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Social Classes In The United States

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Social Classes
Social class is divided into six ladder rungs with the wealthiest on the top rung and poorest on the bottom rung, according to Joseph Kahl and Dennis Gilbert. This means that the wealthiest are the most powerful because they have money and the poorest or underclass has no chance of advancement up the ladder. There are truths to this picture of social class but looking at social class this way gives little hope to the parts of society that are in poverty of ever moving up the ladder (Henslin, 2014).
“Today, the richest one percent of Americans earns nearly a quarter of the country’s income and control 40 percent of its wealth” (Wikibooks, 2015). People in this upper class have inherited their money from their relatives and have …show more content…

The population is made up of 15 percent of the working poor. Some have high school diploma but most of them are high school dropouts. A lot of this class is on food stamps just to survive and to feed their families. It is easy for this class to become the underclass and to become homeless. They work hard but never seem to get ahead without an education (Henslin, 2014).
The last rung on the ladder is the underclass. They are unemployed, work part-time or are on government assistance. They are high school drop outs and have little education making it hard to find a decent job. This class has little hopefulness of climbing the social ladder. “About 5 percent of the population falls into this class” (Henslin, 2014). The population of homeless people is in this class, unskilled labor is not needed in this day and age.
Income, education, wealth and occupation play a big role in how classes in society are made up. If you are in the elite upper-class then you are born with money and never have to worry about the lower classes. The lower classes struggle to survive every day and are worried how they are going to continue to survive. I feel that this is an issue that society needs to solve so that everyone has an equal opportunity to live a decent life and not have to worry where their next meal is going to come

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