Poverty And Lack Of Work Ethic

America is the land of opportunity and equality. Many people grow up believing this to be absolutely true, but Stephen Marche feels otherwise. He wrote “We Are Not All Created Equal,” arguing his point that opportunities in this country are strictly determined by the fate of ones class in society. Marche starts off making a strong case by mentioning the United States’ third place ranking for the least amount of social mobility. In further attempts to prove his point he outlines how class determines the fate of Americans place in society by comparing it’s rigid divisions to those of the aristocracy in Britain. There is a repeating idea throughout the paper that many people in the upper classes love to assume that the poor should fault themselves for their predicament due to their lack of hard work. Marche knocks that assumption out the park with statistical evidence to back up his claims. Although he made a very convincing argument with facts, he had a host of overgeneralized statements throughout the paper, which ultimately weakened his argument of class being the only determining factor of success in America.

One of the most important principles in American society is social and economic mobility, otherwise known in the USA as the American Dream. This principle states that if one works hard, they can make it to the top no matter where you start. Depiction of this ideal is very common, where someone starts at the very bottom of the socioeconomic totem pole, yet through hard work and perseverance, becomes highly successful. This principle was born out of American protestant ethic, where it is believed that hard work will earn you riches and vice versa that your riches and success is a tell of your work ethic. However, this depiction is not typical in American society, where only a small amount of those who compose the lowest earners become the highest earners. Many factors contribute to one’s prospects for upward mobility, such as parent income, education, and occupation. However, there appears to be one factor in particular that can prevent one from becoming successful, no matter how hard they work, that being their race. It is typically well known that there are certain societal disadvantages associated with being a race other than non-Hispanic White. This idea that your race can affect your future success very much countervails American protestant ethic, and proceeds to feed into the racist portrayal of minorities as "lazy" or "freeloaders". The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect that race has on one 's potential for upward socioeconomic mobility. As

Why does it seem that the working class is set up for failure? Do these workers lack the experience in their chosen fields? Do these employees lack in their work ethic? Does the government need to give more support? Questions like these arise in both the story Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America by Barbara Ehrenreich and the article “The Minimum-Wage War” by Rolling Stone. At first glance, these writings may seem unrelated; However, the themes of minimum wage and work ethic go hand-in-hand with respect to these texts. These writings express the correlation that working a minimum wage job and having a strong work ethic does not always result in enough money to pay for the cost of living. Consequently, unskilled workers become forced to work two or more positions (or become a part of America’s underclass).

When considering who the American meritocracy serves, its is imperative to reflect on how it was created. The modern meritocracy began forming in the early twentieth century with the rise of standardized testing. Headed by the Henry Chauncey and James Bryant Conant, a new method of determining social position was growing in the SAT. The SAT would work to dismantle the previous aristocratic structure of inheriting positions at elite institutions and open up opportunities for people to be placed based on their merit, their scholastic aptitude. Chauncey and Conant believed that improving the elite would improve society as a whole because the new

As United States of America becomes more progressive, there is a minority who is disregarded and feeling shell-shocked. Today, the social and economic changes are having an impact on white Americans without a college degree. According to “The Original Underclass” by Alec Macgillis and Propublica, there is an “obliterated major differences in geography, ethnicity, and culture” between the white working poor and the people living in an urban area. They become pessimistic and their anxiety about their future. In result, they believe that their hard work won’t bring satisfaction and will no longer bring success.

America throughout history has always existed as the land of opportunity. This land gave immigrants the opportunity to leave their country since political unrest and lack of opportunity become an issue. These immigrants were willing to leave behind their homes, cultures, and relationships and start fresh in another country. Starting fresh in America does not guarantee success, but these immigrants were willing to put their lives on the line in order to accomplish a “rags to riches” success story. On the contrary, the recent spike in immigration has become a major debate for everyone. Critics’ arguing against immigration say that immigration leads to overcrowding, drug trafficking, and puts American culture at risk. Simply, immigrants play a leading factor in society politically, economically, and socially. But focusing on the economic contributions immigrants bring, immigrants contribute to the economy by paying taxes, purchasing items, and working jobs. Immigrants work any jobs regardless of the hours or workload therefore the American dollar rises in value because people spend more money on objects. Since America exists as the land of opportunity, illegal immigrants should not remain discriminated as their work leads to economic prosperity.

(Wise 179) Meritocracy is the idea that those who have made it to the top of the power structure done so by hard work and talent. If someone were to fail it is their own fault for being lazy and not trying hard enough. The reality is that this is not at all true, there are many obstacles, no matter how determined you are there will always be an obstacle. We do like to believe that we are in control of what happens in our lives, it is empowering unlike the belief that there are systematic restraints that block opportunities for

In the last few decades, the American have become proud of the American Dream, which they believe in coming true, as one working hard now will have a glossy life in the future. However, there is a wonder whether the American is living in the American Dream while the inequality still exists in American society. To get the answer, there are two helpful articles: “What Ever Happened to Upward Mobility?” by Rana Foroohar and “The Trouble with Diversity” by Walter Benn Michaels. These articles talk about and give the ideas to solve that wonder in different ways. In his article, Michaels shows economic inequality has the common factors as the racism in somehow, and now it becomes more popular. He says the difference between the rich and the

Meritocracy is the “idea that positions are earned through hard work and personal achievement and through no resources other than one’s own” (Shapiro 78). This is both an unproved and a false collective belief which leads to the creation of the term the meritocracy myth. Many Americans have fallen short of furthering themselves economically because of this ideology and were raised to believe in a stringent model of meritocracy even though life has proven how false and misleading this ideal truly is. It has been proven through examples such as the top 1%’s existence and the fact that “95% of children born to parents in the bottom 6% of wealth holders will end up poor as adults” (McNamee and Miller 96). On the other hand of the spectrum, many Americans use the term economic inequality quite frequently when talking about politics in social affairs. However not many grasp either of these terms correctly when using them with this context. Economic inequality is displayed by individuals’ contrasting situational positions within the economic distribution of income and wealth. Examples of this inequality fall into categories of either income, pay, or wealth. There are many scholarly papers that demonstrate the social issues created by these two terms and their relation to our society. The meritocracy myth is the main underlying cause to the social issue of economic inequality.

The United State is definitely not a society where there is meritocracy because of the class system within our country. Class plays a major role in which the rich have access to higher education, jobs and opportunities than compared to the lower classes. A great example of this would be an upper class in the United State, better known as the one percent. The upper class is a numerous small group with wealthy member, which is said to make up about 1 percent of the population. They are the upper class of United State, who owns a large amount of the money in the country. The class system is something that is very well known as stated by William Domhoff “People are very aware of basic economic and educational differences and they can size up social standing fairly well from such outward signs as speech patterns, mannerisms, and style of dress, but the

An article published by Arthur C. Brooks, a writer for The Washington Post, stated that “We are not a perfect opportunity society in the United States. But if we want to approach that ideal, we must define fairness as meritocracy, embrace a system that rewards merit, and work tirelessly for true equal opportunity” (4). Brook’s statement expresses the views of our society today, as it is widely accepted that a society with meritocracy is favorable over a society with social determinism in America. However, there is often altercation when discussing whether or not meritocracy is present in our modern day society. The Civil Rights movement, feminist movements, and immigration movements have all brought our society towards meritocracy.

Do Americans believe meritocracy exists in America? Do talented people who work hard earning the reward that they deserve? Do talented people have enough challenges for their promotion that they merit? Living in the United States, many people think meritocracy exists because people expect about the opportunities to learn, to work, to earn, and to deserve. People also think they may have chances to earn what they deserve because the trusting of meritocracy. However, talented people do not receive any adequate reward as they expect. Meritocracy does not exist in America and becomes a myth for many debates. Moreover, most talented people in America who work hard still have fewer resources, less promotion,

America is known as the land of the free and home of the brave. When thinking of this you think about all the opportunities presented to people and all the freedom. An idea of America is that we’re a meritocracy, which means anyone can be able to to become anything they want as long as they work hard playing by the rules. Along with that many people believe that diversity will bring together the country and unite us all but that’s not the case. America is not a meritocracy.

“The reasons poverty rates remain high despite the [economic] recovery has to do with wage decline and failure of the “safety net” i.e, the government systems of taxes and transfers designed

Poverty is the lack of the basic needs of life, including food, shelter, clothing and safe drinking water. For a person to live normally, it is important to meet a certain level of physical, social, and emotional needs. People who live in poverty have difficult time to achieve those as they are not welcomed in many places. Because of their low incomes, they have troubles in maintaining their health, hunger, education. Poverty has become a large issue around the world. It is something that many of us know about but we’re not realizing just how big of a problem it is. This paper will include basic information about poverty, its effects, facts and statistics which can make people aware and want to help reduce poverty.