The Original Underclass Summary

Writer Gregory Mantsios in his article “Class in America”, talks about these things, and how wide the gap is between the rich and the poor and also discusses how the rich continue to get richer, while the poor continue to get poorer. Mantsios gives his readers the profiles and backgrounds of three hard-working Americans, two of them are white males, whose family background as well as education played a role in their success, while the other person is a black woman who is just above the poverty line despite her work as a nurse’s aide. Through these profiles, Mantsios article shows exactly how sex, race and shows how your parental and educational background of a person can play a role in the things that you achieve. Mantsios also talks about one’s performance in school and the level of school completed can suggest whether or not class that person may belong in.

The overarching theme of this book is that political elite continue to get rich while the middle class gets poor. Hacker manages, somehow, to remain relatively unbiassed about our government issues despite being a progressive reformer. Hacker and Pierson theory is that inequality is, largely a political issue and can only be corrected by the American voters. The problem, of course, is that voters are to much divided to create a political change that is need improve America’s political issues. Political politicians severely favor big business interests and the wealthy elite to reform the political system, which attest to the old slogan of lifting oneself up by one's own bootstraps. The problems of political inequality, are real but the more we as American voters understand the political issues, the better America’s middleclass has for overcoming them, and this book provides a great deal of insight on the current obstacles to creating a progressive change in our current political

African Americans lifestyle did not see much change from before the depression and during the depression in the sense of the capital dollar. They assumed the New Deal brought up by president Roosevelt at the time would bring change to their life, but the white public would not stand to be on equal terms with a person of color. “Unemployment was rampant, and many whites felt that any available jobs belonged to the whites first.”i Many white Americans did not want African Americans to be paid minimum wage, but be paid lower than minimum wage. Industry’s also wanted to pay their employers a different wage depending on the color of their skin. “Negro unskilled labor,

One of the biggest splits of society today is between the rich and poor. We have CEO’s of companies buying their nieces a different car for each day of the week. Then we have the families who have to skip meals to save money for the bills. We usually assume this split to coordinate with their political preference as well. We often identify the rich associated with the Republican Party and the poor, middle class, lower class associated with the Democratic Party. And most of the time, that is the case. This split began when Jefferson and Hamilton were the advisors of the famous George Washington.

According to Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors, whites are more likely to earn a better childhood education, have more access to technology, attend college, attain a stable job, and have benefits of healthcare. Jensen emphasizes the difficulties for black citizens to locate employment because of the employer’s prejudice against them. Many statistics provided by the author exhibit this disadvantage, “the typical black family had 60% as much income as a white family in 1968, but only 58% as much in 2002” (Jensen5). Additionally, it’s

The lack of opportunity provided to African Americans and other minority demographics to enjoy the plunder of the post-war economy, including better education and housing, exposes the shortcoming of what we now remember as one of the most prosperous times in American history. Because of the prevalence of systematic racism towards African Americans, through the lack of equal treatment and opportunity, many African Americans could not enjoy a similar quality of life to white

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.

Lasch asserts, “Americans have always equated opportunity with upward mobility” (50). However, due to the gap between our economic lives, social mobility is unrealistic. Without economic equality, moving up the social ladder is essentially impossible. Lasch argues, “In our own time money has come to be regarded as the only reliable measure of equality…derived not merely from the distribution of wealth or economic opportunity but, above all, from the distribution of intelligence and competence” (59). Historically, opportunity is associated with social mobility, yet inequality has always been a problem that Americans have faced. Based on the double standard in American society, whites have the ability to succeed and thrive in our class system. To white individuals having a job and an education symbolize American citizenship. On the other hand, to blacks, “home ownership became an emblem of American citizenship” (Coates 27). However, I find that inequality is often tough to discuss, as many Americans are narrow-minded when it comes to what our political systems should achieve. As a result, African Americans at the bottom of our American hierarchical system are not given the opportunity to be freely, choosing individuals. This great gap between whites and blacks has caused two distinct ways of living in one, “united” country. Therefore, as Coates pointed out, blacks establish a sense of patriotism not to their country, but to their neighborhood or block (Coates

In 2008, African Americans were hit the hardest by the recession in terms of economic status. They are more likely to have a lower household income than white families and are less likely to see little to none economic improvement. In terms of education it is seen that white children are most likely to move up the educational ladder while African American children are more likelydescend down the ladder, which leads to high number of high school dropouts among the African American population which also effects the incarceration rate within the community as well. The American dream that is known for hope, prosperity, and happiness and the land of opportunity where parents seek to better the social and economic status for the benefit of their children leaves a foul taste in most African American’s mouth. To them it is not a dream but a nightmare that they cannot seem to wake up from and is forever haunting them whenever they are made to face

As it sits, nationwide, it is unbelievably challenging to be born anything other than a white male, and that simply has to change for the future. It is statistically evident that between inequality and unequal opportunity, those in the lowest echelon of the workforce truly are left with an inevitably poor (literally and figuratively)

This election, many people see a solution to this problem through Donald Trump’s political campaign on a platform of “Make America Great Again”. Trump is running, creating new jobs and improving the economy, which appeals to many people who are in the lower and middle classes who have been left behind by economic inequality. Trump’s largest base of support comes from white Americans who do not have a high school degree. This group usually has a very small income, if any at all, because they are less educated. In contrast, those with a college degree have a much easier experience finding work out of college. This means that those without a high school diploma are looking for economic change in order to gain an advantage and proceed with their economic pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. Other groups with large support for Trump are people with mobile homes and “old economy jobs” which are, similarly, groups with lower incomes. Trump appeals to these groups such as the “old economy jobs” because they are losing their jobs as new technology emerges. As “old economy jobs” decline, the demand for new jobs increase; the creation of which Donald Trump endorses. Donald Trump is definitely not a traditional conservative, but he has the ability to attract these groups with his platform through his populist appeal. Thus, a person who is lower in the economic gap would lean towards a candidate such as

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

Many white Americans are living with the fear that they didn't really deserve their success, and that maybe luck and privilege had more to do with it, than brains and hard work. There are numerous reasons for the widespread discrimination at all levels, but the main reason for the existence of discrimination is a privilege to certain groups of people, and widespread social prejudice towards certain groups of people. Differences between people have always existed, but they gain in importance only when are different importance given to certain differences, so it creates privileges. People who are privileged in one society are often not aware of their privilege. It is very easy to be oblivious to the privilege. The problem of discrimination

According to table two (Reardon and Bischoff p. 25) black, families income segregation grew rapidly within the 1970-1980’s, at a rate that was three times faster than the corresponding growth of white income segregation (Bischoff and Reardon p.26). On average black income segregation was about ⅓ SD lower than white income segregation. Figure 4 (Reardon and Bischoff p. 27) further proves that both blacks who had jobs ranging from working with manufacturing companies, construction, financial aid, real estate and even managerial and professional jobs earned four times less than whites who were within the same position. Only two percent of black families who had the same jobs as whites were earning the same annual income. In addition, to the figure it is shown that whites who have just high school diplomas earn twice as much as blacks who also have high school diplomas. This discrimination many workplaces have set has limited blacks from getting jobs and providing for their families. This is one of the many reasons as of to why many result of criminal activities in order to support their families. Almost all whites are given that privilege that opportunity no matter what their situation is, they are helped by society and taken in, neutered, healthy and then placed back into society. While blacks on the other hand, are expected to figure things out and

It appears to be that the discussion of race and class in America has become amplified, especially in the last couple of years. For many, it is a touchy subject that hits close to home. With the presence of social media and news that feeds off of racial tension in America, the issues are polarizing and difficult to productively discuss. America’s handling of race and class relations is generally not something to be proud of, and there exists a long history of issues with race. It is clear that there is a lack of understanding and empathy of what others experience toward those who are oppressed. So often it is too easy to dismiss another human’s experiences as reality if one has had no prior encounter with the same challenges. Race is easy to sweep under the rug, but we must address the problem, and it is not a one size fits all solution. It is a problem that has been years in the making and continues to have an enormous impact on our human capital from an economic standpoint. And most of the time, there is a correlation between race and class.