Family Inequality

“The percentage of Americans who say they are in the lower-middle or lower class has risen from a quarter of the adult population to about a third in the past four years, according to a national survey of 2,508 adults by the Pew Research Center” (http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/09/10/a-third-of-americans-now-say-they-are-in-the-lower-classes/). Today’s adults stating that they are in the lower class are most likely to have had a rough life growing up, and can now not escape the lower class. Social class is the idea of “a division of a society based on social and economic status” (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/social-class). Social class has the greatest impact on who a person turns out to be and what decisions they make because those

In Income Inequality: Too Big to Ignore, Robert H. Frank paints a picture to the reader about the struggles of pier pressure. For example: an upper-classmen chooses to buy a big house and fancy clothing. This acts as a “frame of reference” to the changes and norms of the society. If he spends money on something nice, a middle-classmen will then go and decide to do the same thing, and then a lower-classmen…all the way down the social hierarchy. This is what he calls an “expenditure cascade.” Robert relates this with a person’s downfalls, which can be traced due to lower income inequality. Income inequality basically means that in a given quantity, the dispersion of income is underlined by the gap between individuals and or households with

Reeves, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies Co-Director, Center on Children and Families they state that “There is a growing marriage gap along class lines in America. This may be bad news for social mobility, since children raised by married parents typically do better in life on almost every available economic and social measure.” (Howard and Reeves para. 1) This first portion of the article talks about how not a lot of people are getting married and people not getting married may be causing a whole dilemma within social and economic mobility which in result leads to more families living in poverty. In addition, Howard and Reeves written “In 1950, almost 90 percent of children age 0-14 lived with married parents-- now that proportion has fallen to less than two-thirds of children. The gap in marriage is growing, especially in terms of childbearing. While marriage is struggling against cultural, social and economic headwinds in poorer communities, it is flourishing among affluent, well-educated Americans who are both more likely to marry and more likely to stay married.” (Howard and Reeves para 3.). In paragraph 3 of “The Marriage Effect: Money or Parenting?” they write about how back in the 1950s 90 percent of children grew up in a parenting household but now two parenting house has decreased than two thirds of the

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty rate for single parents in 2009 was 37.1%, while the rate for married couples with children was 6.8%. This means that being raised in a married family reduces a child’s probability of living in poverty by 82%. Policies that can be implemented to strengthen marriage would be ones that educate the public on the benefits of marriage to financial stability and child development. Returning to economic policies, the welfare system has penalties against marriage within it that create incentives to not get married. Since benefits are reduced as a family’s income rises, a single mother will receive more benefits than if she had an employed husband in the home. For low-income couples, this means that marriage would cause a decline in welfare benefits and an overall decline in the couple’s joint income. In order to remove these disincentives, the welfare system could be changed to increase the value of earned income tax credit for married couples with children. Work requirements can again be of assistance by making it so able-bodied parents are required to or look for work in order to receive aid. This will prevent the appeal of using welfare as an alternative to work or marriage. By implementing these ideas, marriage will increase and poverty and welfare dependence will

Family structure is important for developing stability for a child. Its is also a factor in the way a child will themselves feel about the institution of marriage. Likewise, children from ‘non-normal' households are more likely to develop ‘nonnormative' attitudes towards family life. The divorce rates among the impoverished are higher than those of other classes. Higher than that are the divorce rates of African-Americans of the impoverished class. Rector states that "blacks have higher poverty rates, mainly because blacks have lower marriage rates"(Rector, 27 ).

In any given population, there is a difference between what people within the population earn. The uneven distribution of income in any given population is income inequality. In order for there to be income, there has to be several sources of income. These sources of income may be combinational or independent per person receiving the income. Income may result from wages, rent, bank account interests, salaries or even profits made in business transactions ( Stiglitz, 2012).

In many ways the conditions of social class affect parent’s options and decisions they face when parenting. “Children living in

Elizabeth Warren’s The Vanishing Middle Class is about what exactly the middle class is and why the decline of this social class isn’t being brought to attention. I believe and agree that she answered this question with flying colors, providing all the factual information to clarify all her claims shown. As Warren states (as well as shows through a graph on another page) how inflated the pay of a single male full-time employer has become decades since the 70’s, compared to those married couples’ who’s have sky rocketed rather than flat-lined. This has

In the reading of Middle Class Shrinks Further as More Fall Out Instead of Climbing Up, it is very true about the findings about the middle class. Honestly, 35,000 to 100,000 in today’s money are a huge gap differences. This is where now they started calling some individuals upper middle class. The article also, does a great job talking about Social Security. When was brings in Social Security, can a individual who was making 700 every week at Shoprite (which is middle class), at age 64, then retire a 66, and collect Social Security, and only get a paycheck for 600 every week, did they just get moved to lower class? In the reading The Shrinking American Middle Class says age is a big factor, as well as race, family status, and education.

Inequality is not favorable in society. There is inequality in many aspects of our society, such as race, and gender. The main inequality we look at is income inequality in the United States. The one percent of the population control a vast majority of the United States currency. The Gini coefficient has been increasing ever since the Industrial Revolution, a period where education, manufacturing, and economics has shown growth. However, income inequality has increased in the Industrial Revolution. There are many events, and causes that have led to the rise of income equality in the United States.

For the past 30 years the “gap” in income received by the rich and the lower class has continuously continued to increase, showing no signs of decrease anytime soon. This gap has mostly affected the middle class, which is made up of mostly African Americans and Hispanics, making America less determined to correct such an issue. Given the circumstances African American’s are the focus of this issue due to the fact they make up majority of the middle class. It is known that modern racism exist within today’s society in various ways, one of which happen to be within the economy. For decades the economy has had its downfalls, however, it’s been facing an issue that it has been hiding from the rest of the nation. The gap that everyone speaks has

Kathleen Gerson gets to know today’s young generation in her book The Unfinished Revolution: Coming of Age in a New Era of Gender, Work, and Family. Today’s young generation grew up during the gender revolution. It was a time where the family life was changing. For example, the number of mothers in the workforce increased rapidly, single headed families became more common and employment became more uncertain than before. Gerson is interested in knowing how the young generation images an ideal family life.

Of this group, about 1/3rd belongs to the upper-middle class. The annual income of person belonging to this group is $70-$75,000. The jobs that the typical upper-middle class person holds would have a prestige rating of 65 or higher. 2/3rd?s of the middle-class population is the lower-middle class. White-collared individuals make up the majority of this class, earning anywhere from $30,000 to $60,000 a year. Lower-middle class Americans have a set standard of priorities. They take pride in the fact that they are financially stable, and promote hard work, and press on education. Without education, the members feel that they would not be where they are economically, and preach the importance to their children so that they, too, can live a lifestyle very similar to that of theirs (Norton).

Income inequality has been a major issue in American history. There are many different factors that contribute to inequality. These include education, wealth, discrimination, ability, and monopoly power.

Another defining factor for social class is education especially since education is seen as an achievement toward the American Dream. (Lareau, 235). Younger generations seem to place more emphasis on achieving higher education and the occupational opportunities provided for those who are well-educated (Cherlin, 113). The socioeconomic stratification corresponds to those with differing levels of education such as upper/middle class individuals have a college education while working/lower class have some college and/or minimal high school education (Cherlin, 118-119). These individuals and their given circumstances based on education and income have different values and trends about marriage, family and socialization/rearing of children. (Cherlin, 114-117). Family inequality is then based on direct obtainment for individuals who are head of these households such as employment of fathers and mothers (Cherlin, 111), which in turn affects the childhood/family experience of child within the socioeconomic status of their parents. (Lareau,