An individual’s social class has, to a certain extent, an impact on happiness because it is a factor that affects a person’s happiness through inequality with others. This inequality of a stratified society is an obstacle that everyone faces to varying degrees. Carter (2011, p.216) illustrated this inequality by pointing out that in America, just 400 people own one half of the country’s wealth, and that 25 of them have the same amount of money as 2 billion poor people. She further pointed out the fact that life expectancy is shorter in Harlem then Bangladesh. While some people feel that one’s social class is fixed, others argue that an individual can, with agency, work their way up the strata of the social class system to a higher class, and
