Social structure of the United States

Social class is a controversial issue in the United States, having many competing definitions, models, and even disagreements over its very existence. Many Americans believe in a simple three-class model that includes the "rich", the "middle class

American middle class

The American middle class is a social class in the United States. While the concept is typically ambiguous in popular opinion and common language use, contemporary social scientists have put forward several, more or less congruent, theories on the American middle class...

", and the "poor

Poverty in the United States

Poverty is defined as the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. According to the U.S. Census Bureau data released Tuesday September 13th, 2011, the nation's poverty rate rose to 15.1% in 2010, up from 14.3% in 2009 and to its highest level...

". More complex models that have been proposed describe as many as a dozen class levels; while still others deny the very existence, in the European sense, of "social class" in American society. Most definitions of class structure group people according to wealth

Wealth in the United States

Wealth in the United States is commonly measured in terms of net worth, which is the sum of all assets, including home equity, minus all liabilities....

, income

Income in the United States

Income in the United States is measured by the United States Department of Commerce either by household or individual. The differences between household and personal income is considerable since 42% of households, the majority of those in the top two quintiles with incomes exceeding $57,658, now...

, education

Educational attainment in the United States

The educational attainment of the U.S. population is similar to that of many other industrialized countries with the vast majority of the population having completed secondary education and a rising number of college graduates that outnumber high school dropouts. As a whole, the population of the...

, type of occupation

Employment

Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. An employee may be defined as:- Employee :...

, and membership in a specific subculture or social network.

Dennis Gilbert

Dennis Gilbert

Dennis Gilbert is professor and chair of sociology at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He holds a Ph.D. from Cornell University and has taught at the Universidad Catlica in Lima, Peru, Cornell University and joined Hamilton college in 1976. He has published a variety of sociology books,...

, William Thompson, Joseph Hickey, and James Henslin have proposed class systems with six distinct social classes. These class models feature an upper or capitalist class

American upper class

See: millionaire for more details-Millionaires:See also: MillionairesHouseholds with net worths of $1 million or more may be identified as members of the upper-most socio-economic demographic, depending on the class model used...

consisting of the rich and powerful, an upper middle class consisting of highly-educated and affluent

Affluence in the United States

Affluence in the United States refers to an individual's or household's state of being in an economically favorable position in contrast to a given reference group...

professionals, a middle class consisting of college-educated individuals employed in white-collar

White-collar worker

The term white-collar worker refers to a person who performs professional, managerial, or administrative work, in contrast with a blue-collar worker, whose job requires manual labor...

industries, a lower middle class, a working class constituted by clerical and blue collar workers whose work is highly routinized, and a lower class divided between the working poor

Poverty in the United States

and the unemployed underclass.

Inequality and crisp defintion of any existent class groupings

Some academics consider American society sociologically and economically fragmented in such a manner that no clear class distinctions can be made. This means that there are no pronounced breaks in socioeconomic strata, which makes class division highly subjective and disputable. Others, such as sociologist Dennis Gilbert, dispute the concept of a well-mixed society, and claim that distinct social networks can be identified for each class. W. Lloyd Warner also asserts the existence of class markers:
Warner asserts that social class is as old as civilization itself and has been present in nearly every society from before the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

, through medieval times, and to the modern-day United States. He believes that complex societies such as the United States need an equally complex social hierarchy.

Markers

Some definitions of class look only at numerical measures such as wealth or income. Others take into account qualitative factors, such as education, culture, and social status. There is no consensus on which of these variables is essential and which are merely common correlates. It is also disputed whether sharp lines can be drawn; one point of view in the debate:

Social status

Social class is sometimes presented as a description of how members of the society have sorted themselves along a continuum of positions varying in importance, influence, prestige, and compensation. In these models, certain occupations are considered to be desirable and influential, while others are considered to be menial, repetitive, and unpleasant. (In some cases, non-occupational roles such as a parent or volunteer mentor, are also considered.) Generally, the higher the ranking on such a scale, the higher the skill and education levels required to perform it.

Some sociologists consider the higher income and prestige of higher ranked jobs to simply be incentives to encourage members of society to obtain the skills necessary to perform important work. This is an important mechanism in the economic theory of capitalism, and is compatible with the notion that class is mutable and determined by a combination of choices and opportunities.

In other cases, class or status is inherited. For example, being the son or daughter of a wealthy individual

Affluence in the United States

Affluence in the United States refers to an individual's or household's state of being in an economically favorable position in contrast to a given reference group...

, may carry a higher status and different cultural connotations than being a member of nouveau riche

Nouveau riche

The nouveau riche , or new money, comprise those who have acquired considerable wealth within their own generation...

("new money"). Those taking the functionalist approach to sociology and economics view social classes as components essential for the survival of complex societies such as American society.

Income

Income in the United States

is most commonly measured by U.S. Census Bureau in terms of either household or individual and remains one of the most prominent indicators of class status. As 82% of all households, 16% of those in the top quintiles, had two income earners the discrepancy between household and personal income is quite considerable. In 2005 the top 95% of income earners made $12,500 or more, while 18% of households had incomes over $100,000. Personal income is largely the result of scarcity. As individuals who hold higher status positions tend to possess rare skills or assume positions society deems very essential, have higher incomes. Overall the median household income was $46,326 in 2005 while the median personal income (including only those above the age of 25) was $32,140.

Per capita household income, the income a household is able to allocate to each member of the household is also an important variable in determining a given household's standard of living. A high household income may be offset by a large household size; thus, resulting in a low per capita household income. In 2005, the median household income per capita was $24,672.
As mentioned above, income is one of the most prominent features of social class; it is not one of its causes. In other words, income does not determine the status of an individual or household but rather reflects on that status. Some say that income and prestige are the incentives provided by society in order to fill needed positions with the most qualified and motivated personnel possible. However such a conclusion is contrary to the widespread observation that upper management at many companies is less knowledgeable and competent than many of their underlings, and that their positions are largely the result of fortuitous birth situations and networking. This situation is lampooned in the popular social commentary comic strip "Dilbert".

The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

has used income quintiles to define class. It has assigned the quintiles from lowest to highest as lower class, lower middle class

Lower middle class

In developed nations across the world, the lower middle class is a sub-division of the greater middle class. Universally the term refers to the group of middle class households or individuals who have not attained the status of the upper middle class associated with the higher realms of the middle...

, middle class, upper middle class

Upper middle class

The upper middle class is a sociological concept referring to the social group constituted by higher-status members of the middle class. This is in contrast to the term "lower middle class", which is used for the group at the opposite end of the middle class stratum, and to the broader term "middle...

, and upper class. These definitions equate class with income, permitting people to move from class to class as their income changes.

Dual income controversy

Income

Household income in the United States

Household income is a measure commonly used by the United States government and private institutions, that counts the income of all residents over the age of 18 in each household, including not only all wages and salaries, but such items as unemployment insurance, disability payments, child support...

is one of the most commonly used attributes of a household to determine its class status. The relationship between income, which mostly arises from the scarcity of a certain skill, may however, prove to be more complex than initially perceived. While the idea is that income reflects status, household income may just be the product of two or more incomes.

In 2005, 22% of American households had two income earners. The vast majority (97%) of households in the top quintile had two or more income earners. This means that the majority of household income in the top quintile are the result of two income earners pooling their resources, establishing a close link between perceived affluence

Affluence in the United States

Affluence in the United States refers to an individual's or household's state of being in an economically favorable position in contrast to a given reference group...

and the number of income earners in a given household. This raises the question of whether or not the combination of incomes results in higher social status. Of course, there is no definite answer as class is a vague sociological concept.
Sociologist Dennis Gilbert states that it is possible for households to out-earn other households over higher class standing through increasing their number of income earners. He furthermore states that household size also played an essential role, as the standard of living for two persons living off one upper middle class personal income may very well be higher than that of a household with four members living off two working class personal incomes.

The combination of two or more incomes, allow for households to increase their income substantially without moving higher on the occupational ladder or attaining higher educational degrees

Educational attainment in the United States

. Thus it is important to remember that the favorable economic position of households in the top two quintiles is in some cases the result of combined income, rather than demand for a single worker.

Education

Tertiary education (or "higher education") is required for many middle-class professions, depending on how the term middle class is to be defined. Tertiary education is rarely free, but the costs vary widely: tuition at elite private colleges often exceeds $200,000 for a four-year program. On the other hand, public colleges and universities typically charge much less (for state residents), and many, such as the University of California

University of California

The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...

system, rival the elite private schools in reputation and quality.

Also, scholarships offered by universities and government do exist, and low-interest loans are available. Still, the average cost of education, by all accounts, is increasing. The attainment of post-secondary and graduate degrees

Educational attainment in the United States

is the perhaps most important feature of a middle and upper middle class

American middle class

person with the university being regarded as the most essential institution and gatekeeper of the professional middle class. Educational attainment

Educational attainment in the United States

is also directly linked to income.

In 2005, the vast majority of those with doctorate and professional degrees

Educational attainment in the United States

were among the nation's top 15% of income earners

Personal income in the United States

Personal income is an individual’s total earnings from wages, investment interest, and other sources. In the United States the most widely cited personal income statistics are the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s personal income and the Census Bureau’s per capita money income...

. Those with bachelor degrees

Educational attainment in the United States

had incomes

Personal income in the United States

considerably above the national median while the median income for those with some college education

Educational attainment in the United States

remained near the national median. According to U.S. Census Bureau, 9% of persons aged 25 or older had a graduate degree, 27.9% had a Bachelor's degree or more with 53% having attended college.

With 85% of the population having graduated high school, it becomes apparent that the average American

Average Joe

Average Joe is an American reality television show broadcast on the NBC beginning in 2003. There were a total of four seasons, the first two following the original show premise, and the last two bringing back contestants from prior seasons.-Show Premise:...

does not have a college degree, but is likely to have attended college for some time and has graduated high school. Overall, educational attainment serves as the perhaps most essential class feature of most Americans, being directly linked to income

Personal income in the United States

and occupation.

Year 2005	Less than 9th grade	No high school diploma	High school graduate	Some college	Associates degree	Bachelor's degree	Bachelor's degree or more	Graduate degree	Masters degree	Professional degree	Doctorate
Percentage in Group	6.1%	8.4%	31.7%	16.7%	8.73%	18.3%	27.9%	9.7%	6.8%	1.6%	1.3%
Median personal income	$17,422	$20,321	$26,505	$31,054	$35,009	$43,143	$49,303	$59,826	$52,390	$82,473	$70,853

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2005

Culture

Social classes feature their own sub-cultures and have therefore developed slightly different manners of socializing their offspring. Due to class mobility individuals may also acculturate to the culture of another class when ascending or descending in the social order. However, one does need to remember that all social classes in the United States, except the upper class

American upper class

, consist of tens of millions of people. Thus social classes form social groups so large that they feature considerable diversity within and any statement regarding a given social class' culture needs to be seen as a broad generalization.

Since 1970, sociologists such as Paula LeMasters and Melvin Kohl have set out repeatedly to research class based cultures. Class culture has been shown to have a strong influence on the mundane lives of people, affecting everything from the manner in which they raise their children, initiation and maintenance of romantic relationship to the color in which they paint their houses. The strongest cultural differences seem to run along the professional middle class-working class divide. A recent increase in residential class segregation and the overall tendency of individual to associate mostly with those of equal standing as themselves has further strengthened class differences.

Parental views are the perhaps most essential factor in determining the socialization process which shapes new members of society. The values and standards used in child rearing are commonly closely related to the parent's occupational status. Parents from the professional class tend to raise their children to become curious independent thinkers, while working class parents raise their children to have a more communal perspective with a strong respect for authority. Middle class parents tend to emphasize internal standards and values while working class parents emphasize external values.

Sociologist Dennis Gilbert uses a list of values identified by Melvin Kohn to be typical of the professional middle and working class. Middle class parents values for their children and themselves included: "Consideration of Others, Self-Control, Curiosity, Happiness, Honesty, Tolerance of Nonconformity, Open to Innovation... Self-Direction." This contrasted with surveyed working class individuals, who reported: "Manners, Obedience... Neatness, Cleanliness, Strong Punishment of Deviant Behavior, Stock to Old Ways, People not Trustworthy... Strict Leadership" as values for themselves and their children. There is a strong correlation between these values and the occupational activities of the respondents. The job characteristics of middle class respondents included: "Work Independently, Varied Tasks, Work with People or Data," versus working class parents of reported "Close Supervision and Repetitive Work..."
Gender roles are also viewed differently by those in the higher and lower social classes. Middle class

American middle class

individuals, who were more open towards "nonconformity" and emphasized individual self-direction as well as critical thinking, were also less stringent in their application of gender roles. Working class individuals, on the other hand, emphasized gender roles. While working class people have more and more assimilated to middle class culture regarding their view and application of gender roles, differences remain. Professional class people are more likely to have an egalitarian distribution of work in their household with both spouses being equals in heterosexual marriages. According to Dennis Gilbert, "College life, generally a prologue to upper-middle class careers, delays marriage and encourages informal, relatively egalitarian association between men and women."

Academic models

The following are reported income-, education-, and occupation-based terms for specific classes commonly used by sociologists.

Upper class

This term is applied to a wide array of elite groups existing in the United States of America. . The term commonly includes the so-called "blue bloods" (multi-generational wealth combined with leadership of high society) such as the Astor

Astor family

The Astor family is a Anglo-American business family of German descent notable for their prominence in business, society, and politics.-Founding family members:...

or Roosevelt families

Roosevelt family

In heraldry, canting arms are a visual or pictorial play on a surname, and were and still are a popular practice. It would be common to find roses, then, in arms of many Roosevelt families, even unrelated ones...

. There is disagreement over whether the "nouveau riche

Nouveau riche

The nouveau riche , or new money, comprise those who have acquired considerable wealth within their own generation...

" should be included as members of the upper class or whether this term should exclusively be used for established families. Twentieth century sociologist W. Lloyd Warner divided the upper class into two sections: the "upper-upper class" (or bourgeoisie

Bourgeoisie

In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...

) and "lower-upper class" (or "scoobs"). The former includes established upper-class families while the latter includes those with great wealth

Billionaire

A billionaire, in countries that use the short scale number naming system, is a person who has a net worth of at least one billion units of a given currency, usually the United States dollar, Euro, or Pound sterling. Forbes magazine updates a complete list of U.S. dollar billionaires around the...

. As there is no defined lower threshold for the upper class it is difficult, if not outright impossible, to determine the exact number or percentage of American households that could be identified as being members of the upper-class(es).

Income

Household income in the United States

and wealth

Wealth in the United States

Wealth in the United States is commonly measured in terms of net worth, which is the sum of all assets, including home equity, minus all liabilities....

statistics may serve as a helpful guideline as they can be measured in a more objective manner. In 2005, approximately one and a half percent (1.5%) of households in the United States had incomes exceeding $250,000 with the top 5% having incomes exceeding $157,000. Furthermore only 2.6% of households held assets (excluding home equity) of more than one-million dollars. One could therefore fall under the assumption that less than five percent of American society are members of rich households. The richest 1% of the American population owns as much as the combined wealth of the bottom 90%, or perhaps even more.

Members of the upper class control and own significant portions of the corporate America and may exercise indirect power through the investment of capital. The high salaries and the potential for amassing great wealth through stock options have greatly increased for the power and visibility of the "corporate elite". Many sociologists and commentators, however, make a distinction between the upper class (in the sense of those in the families of inherited wealth) and the corporate elite. By implication, the upper class is held in lower regard (as inheritors of idle wealth) than the self-made millionaires in prestigious occupations.

Yet another important feature of the upper class is that of inherited privilege. While most Americans, including those in the upper-middle class need to actively maintain their status, upper class persons do not need to work in order to maintain their status. Status tends to be passed on from generation to generation without each generation having to re-certify its status. Overall, the upper class is the financially best compensated and one of the most influential socio-economic classes in American society.

Corporate elite

The high salaries and, especially, the potential wealth through stock options, has supported the term corporate elite. Top executives, including Chief Executive Officers, are among the financially best compensated occupations in the United States. The median annual earnings for a CEO in the United States were $140,350 (exceeding the income of more than 90% of U.S. households). The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

reports the median compensation for CEOs of 350 major corporations was $6,000,000 in 2005 with most of the money coming from stock options.

In New York City in 2005, the median income (including bonuses) of a corporate "chief operating officer" (the No. 2 job) was $377,000. The total compensation for a "top IT officer" in charge of information technology in New York City was $218,000. Thus even below the CEO level of top corporations

Fortune 500

The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies collect. The list includes publicly and...

, financial compensation will usually be sufficient to propel a households with a mere one income earner in the top 1%. In 2005 only 1.5% of American households had incomes above $250,000 with many reaching this level only through having two income earners.
Many politically powerful people make money before coming to office, but in general the political power elite have official incomes in the $150,000 to $185,000 range; members of Congress are paid $174,000, and are effectively required to have a residence in their district as well as one in Washington.

Upper middle

The upper middle class consists of highly-educated salaried professionals whose work is largely self-directed. Many have advanced graduate degrees and household incomes commonly exceed the high five-figure range. Members of this class commonly value higher education – most holding advanced academic degrees – and are often involved with personal and professional networks including professional organizations. The upper middle class tends to have great influence over the course of society.

Occupations which require high educational attainment, are well-compensated and are held in high public esteem such as physicians, lawyers, engineers, scientists and professors are largely considered to be upper middle class. The very well-educated are seen as trend setters with movements such as the anti-smoking movement, pro-fitness movement, organic food movement, and environmentalism being largely indigenous to this particular socio-economic grouping. Education serves as perhaps the most important value and also the most dominant entry barrier of the upper middle class.

Sociologists such as Dennis Gilbert, Willam Thompson, and Joseph Hickey estimate the upper middle class to constitute roughly 15% of the population (or roughly three in every twenty persons). The main hallmark and most distinguishing feature of this class is its high educational attainment.

Middle class

The middle class

American middle class

is perhaps the mostly vaguely defined of the social classes. The term can be used either to describe a relative elite of professionals and managers – also called the upper middle class – or it can be used to describe those in-between the extremes of wealth, disregarding considerable differences in income, culture, educational attainment

Educational attainment in the United States

, influence, and occupation.

As with all social classes in the U.S., there are no definite answers as to what is and what is not middle class. Sociologists such as Dennis Gilbert, James Henslin, William Thompson, and Joseph Hickey have brought forth class models in which the middle class is divided into two sections that combined constitute 47% to 49% of the population. The upper middle or professional class constitutes the upper end of the middle class which consists of highly educated, well-paid professionals with considerable work autonomy. The lower end of the middle class – called either lower middle class or just middle class – consists of semi-professionals, craftsmen, office staff, and sales employees who often have college degrees and are very loosely supervised.
Although income thresholds cannot be determined since social classes lack distinct boundaries and tend to overlap, sociologists and economist have put forward certain income figures they find indicative of middle class households. Sociologist Leonard Beeghley

Leonard Beeghley

Leonard Beeghley is Professor Emeritus of sociology at the University of Florida since 1975. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Riverside in 1975 and has since published seven books over the course of his career...

identifies a husband making roughly $57,000 and a wife making roughly $40,000 with a household income of roughly $97,000 as a typical middle class family.

Sociologists William Thompson and Joseph Hickey identify household incomes between $35,000 and $75,000 as typical for the lower middle and $100,000 or more as typical for the upper middle class. Though it needs to be noted that household income distribution neither reflects standard of living nor class status with complete accuracy.

Traditional middle class

Those households more or less at the center of society may be referred to as being part of the American middle or middle-middle class in vernacular language use. In the academic models featured in this article, however, the middle class does not constitute a strong majority of the population. Those in the middle of the socio-economic strata—the proverbial Average Joe

Average Joe

—are commonly in the area where the working and lower middle class overlap.

The most prominent academic models split the middle class into two sections. Yet, it remains common for the term middle class to be applied for anyone in between either extreme of the socio-economic strata. The middle class is then often sub-divided into an upper-middle, middle-middle, and lower-middle class. In colloquial descriptions of the class system the middle-middle class may described as consisting of those in the middle of the social strata. Politicians and television personalities such as Lou Dobbs can be seen using the term middle class in this manner, especially when discussing the middle class squeeze

Middle class squeeze

The middle class squeeze is the situation where increases in wages fail to keep up with inflation for middle income earners, while at the same time, the phenomenon fails to have a similar impact on the top wage earners...

. The wide discrepancy between the academic models and public opinions that lump highly educated professionals together in the same class with secretaries, may lead to the conclusion that public opinion on the subject has become largely ambiguous.

Lower middle class

The lower middle class is, as the name implies, generally defined as those less privileged than the middle class. People in this class commonly work in supporting occupations. Although they seldom hold advanced academic degrees, a college degree (usually a bachelor's degree) is almost always required for entry into the lower middle class.

Sociologists Dennis Gilbert, William Thompson, and Joseph Hickey, however, only divide the middle class into two groups. In their class modes the middle class only consists of an upper and lower middle class. The upper middle class, as described above, constitutes roughly 15% of the population with highly educated white collar professionals who commonly have salaries in the high 5-figure range and household incomes in the low six figure range. Semi-professionals with Bachelor's degrees and some college degrees constitute the lower middle class. Their class models show the lower middle class positioned slightly above the middle of the socio-economic strata. Those in blue- and pink-collar

Pink-collar worker

The term, 'pink-collar worker' is in reference to a blue-collar worker, or a white-collar worker. A 'pink-collar worker' performs work said to be stereotypical women's work and are typically in the service industry.- Occupations :...

as well as clerical occupations are referred to as working class in these class models.

Working class

The term working class applies to those that work at this tier in the social hierarchy. Definitions of this term vary greatly. While Lloyd Warner found the vast majority of the American population to be in either the upper-lower class or lower-lower class in 1949, modern-day experts such as Michael Zweig, an economist for SUNY–Stony Brook

State University of New York at Stony Brook

The State University of New York at Stony Brook, also known as Stony Brook University, is a public research university located in Stony Brook, New York, on the North Shore of Long Island, about east of Manhattan....

, argue that the working class constitutes most of the population.

Dennis Gilbert places 13% of households among the "working poor

Working poor

- Definition in the United States :There are several popular definitions of "working poor" in the United States. According to the US Department of Labor, the working poor "are persons who spent at least 27 weeks [in the past year] in the labor force , but whose incomes fell below the official...

" with 12% being in the "underclass". Thompson & Hickey place roughly 17% to 20% of households in the lower classes. The lower classes constituting roughly a fifth to a quarter of American society consists mainly of low-rung retail and service workers as well as the frequently unemployed and those not able to work. Overall, 13% of the population fall below the poverty threshold

Poverty threshold

The poverty threshold, or poverty line, is the minimum level of income deemed necessary to achieve an adequate standard of living in a given country...

. Hunger and food insecurity were present in the lives of 3.9% of American households, while roughly twenty-five million Americans (ca. 9%) participated in the food stamp program.

Farmworkers

Before industrialization, "yeoman farmers"—self-sufficient, politically independent landowners—made up a large portion of the country's population. Jeffersonian democracy

Jeffersonian democracy

Jeffersonian Democracy, so named after its leading advocate Thomas Jefferson, is a term used to describe one of two dominant political outlooks and movements in the United States from the 1790s to the 1820s. The term was commonly used to refer to the Democratic-Republican Party which Jefferson...

and Jacksonian democracy

Jacksonian democracy

Jacksonian democracy is the political movement toward greater democracy for the common man typified by American politician Andrew Jackson and his supporters. Jackson's policies followed the era of Jeffersonian democracy which dominated the previous political era. The Democratic-Republican Party of...

successfully expanded the political rights of the yeomen, and the geographical extent of the nation to provide them farms. This culminated in the Homestead Act

Homestead Act

A homestead act is one of three United States federal laws that gave an applicant freehold title to an area called a "homestead" – typically 160 acres of undeveloped federal land west of the Mississippi River....

of 1862 which provided hundreds of thousands of free farms. Before 1865 large southern plantations used slaves. After emancipation

Emancipation

Emancipation means the act of setting an individual or social group free or making equal to citizens in a political society.Emancipation may also refer to:* Emancipation , a champion Australian thoroughbred racehorse foaled in 1979...

, a system of sharecropping

Sharecropping

Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land . This should not be confused with a crop fixed rent contract, in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a fixed amount of...

and tenant farming for both whites and blacks in the South

Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

provided a semi-independent status for farmers who did not own their land. In contemporary times, migrant agricultural workers—mostly Mexicans—perform field and packing work.

Farmers

Only 0.7% of the population of the United States is employed in the agricultural sector. Most are proprietors of independent farms. Once the dominant American social class, this group diminished in overall numbers during the 20th century, as farm holdings grew more consolidated, farming operations became more mechanized, and most of the population migrated to urban areas.

Today, the agricultural sector has essentially taken on the characteristics of business and industry generally. In contemporary usage, a "farmer" is someone who owns and operates a farm, which more often than not will be a sizable business enterprise; "agricultural workers" or "farm workers", who perform the actual work associated with farming, typically come out of the lower classes; indeed, they are often near-destitute immigrants or migrant farm workers. In this respect, farming mirrors big business: like any enterprise, a farm has owners (who may be a family or a corporation), salaried managers, supervisors, foremen and workers.

With the number of farms steadily diminishing, the stereotypical humble homestead is increasingly the exception, for viable farming now means agribusiness; the large amounts of capital required to operate a competitive farm require large-scale organization. The large landowners in California's

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

Central Valley

California Central Valley

California's Central Valley is a large, flat valley that dominates the central portion of California. It is home to California's most productive agricultural efforts. The valley stretches approximately from northwest to southeast inland and parallel to the Pacific Ocean coast. Its northern half is...

, Coachella Valley

Coachella Valley

Coachella Valley is a large valley landform in Southern California. The valley extends for approximately 45 miles in Riverside County southeast from the San Bernardino Mountains to the saltwater Salton Sea, the largest lake in California...

and Imperial Valley fall squarely within the upper class. Among farmers, "income" in the conventional sense is not an accurate standard of wealth measurement, because farmers typically keep their official income low by placing their assets into farming corporations rather than drawing the money directly. The stereotypical poor, marginal farmer "eking out a living" from the soil, an image deeply ingrained in most Americans' minds by folklore, films, and even history texts, has now been largely displaced by agribusiness, which has bought them out and consolidated their holdings.

Class mobility

Class ascendancy—namely that each successive generation will have a higher standard of living than its predecessor—is a central theme in American literature

American literature

American literature is the written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see Poetry of the United States and Theater in the United States. During its early history, America was a series of British...

and culture and plays a key role in the American dream

American Dream

The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States in which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success. In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each...

. While social class in the United States is thought to be largely based on achievement, climbing the social ladder is more difficult for those born into less advantageous positions.

Occupation (perhaps the most important class component), educational attainment, and income can be increased through a lifetime. However, factors such as wealth inheritance and local education system—which often provides lower quality education to those in poor school districts—may make rising out of poverty a challenge. Class mobility in the United States decreased between the 1970s and the 1990s.
Recently a number of works have denied the existence of upward mobility.

Class and politics

Income remains one of the main indicators of class, as it commonly reflects high educational attainment as well as a prestigious occupation. A discrepancy in the political attitudes can be found among individuals residing in households with differing incomes. For example, during the 2000 election, voter turnout among those in the top 26% with household incomes

Household income in the United States

exceeding $75,000 was 27% higher than the average.

Class and health

Income

Income in the United States

also had a significant impact on health as those with higher incomes

Income in the United States

had better access to health care facilities, higher life expectancy

Life expectancy

Life expectancy is the expected number of years of life remaining at a given age. It is denoted by ex, which means the average number of subsequent years of life for someone now aged x, according to a particular mortality experience...

, lower infant mortality rate and increased health consciousness. While the United States lacks socialized medicine

Socialized medicine

Socialized medicine is a term used to describe a system for providing medical and hospital care for all at a nominal cost by means of government regulation of health services and subsidies derived from taxation. It is used primarily and usually pejoratively in United States political debates...

similar to that found in many other post-industrialized developed nations across Europe and Asia, 85% of the U.S. population were insured in 2005. Yet, discrepancies seem to remain beyond the difference between insured and uninsured. In 2006, Harvard researchers divided the U.S. into "eight Americas."

Life expectancy

Life expectancy

ranges from 84.9 years for Asian Americans who had an average per capita income of $21,566, to 71.1 years for Urban African Americans with an average per capita income of a $14,800.

Furthermore, the United States like other post-industrial nations

Post-industrial society

If a nation becomes "post-industrial" it passes through, or dodges, a phase of society predominated by a manufacturing-based economy and moves on to a structure of society based on the provision of information, innovation, finance, and services.-Characteristics:...

saw increased health consciousness among persons of higher social status. Persons of higher status are less likely to smoke, more likely to exercise regularly and be more conscious of their diet. Additionally, poor Americans are more likely to consume lower quality, processed foods. One can therefore conclude that low socio-economic status contributes to a person's likelihood of being obese.

External links

U.S. Census Bureau's official online income statistics forum
Income distribution and income by race, U.S. Census Bureau 2005
Household income by educational attainment, U.S. Census Bureau
Personal income in 2004, U.S. Census Bureau
Median Family Income by Family Size (in 2004 inflation-adjusted dollars) from Census.gov
Median Family Income by Number of Earners in Family (in 2004 inflation-adjusted dollars) from Census.gov
Working Definitions ClassMatters.com
How Class Works, The New York Times

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Inequality and crisp defintion of any existent class groupings

Markers

Social status

Income

Dual income controversy

Education

Culture

Academic models

Upper class

Corporate elite

Upper middle

Middle class

Traditional middle class

Lower middle class

Working class

Farmworkers

Farmers

Class mobility

Class and politics

Class and health

Further reading

External links