SOCIOL 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Welfare Queen, Working Poor, Social Capital
Document Summary
We presume that rich people earned their money: justifies inequality. In 1918 the average ceo earned about 40x more than the average worker at his company. Wealth inequality has exploded: the richer getting obscenely richer, the poor getting poorer, the middle class is shrinking. Systemic transfer of wealth from the bottom up. Poverty in america is significantly worse than in other developed nations. About half of the people living below the poverty line only have half of the poverty line (dire poverty) Without these programs such as social security and. Medicare, millions of americans will fall into poverty. The fastest growing segment of the poor is the working poor. Federal minimum wage hasn"t been raised since 2009. Spending power of today"s minimum wage is at the level of 1978. Two breadwinners earning minimum wage would keep them right above the poverty line.
