Inequality: Social Class and Its Consequences

by Eitzen,D. Stanley

• ISBN13: 9781594513572
• ISBN10: 1594513570
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-02-15
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This book offers an up-to-date portrait of the realities of social class and its consequences in the United States today, focusing on the increasing inequality gap; the shrinking middle class; the myth and realities of social mobility; the consequences of class for work, health care, education, the justice system, war, and the environment; and progressive solutions for reducing inequality and improving human life.

Table of Contents

Social class in America	p. 9
Shadowy lines that still divide	p. 11
A statistical portrait of the U.S. working class	p. 19
The other America : an enduring shame	p. 35
The inequality gap	p. 43
Tilting the tax system in favor of the rich	p. 45
Income and inequality : millions left behind	p. 52
The perks of privilege	p. 61
The disappearing middle	p. 67
Our society's middle is shrinking from view	p. 69
The vanishing middle-class job : as income gap widens, uncertainty spreads	p. 71
Social mobility	p. 81
The death of Horatio Alger : our political leaders are doing everything they can to fortify class inequality	p. 83
Rags to riches? : the American dream is less common in the United States than elsewhere	p. 85
Work	p. 93
Still not getting by in Bush's America	p. 95
Americas low-wage workers : the demography of a caste	p. 97
Health care	p. 103
As the rich get richer, do people get sicker? : researchers debate whether income inequality impairs public health	p. 105
Sick of poverty	p. 110
Education	p. 117
A wider lens on the black-white achievement gap	p. 120
Does meritocracy work?	p. 129
Justice and injustice	p. 139
The rich get richer and the poor get prison	p. 141
Poverty and violent crime	p. 145
The civil rights act of 1964 : the social class exclusion	p. 150
Natural disasters	p. 157
Dying alone : an interview with Eric Klinenberg	p. 159
The nation : cast away : broken levees, unbroken barriers	p. 163
New Orleans by the numbers	p. 165
Unequal sacrifice in war	p. 171
Sacrifices of war remain unshared	p. 173
Their last resort	p. 174
Environmental classism	p. 179
Bioethics, social class, and the sociological imagination	p. 181
Poverty and pollution in the United States	p. 186
Progressive solutions for reducing inequality	p. 197
Narrowing the income gap between rich and poor	p. 199
Millennium development goals for children in the United States to be achieved by 2015	p. 203
Taxing concentrated wealth to broaden the American dream : good policy, good politics, good for America	p. 204
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.