Social Inequality Final

Supplement Poverty Measure

An alternative measure of poverty published by the Census Bureau.

Capitalism

An economic system based on private ownership of business and controlled by markets in which capital, labor, goods, and services are freely bought and sold.

Productivity

Output per worker per hour worked.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Highest ranking executive in a corporation

Social Clique

According to W. Lloyd Warner, an intimate nonkin group with no more than 30 members. Warner found that most social cliques are composed of people of the same or adjacent classes.

Pluralist Perspective

A theoretical perspective that regards power as typically diffused rather than concentrated. Pluralists find multiple bases of power representing the interests of competing groups, such that no powerful minority can easily impose its will. Contrasted with the elite perspective that emphasizes the power of a ruling minority and the class perspective, which associates power with a dominant social class, such as the capitalist class.

Dividend

A portion of a company's profits periodically paid to its shareholders in proportion to the number of shares each owns.

Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)

A provision of the federal tax code reducing taxes for low-income families with job earnings. Those who qualify, but owe little or no federal income tax, may receive the credit as a cash payment. An important supplement to the incomes of the working poor, especially families with children.

Chain of Causation

A series of successive causal influences, especially in occupational achievement. For example, father's education may influence son's education, which in turn influences son's occupational attainment.

Multiple Causal Pathways

Causation through two or more channels. For example, father's occupation may influence daughter's education, which in turn influences her own occupation. But father's occupation may also influence daughter's occupation later on, in a separate way, when the father directly influences the daughter's chances of finding a good job.

Outsourcing

Corporate strategy to lower labor costs by purchasing services, components, or finished products from low-wage companies at home and abroad. Especially common among large American companies since the 1980s.

Inflow Mobility Table

Cross tabulations of father's occupation in the past and son's or daughter's current occupation. The inflow table groups sons or daughters into occupational categories and examines the corresponding percentage distributions of their fathers. Inflow tables indicate the diversity of class origins among people in each occupational category. The inflow table asks, "Where did they come from?" Inflow tables typically show percentages down the columns.

Service Sectors (also service-producing sectors)

Economic sectors, including retail, finance, law, hotels, health care, and education, that produce services. Contrasted with goods-producing sectors like agriculture, manufacturing, and construction. The service-producing sectors grow rapidly in a postindustrial society.

Means-Tested Programs

Government benefits available only to people with incomes and/or assets below a specified level.

Economic Capital (Bourdieu)

The basic monetary form of capital, institutionalized as property rights

Means of Production

In Marx, the implements and physical structures that are necessary for production such as land, machines, mines, or factories. Marx argued that a person's social relationship to the means of production defines his or her class position. He defined the bourgeoisie as the class that owns the means of production in a capitalist society and the proletariat as the class of workers compelled to sell their labor to the owners in order to survive.

Household

In studies of income, a domestic unit consisting of families, an individual residing alone, or unrelated persons residing together.

Upper-Middle Class

In the Gilbert-Kahl model, the class below the capitalist class and above the middle class, consisting of well-paid, university-trained managers and professionals.

Capitalist Class

In the Gilbert-Kahl model, the very small top class composed of people whose income is largely derived from return on assets. In Marx, same as bourgeoisie.

Real Income (also real earnings, wages, etc.)

Income adjusted for inflation so that comparisons over long periods can be made. Always denominated in dollars of a specific year. Similar to conversion of prices from one national currency into another. For example, incomes from the 1970s restated in 2021 dollars would be several times higher while representing the same purchasing power.

Wage-Setting Institutions

Institutions, such as labor unions, internal labor markets within corporations, and minimum wage legislation, that shield workers from market forces by influencing decisions that would otherwise be determined by supply and demand.

Lifestyle

Introduced by Weber to describe distinctive patterns of social interaction, leisure, consumption, dress, language, and so on, associated with a social group—in particular, a prestige class or, in Weber's terminology, a "status group."

Downsizing

Large-scale layoffs by corporations to lower costs and boost profits. Notable in the United States since the 1980s.

Social Strata

Levels in stratified hierarchy, especially those based on prestige.

Blue-Collar Workers

Manual workers, including crafts workers, operatives, and laborers. Sometimes used as shorthand for the working class. Distinguished from white-collar workers and service workers.

Segregated Marital Relationships

Marital relationship in which there is clear differentiation of concerns and responsibilities that minimizes the husband's involvement with household matters and the wife's with the world of the husband's work. Segregated marital relationships are most common at lower class levels. Contrasted with joint marital relationships.

Structural Mobility

Mobility made possible by changes in the occupational structure. A relative expansion of middle- or upper-level jobs, for example, would allow upward mobility from lower positions.

Circulation Mobility

Mobility made possible by movement within the existing occupational structure. For example, if some offspring of men with high-status jobs take lower status jobs, they create opportunities for the offspring of lower status job-holders to move up.

Earnings

Money received as wages or salary for a job or as profit from a small business or professional practice. One of the components of income.

Pink-Collar Occupations

Occupations that are largely female. With important exceptions (for example, registered nurses), these fields offer lower pay, less prestige, and slimmer opportunities for advancement than male-dominated occupations requiring similar levels of education and training. Examples: secretaries, cashiers, hairdressers, nurses, and elementary school teachers.

Association

Patterns of interpersonal contact, such as shared leisure activities, friendship, and marriage, especially among members of the same class. Class subcultures, marked by common values and lifestyles, can emerge when people of similar class position associate more often with one another than with persons of lower or higher classes.

Government Transfers

Payments to individuals, such as Social Security, veterans benefits, and public assistance, that are not directly in exchange for goods or services provided.

Market Income

Pretax household income less government transfers like Social Security or public assistance.

Status

Synonym for social prestige. Also, used more generally in sociology to refer to any distinctive social condition or position. Weber wrote about "status groups," which he described as social communities of people who share a common position of social honor (or dishonor). Weber distinguished status groups from economically defined classes. His use of the concept established the idea of separate social and economic dimensions of stratification systems.

Gilbert-Kahl Model of Class Structure

The authors' model of the American class structure. Based on economic distinctions, particularly source of income (assets, jobs, and government transfers) and occupation, rather than on prestige distinctions. The model divides the American class system into six classes: the capitalist class, the upper-middle class, the middle class, the working class, the working poor, and the underclass.

Power

The capacity of individuals or groups to carry out their will even over the opposition of others, especially in broad political and economic contexts. For example, the power of the capitalist class over national economic priorities.

Privileged Classes

The capitalist class and upper-middle class.

Social Mobility

The extent to which people move up or down in the class system, typically measured by occupational status. Intergenerational mobility is the movement of individuals relative to their parents' position. Intragenerational mobility is movement in the course of an individual's own career.

Capital

The funds, goods, machinery, land, and so on, invested in an enterprise by its owners. Bourdieu extended this traditional conception to encompass three forms of capital.

Poverty Threshold

The income below which a household of a given size is classified as poor. Federal poverty statistics are calculated using a series of such thresholds, which are based on the federal poverty standard, periodically adjusted for inflation. Also referred to as the poverty line.

Class Consciousness

The recognition by the members of a class of their common identity and shared interests. Marx saw class consciousness as a precursor to class conflict and revolution. Modern social scientists are more interested in class consciousness as an influence on political opinion, electoral preferences, and labor militancy.

Occupational Prestige

The status or respect accorded an occupation. Measured by occupational prestige scores derived from opinion surveys. Occupational prestige influences personal prestige, especially when people do not have detailed knowledge of each other's income, family background, lifestyle, associations, and so on.

Wealth

The value of assets owned by an individual or family at a point in time (for example, $150,000 on December 31, 2020). Distinguished from income, which refers to value received over a period of time. Typical forms of wealth are homes, automobiles, bank accounts, and business or financial assets, including investment real estate, small enterprises, stocks, and bonds. An important distinction is made between wealth held for personal use, such as a home, and wealth held in the form of income-producing assets such as stocks or investment real estate. Wealth is typically measured as net worth, the value of assets owned less the amount of debt owed.

Lower Classes

The working poor and underclass.

Age of Shared Prosperity

Thee years from the end of WWII to the early 1970s when incomes at all levels grew at a healthy pace and economic and social inequalities were declining. Contrasted with the subsequent Age of Growing Inequality.

Wealth Classes

Three classes, conceptualized by the authors, that describe the distribution of wealth in the United States. The nearly propertyless class, about 40 percent of the population, has little or even negative net worth. The nest-egg class, about 50 percent of the population, typically has significant equity in homes and cars, plus a thin cushion of interest-earning assets, such as bank accounts, and modest holdings of stocks or mutual funds. The investor class, 10 percent of the population, owns most of the privately held investment assets and typically controls large diversified portfolios.

Gross Assets

A measure of wealth that is equal to the total value of the assets someone owns, without regard to debt.

Path Analysis

A method of causal analysis that uses formal path diagrams and related calculations to sort out the influences of a series of variables over time on one another and on an ultimate dependent variable. Used especially to examine the factors responsible for career success or failure. Such a model might, for example, be used to explore how a variety of social background variables and education influence each other and ultimate occupational achievement.

Progressive Tax

A tax that takes higher proportions of income at higher income levels. The federal income tax, with its escalating marginal tax rates, is the most important progressive tax.

Regressive Tax

A tax that takes higher proportions of income at lower income levels. The retail sales tax, though charged at a flat rate, is regressive because low-income households spend a higher proportion of their income on retail items than do high-income households.

Establishment

An informal network of wealthy, powerful men drawn from the upper class. During the first three-quarters of the twentieth century, members frequently filled important government positions and influenced national policy, especially in international and economic affairs.

Life Chances

Aspects of an individual's future possibilities that are shaped by class membership, from the infant's chances for decent nutrition to the adult's opportunities for worldly success. First used by Max Weber to emphasize the extent to which economic position shapes each person's chance of attaining the good things in life.

Outflow Mobility Table

Cross tabulations of father's occupation in the past and son's or daughter's current occupation. The outflow table conceptually groups fathers into occupational categories and examines the occupational distributions in percent of their sons or daughters. For example, such a table might include a row showing the occupations of all sons or daughters of upper-white-collar men. An outflow table suggests the extent to which careers are influenced by class background. The outflow table asks, "Where did they go?" Outflow tables typically show percentages across the rows.

Cultural Capital (Bourdieu)

Knowledge in its broadest sense, institutionalized as educational credentials, but encompassing such matters as table manners and how to swing a tennis racket

Majority Classes

The middle class and the working class.

Poverty Rate

The percentage of people, families, households, or members of a specified group who are poor by some standard (usually the official federal standard). Also referred to as the risk of poverty.

Family

Two or more related individuals residing together. The most common type of household.

Absolute Poverty Standards

Absolute poverty standards define poverty as not having enough food, adequate housing, and so on. They represent a fixed material standard. The official poverty measure is an absolute standard.

Capital Gains

Profits made on selling appreciated assets.

Simple Correlation

A coefficient indicating how accurately the value of one variable can be predicted from another. A coefficient of 0.0 indicates that there is no relationship between the variables. A coefficient of +1.0 or −1.0 indicates that the value of one variable can be perfectly predicted by knowing the value of the other, because the two values move up and down (or in opposite directions) in unison. In the social sciences, most correlations are intermediate. For example, the correlation between father's education and son's education is 0.45, suggesting very significant, but not consistently decisive, influence of the first on the second.

Entitlement

A government benefit program, available to all who meet specified prerequisites and supported by open-ended government funding. Entitlements can either be means-tested, such as the food stamp program, or available to people at any income level, such as Social Security.

Political Action Committee (PAC)

A group formed under the provisions of the campaign finance laws, to raise and contribute money for the campaigns of political candidates.

Social Class

A large group of families approximately equal in rank and differentiated from other families with regard to characteristics such as occupation, prestige, or wealth.

Median

A measure of central tendency. Specifically, the midpoint in any distribution, dividing the top 50 percent from the bottom 50 percent. Often used to make income comparisons among groups or over time periods. Unlike the mean, the median income figure is not distorted by extreme incomes at the high end of the distribution.

Quintile

A ranked fifth of the population being studied. Comparisons of earnings, income, and wealth are often made among quintiles of households, ranked from the richest quintile to the poorest.

Working Rich

A small stratum at the top of the upper-middle class, consisting of very successful professionals (notably, lawyers, doctors, dentists), workers in finance, small-business owners, and ranking (but not top) corporate executives, with incomes typically in the hundreds of thousands. Distinguished from members of the capitalist class because their incomes are largely dependent on salaries, professional fees, or small business profits rather than rents, interest, dividends, and so forth, from assets. Like the working poor, they depend on their jobs.

Class Perspective

A theoretical approach based on the idea that power is usually concentrated in the hands of the class that dominates the economy.

Elite

A top-ranking group, especially one that exercises power by virtue of organizational position; for example, the military elite and the corporate elite. Properly used as a collective noun referring to a group, rather than to individual members of a group. An elite perspective on power makes a sharp distinction between an organized minority that rules and an unorganized majority that is ruled.

Variance Explained

An indicator of the accuracy with which a series of antecedent variables can predict the values of a dependent variable. For example, how accurately can a son's occupation be predicted from knowledge of his education, his father's occupation, and his father's education? Stated as a percentage of total variance. Because outcomes are always affected by chance factors that are difficult to take into account and our measurements are never perfectly accurate, the variance explained seldom exceeds 50 percent. The difference between 100 percent and the variance explained is the unexplained variance.

Postindustrial Society

As defined in this book, a society in which most workers are employed in the service-producing sectors, like law, education, finance, and retail, rather than the goods-producing sectors of the economy. The United States has evolved from an agricultural society, in which most workers were farmers (1776 to 1900); to an industrial society, in which the majority of workers were employed in manufacturing or related fields such as mining, transportation, and utilities (1900 to 1970); to a postindustrial society (since 1970).

New Middle Class/Old Middle Class

C. Wright Mills's distinction between an old middle class of small entrepreneurs, farmers, shopkeepers, and independent professionals and a new middle class of salaried white-collar workers, including managers, employed professionals, office workers, and salespeople. The first is distinguished by its dependence on entrepreneurial property, the second by its dependence on marketable skills and salaried employment. They have long coexisted, but the first has been shrinking since the late nineteenth century, while the second has been growing. Changes in the economy after the initial stage of industrialization favor the growth of the new middle class.

Working Poor

In the Gilbert-Kahl model, the class below the working class and above the underclass, consisting of people who hold low-wage, low-skill, often insecure jobs typically involving menial blue-collar, sales, or service work.

Joint Marital Relationships

Marital relationships that focus on companionship and deemphasize the gendered division of labor. Husbands and wives in joint relationships share the planning of family affairs, carry out many household duties interchangeably, and value common leisure activities. More frequent at higher class levels. Contrasted with segregated marital relationships.

Mode of Production

Marx's term for a society's basic socioeconomic system. Encompasses both the technology with which the society meets its economic needs and the social organization of production. Feudalism and capitalism are distinctive modes of production.

Bourgeoisie

Marx's term for the class that owns the means of production and controls the superstructure in a capitalist society.

Superstructure

Marx's term for the dominant political institutions and ideology of a society. The means by which the ruling class controls a society. Marx distinguished between the superstructure and the socioeconomic base or foundation of a society.

Proletariat

Marx's term for the working class, defined as people who must sell their labor power to business owners to survive in a capitalist society.

Social Capital (Bourdieu)

Mutual obligations embodied in social networks such as kinship, friendship, and group membership.

In-Kind Benefits

Non-cash government benefits, such as health care, food stamps, and subsidized housing.

White-Collar Workers

Office workers, including the traditional U.S. Census categories of managers, professionals, clerical workers, and sales workers. Sometimes used to refer to the middle class. Distinguished from blue-collar and service workers.

Working Class

One of the two largest classes in the Gilbert-Kahl model. Located below the middle class and above the working poor. Composed of low-skill manual workers, clerical workers, and retail salespeople. Commonly, the term is used to refer to the lower portion of the class structure or all blue-collar workers.

Middle Class

One of the two largest classes in the Gilbert-Kahl model. Located below the upper-middle class and above the working class. Composed of lower managers, semiprofessionals, crafts workers, foremen, and nonretail salespeople. A higher level of skill or knowledge and independence required on the job distinguishes the middle class from the working class below. More loosely, the middle class is sometimes used to refer to the upper part of the class hierarchy in contrast to the working class or lower part.

Objective Class Position

Position in the class structure as determined by objective economic criteria such as occupation, wealth or income selected by the analyst. Contrasted with the subjective consciousness individuals have of their own class position.

Social Stratification

Ranking of individuals or families based on characteristics such as occupation, income, wealth, and social prestige. The hierarchy may be continuous or divided into a series of discrete social classes, consisting of people of roughly equal rank. Thus, class is a special case of stratification.

Relative Poverty Standards

Relative standards define poverty as having significantly less than the average member of the society. They change over time as a society's standard of living changes. A commonly proposed relative standard is half the median family income. Critics of the official standard who favor a relative poverty standard see absolute standards as irrelevant to an affluent society like the United States.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)

Replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in 1996 as the income assistance program for impoverished children and their families. Different from AFDC in that TANF is not an entitlement. Under TANF, families generally may not receive aid for more than a lifetime total of five years, and adults benefiting from TANF must start some sort of work within two years after assistance begins.

Prestige

Social esteem or honor. Expressed in attitudes of respect or deference in social interaction. Sometimes used interchangeably with status. When a group of people or families in a community share a common position of prestige, they may be described as a prestige class.

Socioeconomic Status (SES)

Social standing or prestige, especially as measured by the occupational prestige scores.

Federal (Official) Poverty Standard

Standard established in the 1960s to measure poverty rates and numbers of poor people or poor households. Originally based on the cost of feeding an average family and the proportion of the family budget devoted to nonfood expenses. Takes household size into account. The federal standard is an absolute poverty measure. It is adjusted annually for inflation, but not for changes in the general standard of living.

Ideology

Term used by Marx to refer to the dominant ideas of a society, especially those that justify the status quo, including the privileges and power of the ruling class. Ideology may be explicitly political or subtly, even unconsciously, embedded in conceptions of religion, the family, education, law, and so forth. Marx argued that a society's ideology is controlled by the dominant class through its power over the institutions that create and disseminate ideas, such as schools, mass media, churches, and courts.

Winner-Take-All Markets

Term used by economists Frank and Cook (1995) to describe markets in which the rewards are heavily concentrated in the hands of a few top performers who are just slightly better than their closest competitors. Common in entertainment and professional sports but, according to these authors, also increasing across the economy. Important example: rise of corporate CEO compensation to multimillion-dollar levels in recent years.

Underclass

The bottom class in the Gilbert-Kahl model. Low-income families with a tenuous relationship to the job market, whose incomes may depend on government programs.

Class Identification

The class label people choose for themselves, particularly in response to some variant of the standard survey question: Do you consider yourself upper class, middle class, working class, or lower class? Responses consistent with objective class position are indicative of an important aspect of class consciousness.

Elite Cohesion

The degree in which members of a hypothesized elite band together in pursuit of common objectives and in opposition of other groups. The greater the degree of elite cohesion, the more likely it will be able to impose its will on others.

Income

The inflow of money over a period of time (e.g., $500 a week or $50,000 in 2023). Distinguished from wealth, which refers to assets owned at a point in time. The primary source of income for most households is job earnings. Others include government transfers, such as Social Security benefits and public assistance; interest on bank accounts or bonds; dividends from corporate stock shares; profits from a business or professional practice; and profits from the sale of assets.

Minimum Wage

The legal minimum that employers in most fields must pay. Important because the earnings of low-wage workers who receive more than the minimum are influenced by it. Set periodically by federal legislation, but has tended, especially since the 1980s, to lag behind inflation and thus lose purchasing power. States and cities may establish their own minimums, as long as they exceed the federal standard.

Mean

The mathematical average (sum of all values divided by the number of cases). Along with median, a measure of central tendency used to compare groups or measure change in a particular group over time.

Aide to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)

The means-tested cash assistance program designed to aid needy, typically female-headed, families with children. Replaced in 1996 by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).

Service Workers

The occupational category of workers who provide a service, including waiters, janitors, child care workers, domestic servants, police, and firefighters—generally, but not always, low-skill, low-pay occupations. Employment in service occupations expands in a postindustrial society. Not all service workers are employed in the service sector of the economy. (There are janitors in manufacturing, for example.) Not all service sector jobs are performed by service workers. (Doctors and lawyers work in service sectors, but are not considered service workers.)

Age of Growing Inequality

The period beginning in the mid-1970s when inequality rose on multiple dimensions, including wages, income, and wealth. The growing inequality period is contrasted with the egalitarian tendency of the preceding Age of Shared Prosperity.

Two-Tier Wage Systems

The practice of paying new hires less than current employees. Used by some American corporations to reduce labor costs, especially since the 1980s.

Socialization

The process through which people learn the skills, attitudes, and customs needed to participate in the life of the community. Class-specific socialization reinforces distinctive class attitudes and lifestyles and encourages individuals to assume the class position of their parents.

Effective Tax Rates

The proportion of income actually paid in taxes after various deductions, exceptions and credits. Sometimes refers to the combined effect of all taxes (income tax, payroll taxes, estate tax, etc.). Since taxes vary considerably in their incidence at different income levels, effective tax rates provide a useful measure of class differences in total tax burden. Often, effective tax rates are computed for each income quintile and the top 1 percent of households

Occupational Structure

The proportional distribution of workers in the different occupational categories. The occupational structure shifts with changes in the economy. For example, when the United States changed from an agricultural society to an industrial society, the proportion of farmers decreased and the proportion of operatives increased.