ipl-logo

The Hourglass Society Analysis

921 Words4 Pages

The United States economy is constantly changing; however, since as early as 1956 the bulge of the middle class has seemed to be steadily disappearing. Supporting the idea that the United States society has taken on the shape of a distorted hourglass. In Stewart Lansley’s article, “The Hourglass Society,” he writes about how the United States society has a growing gap between the rich and the poor; furthermore, causing an increase in inequality among the different social classes. Lansley makes the statement, “One of the most significant effects of America’s hourglass society has been the capping of opportunities and the emergence of downward mobility amongst the middle classes”. This statement shows the unfairness that the middle classes …show more content…

Within the article, “The Hour Glass Society” Lansley uses multiple sources to help him explain his topic (a shrinking middle class) to an audience of economists and those who are interested in the American economy and society. With the use of quotes by: C. Wright Mills, Professor Alan Krueger, The Washington Post, Ludwig von Mises, Arthur Okun, President Obama, and Robert E. Lucas, Lansley is able to support his argument to the fullest. Lansley stated, “One of the most significant effects of America’s hourglass society has been the capping of opportunities and the emergence of downward mobility amongst the middle classes” this statement was used to bring out emotion to show the audience that there are citizens out there who cannot achieve the American Dream because the opportunity was taken from the middle classes. When “A quarter of the American workforce end up in low—paid jobs, the highest rate across rich nations, while the wealthiest 400 Americans have the same combined wealth as the poorest half — over 150 million people.”, the United States needs to open it’s eyes and see why this is the wrong choice in economy and …show more content…

Throughout “The Hourglass Society,” Lansley writes about how different the United States economy and society are from the 1900’s. I believe Lansley is trying to use the examples in “The Hourglass Society” to make his readers better understand what the United States has become. The shape (“a contorted hourglass”) the United States has taken on basically says it all. In 1956, “C. Wright Mills, wrote that American society had become ‘less a pyramid with a flat base than a fat diamond with a bulging middle’”. Mills making this statement in 1956 shows just how long the United States has had to change its economy and society. President Obama’s chairman of Council of Economic Advisers (Professor Alan Krueger) “Has shown how the size of the American middle class (households with annual incomes within 50 percent of the midpoint of the income distribution) has been heading backwards from a peak of more than a half in the late 1970s to 40 percent now”. This decrease makes the American Dream look more like a myth, than a possibility for the American citizens living under the poverty

Show More
Related

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Confronting Inequality By Paul Krugman

    290 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Commentary On Nickel And Dimed

    374 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Why Was The American Economy Dbq

    710 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Allen’s chart, he illustrates how only 2% of the American population makes over $10,000 a year. With the poverty level at $2000 a year, most of the American population fell close to or under this annual income (Doc 8). These low wages of annual income made people's’ lives a true struggle. Citizens would work for nearly 24 hours, all week long, just to get by with basic living standards. An example of living at or below the poverty level, is documented in Paul Blanshard’s “How to live on Forty-six Cents a Day” interview with a woman living in South Carolina with her family of 6.

    Read More

  • Comparing The American Dream In Nickel And Dimed By Barbara Ehrenreich

    1610 Words  | 7 Pages

    In accordance to Nickel and Dimed and more modern statistics, The American Dream was not obtainable then and is still not attainable now because of sectional differences in the United States and how previous education, such as grade school or university education, cannot compensate for those differences, how the more fortunate always find ways to take advantage of the less fortunate through their lives of opportunity such that the success of the less fortunate is rigged, and really how the whole concept of the American Dream and its attainability is based on the context of the time period. In the bulk of Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich narrates her experiences working in the multiple types of jobs she’s had within the United States. She mentions how within each region, Florida, Maine, and Minnesota, she encountered different types of work , leaving her with a certain amount of money each week or month after tax payments and paying for

    Read More

  • Edward Mcclelland Middle Class Summary

    748 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Comparing Wealth And The Life Of A Coal Miner

    587 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Death Of Horatio Alger By Paul Krugman

    520 Words  | 3 Pages

    Many economists argue about the exact nature of the relationship of social mobility in the context of the modern economy. One such economist, Paul Krugman, negatively comments in his essay “The Death of Horatio Alger” on the decreasing social mobility among low-wage citizens in the United States. He claims that the American dream of advancement opportunities will diminish as the wealthy aim to prevent others from rising above them in the business world. Moreover, he labels America’s unequal society as a rigid “caste system” and opposes those who ignore the system’s lack of fairness to the lower class (134). Although Krugman strongly criticizes the inflexibility of economic mobility, his informal tone, biased perspective, and unjustifiable approach make his argument not only ineffective but also offensive.

    Read More

  • Nickel And Dimed And Scratch Beginnings Analysis

    2296 Words  | 10 Pages

    The American Dream is almost purely run by structural forces, in her perspective, that are constantly attempting to impede the middle class’ ability for upward mobility. Those who are impoverished are there because of their surroundings, the institutions that shape their lives and therefore, they simply cannot find any way out of the poverty trap in which they have found themselves. While Ehrenreich was conducting her case study, she attempted to determine if the American Dream was by attempting to immerse herself in the culture of the poor. She only did so partially due to several stipulations that she set for the experiment as she stated that she would not live in a shelter (Shepard did), that she would not get rid of her vehicle and rely on public transportation (Shepard also did this); however, she did note that even for her, being partially immersed as she was, still found there to be not much difference between herself and those that worked around. She believed, from her experiences, that the social structure of the employment opportunities, was a systematic way to dehumanize the workers.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Serving In Florida By Gregory Mantsios

    1318 Words  | 6 Pages

    Mantsios’ compares the profiles of different Americans lifestyles in his text and develops the idea that an individual’s class standing can affect their livelihood in detrimental ways, “The lower one’s class standing, the more difficult it is to secure appropriate housing, the more time is spent on routine tasks of everyday life, the greater is the percentage of income that goes to pay for food and other basic necessities, and the greater is the likelihood of crime victimization” (293). Mantsios explains that one’s class standing can affect the chances of survival and success. Ehrenreich describes her own housing experiences as a low income worker. To reduce her overall costs and to obtain a second job, Ehrenreich moves closer to Key West. Ehrenreich has just enough money to pay the rent and deposit on a tiny trailer at the Overseas Trailer Park.

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On The Gilded Age

    1318 Words  | 6 Pages

    Wealth, poverty, technology, decadence, the Gilded Age was a time of change and uprooting of past systems, schools of thought, and standards. It was a time of both hope and doubt for the majority of the population and brought many to be empty handed or exceedingly wealthy. The dynamic between rich and poor was shifting to a gap of wealth never before seen in the young country. The gilded age’s built up wealth disparity faded away over time. Yet today it seems that a resurgence of these features is rearing its ugly head again.

    Read More

  • Annotated Bibliography: The American Middle Class

    189 Words  | 1 Pages

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

    Read More

  • Examples Of The American Dream In A Raisin In The Sun

    1123 Words  | 5 Pages

    To most achieving the American Dream is obtaining success and economic stability. To some obtaining the American Dream is making more money than their parents. According to David Leonhardts’ article “The American Dream, Quantified at Last”, New York Times (8 Dec. 2016) provides statistics that show 50 to 60 years ago an individual was able to drastically exceed the amount of money their parents earned. Thanks to rapid, widely shared

    Read More

  • How Did Life Magazine Reshaped American Culture

    1321 Words  | 6 Pages

    However, because Life was mostly focused on the middle class, they encouraged other classes to become middle class. “…although the editors presented class boundaries as definable, they also showed how standards could be adopted; thus defined, they also became permeable, as once boundaries were marked, they could be crossed” (Webb 28). By solely focusing on the middle-class lifestyle, Life created the true middle-class ideal: a family living in a large suburban home. This ideal spoke to many middle-class Americans as it presented an opportunity in the middle of economic hardship.

    Read More

  • The American Dream: Annotated Bibliography

    517 Words  | 3 Pages

    Annotated Bibliography Cohen, M. (2014, April 26). The American Dream is now just that for its middle classes – a dream. The Guardian, p. 00. “The American Dream is now just that for its middle classes – a dream” by Michael Cohen explains the perception of Americans towards the decline of the middle class. The article details how the middle class was viewed before the elections of President Obama, and how it’s viewed after the creation of the Affordable Care Act.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Poverty In 1984

    721 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although there a few modern examples of people with a ‘rags to riches’ story, namely Oprah Winfrey and Steve Jobs, the masses of people born into lower income households don’t commonly rise to the middle class. A recent study by Pew Charitable Trust signifies how important family wealth is, as the “median family wealth of those who made it to middle class was $94,586, while the median wealth of those stuck at the bottom was just $8,892” (Hargreaves 1). The higher a family’s financial capital is, the easier it is to invest in opportunities such as education, which increases income. Winston in 1984 observes how the proles are intelligent in their daily tasks, stating how "even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory” (Orwell 72).

    Read More

More about The Hourglass Society Analysis

Open Document