The United States and its Classless Society

"The USA is a classless society."

I am not even sure that anyone believes this anymore. During times when there is "prosperity," it might not seem like the differences between classes is that large, but since the recession, it has been pretty clear that our society is split into two groups, the "haves" and the "have nots." A tangible example of how our society is split into classes is the city of Austin. The city is split up where the East, South, and North parts are the working class areas, and the West and Central parts are the upper class. This is not speculation. A person can see it in the upkeep and sizes of the properties of the areas.

Mantsios proves it in a more academic way with facts and statistics. He claims that "one out of five children in the United States under the age of 6 lives in poverty" (149), "3.5 million people experience homelessness in any given year" (149), and that "between 1979 and 2000, the gap in household income between the top fifth and middle fifth of the population rose by 31 percent" (150). These numbers speak for themselves, yet because many of us are so sheltered in some of our communities, we might not realize the disparity.

Another example is Hurricane Katrina. Michael Eric Dyson makes the argument that the "poor had been abandoned by society and its institutions, and sometimes by their well-off brothers and sisters, long before the storm" (186). He sites the statistics that "more than 90,000 people in each of the areas that stormed by Katrina in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama made less than $10,000 a year" (187). Specifically in New Orleans he talks about how the concentrated poverty "fueled metropolitan expansion" (187) and in effect left the residents in those areas with poor schools and poor health. The cycle of poverty persisted because there were little opportunities for those residents. He also notes that African-Americans were not the only ones affected by the storm in these poor areas. Mexican-American (some illegal), Native American, Vietnamese, and Filipino communities were also heavily displaced.

When the storm hit many of these poor communities were left stranded, while the wealthier communities did not suffer as much damage. A telling statistic is that "in New Orleans, 53 percent of poor blacks were without cars" (159). If people did not realize that our society and its institutions were very much based on class after Katrina, then they were clearly misinformed.