Paul Krugman author of the article “Confronting Inequality” stresses the inequality of our social classes in the United States, he uses statistics to demonstrate the staggering consequences of this inequality within our social classes. Krugman emphasizes the fact that a majority of our wealth is owned by about one percent of the population, which is leaving the middle and lower class at an extreme disadvantage. One example Krugman uses is education; children that have wealthy families, have a higher percentage of finishing college than those of lower income families, proving the statement that Krugman was accentuating, “Class-inherited class- usually trumps talent.” The parents within this middle to lower class have been exceed their financial
I viewed Frontline a documentary series, which episode was entitled Poor Kids. The frontline personnel spent time with three children Kailey, Johnny, and Britany along with their families as they all struggle financially. We perceive a glimpse of what it is like to live below the poverty line in America through a child’s eyes. While observing the documentary, I became consciously aware that children who are considered poor or living below the poverty line were more mindful of the responsibilities of life. The children were worrisome of the lack of employment for their parents, bills, and in Britney’s case; how they would accommodate their way of living to support a new addition to the family.
The impoverished value food and beds over toys. Rich families that are not burdened by insufficient funds value material possessions and luxury items. They still have the necessities; however, they are not burdened by the lack of food or beds. Those born rich are able to live life not realizing the struggles of the poor. Poor families see money and associate that with food.
In Rachel Sherman’s “A Very Expensive Ordinary Life: Conflicted Consumption,” the argument centres around the “legitimization” of wealth by the New York’s upper class in order to be seen as not only rich, but morally worthy. The possession of great wealth alongside their less fortunate peers could be uncomfortable also for those that hold the city’s riches. Hence, New York’s affluent has “legitimized” their wealth and consumption, or on a more macro level, the inequality between the social classes in the city in order to feel more comfortable in their spending, and to manage the impression of the wealthy in the eyes of the greater public in the much morally contested behaviour of lavish spending in an unequal society. This is supported throughout the reading by the justification of excessive spending and consumption by the claim that the rich live an “ordinary” life. The need that they feel towards justifying their spending comes to show that their amount of spending is excessive in the eyes of the ordinary person, in which they also acknowledge themselves as well.
In the reading "The Rich Are Different from You and Me," Chrystia Freeland explains the increase of income inequality in wealthy people vs. People under the wealthy in of our society, which wealthy people are about 10 percent of the population and the people under the wealthy is about 90 percent of the population (Pg.52). In the reading it talks about how the wealthy people are overweening ahead of everyone else in our society. The reading shows statistics of growth presented between the wealthiest and the general society and how the wealthiest people in our society are separating their selves from more and more from the general society and are getting ahead of everyone else. Freeland believed that wealthiest people of today started out in
In James W. Loewen’s “The Land of Opportunity,” he states that social class affects the way children are raised. He discusses the inequality in today’s society and how the textbooks in high school do not give any social class information. The students in today’s time are not taught everything they should be taught. He states that your family’s wealth is what makes up your future. Loewen discusses that people with more money can study for the SATs more productively and get a better score than someone who has less money.
Nicole Giannecchini 5 Nov. 2014 English 101 Ware So Smart yet So Stupid In Chapter four of Outliers Malcolm Gladwell suggests that somewhere lost in the hierarchy of our society is the reason that specific children succeed. Gladwell explains that while every child has a right to be curious, and to learn some have it a little easier than others.
Malcolm Gladwell writes a powerful book in Outliers that really makes us think about success and what it takes to be successful. Gladwell’s claim that the upper middle class has more opportunities than the poor rests upon the questionable assumption that individuals with an upper middle class background do not have to work hard to be successful. Therefore, we should reconsider Gladwell’s claim because successful people still had to work hard and seize those opportunities. I still believe that we can better ourselves and have a better life than what we started with.
Chris Semansky’s critical essay on “Theme for English B” unravels what the poem Langston Hughes composed is about. Semansky gives many arguments as to what each part of the poem signified. For example, he explained that Langston’s poem could have been an act of rebellion to educate the teacher by the student. Also, it was to illustrate the student’s intellectual power and infinite identities. The “Theme for English B” was not only about who the student was in Semansky’s outlook, but also schooling the teacher about something much deeper than the surface.
In Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon and in Ron Rash’s short stories Blackberries In June and Speckled Trout, there are themes of wealth disparity and how it affects people. More specifically, most of the characters can be divided up into two groups; those who are wealthy and those who are not. Poorer individuals tend to view those who are wealthy as arrogant, out of touch or greedy. However, they also aspire to become rich themselves or at least be perceived as such.
In the story, the narrator describes the rich as “different from you and me. [The rich] possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand” (Fitzgerald, “The Rich Boy” 3). The narrator 's description is very accurate, which is shown especially in the main character, Anson, who was born into a wealthy family and exhibits many of these characteristics. Tate, a critical writer explains that “‘The Rich Boy’ is not so much about wealth itself as about the effect of wealth on character, and the primary effect on Anson is an over power sense of superiority” (1). This superiority that Anson feels directly correlates with his upbringing because he has more money than most people.
According to the PBS Frontline video “Poor Kids” 2012, more than 46 million Americans are living beneath the poverty line. The United States alone has one of the highest rates of child poverty in the industrialized world. It is stated that 1 out of 5 children are living in poverty. The video documented the lives of three families who are faced with extreme hardships and are battling to survive a life of being poor. All three families have more than one child and could barely afford to pay their bills and purchase food for their household.
1984 Synthesis Essay Poverty negatively influences how the minds of people work in the world. The fact that poverty exists itself, obstructs people from changing their circumstances in what is known as “the cycle of poverty.” The lower class is incredibly disadvantaged in that it lacks the necessary social and economic resources needed to increase chances of social mobility. In return, the absence of these resources may increase poverty. Therefore, the lower class is unable to change its situation because the majority believes that any efforts to climb the social ladder is highly inefficient.
Carnegie immigrated at age thirteen from Scotland and worked his way up by developing the telegram system during the civil, there collecting his first million then dominated the steel industry; thereafter prospering his enterprise, which leads him to be the second richest man after Rockefeller. “The American Dream”, envisioned by our Founding Fathers, is a revolutionary idea that any citizen has an equal opportunity to prosper by challenging themselves and through an initiative, and determination. This gives” Wealth” much more of an impact thus, many Americans consider ‘The American Dream” as a standard and praise this idealism. Even if his views seem a bit outdated; it stills heavily impacted lots of Americans from the Gilded Age to modern day. However, for all that prosperity, the gap between rich and poor has always been a huge complication, for over a century, people have tried to fix this inequality.
Wealth, no matter how important an appearance it has, cannot fulfill a life and make a demeaning impact on lives until their
