Deck 2: Poverty and Wealth

Question 1

Marco earns $45,000 a year as a government employee and receives interest from several certificates of deposit (CDs). The money that comes from these sources each year represents his

A)wealth.
B)income.
C)socioeconomic status.
D)prestige.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Which term refers to the trend by which women represent an increasing share of the U.S. poor?

A)gender gap
B)glass ceiling
C)feminization of poverty
D)poverty gap

Answer 2

C

Question 3

The richest 20 percent of U.S. families earn

A)almost as much as the remaining 80 percent of families combined.
B)about as much as the poorest 40 percent of families combined.
C)a share of income about equal to that of other quintiles.
D)only slightly more than the national average.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

According to the U.S. government, the 2012 median family income was

A)$401,395.
B)$50,395.
C)$62,241.
D)$70,395.

Question 5

Social stratification is defined as

A)the fact that some people tend to outperform others.
B)the way people in a society size up their social standing.
C)a society's system of ranking categories of people in a hierarchy.
D)the difference in income between rich and poor members of a society.

Question 6

Which concept is used by the U.S. government for the purpose of counting the poor?

A)poverty line
B)poverty gap
C)median income
D)nonfarm family income

Question 7

In 2012, the average compensation of the 100 highest-paid chief executive officers (CEOs) in the United States

A)was less than $500,000.
B)was almost $1 million.
C)was just over $12 million
D)exceeded $29 million.

Question 8

In 2012, what percentage of children under the age of eighteen lived in poor households?

A)2 percent
B)22 percent
C)42 percent
D)62 percent

Question 9

If you wanted to add up the total economic assets owned by a person or family, you would be measuring

A)income.
B)social status.
C)wealth.
D)status base.

Question 10

In 2012, the poverty line for a non-farm family of four was

A)$10,492.
B)$15,492.
C)$23,492.
D)$27,492.

Question 11

Jonas lives in a region of the United States with a very high poverty rate. He probably lives in

A)the Southwest, near the Mexican border
B)New England, along the Atlantic coast
C)the Midwest
D)the Pacific Northwest

Question 12

The lowest paid 20 percent of U.S. families receive about what percentage of all income in the country?

A)3.8 percent
B)13.8 percent
C)23.8 percent
D)33.8 percent

Question 13

Since about 1980, income inequality among U.S. families has

A)been declining.
B)been increasing.
C)been holding steady.
D)been fluctuating up and down with no long-term change.

Question 14

In 2012, what percentage of the U.S. population lived in a household with income below the poverty line?

A)2 percent
B)5 percent
C)8 percent
D)15 percent

Question 15

To provide an example of a tax that is regressive rather than progressive, you would point to

A)the inheritance tax.
B)the federal income tax.
C)the tax on gasoline.
D)no tax, because there are no regressive taxes in the United States.

Question 16

The richest 20 percent of the U.S. population controls what percentage of all privately-owned wealth?

A)89 percent
B)59 percent
C)39 percent
D)20 percent

Question 17

Sylvia earns $7.25 per hour, the minimum wage in much of the country in 2014. She works full-time, year-round, and earns about $15,000 annually. This profile places her within which group?

A)working poor
B)non-working poor
C)the underclass
D)the poverty gap

Question 18

Families in the top 10 percent of income earn at least

A)$69,000 a year.
B)$169,000 a year.
C)$269,000 a year.
D)$500,000 a year.

Question 19

In 2012, how many people in America were counted as poor by the federal government?

A)6.5 million
B)16.5 million
C)36.5 million
D)46.5 million

Question 20

Most people in the United States who live below the poverty line are

A)elderly.
B)homeless.
C)white.
D)male

Question 21

The Williams family lives in an inner-city community that is poor, cut off from the larger society, and without good schools or good-paying jobs. This family is experiencing what sociologists call

A)hypersegregation.
B)redlining.
C)homelessness.
D)prejudice.

Question 22

In 1960, one in four poor families was headed by a woman. By 2010, this share had changed to

A)less than one in six.
B)half.
C)three-in-four.
D)nine-in-ten.

Question 23

The educational policy of placing some children in college-bound ("academic") paths and others in job-oriented ("vocational") paths is called

A)tracking.
B)mainlining.
C)mainstreaming.
D)redlining.

Question 24

In approaching the problem of homelessness, liberals point to

A)personal problems, such as alcohol abuse and mental illness, among the homeless.
B)economic issues such as low-wage jobs and high rates of unemployment.
C)moral weakness among poor people.
D)the need for greater self-discipline and personal responsibility.

Question 25

Poverty involves not only a lack of money; it also can mean a lack of skills, values, attitudes, and schooling, which together are called

A)meritocracy.
B)cultural capital.
C)the subculture of affluence.
D)intersection theory.

Question 26

If you wanted to study poverty in terms of race and ethnicity, you would probably use

A)multicultural theory.
B)social disorganization theory.
C)Marxist theory.
D)cultural capital theory.

Question 27

Anthropologist Oscar Lewis referred to cultural patterns that make poverty a way of life as

A)the bell curve thesis.
B)the culture of poverty.
C)meritocracy.
D)social disorganization.

Question 28

Experts estimate that about how many people in the United States are homeless at some point during a year?

A)about 16,000
B)about 160,000
C)about 1.6 million
D)about 16 million

Question 29

The term infant mortality refers to the risk of death

A)prior to birth, including abortions and miscarriages.
B)for a mother during childbirth.
C)during the first year of life.
D)before reaching the teenage years.

Question 30

During the 1920s and 1930s, sociologists at the University of Chicago linked poverty to a breakdown in social order due to rapid social change. The correct name for this view is

A)the bell curve thesis.
B)the culture of poverty thesis.
C)the social disorganization thesis.
D)the hypersegregation thesis.

Question 31

In the United States, social welfare programs that provide government assistance of one type or another benefit

A)only a small share of the poor.
B)only poor people.
C)only disabled people.
D)most people.

Question 32

In explaining the problem of homelessness, conservatives point to

A)the recent increase in low-wage jobs.
B)the low minimum wage.
C)personal problems, such as alcohol abuse and mental illness, among the homeless.
D)our nation's high rate of poverty.

Question 33

In 1960, just before President Lyndon Johnson launched a War on Poverty, the national poverty rate stood at about

A)2 percent.
B)12 percent.
C)22 percent.
D)32 percent.

Question 34

In 1945, sociologists Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore made the claim that inequality has useful consequences for the operation of society. This claim is consistent with which type of theoretical analysis?

A)symbolic-interaction analysis
B)social-disorganization analysis
C)social-conflict analysis
D)structural-functional analysis

Question 35

In the 2012 presidential election, 80 percent of people earning $100,000 or more voted. Among those earning less than $40,000, what percentage of people voted?

A)99 percent
B)84 percent
C)69 percent
D)54 percent

Question 36

The study of how race, class, and gender often result in multiple dimensions of disadvantage is called

A)subculture of poverty theory.
B)cultural capital theory.
C)social disorganization theory.
D)intersection theory.

Question 37

Sociologist Herbert Gans claimed that inequality benefits

A)everyone by making society more productive.
B)rich people by ensuring there is a supply of poor people willing to do almost any job, no matter how unpleasant.
C)bureaucrats by expanding government assistance programs.
D)corporations because poor people are a profitable market.

Question 38

Overall, the result of the 1996 federal welfare reform has been

A)to increase in the number of people receiving welfare assistance.
B)to end of the policy of providing cash assistance to any poor people.
C)to bring about a steady decrease in the poverty rate.
D)to decrease the number of people receiving welfare but with little change to the number of poor people.

Question 39

William Ryan's "blaming the victim" thesis states that many people believe the cause of poverty is found in

A)the capitalist economy.
B)our tax system.
C)the poor themselves.
D)a high rate of immigration.

Question 40

In 1932, President Franklin D. Roosevelt described "one-third of a nation ill-clothed, ill-housed, and ill-fed," proposing the New Deal, which included a major new program called

A)Head Start.
B)Medicare.
C)Social Security.
D)a labor union. (

Question 41

According to which of the following political positions does the solution to poverty lie in government reforms, such as increasing the minimum wage and raising tax rates on the wealthy?

A)radical left
B)liberal
C)conservative
D)radical right

Question 42

If you were to take a conservative solution to the problem of poverty in the United States, you would focus on

A)government activism.
B)societal responsibility.
C)personal responsibility.
D)replacing the market economy.

Question 43

If you take a liberal point of view, poverty is mostly a problem that

A)involves society as a whole.
B)focuses on traits of poor people.
C)can never be solved.
D)people should solve for themselves.

Question 44

Karl Marx argued that in a capitalist society, a system that produced so much ended up making the majority so poor. He called this

A)blaming the victim.
B)an internal contradiction.
C)meritocracy.
D)social disorganization.

Question 45

What is intersection theory? Provide data that support this analysis of economic inequality.

Question 46

Radicals on the left agree with liberals that poverty is

A)a matter of personal responsibility.
B)built into the very nature of capitalism.
C)a societal issue.
D)mostly a thing of the past.

Question 47

A person who claims that government welfare assistance creates dependency is probably

A)a liberal.
B)a radical on the left.
C)a conservative.
D)unconcerned with politics.

Question 48

A radical left solution to the problem of poverty would be

A)raising the minimum wage.
B)creating equal opportunity for people to achieve according to their talents.
C)expanding government assistance programs.
D)replacing our nation's capitalist economic system.

Question 49

How are age, race, ethnicity, and gender related to the risk of being poor? Provide data in support of your assertions.

Question 50

If you take a radical-left point of view, you see the main cause of poverty as

A)personal deficiencies in poor people themselves.
B)the normal operation of a capitalist economy.
C)misguided government assistance programs.
D)modern, industrial technology.

Question 51

Sketch a brief history of welfare in the United States, including the colonial era, the early industrial era, and the twentieth century. What changed with the 1996 welfare reforms? What do you make of our nation's response to poverty?

Question 52

How do the conservative, liberal, and radical left approaches point to different causes of the problem of poverty? What solutions do these approaches support? What would you do to address poverty in the United States?

Question 53

Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell speaks as a conservative when he argues that the most effective way to prevent social problems like poverty is to

A)increase welfare benefits.
B)teach children personal responsibility and hard work.
C)eliminate welfare entirely.
D)transform this country's market economy.

Question 54

Describe the basic insights about income inequality and poverty offered by the structural functional, social conflict, feminist, and symbolic interaction theories of poverty. What is one weakness of each theory?

Question 55

As of 2010, the typical "welfare family" received about how much assistance each month?

A)$400
B)$800
C)$1,000
D)$1,200