Deck 2: Class, Income, and Wealth

Question 1

Americans are intuitively aware of class differences from an early age. Why would some people consider characterizing them as "un-American"?

A) The American popular culture, excludes class differences from its content.
B) Class differences among the majority of Americans (i.e. the middle class), whose tastes the popular culture reflects, are too amorphous for such differences to be believable.
C) Americans see their society as being equal.
D) Class structure and patriotism are purely subjective constructs.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Which of the following is a gauge of class difference used by high net income individuals among each other?

A) being on the board of a symphony
B) an exotic sports car
C) occupation, such as trial lawyer or eye surgeon
D) offshore bank account

Answer 2

A

Question 3

In the traditional socioeconomic image of social class, which of the following dimensions would be contradicted?

A) conflict between classes
B) inequality in the middle class
C) labor status
D) family structure

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Given the general consensus of experts, would an elderly person be considered a member of the underclass if his fixed income, including Social Security, were under $12,000 a year?

A) No, only the elderly living in neighborhoods or situations that met the criteria of poverty, crime, and welfare dependency would.
B) Yes, because members of the underclass can be limited to certain substandard incomes.
C) No, Social Security guarantees that no person lives in poverty, either independently or in a retirement community.
D) Yes, the elderly are a growing "underclass" demographic no matter how you interpret who belongs in it.

Question 5

As tattoos have become more accepted and elaborate, tattoo artists now make incomes that surpass many jobs in the white-collar service sector. Some tattoo artists are celebrities now. What do they represent in a Marxian thesis?

A) Tattoo artist jobs are an embourgeoisement of an entrepreneurial service field.
B) Tattoo artists don't even fit a conservative continuum thesis because they are neither white nor blue collar.
C) Tattoo artists, despite the high-tech equipment seen on reality television, still do manual work in a postindustrial world.
D) Tattoos are still considered low class and tattoo artists would even be considered members of the lumpenproletariat.

Question 6

Which of the following is the most indicative of deproletarianization?

A) the rising proportion of service sector occupations to manufacturing jobs
B) when a company sends factory jobs overseas
C) shrinking union membership
D) the existence of postindustrial jobs

Question 7

In Erik Wright's analysis of class structure, an IT department person in charge of tracking and blocking employee access to websites might occupy which class location?

A) a semiprofessional of the third class location
B) a "capitalist" who exploits those below her
C) the middle-class location
D) the new bourgeois location

Question 8

Given Resnick and Wolff's Marxian class model, what is the relationship between Apple investors and the assembly line workers of Foxconn in China who make the iPhone?

A) Investors are capitalist who appropriate surplus value.
B) Investors receive the distributed surplus.
C) None, because Apple Corporation receives the surplus value.
D) Apple investors actually give their surplus value to Apple.

Question 9

Inequalities that arise from globalization, such as the successful penetration of a U.S. firm in China, suggests that which of the following has most likely happened?

A) The U.S. firm has transferred its production or service industry to a Chinese supplier.
B) The U.S. firm has reduced its domestic cost.
C) White- and blue-collar workers can expect lower incomes.
D) The U.S. firm is now allowed to market its products and/or services in China.

Question 10

Which of the following is counter evidence to the thought that the government is taking away from the rich more than from the poor, and that the official tax rates are higher for those in higher-income brackets?

A) A large number of non-tax payers are unemployed elderly.
B) Tax rates have increased for the highest income groups in recent years.
C) Most of the wealth for the wealthy comes from accumulated income.
D) The higher amount paid in taxes is out of proportion with their income.

Question 11

What factor of current income reveals a negative income trajectory that actually indicates the person is poorer than how others evaluate them?

A) an inability to save money that compounds interest
B) underreporting income to the IRS
C) lack of investment income
D) spending beyond their means

Question 12

Which of the following are examples of national income diverted into capital, which, in turn, weakens the middle class's aggregate income?

A) stock dividends, workers' 401(k) plans, and the like
B) CEO compensation
C) issuing bonds
D) market pressures

Question 13

Statistical information gathered from colonial and postcolonial records suggests inequality was prevalent. Why would it have been called the "era of the common man" then?

A) An egalitarian nation was a romantic ideal but not a reality.
B) Eighteenth-century propaganda to induce colonists to revolt against the British.
C) The notion of a common "man" was only applicable to property owners such as the Founders.
D) An earlier trend toward equality existed prior to 1776.

Question 14

Why is net worth a better way to measure the wealth of the very rich, who traditionally are guarded about their actual worth?

A) Net worth includes anything that can converted to cash, including a home or homes.
B) Net worth measures everything that can be immediately sold.
C) Net worth includes all taxable assets.
D) Net worth excludes debts, which cannot be used to measure wealth.

Question 15

What is meant by Americans having "a greater taste for inequality"?

A) Americans tend to put greater faith in market capitalism to determine their income levels.
B) Americans see government as not producing goods and services they need.
C) Americans will tolerate inequality because it keeps people from seeking jobs outside of the economy.
D) Other countries that have experimented with income equality have failed.