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Social Stratification In America

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Introduction

All societies around the world experience social stratification within their populations. Social stratification occurs when groups of people are categorized based on their share of scarce resources, most importantly income, wealth, power and prestige (Levine, 1998 as cited in Shepard & Greene, 2002). Groups of people who possess similar amounts of these limited resources are then placed into a social class (Shepard & Greene, 2002). A person’s social class has a significant impact on many aspects of the lives, from their values and social norms/lifestyle (Shepard & Greene, 2002), to the types of schools they may be accepted at, the types of jobs available to them, and the sorts of friends they may make (DeAngelis, 2015). This …show more content…

Many in this class lack a high school degree and are unemployed (Barkan, 2011). This class is also suffers from poor health for a number of reasons to include poor diets (Barkan, 2011), bad reputations, and higher crime rates (Mary, 2014). Those who do work in this class, work in lower esteemed jobs such as janitors, migrant laborers, and house cleaners (Barkan, 2011). Some portions of this class are clustered into highly urbanized areas and rely on government assistance to live (Chapter Eight: Social Class in the United States, …show more content…

I can understand where wageworkers would want to receive more pay, because quite honestly, everyone wants to receive more pay. However, I think it myopic to desire more pay because CEOs are paid what they are or to believe that CEOs should be paid less because wageworkers are paid what they are. Personally, the compensation top executives receive motivates me; I see this as a level to aspire to. I also think it absurd to be upset about the pay disparity between wageworkers and CEOs when actors and athletes are paid millions of dollars for what they do- where are the complaints for this inequality? The only reason actors can star in top-producing movies or athletes perform well on a sports field, is in part, due to the contributions of the people below them who make their careers possible. However, if a movie does poorly or a team fails to win, it is not the cameramen, makeup artists, sports trainers, physical therapist who are blamed-it is the actors/athletes. The same principle applies to

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