Age Of Growing Inequality: Article Analysis

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According to ‘The American Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality’, “occupation is “a social role that describes the major work that a person does to earn a living. An individual’s occupation or that of a family’s main income earner is a key determinant of class position.” (272, Gilbert). This article is about the issues of not enough open positions in the job market and a problem of low wages that has caused the government to push back raising interest rates. The article also shows that the country has a bigger problem than people thinks, the issues of bigger companies not producing enough jobs and/or not giving out proper wages. Due to the reports shown in the article, unemployment has dropped, but not enough to stimulate…show more content…
It shows that the lower your level of education is, the more likely you are to be unemployed. Therefore, the higher your level of education is the less likely you are to be unemployed. The gap between the employed and the unemployed is very wide. Of those that are in the unemployment gap, they are considered as poor in the social class structure. There are also those people who are living pay checks to pay checks and are barely making it. These people are placed in the lower class category on the social class structure. The article shows that these people are not able to get better jobs because there are few opportunities for advancement and at the same time there is little to no wage increase and therefore forcing them to live pay checks to pay checks. These obstacles most times are results of not having higher than a high school education. Those people on the opposite end of the spectrum are considered as the wealthy or the rich and they have a more advanced and better life than those in the lower class because they have better paying occupations and higher wages. These people are able to save and spend more and stimulating the economic growth. These people are also considered as the white-collar workers, mainly because they occupy higher paying occupations that are in an office setting. Some of these occupations include lawyers, doctors, CEO, and many other…show more content…
This had happened because of low demand, less investment and an overall fall in product prices. According to the article “Those stuck in neutral or suffering from effective wage declines included those in the manufacturing, retail clothing and textile industries.” (Cohen, 2015). This is an example of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. According to the text, Marx explanation of a bourgeoisie is, “the class that owns the means of production and controls the superstructure in a capitalist society.” It also explains the proletariat as “people who must sell their labor power to business owners to survive in a capitalist society.” (Gilbert, 274). I made this comparison because in an industrial workplace money is the basis of social class. Therefore with lower demand and fall on product prices, the bourgeoisie is most likely to either downsize his workers or lower their wages in order to save overhead cost. This leaves the remaining employees being over worked, but still receiving the same wage. These workers are known as the proletariat. The article also explains that even though many job sectors have not increased wages, there are many other areas that have remained on an upward growth, areas such as tourism and travel and hospitality. A possible cause for this could simply be because that people no matter who they are will

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