A social class is, in the most basic sense, a group of people that share the same or similar social status. The relative importance and definition of membership in a particular class differs greatly over time and between societies, particularly in societies having a legal differentiation of groups of people by birth or occupation. In the well-known example of socioeconomic class, many scholars view societies as stratifying into a hierarchical system based on economic status, wealth, or income. With the social changes of the 20th century, a gradually developing urban middle class appeared in most Western countries, producing three strata: an Upper class of the immensely wealthy and/or powerful, a Middle class of managers and highly paid professionals, a Lower class of people paid average or low wages or receiving "welfare.” This includes those who are homeless. Karl Marx suggested that the primary social division was between a “ruling class" and a laboring class.
In the article I read, dated August 16th 2004, it describes how the gap between the rich and the poor has continuously increased over the years. And while there is some sociology rooted in this problem, most of it is political. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and this applies to this day. The rich and powerful will do everything they can to stop social mobility and to help their friends in the upper class. For example, President Bush’s tax cuts and how most of the $1.3 trillion dollars went to the wealthy and only a small portion of that went to the middle and lower classes. Here’s a statistic for you: The wealthiest 20% of households in 1973 accounted for 44% of total U.S. income, according to the Census Bureau. Their share jumped to 50 percent in 2002, while everyone else’s fell. For the bottom fifth or bottom 20%, the share dropped from 4.2% in 1973 to 3.5% now.
One of the problems affecting all that are not rich is inflation. Our economy has undergone inflation but everyone’s paychecks have not. People have not been getting raises and their salaries are more or less the same as it used to be and there has been close to no compensation in terms of keeping up with inflation and the economy’s growth. Many of the every day things we buy have went up drastically, including gas. Sooner or later people will not be able to afford the price of gas. Three in five pay below the national median hourly wage of $13.53, said Sung Won Sohn, chief economist for Wells Fargo. On a weekly basis, the average wage of $525.84 is at the lowest level since October 2001.
Another reason the poor are getting poorer is because of the crumby support system they have. Most of the poor have a worse education than one who has money. Rarely will you find a married couple both with Masters Degrees and still making close to nothing, but it is out there. People who are poor or homeless need two things to get themselves out of the lower class and to rise in to the middle class. First, they need a better welfare support system to help them with what they actually need, instead of trying to give someone a band-aid to fix a broken leg. Some people need some money and food stamps, some people don’t…it’s all dependant on the person. The other thing that is needed, though, is education. There needs to be a program that can give these people a better education, necessary for getting a higher paying job. Special schools or institutes, even allowing the earning of G. E. D’s during all times of the day should be implemented so they too, can move up the socio economic ladder.
The middle class is moving two ways. Many of the middle class jobs are being outsourced or companies are just laying massive amounts of people off. Either way, often times it is hard to find a new job that is steady with equal or better pay. So much of the middle class face economic trouble causing them to start to head down to the lower class level. And a good portion of the middle class is moving up, and they are making more money than they ever had before, mostly by working very diligently for most of their lives.
On the back of our 1 dollar bill, there is a pyramid, with the eye of illuminati. If you notice, the top of the pyramid is not attached and is floating above. That small section represents class structure and mostly a lack of social mobility. The rich and powerful is that small section with the all Seeing Eye, watching over you and controlling the ladder. The upper class has the smallest population, then the middle class is next in line, and the lower class has the largest population…able to be represented in a pyramid form. The reason the top section is detached is because no one below that is supposed to be able to reach that kind status, so the rich keep the rich in power.
So it seems the growing trend of our economy and society right now is for the middle class to thin out so much where there is only a small population still remaining in the middle class. The poor don’t have such programs stated earlier and many people are working multiple jobs just to put food on the table; there is almost no social mobility within the lower class. The upper class is the smallest, and certainly the richest, allowing close to no mobility in to the class of the rich and the powerful as well as controlling most of the job market. I explained a few things to help the lower class achieve a better socio economic status, but there is still way more to do as well as keeping a nice big middle class of informed, educated, Americans that don’t literally have to live paycheck to paycheck.
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