The American Dream: Annotated Bibliography

Atlantic Media Company, 18 May 2012. Web. 27 Apr. 2016. "The American Middle Class Is Losing Ground. "

Reading through RIP, the Middle Class: 1946-2013, it became fairly obvious that the author, Edward McClelland, was presenting a thesis idea that consisted of promoting the middle class through examples of its prime time when middle class thrived. McClelland made the point clearly as he repeatedly provided examples ranging from the glory days of the assembly line industry that had provided high paying jobs for many people, to presidents who attempted to keep business within the United States to promote home grown jobs. He was especially focused on the point that the middle class was shrinking due to a large discrepancy between the wealthy and the rest of society as capitalism achieves its goal of padding the wealthiest and keeping the middle

Although the American economy is improving from the great recession , the middle class is shrinking, a problem for a consumerist based economy where the middle class makes up the consumerists. Every industry has a place in today’s world, however some industries are losing importance while others

Classism is a major issue that plagues American society. Classism separates groups by their economic status in society. America is perceived to be a middle class society, however in reality the middle class does not hold majority of the nation’s wealth. Most of the nation’s wealth is held by 1% of the population in America which consists of 34% of the nation’s wealth, meanwhile “the richest 20% of Americans hold nearly 85% of the total household wealth in the country” (Adams et al, 2013, p. 151). American citizens that are a part of the upper class are privilege because they have access to majority of the resources.

America, the land of equity, has the largest ratio of rich citizens to poor citizens at 12:1. Compared to Japan and Germany’s measly 4:1, this information is outrageous. America is shown to have the most skewed economic pyramid when denoting the amount of people on each side of the economic slide. The selection, Class in America - 2006, an academic paper by Gregory Mantsios, argues the existence and magnitude of class and economic standing in the United States; through the use of fact and opinion, he creates the visual of a society severely divided by economic standing. Gregory Mantsios effectively convinces the audience of the differences in class sanding that cause a significant impact in the lives of americans and economic spectrum with his use of logos, anticipation, and credible evidence.

My article deals with the study of society and social interaction of the Middle Class and how they survived on a Nickel and Dimed. In our text (n) 2, (pg. 42, paragraph 2) the journalist Barbara Ehrenreich brought the two stories together by research, that it is, impossible to make it on minimum wage work. The journalist observed in her study the mindset of the working Middle Class people, their persistence to make ends meet, to take care of their household, family and the will to make thing change. The “Middle Class” an aimless expression applied to those who is not on the system of welfare. In the United States certain development changed the past three decades, due to after World War II, the benefits of growth, and money making flow to

When the High-Class is becoming richer the Middle-Class and Lower-class become poorer it creates social Inequality. Krugman also writes,” The fact is that vast inequality inevitability brings vast social inequality in its train.” 563. When economic tide favors the high-class it starts to tear gaps between the classes. Social inequality can make it hard for many Americans to strive or even live

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

Changes in Wealth Distribution in America – 1950 to Present All of us know and have used to the idea that it’s obvious some people are rich while others are poor because it has been so for many centuries even when people didn’t have any knowledge on economy or finance. It’s impossible not feeling sorry for and wanting to help those who benefited less and poor (bottom 99%) or not feeling envy when talking about those who are wealthy (top 1%). It is the result of unequal wealth distribution among population, it is often called wealth gap. This essay will analyze the rate of changes of wealth distribution in the US since 1950s, try to explain its reasons and give recommendations on fixing the raising wealth gap between the poor and the rich. Nowadays the middle class is disappearing as people becoming too poor while some are getting too rich.

According to an article published the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History titled, “The Fifties”, the American middle-class grew rapidly during the 1950’s and by this time 60 percent of Americans were considered “middle-class”. Truman Capote’s book, In Cold Blood, chronicles the murder of a well-to-do middle-class family known as, the Clutter family. Capote uses the Clutter family to represent the rising middle-class in the 1950’s by showing a lifestyle that is comfortable yet modest. The middle-class consists of well-educated business workers who are neither rich nor poor.

The class system in the United States is broken up into six levels: the capitalists, the upper class, upper middle class, working class, lower working class, and underclass. The Capitalists are usually investors or top executive, the upper middle class is usually professionals and upper level managers, the lower middle class is semiprofessionals, foremen, and craftspeople, the working class is factory works, clerical works, and retail, the working poor is laborers, service works, low-paid salespeople, and the underclass is unemployed, part-time, or on welfare (Larkin, 2015, para). This system of stratification is the most open and allows for the most social

Income inequality The article “Confronting Inequality,” written by Paul Krugman, a professor at Princeton University, emphasizes that the middle class suffers from social inequality and economic inequality. Krugman suggests building a stronger safety net so the gap between the poor and rich can be limited to by raising of the taxes. Krugman uses this claim to highlight the fact that the middle class needs to be stronger and the only way to achieve that is to have a strong safety net. Krugman says the rich use loopholes in the tax system to cheat their way out of high taxes, and the poor pay a relatively high tax compared to what they should be paying.

The rich use tactics to gain the support of the middle class, but without losing any of their own riches, like wealth or power, for their own gain. It was at the cost of the “slaves, Indians, and poor whites” (Zinn 1). It spared the rich any expenses, but brought them much gain, from the support. Finally, the growth of the colonies positively impacted the rich as well, as they received the profits and benefits from the expansions. With one percent of property owners owning forty four percent of the wealth, it shows how the majority of the wealth was given to the rich, and not distributed among the other classes at all, deepening the division.

The wealthy continue to grow as they get more of everything and the lower class continue to get less. The average wealth has increased over the last 50 years, but it has not grown equally for all. “ Families near the bottom of the wealth distribution (those at the 10th percentile) went from having no wealth on average to being

In America after World War Two, citizens were split between classes based on their economic stability. Americans today still look at these classes and define these people as better off or worse off than the next person. Why do people judge others for having less money than them? Why do employers send lower class citizen away when they need the money the most? These are some question that citizens in the lower or middle class have when they are looking at their position in America’s economic system.