Middle Class & Minorities: In The Margin
What does middle class mean? It’s definitions is the social group between the upper and working classes, including professional and business workers and their families. Which greatly mean minorities and anyone without higher education fall in between. What makes you apart of the middle class? Whether you're considered middle class most commonly depends on your income. But experts differ on how much you have to earn to fall into this group. Mostly between forty-six thousand and fifteen hundred. “But even with a job money is still tight”. You would think that most middle class americans and minorities live a generally standard life with some minor conflict here and there. But are supported by government programs to keep everyone going. This is not the case, one of the biggest challenges for middle-class families is they've watched their wages grow on a nominal basis. Based on data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nominal wages for average hourly workers jumped better than 700% between 1964 and 2014 to $20.67 an hour.
However, when factoring in the effects of inflation over those 50 years, real wages grew by less than 8%. Another challenge would be education, majority of minorities cannot afford the cost of college and other higher forms of education so typically go into the workforce with little to no educational background. While some middle class americans can pay for their children to go to college using
My parents were persistently working, day in and day out to support the life they had. If they didn't have work as strenuous as they did, the lifestyle they tried to obtain would not be possible, which is why it made them a "wage-slave." Yes, the working-class is a part of the middle class, but in reality, the working-class can be a challenging class to be a part of, due to being on the verge of poverty. Individuals are doing what it takes to keep their head afloat above the water to get by and not crumble down to poverty. For that reason, I believe that's why there are so many working-class individuals. Middle-class people don't want to live in poverty but being wealthy is a difficult task to achieve, so they do the bare minimum to just get by and not to be classified as part of poverty and that's how they land in the context of the middle-class but rather more as a
“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
The American middle class is supposed to be living the American dream life. They would be able to afford a home, 1-2 cars, take 1-2 vacations within a year, be able to send their children to college and live comfortable lives. Middle class Americans would shop stores such as Wal-Mart and Kmart and splurge on department
Despite the debates about social class, the United States is usually described as having four major social classes, the elite or upperclass, the middle class, the working class, and the lower class (Goldscmidt). Classes are generally differentiated by income, education, and occupation although other factors do have an effect. The upperclass consists of about 1% of the population making 750,000 dollars or more a year as investors, top executives, or heirs to large fortunes (Hughes and Jenkins). There tends to be no question about who is in the upperclass as they are pretty clearly isolated in their power and wealth. The middle class makes up about 40% of the population making anywhere from 40,000 to 749,999 dollars a year (Hughes and Jenkins). The large disparity in income and wealth have led to a further division of this class into upper-middle class and middle class in some circles. The middle class usually work white collar jobs as professionals and managers, however some highly skilled blue collar workers are included. Those in the middle class have usually obtained higher education degrees and place a high value on individual responsibility for one’s class (Goldschmidt). The working class is composed of about 50% of the population earning 13,000 to 39,000 dollars a year (Hughes and Jenkins). Some also divide this class into a working class and a
So as more people want jobs, they find those jobs are out of reach or they find other problems that are more important to them, leading to less and less jobs are filled every day. And the result leads to more unemployment. the unemployment rate is currently heading down slowly but the hire rate of people under the age of 50 to find jobs has stayed roughly the same over the years. So if the 41% of people cannot contribute to the cycle, leaving 59% of Americans to pick up the pace for everyone. But According to David Akadjian in the past 50 years, Americans have to work up to three times as much for the exact amount of pay, in 2013 the median wage was $27,851 and in 2017 it has only moved up 3 percent higher. so if you had a family of 5 or more you would be under the poverty line. But to look back to the median wage, it is a livable pay for a majority, and there a certain ways to deal with this without getting into poverty. but the problem is if fewer people keep getting jobs and the people with jobs on average, they are getting paid less and less for work. America will begin to topple on top of itself.
* The middle class lay in the middle and was the group of people in society that had bigger better houses on their own block of land and were quite well off when it came to money and resources.
Some astonishing figures prove that fact, over 50% of the American families moved into middle-class status. The number of salaried workers increased by 61 % and the number of
Middle class is what I’d like to categorize myself in. I’m not poor but I’m not rich, I’m comfortable and I don’t live above my means. I like to save money and give myself a spending limit on things that are
In the documentary "My Reality: A Hidden America," produced by ABC News, reporter Diane Sawyer interviews hard-working, middle-class American families struggling to make ends meet while also examining the growing gap between the low wage workers and the upper-class. The documentary follows the lives of different individuals from firefighters, contract workers, teacher assistants, fast food workers, and even Biotechnology workers. The film gives the viewers a glimpse of the hardships that these low wage middle-class Americans go through on a daily basis. Some of these hardships include traveling eighty miles to and from work each day to having to donate blood plasma just to make a few extra bucks for a child's birthday present. On average, middle-class Americans, which make up roughly seventy-five percent of the population, are making only $54,000 a year.
Most people can't get ahead financially.(Esko)The middle class hasn't seen its wage rise in 15
Therefore, in order to make the American Dream achievable to everyone, income wages must increase for those in the lower class and government welfare should be provided to all Americans in order to increase the opportunity of social mobility. Though income inequality may seem as an inevitable issue that just happens to plague many Americans who choose to work in blue collar jobs, current economic inequality is more realistically the result of unfair economic policies that threaten to worsen if they are not immediately addressed. The poor conditions of the workers who work for long hours with little pay demonstrate that America is at a crucial point, and that without immediate action, the country will continue to plunge further downward into a less mobile and more contrasted
Most people can determine what class a person is by just looking at the house that person lives in. If someone lives in a million-dollar home, then more than likely they are from the upper class. Middle class people usually own homes that are just big enough
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).
The upper middle class consists of managers and professionals, while the lower middle class is made up of clerks, office workers, telephone sales and shop workers. These jobs are usually not very well paying and do not require very high qualifications. The petty bourgeoisie on the other hand are small business owners. This group may consist of people who may own a workshop or shop and may be employing a small number of people.
popular kids who are rich, elegant, and mostly known. The Middle Class is characterized as everyday