Exam 7: Class and Stratification in the United States

__________ is the sociological term for the hierarchical arrangement of large social groups based on the control of basic resources.

About 20 percent of the U.S. population lives from just above to just below the poverty line. These people typically hold unskilled jobs, seasonal migrant jobs in agriculture, and lower-paid factory and service jobs and are termed the __________.

From the perspective of __________, social inequality is not only inevitable; it is an essential part of any healthy society.

Social critic and journalist Barbara Ehrenreich demonstrated that people in the __________ use strategies like help from relatives and continually changing residences in order to survive.

Whereas Marx defined class in purely economic terms, Max Weber developed a multidimensional approach to social stratification that reflects the interplay among wealth, prestige, and __________.

Caste systems and slavery are both __________.

The U.S. poverty rate in 2012 was __________.

In Wright's Marxian model of social classes, the capitalist class is made up of families with large amounts of inherited wealth.

Briefly describe the characteristics of the poor in the United States, in terms of age, gender, and race/ethnicity.

__________ is the value of all of a person's or family's economic assets, including income, personal property, and income-producing property.

An estimated 30 percent of the U.S. population is __________, which includes occupations such as semiskilled machine operators in factories and people in the service sector, such as clerks and salespeople.

During the economic crisis of 2007-2009, household median wealth declined for people of all races equally.

The child poverty rate in the United States is higher than in any other industrialized country.

Contemporary Marxist theorists agree with Marx's classification of social class in terms of whether or not one owns the means of production.

Although the federal minimum wage is set by the federal government, individual states are free to adopt a higher minimum wage rate if they desire.

According to the text, one of the most important characteristics of systems of stratification is their degree of __________.

Describe what is meant by the American Dream.

The United States is currently experiencing the greatest economic setback since_______________.

Virtually anyone can be poor, and poverty is randomly distributed throughout the population of the United States.

Describe Erik Wright's model of the U.S. class structure based on the theory of Marx.