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The Working Class Majority America's Best Kept Secret Summary

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Journal Entry #6 After reading Michael Zweig's “The Working Class Majority: America's Best Kept Secret”, I read and was able to determine his own perspective of class. Zweig states that he wouldn’t consider the United States to be a middle class society and that he thinks that the majority of Americans today are part of the working class. He defines class as power, whether it is power in the workplace, cultural, economic, or political and in the larger society and not so much it depending income. I think he defines class as power due to the fact that we as the people have the power to experience class in many ways. We are all born and raised differently and all come from cultural backgrounds. He briefly explains how there is a high class and low class depending how …show more content…

I can agree with him on that statement to an extent personally due to the fact that sometimes the worst parents in the universe can raise you, but you alone can show yourself a thing or two about morals and life lessons simply by living them. That does not mean that your parents don’t play a big part in your life though. Your parents have to be the ones that are supposed to be your role models in life but there are cases when that is not always going to happen. For example, we have a family friend. She is currently a single mother and has a thirteen-year-old daughter. Her mom always leaves her home alone due to working long hours of work. Unfortunately, her father, who is no longer part of her life, never sees her. She has always been so independent all of her life and I can consider her being one of the most strongest human beings here in this world. This girl has been through so much all her life and she still manages to take care of herself and is also very respectful. I can say that I give her all the credit for being the person she is today. This goes to show that sometimes the only person you can

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The article “The Secret Shame of Middle-Class Americans” was featured on The Atlantic website. It was published in the May 2016 print issue of the magazines under the heading Business. The article was written by Neal Gabler. This 6,800-word article was written about the both the personal financial struggles of the author and general financial struggles of the American middle-class that are so often masked. According to the author, the article was inspired by a statistic published by the Federal Reserve Board: “47 percent of respondents said that either they would cover the expense by borrowing or selling something, or they would not be able to come up with the $400 at all.”

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The American dream is a dream of a land in which one can prosper with ambition and hard work. This idea has created many illusions for some because in reality the American dream is proven to be something that is rarely achieved. No individual is guaranteed success or destined for failure, but it is apparent that women, people of color, and those born into poverty will face greater obstacles than others, despite being a greater part of the American population. An author that tackles the issue of class in the United States is Gregory Mantsios. In his essay, “Class in America-2009”, Mantsios aims to prove that class affects people’s lives in drastic ways.

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The Vertical layered hierarchy dimension of John Porter’s Vertical Mosaic introduced social theory through class, power and status. Class is difficult to define and usually objectively determined by socioeconomic status, income and at times relational configurations. Normalization and uniformity of possessions created a middle class stereotype within Canada, which John Porter broke through outlining the hierarchy that class actually is. In fact, when the book was written, approximately only 3% of Canadians

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Have you ever wanted to chase the American dream? It might be more impossible than people realize. Gregory Mantsios writes “Class in America-2012” about the growing and obvious class divide in America, yet no one wants to talk about the situation and the effects on the people. I will be analyzing the text and explaining the effects it has on the reader. Throughout the article Mantsios stays consistent with his opinion by providing multiple charts and graphs to back his point.

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Work Cited Madland, David. " Growth and the Middle Class." Democracy Journal. 04 Mar. 2011. Web.

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Moreover, this also makes her more of an inspiration to younger girls. She doesn’t quiet down or change because others tell her to. She lives her life the way she wants to because she wants to. Not only this but by making her bold decisions she has inspired women across the globe not to just sit and take what comes to them. She shows women that they can be independent, bold, and whatever they want to

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There is lower, middle, and upper class, but there are also subcategories that fill the gaps in between, like the impoverished and the top one percenters. “Class in America”, written by Gregory Mantsios, addresses the myths and realities about socioeconomic class in America and how they affect American lives. His article highlights the unequal divide that has persisted over the course of history and will continue to manifest in the future. To introduce the existence of this issue, Mantsios states that this country’s citizens “don’t like to talk about class...or class privileges, or class oppression, or the class nature of society” (Mantsios 378). This is the case in America today because people are neglecting to acknowledge the existence of these elusive

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The middle class have a good education, high demanding jobs, and a fair amount of income. Most middle class households tend to not have the stress about money because the income is sufficient enough to have the daily needed quality of living, as well as a little extra. Also in the middle class community, it seems that marital statuses seem to remain more stable because the level of income that is made in their household giving them a very comfortable living condition. In the article, “Middle class identification: The influence of interclass context on middle class evaluations of morality and success,” Archer writes about the study of the middle class. One of Archers’ hypothesis is, “Members of the middle class would have higher levels of class identification when comparing themselves to the working class, than when comparing themselves to the upper class,” (Archer).

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Although, there are many who attempt to live up to the “middle-class measuring rod’ by embracing the culture and social values of the middle-class. However, being “ill-equipped mentally, socially, and linguistically to achieve the rewards of the middle class’ (Rabow, 1966). This action is mainly caused by what Cohen refers to as “The college boy”, able to succeed, but unable to function at the caliber of his social group

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