SOCS 185N Week 4 Assignment: Social Class & Inequality (GRADED A)

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SOCS 185N Week 4 Assignment: Social Class & Inequality Explain the difference between income inequality and wealth inequality in the United States. Explain the racial wealth gap. Income and wealth... are important aspects to consider from a sociological standpoint. Although they have some similarities, income and wealth have significant differences. Kendall (2018) defines income as “the money, wages, and payments that people receive from their occupation or investments” (p. 204). Kendall (2018) then defines wealth as “ the value of the assets that an individual or family holds at a specific point in time” (p. 204). The major difference between the two is that income is what a family makes while wealth is the total of all assets minus debt. It’s also important to note that income is one aspect of wealth (Kendall, 2018). Income inequality is when the distribution of income between different populations (rich and poor) is disproportionate (Kendall, 2018). There is a huge gap in received income between rich and poor. Wealth inequality is when the distribution of wealth is disproportionate in different populations (Kendall, 2018). Kendall (2018) states, “the net worth of each household in the wealthiest 1 percent is nearly 300 times greater than the net worth of the median U.S. household” (p. 206). There is a bigger disparity in wealth than in income. The racial wealth gap is looking at wealth inequality, which is the uneven distribution of wealth, amongst different races. Kendall (2018) states, “the median wealth of white households is about thirteen times higher than the median wealth of black households” (p. 206). When comparing white households to other races, whites have a higher net worth than blacks and Latinos (Kendall, 2018). Some factors that contribute to the racial wealth gap are “years of homeownership, household income, unemployment, which is much more prominent among African-American families, a college education, inheritance, financial support by families or friends, and preexisting family wealth” (Shapiro, Meschede & Osoro, 2013, p. 1). The white population tends to be advantaged in these circumstances. Explain some characteristics of the U.S. poor based on age, gender, and race or ethnicity. Predicts people’s relative chances of being poor based on age, gender, or race, for example. The people that make up the poor population in the U.S. come from all different backgrounds and belong to several different groups. People of different ages, genders, and races can be poor. The groups that are most likely to be poor are females (16.3%), people over the age of 65 (14.5%) and under the age of 18 (21.2%), Native Americans (27.6%), Latinos (23.4%), and African Americans (26.2%) (“Population of Poverty”, 2019). These percentages are significantly higher than the number of white people living in poverty (12.4%). If a person living in the U.S. was a Native American geriatric female, they have the highest chance of living in poverty. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a white male between the ages of 18 and 64 has the lowest chance of living in poverty. References Kendall, D. (2018). Sociology in our times: The essentials (11th ed). Boston: Cengage Learning. Shapiro, T., Meschede, T., & Osoro, S. (2013). The Roots of the Widening Racial Wealth Gap: Explaining the Black-White Economic Divide. The Assets Perspective, 1-8. doi:10.1057/9781137384881.0011 The Population of Poverty USA. (2019). Retrieved July 31, 2019, from https://www.povertyusa.org/facts [Show More]

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