Social Class in the United States

Social Class in the United States

Introduction

The concept of Social classes stems from the way in which society has sorted its citizens from positions of importance, influence, prestige and varied. There are occupation that are perceived to be more popular and important, while others are classified as one demanding hard labor, or are monotonous are unpleasant by nature. In a number of cases the roles of parent, teacher or volunteer may also fall under a specific social class because of its peculiar functions.

A person may fall under a certain social class by way of inheritance. For instance, if your dad or mom has had higher status and relate to highly perceived cultural connotations by being part of new money, you are then by this very way fall into a high ranked class (Popenoe 1993).

Discussion

Many socialists propose a functionalist point of view in sociology and economics, which simply attribute social balances as essential to the survival of complex societies such as American society. The factors that draw distinctions in social classes are discussed below.

Income

Income in the United States is most commonly measured by the institution that provides authentic information regarding the household or individual income is the U.S. Census Bureau, and this information provides some of the basic indicators used to account for placing people in their respective social class in terms income they earned. In the year 2005 the peak 15% of those earning the highest made $ 62,500 or greater, whilst 18% of people earned above $ 100,000 (U.S. Census Bureau report 2006). Personal incomes are largely the result of scarcity, while individuals who carry out the highest positions of state have a propensity to hold valued skills to get the positions that which were highly adored by the society. Moreover, the the income at disposal for a given household averaged at $ 46,326, in 2005 while the median personal income was $ 32,140. Per capita household income, income that a house can assign each household member is also an important variable in determining the standard of living given a house(U.S. Census Bureau report 2006).

It is imperative to note here that a position does not pass power and status because it tends to provide higher income to an individual. In fact, it gives out a higher income because its function is of much importance and those who can perform this function ...