pathos is stronger than even

she might have intended. She used Logos well and should have used pathos and ethos more to

make her argument stronger.