This paper will be examining stratification within five chosen states here in the United States. In particular, it will examine how Texas compares to four other states. The states I chose to measure are Georgia, New York, Louisiana, and Illinois. The measure of stratification to be used in comparing these states will be poverty. The reason I chose the other four was because Georgia had recently filed for bankruptcy, New York, among other things, is known for its high population of the homeless, Louisiana because of the hurricanes and people losing homes, and finally, Illinois was chosen out of curiosity.
I will be comparing the states from most stratification to least stratification. The data used to make these comparisons will be data collected from Poverty USA, which is a website that examines poverty throughout the United States. I believe, in terms of most stratification to least, my states will rank as follows: Georgia, Louisiana, New York, Texas, and Illinois.
Background
Stratification is defined as a set of hierarchal relationships between individuals and groups that define access to resources (“Inequality and Stratification”). It spreads throughout all aspects of culture and society and diffuses the point of junction between social, cultural, and physical environments. Stratification is examined through culture, demographics, health, economic sociology, education, employment, race, ethnicity, etc., making stratification a particular form of inequality (Grusky & Szelenyi, 2011). Both inequality and stratification refer to social and unnatural differences between people; for example, physical strength, mental ability, etc….
America has this belief that inequality is inevitably due to human nature of a result of historical acts. It has been found that this inequality is due to historical acts, because Americans have created the extent and type of inequality we have, and Americans maintain it (p.21). For example, the amount of schooling we