Socioeconomic Classes

I was watching Fox News on a rainy Sunday about a month ago. A reporter did a story on how the downward-sloping economy had caused many jobs to be lost—old news. The interesting part to me was how the same people that lost jobs were not able to find new employment causing them to obtain a lower class lifestyle. Yes, maybe there were untold circumstances that prevented the unemployed people to not find new employment. I wanted to find out a little more information on what a class really is. Russell Long, a professor at Del Mar College, defines a class as, “people who occupy the same layer of the socioeconomic hierarchy.” I thought back to the situation that Fox News portrayed, and I realized that these types of situations occur every day. Should the current economic classification system be changed, remain the same, or be done away with all together?

I know my answer to the question. Now I need a more professional perspective. How would the upper class feel about my topic question? In my mind, the upper class would most logically want the current economic classification system to remain the same. According to Professor G. William Domhoff, a professor in the Sociology Department at the Univeristy of California at Santa Cruz, the wealthy people of the upper class have advantages of being ranked in this class. Domhoff says that the wealthy people design and build institutions that allow the wealthier people to showcase their abilities, handle corporations which allow the United States to continue to be a wealthy nation, and lead Washington with the help of rich person-led institutions. In addition to these more professional advantages to being a member of the upper class, members of the upper class also have luxuries that members of the two lower classes cannot afford. In Domhoff’s book entitled Who Rules America Now?, he elaborates on some of these luxuries including: private schools for children to get the highest possible education, exclusive clubs for only the highest-paying members like golf and tennis clubs, and participation in unique sports like yachting, sailing, and fox hunting. Between the professional advantages and personal luxuries, members of the upper class logically would want the current economic classification system to remain the same. My less than professional thoughts on what the upper class’ answer to my topic question seem to have been dead on. Domhoff clearly proved in both the internet source I found and his book that the upper class should not want to change a thing.

What about the middle class? I believe the middle class would mostly want the economic classification system to remain the same. As accurate as I would like to think my opinion is, I know I must find out what the experts think. Beth Potier of the Harvard University Gazette reports that the middle class is in trouble. Potier conducted an interview with Elizabeth Warren of the Harvard Law School in which Warren said that a middle class lifestyle is becoming more and more impossible to achieve with a middle class income. Warren continued to say that families are going bankrupt trying to make the lifestyle that they should be able to afford with the income they receive. Like the example I gave in the introduction of the people that lost their jobs and the middle class lifestyle they were accustomed to, this situation occurs all the time. Warren makes the point clear: the middle class should logically want a change. But Warren’s statement contains contradictory points. I know plenty of families that would openly consider themselves as middle class. The same people that would consider themselves as middle class obviously live very comfortably. The middle class obviously has mixed opinions about my topic question. My initial thought was not incorrect, just incomplete.

The lower class should be a very opinionated group of people. I can recall a handful of times that I have seen very poor people either on the news or in person that have complained about being declined employment or education because of their economic statuses. Personally, I think that the lower class would want to change or do away with the current economic classification system. DeNeen L. Brown of the Washington Post gives a few everyday examples of poor people trying to live normal lives. Brown says that a car is needed to get to the grocery store. Even when they can get to the store, the prices of basic foods like milk and bread are often very high. Sometimes the prices of necessary food items are too high to afford with the income of these lower class people. Brown goes on to mention the high price of real estate, education, and clothing as well. In summation, Brown states that the income of a lower class individual is much lower than what is needed to fulfill a comfortable lifestyle. In some cases, poor people cannot make their way up in the economic class rankings. Brown is one of many people who would argue that the lower class would definitely want to change or do away with the economic classification system.

In my research I found answers to my question through experts. My personal ideas about how each economic class would respond to the question were mostly correct. The answer to the topic question varied with each economic class. Though some of the people in each class may have different opinions, the experts made it seem clear that each class does have an overall opinion on the topic question.