Social Class Poverty

A topic I find to be interesting in these few chapters is poverty. Before understanding poverty one must understand social class. Social class is determined by power, property, and prestige. These can easily be detected throughout my day to day life. Power is the ability to carry out one's will, despite resistance of others. Power can be seen in the presidential election, both candidates have a distinct point of view and refuse to change it. Property is anything that someone's owns that shows social class. At my old school I did not see this that so much, since we wore uniforms, but going to college property can be seen with what people wear. For example, if a person wear Pink, Uggs, North Face, not of all cases, but that person has a higher placement on the social status. Lastly, social class is determined by prestige which is respect and regard. This can be viewed in my life with my professors. My professors gained status by employment and because of that I look up to them. These three aspects determine if a person is high or low on the social class system, but can also tell if a
person is rich or poor. If one is higher in social class then he or she tends to be richer and vice versa.
With social class there can be consequences like mental health, physical health, family life, education, religion, politics, and crime. While reviewing over my notes my roommate and I actually had a conversation about how social class can affect religion. We both thought it was interesting how something so little like a piece of paper can effect something so big like someone's religion. It amazed us. Right away we wanted to know some examples so I looked some up. According to an online source, it said that working class are most likely to be Catholics and upper classes tend to be Jewish or Episcopalian ("Religion - Boundless Open Textbook"). I am Catholic and would consider my family to be working class which is weird for me for the example to be so accurate.
People in poverty tend to be younger in age, female, from a minority, and have a low education level.
There are many reasons why people find themselves in poverty. One of these reasons is a poverty trigger. Poverty triggers are a quick change in people's life that affect their income. They can be things like job loss, divorce, or illness. Features of society can also keep someone in poverty, since they are barriers that affect a person's ability to move out of poverty, like war, age, and gender. Another element that can make someone poor is individual characteristic. These characteristic go along the lines of mental illness and lack of intelligence. Finally, poverty can happen because of culture poverty. This is a trap of assuming values and behaviour of the poor, causes them to live in poverty. Who and why people become poor interested me greatly. I would have never guess that
children
In my life I have gone to a Catholic private schools and because of that I have had friends whose families are more well off than mine. I would have friends ask my sister and I why we had to pay for our class ring, prom, laptops, cars, and gas. My friends never truly understood that my family did not have money to throw around. We all have to work hard for it. But being in the working class has taught me to work hard, how to save my money, and budget my spending, which my friends never really had to or had to do as much as my sister and I did. Poverty and social class can be displayed throughout my life.