Due Nov 3
Wealth, the Minimum Wage, Working Conditions and Student Loans
Led by Jonathan, Rima, and Zoe
Skim through the following articles and extract something interesting from each one:
- DeAngelis, Tori. “Class Differences.” Monitor on Psychology, Feb 2015. American Psychological Association, link.
- DePillis, Lydia. “Leaked Documents Show Strong Business Support for Raising the Minimum Wage.” The Washington Post, 4 Apr. 2016, link.
- Oliver, Melvin L., and Thomas M. Shapiro. “Disrupting the Racial Wealth Gap.” Contexts, 7 May 2019, link.
How can the current state of social classes change to reflect equality? Is redefining wealth necessary to bridge the gaps within current economic challenges?
Address one or both of these questions in a comment. Feel free to draw on your prior reading and experience, but if possible make explicit reference to one of the readings assigned above.
To change a socioeconomic class in order to reflect equality, there needs to be a raise in minimum wage. People need to have enough money in order to survive, and like the Washington Post article states, this is largely undisputed. However, in our current system, there will inevitably be a wealth gap, no matter how high the minimum wage is raised, because CEO’s will always insist on making more than their employees. It is in the nature of capitalism for people to make money by exploiting others. However, to get closer to equality, the many aspects associated with and affected by socioeconomic class would need to be addressed as well. Like the “Class Differences” article discusses, these effects can be quite extensive, and include self-image, mental health, and physical health. Therefore, to compensate for the inevitable wealth gap, it is necessary that government programs attempt to bridge this gap by providing resources to supplement public health organizations. This also extends to education. I found the discussion of students of different classes and their performance in college really interesting, because in a world where many people would like to think we are improving our wealth gap, college has become increasingly unaffordable, severely limiting opportunities for those in working- and middle-class families. Increasing government assistance should be implemented to allow people to attend school. Additionally, it needs to be implemented in a way that does not later put these people into further debt and preventing social mobility.
As discussed in “Class Differences” by Tori DeAngelis, social class affects every aspect of our lives – not only our opportunities and perceived status by others, but also our individual identities and behaviors. She argues that due to the environments and implications that come with being a certain class, attitudes can arise within a specific social class. For example, “the higher in socioeconomic status you are, the more independently oriented you are likely to be, while the lower in status you are, the more group-minded you are likely to be.” But this can quickly become dangerous: “A 2013 paper by Kraus and Keltner in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, for example, found that people who see themselves as relatively high class are more likely than those who see themselves as lower in rank to view class as inherent, innate and fixed.” This type of thinking is detrimental to fixing the ever increasing wealth gap we are seeing in the US. I think to even attempt to alter social classes in the name of equality, we need to create a consensus similar to Stanford psychologist Hazel Marku: not that social classes are an innate quality for each person, but rather that “social class differences…are not immutable.” But how do we do this? How do we “bridge the island that separates the wealthy from the rest of the world” to foster change? Is this possible in our divisive social and political climate? These are the questions I continue to grapple with and hope to raise in our discussion on Thursday.
Addressing the second question, I do think that redefining wealth is necessary to bridge the gap within numerous economic challenges such as the racial wealth gap and psychological class differentiation. As stated in the article “Disrupting the Racial Wealth Gap”, direct action needs to be taken in numerous ways even to begin tackling the large gap between racial wealth. This disruption is further enforced by ones own current wealth – that is those that are poor will continue to be poor due to their lak of resources. More so as a person of color in which not only are there a lack of resources but also a racist system that actively hinders their ability to gain wealth like a white person. Without taking direct action, the cycle will continue and black people will continue to get more poor while white people continue to get more rich. Aside from this pressing issue, the wealth distribution in general is a looming concern as it is seen not only between races but also between genders, highlighting how the most trivial and irrelevant traits can drastically effect ones life. I think this can be connected into the psychological aspects of the different social classes. As stated in the article “Class Differences”, the social class that someone is raised in can fundamentally change how they grow as a person. Thus, it is evident the only way to combat these increasingly prevalent wealth and status problems within our society is to take direct and drastic measures.
I believe that in terms of the second question redefining wealth is necessary not only to bridge the gap within economic challenges but social ones as well. As the article “Class Differences” discusses, the wealth gap has an impact on almost every impact of life imaginable, and the way people interact with the world around them. It seeps into the way they treat others, how they view themselves, and how they take up space, as well as the opportunities they are awarded and the privileges they may or may not have. I thought one of the most striking examples was how class impacted education, not just in the ways we usually think of in terms of resources available in schools, but in terms of how students interacted with their education system, if and how they asked for help, and the extremely grave implications of that. Lower class students were much more hesitant to ask for help if they were struggling, which clearly indicates a threat to their current and future success in school and beyond, given the impact that education plays on employment and thus socioeconomic status. Shifting the way that we define wealth is integral to creating more equality and equity in our economic system, given how pervasive the cycle of poverty is, particularly in communities of color.
In order for the current state of social classes to reflect equality, it is necessary to establish grounds for people of different classes to see eye-to-eye. One key issue that perpetuates the disconnect in wealth disparity is a lack of compassion for people in different financial circumstances, as Tori DeAngelis discusses in “Class Differences”. This is evident when she references a study that found that “people with less income and education are more generous, trusting, and helpful than their wealthy, more educated counterparts,” exemplifying how lower income people show more compassion to those who need it, while more affluent people have no concept of this financial difficulty and therefore have difficulty being empathetic. Furthermore, Melvin L Oliver and Thomas M Shapiro discuss the negative effects of this disconnect in “Disrupting the Racial Wealth Gap”. In this article, the authors discuss the racial wealth disparities and how upper class white families control many institutions like the education system, which can be detrimental to any group that is not part of the upper class white community, as they do not receive the proper representation needed in such institutions. In order to reflect equality, it is necessary for there to be a shift in wealth distribution so that there are not such stark contrasts between the affluent and successful top 1% versus the struggling lower class, thus allowing opportunities for people of all different backgrounds to succeed in comparable ways.
When analyzing Class Differences, I saw that the idea of wealth is flawed, for nearly everything we do is associated. From where we shop, all the way to where we get our coffee, wealth is associated in the sense that anything you buy says how wealthy you are. This way of thinking is obviously flawed, which is why wealth must be redefined. With the current state of status, many stereotypes are created to label those that fit under the criteria. Many who would consider themselves “upper class” tend to follow a similar status quo: independent, abundance of resources, better education, and greater experiences. This status quo causes them to look down on those who may lack certain qualities of life that they have. Also, concerning those of “lower status”, they end up having mental competitions with others around, worrying about if the person next to them is in better financial status. Overall, it creates an unnecessary divide within the population that hinders wealth rather than building on it.
In considering the relationship between equality and class difference I look to what Tori DeAngelis mentioned about social class being a “lens through which we see ourselves and others.” So, in order to get closer to equality, I feel like a social status quo shift would have to occur. Society as a whole would have to redefine priorities when it comes to economic wealth. I think as long as society glamorizes excess wealth and material objects it will be easier to stay defined by “class.” To combat this, I see raising the minimum wage as a tool that could close that gap in the first place. The smaller that gap is the easier it will be to combat that class system. Closing the gap would also allow for the country to combat the issues highlighted by Melvin Oliver about the “intersections of race and wealth.”