Social Stratification And Social Class Inequalities

Improved Essays
All of the topics that are in the textbook is significantly important. However, some of the issues that I am mostly concerns about are social stratification and social class inequalities. In this chapter, I was able to see a broad view of U.S social structure and inequalities, both within our culture and our institutions. Our modern society is stratified into social classes, which is based on income, wealth, educational attainment, occupation, and social networks. Sociologists posited that there are six social classes in America. It includes the upper-class, the lower-upper class, upper-middle class, lower-middle class, the working class, and the underclass. However, class system constitutes a set of social inequalities and that it establishes a place for the exercise of power. Anderson, Taylor, and Logio (2015), stated that “Class determines the access different people have to these resources and puts groups in different positions of privilege and disadvantage” (p.174). The caste system may not be determined by the political and economic privileges, but the system allows the elites do monopolize exercise power similar …show more content…
Discriminatory housing policies, tax codes, and so forth have disadvantaged Black Americans, resulting in the differing assets Whites and Blacks in general hold now” (p.180-181). I found this fact to be disturbing, but it is the hard truth. Some people believe that discriminatory policies have ended, but it continues in our society. Race significantly influences the pattern of wealth distribution in the United States. In other words, class position is manifested differently depending on one’s race, as well as one’s gender. Women today is still fighting for equal pay. They only receive 77 percent of men’s income. This is a form of discriminatory and inequality that continues in many

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Los Angeles has the reputation of having the worst traffic in the world, and of course, everyone would spend more time tapping brakes on freeways if it was Thanksgiving. The picture of the jammed 405 Freeway depicts the Thanksgiving rush in Los Angeles well, and people make fun by saying that the freeway 405 has the name because “it takes you '4 o' 5' hours to get anywhere.” () Driving on Freeway 405 is infuriating not only because drivers have to drive slowly, but also because when everyone wanted to get back home as soon as possible, some people would change lanes, and lead to car accidents. In addition, since families want everyone to be back home around dinner time, they can get mad at a member who arrives late and claims that he or she could leave from work earlier. Yes, having to drive slowly is annoying, but what really touches people’s nerves is that people act upon their interests without trying to understand each other.…

    • 379 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It is a well-known fact the African Americans tend to have higher levels of unemployment and lower levels of education than their white counterparts. The constant debate that whether or not that happened because of the structure of laws in the United States or because black people do not have a culture of working hard. In “Revisiting the Debate on Race and Culture”, William Darity Jr. talks about how different aspects of black identity play a role in the education and wealth of an individual. Chapter five of When Affirmative Action was white the author, Ira Katznelson , talks about a bill that contributed to the disparities between the earnings and the standards of living between white Americans and Black Americans. The chapter focused on the…

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Summary: The article of research is “The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality by Thomas M. Shapiro. Shapiro, a Pokross Professor of Law and Social Policy at Brandeis University, was interested in social class and racial-ethnic differences in the indicators of socioeconomic status. Shapiro wanted to examine a data that shows persistent wealth discrepancies between whites and African Americans with similar achievements and credentials and how their lives differ because of racial inequality. Shapiro conducted his studies in 2004 by analyzing the differences in assets and wealth in four families, one which consisted of an African American, while the others are White.…

    • 1420 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In “More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City”, Wilson considers institutional and cultural factors as causes that reinforce racial inequality. These two factors also intersect to produce poverty in Black communities. Three major points are developed in the book that I agree with, which are: forces contributing to the concentrated poverty in Black communities, the limited economic opportunities available to inner city Black males; and the fragmentation of the poor and low- income Black family. These three issues support his arguments by illustrating how it is unfair to blame people who have limited resources. These arguments serve as a way to challenge both social structure and culture forces in order to create adequate policies.…

    • 771 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout U.S history, socio-economic classes have been established to categorize our place in society. The lower, middle, and upper class, make up the socio-economic structure of the American people. The social system groups people according to wealth, income, education, social network and other factors. Many different models have been proposed to characterize people’s social class, though the U.S most commonly uses the simple three class structure. The middle class, the social group between the upper and working classes, including professional workers, small business owners, and low-level managers; is essential to a thriving economy and successful democracy (Social Class, n.d).…

    • 796 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Over the past century, the United States has changed dramatically. In a social view, we have made changes such as abolishing slavery all the way to electing our first black president. However, we are still facing the issues of intergenerational class location and class mobility. Intergenerational class location can be defined as the social movement of family members from generation to generation. Class mobility can be defined as the upwards or downwards movement of one’s status in categories such as occupations, wealth, and education.…

    • 1123 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Hollister Research Paper

    • 422 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Moreover, despite the progress made by feminist movements and equality economic polices, there is still a disparity between the wages of men and women…

    • 422 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Slavery is another unjust problem that should have been abolished in the 1800’s. Nevertheless, it is still prevalent both then and now. At the heart of many arguments regarding a lack of justice and equality in America, fall to economics. African-American discrimination is made worse because one average black Americans have less money to spend on higher education or legal advice.…

    • 304 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Racial Wealth Gap Analysis

    • 2226 Words
    • 9 Pages

    The wealth inequality in the United States is happening along racial lines and is worrying because wealth is the key to stability and growth. With the latest estimate by SIPP in Demos Report on Racial Wealth Gap: Why Policy Matters, the median white household had $111,146 wealth holdings in 2011, $104,033 more than the median wealth of black household and $102,798 more than median wealth of a Hispanic household. This means that black households only hold 6% of wealth owned by a white household and Hispanic households only owns 8% of wealth owned by a white. The wealth gap between the two races – Blacks and Hispanics – to the whites is uncomfortably large. This poses a major problem for the growth and stability of the United States economy in the future as the minority group continues to grow rapidly and are facing a wealth divide.…

    • 2226 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Annotated Bibliography MacEwan. " Black-White Income Differences: What's Happened?" From Opposing Viewpoints in Context. N.p., 2016. Web.…

    • 1816 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    The author tends to disagree with the post racial myth that has gripped many Americans. The racial wealth gap is actually caused by employer discrimination, racial income gap, and high unemployment levels held disproportionately by African Americans versus caucasians. Wealth inequality has not improved within the last fifty years. The average wealth has increased, but it has not increased equally among all races. Wealth is essentially a family’s liquid assets.…

    • 1599 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the following essay I’ll be describing social stratification and distributive systems and how they compare to social and political stratification. “Social stratification means that’s inequality has been harden or institutionalized, and there is a system of social relationships that determines who gets what, and why” pg.10 (Kerbo, 2012). A system such as social stratification also means that rules have been established that shows why rewards or distributed and why they are distributed in a certain manner. Social stratification has been characterized by social class which groups individuals with those of similar income and political economic interest. The upper class make up the wealthy members of society and have the most political power.…

    • 840 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Social class still matters to America Social class refers to divisions in society based on the money you make, the economy and social status. People who in the same social class typically have the same level of wealth, education, achievement, type of job and income. The American is an open society and social class is still a matter to American today. Social class matters in almost every type of social situation today because it defines who you are in life, how other people treat you, and it also determines whom you hang out with, which school you go to, the type of health condition you are in, and the type of environment you are growing up in. Overall, social class is everything about you.…

    • 1278 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the United States of America if there is any type of injustice or inequality the lawmakers of the country fix it, but equal pay has been an issue since eighteen sixty-eight and still is not resolved today in 2016. Today, women still feel lesser than men when it comes to the working field and in everyday life due to the biased ideas of corporate…

    • 737 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Essay On Equal Pay

    • 1749 Words
    • 7 Pages

    For the past decades history has shown a lot of male dominance, the women of today operate as effectively as men in the work field and therefore they deserve equal pay. The Wage Gap Persists: In Eileen Patten’s article, On Equal Pay Day, Key Facts About the Gender Pay Gap…

    • 1749 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays