Poverty and Wealth

1. Poverty and Wealth

2. Occupational prestige Occupation Rank (1 = most prestigious; 16 = least prestigious) Accountant _________________________________ Cab driver _________________________________ Carpenter _________________________________ Classical musician _________________________________ Electrical engineer _________________________________ Garbage collector _________________________________ Journalist _________________________________ Physician _________________________________ Police officer _________________________________ Real estate agent _________________________________ Registered nurse _________________________________ Secretary _________________________________ Shoe shiner _________________________________ Social worker _________________________________ Sociologist _________________________________ Waiter or waitress _________________________________

3. The rankings • Physician • Electrical engineer • Sociologist • Accountant • Registered nurse • Classical musician • Police officer • Journalist • Social worker • Secretary • Real estate agent • Carpenter • Cab driver • Waiter or waitress • Garbage collector • Shoe shiner

4. Economic Inequality in the United States • Social stratification: • the system by which society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy • Stratification produces social classes • categories of people who have similar access to resources and opportunities

5. The Rich and the Poor: A Social Profile • “The rich”: those families who fall within the top 10 percent of income distribution. • The “poverty line”: the level of annual income below which a person or family is defined as poor and thus entitled to government assistance • The “poverty gap”: the difference between the official poverty line and the actual income of the typical poor household

6. The Extent of Poverty • Profile of the U.S. poor • Age: at greatest risk are children • Race: African Americans and Hispanics • Gender: women • Family Patterns: single mothers • Region: the South and the West

7. Social Problems Linked to Poverty • Poor health • The link between poverty and health is evident from birth to old age • The infant mortality among the poor is twice the national average and among the poorest, four times the national • Death comes earlier to the poor, who are more likely to die from infectious diseases and violence at any age

8. Social Problems Linked to Poverty • Substandard housing • About 500,000 people are homeless in the U.S. on a given night • Up to 2 million people are homeless at some point during the year • Low income coupled with a decrease in available low-income housing leads to homelessness

9. Social Problems Linked to Poverty • Limited schooling • Poor children are less likely than rich children to complete high school • fewer poor children enter college and have less of a chance of completing an advanced degree • Uncertain work and the working poor

10. Social Problems Linked to Poverty • Crime and Punishment • Due to the focus on street crime, the poor are more likely to face arrest, trial, conviction, and prison • The poor depend more on public defenders and court-appointed attorneys, most of whom are underpaid and overworked

11. Responding to Poverty: The Welfare System • Social welfare program:an organized effort by government, private organizations, or individuals to assist needy people defined as worthy of assistance

12. Responding to Poverty: The Welfare System • Large government-run welfare programs have three characteristics: • they direct money to specific categories of people; • they benefit many people (e.g., the elderly, veterans, students, and farmers); and • they do not significantly change income inequality

13. Welfare Today • Changes in the welfare system began to occur when President Clinton pledged in 1992 to “end welfare as we know it.” • The result was the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 • The public remains divided over whether people deserve help

14. Welfare Reform Act of 1996 • New rules require able-bodied people receiving benefits to find a job or enroll for job retraining within two years.

15. Politics and Poverty: Constructing Problems and Defining Solutions • Conservatives: Personal Responsibility • focus on personal responsibility, stressing the importance of self-reliance • Liberals: Societal Responsibility • view poverty as more structural than it is individual; thus they look for societal solutions

16. Politics and Poverty: Constructing Problems and Defining Solutions • Radicals: Change the System • poverty is inherent in capitalist society, • they dismiss social welfare programs and tax plans advocated by liberals as little more than a Band-Aid applied to the body of a person with an incurable disease

17. How do students derive status from the products they buy and the clothes they wear?