Meritocracy
is the belief that hard work and talent will be rewarded.
Capitalism
is the US economic system that is characterized by the private ownership of capital (land, buildings, factories, and the labor of others) in which owners benefit from the labor or productivity of workers and machinery.
Wealth
consists of what one owns (cars, stocks, or securities, homes) minus what one owes (credit card or school debt, home mortgages)
Class
defined as a relative social ranking based on income, wealth, education, status, and power.
Classism
defined as the institutional, cultural, and individuals set of practices and beliefs that assign differential value to people according to their socioeconomic class; and an economic system that creates excessive inequality and causes basic human needs to
Economic Capital
is referred to as wealth enhanced by income.
Social Capital
refers to social resources such as elite education, health care, political connections , legal and financial advisors. It also includes valuable personal networks that ensure and enhance professional mobility, corporate profits, and political advantage.
Cultural and Intellectual Capital
refer to the knowledge, language, and self-preservation needed to leverage major social institutions - such as education, the law, the political system, the health-care system.
The 2011 Census Bureau
reported 46.8 million Americans were below poverty line (including 16.4 million children), and poor Americans became poorer, deep poverty rose 44.3%, the highest poverty level in 36 years, with about one in eight americans and one in four children depende
Approximately 13% of the American population -
- that is, nearly one of every eight people in this country - live below the official poverty line. Approximately one out of every four children in the United States under the age of six, lives in poverty.
Fact:
The contrast between rich and poor is sharp, and with nearly one-third of the american population living at one extreme or the other.
Welfare state
means that a significant portion of the GDP is taken by the state to provide certain minimum levels of social welfare for the poor, the aged, the disabled, and others who would not be able to survive under conditions of market competition.
Working poor
are people with full time jobs whose wages are insufficient to raise their incomes above the official poverty line.
Social Stratification
is a pattern in which individual and groups are assigned to different positions in the social order, positions that enjoy varying amounts of access to desirable goods and services.
Class Stratification
The stratification of individuals and groups according to their access to various occupations, incomes, and skills.
The Severely Poor
defined by the Census Bureau as persons whose family incomes are less than half of the official poverty line.
Event Poor
is an event of illness, loss of one of the jobs, martial discord, or pregnancy, for example could easily lose half its income and then plunge well below the official poverty level.
Federal poverty level guidelines:
Person in Household Annual Salary
1 $11,770
2 $15,930
3 $20,090
4 $24,250
Myths and conceptions about the poor:
1-7
1. The vast majority of the poor are blacks and Hispanics.
Poverty rates are higher among blacks and Hispanics than among other racial/ethnic groups but they do no take up the majority of the poor.
2. People are poor because they do not want to work.
half of the poor are not in the working ages. About 40% are under age 18. Many poor people have jobs but earn below-poverty wages.
3. Poor families are trapped in a cycle of poverty that few escape.
The poverty population is dynamic-people move in and out of poverty every year. Less than 15% of the poor remain in poverty for five or more consecutive years.
4. Welfare programs for the poor are straining the federal budget.
Social-assistance programs for low-income families and individuals account for less than 14 percent of federal expenditures.
5. The majority of poor live in inner-city neighborhoods.
Less than half of the poor live in central-city areas, and less than one-quarter live in high-poverty inner-city areas.
6. The poor live off government welfare.
Under the rules for public assistance, which require welfare recipients to work after two years of pubic assistance. Well over half of the income received by poor adults comes from wages or other work-related activity.
7. Most of the poor are single mothers and their children.
Female-headed families represent just 38% of the poor. About 34% of the poor live in married-couple families, 22% live along or with non relatives, and the remainder live in male-headed families with no wife present.
Dependent Poor
Sometimes the poor are not always responsible for theirs situation, yet those who must turn to public assistance (sometime referred as the dependent poor) are often pictures as lazy, shiftless, or dishonest. A significant proportion of the dependent poor
US wealth
In the US, wealth is concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of people, while many other Americans can barely makes ends meet or are living in poverty. American households have a median income of $53,657.
Oklahoman annual income
$47, 529
Texas annual income
$53, 035
Top 1% annual household income:
is approximately $400,000. In the US there are 1.4 million households in the top 1%.
Top 5% annual household income:
$159,619
Top 10% annual household income
$113,799
Top 25% annual household income
$67,280
United States middle class range
$46,960 to $140,900
Wealth
is defined in terms of marketable asset, such as real estate, stocks and bonds.