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Positive effects of raising the minimum wage
Positive effects of raising the minimum wage
Positive effects of raising the minimum wage
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Fine dining restaurants, upscale stores, and discount stores are prospering. Meanwhile, more casual restaurants and stores are suffering. This can be described as the byproduct of the lower and upper classes taking over our economy, as the middle class slowly diminishes right before our eyes. John G. Maxwell, head of the global retail and consumer practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers stated this, “As a retailer or restaurant chain, if you’re not at the really high level or the low level, that’s a tough place to be. You don’t want to be stuck in the middle.” Middle class jobs are continuing to decline and before we know it America could be looking at a two class system rather than the three class system.
The middle class began in 1914, 100 years ago, when Henry Ford started offering five dollars a day to work in his Ford factory. This set the bar because that was equal to about 120 dollars a day in their time. Ford had a problem with finding reliable employees. He came to the conclusion that if he offered his employees better pay, he would have employees that cared about their job. The five dollars a day ended up having some major positive impacts on Ford's company. Daily absenteeism dropped from 10% to under 1%. Replacement hiring dropped from 53,000 in 1913 to just 2,000 by 1915, even though Ford’s workforce had grown substantially by then. And production in many departments soared by 50% or more. Henry Ford himself later called the $5 Day “the greatest cost-cutting move I ever made.”(Gallagher par. 8) These statistics proved that paying workers more will in turn save businesses money overall. Other businesses followed in Ford’s footsteps and started offering employees higher wages, this created what is now known as the middle cl...
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...ted with Changing U.S. Culture, Creating Modern Detroit." Detroit Free Press. Freep.com, 05 Jan. 2014. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.
"Henry Ford's $5-a-Day Revolution." - Press Release. Ford, n.d. Web. 2 Apr. 2014.
Kamp, Karin. "By the Numbers: The Incredibly Shrinking American Middle Class." BillMoyerscom. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.
Moore, Michael. "The Forbes 400 vs. Everybody Else." MichaelMoore.com. N.p., 07 Mar. 2011. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.
Suddath, Claire. "The Middle Class." Time. Time Inc., 27 Feb. 2009. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.
Traub, Amy, and Heather C. Mcghee. "State of the American Dream: Economic Policy and the Future of the Middle Class." An Equal Say And An Equal Chance For All. N.p., 06 June 2013. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.
"Wealth Inequality." Inequality.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.
"Who Is the Middle Class?" Sociology.com. N.p., 03 May 2013. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.
According to Gregory Mantsios many American people believed that the classes in the United States were irrelevant, that we equally reside(ed) in a middle class nation, that we were all getting richer, and that everyone has an opportunity to succeed in life. But what many believed, was far from the truth. In reality the middle class of the United States receives a very small amount of the nation's wealth, and sixty percent of America's population receives less than 6 percent of the nation's wealth, while the top 1 percent of the American population receives 34 percent of the total national wealth. In the article Class in America ( 2009), written by Gregory Mantsios informs us that there are some huge differences that exist between the classes of America, especially the wealthy and the poor. After
Stone, Chad, Danilo Trisi, Arloc Sherman, and William Chen. "Center on Budget and Policy Priorities." A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 6 Nov. 2013. Web. 03 Dec. 2013. .
I consider my family and I to be in the middle class category and from being in the middle class, and the facts that are provided, the middle class is slowly declining as the time goes on. I believe that a lot of people go beyond the middle class to the upper middle class or people go below the middle class to the poor category. I’ve found a graph from Forbes that compares the rates of all classes from 1979 to 2014. From observing the graph my initial hypothesis was right. The middle class has declined by 6.8% between the years 1979-2014.
“Where some possess much, and the others nothing, there may arise an extreme- either out of the most rampant democracy, or out of an oligarchy.'; This was once said by Aristotle who was probably the first to recognize the importance of a middle class. A powerful debate whether the middle class is essentially defined by cultural or economic factors still remains an issue. A rich tradition is devoted to disentangling economic from cultural components of a class. According to Karl Marx, the middle class is an outgrowth of economic factors, primarily capitalism. Many people tend to disagree with Marx that capitalism is the only important factor in the outgrowth of the middle class. Judith R. Blau argues that her understanding of the middle class has much to do with inclusive cultural values. Blau demonstrates her opinion though her ethnography, Social Contract and Economic Markets. I believe that Karl Marx’s economic factors and Judith Blau’s cultural factors together define the middle class.
Let's take it back to the past in regards to wealth distribution in this country. The fact is that the economy boomed from the end of WWII into the 1970's. “Incomes grew rapidly and at roughly the same rate up and down the income ladder, roughly doubling in inflation-adjusted terms between the late 1940s and early 1970s” (CBPP). Through the 70's economic growth slowed, and the wealth gap widened. Middle-class families were now considered lower class. People relied on the government to help them out with welfare programs. The middle-class class was weakened and the gap grew and grew. There were periods of positive fluctuation, however the middle-class simply never regained it's status that was held in more prosperous times in the past.
What seems to go unnoticed by many Americans is the evident and growing wealth gap. According to Pew Research Center, the current U.S. income is at its highest since 1928. This large dispersion of wealth can be attributed by the “fall [of the] routine producers” (Reich). Where jobs that were once attainable during the 70s are declining due to advancing technology and corporations finding workers in poor countries who are willing to work at half the cost of the routine producers. What also drives this wealth gap is the power of corporations in an age of extravagant consumerism. Through media, the demand to buy what we want is unavoidable. Corporations are able to gain revenue while people go unemployed because of America’s vast opportunities to buy what we want when we want it.
While the the 1%, are secured, no one is addressing the rest of the people. As the economy flourishes, housing, higher education and health care, and child care increases with it to the point where 30 percent of a person’s income goes towards housing. People are finding it impossible to purchase a house with their middle class incomes. People begin to fall out of the once stable middle class because too much is needed to be sacrificed in order to live in a stable home. In the shrinking middle class, “40% or more of the residents live below the poverty
Class in the American Culture is based on economic and social differences, and it remains a powerful force in American life and has come to play a greater role in today’s society. American culture classified social classes as three different levels, the higher class which is classified as the wealthier and have the most money and a certain lifestyles and clothes. The middle class more like the businesses, people who have a reasonable income. And the last class is the low class which are the working class people. Those in the upper middle classes enjoy better health and live longer than those in the middle classes, who live longer and better than those at the bottom. That 's because money, good jobs and connections help the better-off get the best medical care. People in the upper class also maintain a certain lifestyle and sometimes different clothing lifestyle than the ones in the lower classes.
“The American Dream: Out of Reach?” America Press 10/3/2011: Pages. Vol. 205 Issue 9, p6-6. 8/9
In the essay The Chosen People, Stewart Ewen, discusses his perspective of middle class America. Specifically, he explores the idea that the middle class is suffering from an identity crisis. According to Ewen’s theory, “the notion of personal distinction [in America] is leading to an identity crisis” of the non-upper class. (185) The source of this identity crisis is mass consumerism. As a result of the Industrial Revolution and mass production, products became cheaper and therefore more available to the non-elite classes. “Mass production was investing individuals with tools of identity, marks of personhood.” (Ewen 187) Through advertising, junk mail and style industries, the middle class is always striving for “a stylistic affinity to wealth,” finding “delight in the unreal,” and obsessed with “cheap luxury items.” (Ewen 185-6) In other words, instead of defining themselves based on who they are on the inside, the people of middle class America define themselves in terms of external image and material possessions.
People who work hard enough become successful and build a good life for themselves and their family. Millions of Americans and others who admire America have believed this for generations. However, is this still true? Brandon King debates his interpretation of the American Dream in his published work, “The American Dream: Dead, Alive, or on Hold?” During his essay, the speaker highlights how important the American Dream is to the economy and providing a distance from inequality. The speaker emphasizes his belief that the American Dream is still alive within America and that people must work hard to achieve it. When discussing the American Dream, King will agree that the idea is alive and thriving in the minds of Americans; yet, I argue that the idea is on hold within American society due to lack of upward social independence and economic mobility.
Desilver, Drew. “U.S. Income Inequality, On The Rise…” Pew Research Center. 5 Dec. 2013. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.
“There is a wide belief that Americans are less class conscious than Europeans” (Vanneman). Because the United States consumes more than any other country, the global economy relies on our consumption. “The middle class is an ambiguous social classification, broadly reflecting the ability to lead a comfortable life” (Kharas). During the industrial revolution, there were aristocrat traditions in royalty, class, and rank in Europe. In America, the industrial revolution was coming of a wealthy nation. The United States is has a two party system, Republicans and Democrats. The Democrats wanted more people in the middle class, mainly blacks and immigrants. The Republicans wanted to protect the people who were already in the middle class, whites, and successful working people. The middle class in America is sometimes threatened by its own success. “The definition of the middle class is the people of generic roots like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Robert Johnson, and Sam Walton can become billionaires” (Hockenberry). Not everyone who is in the middle class can become a billionaire and using their stories as an example is the death of the American
Participants in the middle class are not necessarily living the American Dream but a lot of them are living comfortably. In some studies almost 90 percent of Americans have self-identified to be in the middle class stratum. (Conley 2015) Unfortunately, the average American believes that they are better off than they actually are. Many of the people who self-identify as middle class actually fall into the working class. How would one separate the two classes? The white-collar office worker usually describes the middle class while the working class is described as the manual labor worker. However, in the recent years the working class has as a whole sort of gained a new stratification and become an expanded part of the middle class.
Rosenbaum, E. (2013, August 8). A new species? The elusive nature of the global middle class. Retrieved from http://www.cnbc.com/id/100949800