What Makes Up Social Classes

Social Class and Everything in Between
Even though we all live in a country that provided us equal opportunity, we don’t live in or have the same opportunities. Naturally people compare themselves to others that they see on the street or in stores and in some cases they look at how a person looks or how they act to figure out what class they belong to. By looking at the different social classes that exist today, based on what we have read and what we have viewed in class, we can see that people have many different views of what people are like in different classes and the things that those should have. This is important because it allows people to become aware of what goes on around them, what other people go through, and how it affects their standard of life. Some of the factors that can affect the quality of someone’s life would be the income that they earn every year, the amount of their education and the type of jobs that they are able to obtain. When we look at the people in different social classes there are a lot of differences in the people and what opportunities are available to them. For the people who live in the lower social class they often don’t have the resources or the money to get an education. In a lot of cases these people don’t get the chance to gain more than a middle school diploma do to the fact that they have to drop out of high school in order to get a job to help support the family. Some after a while try to go back to school but according to the Department of Education “Only 41 percent pf low-income students entering a four-year college managed to graduate within five years, but 66 percent of high-income students did”(Leonhardt pg 1). By not being able to continue their education they are put in the position where as they are not equipped with many important skills that they can use to get higher paying jobs. The only jobs that would be open to them would be labor based jobs such as working in a factory or in a restaurant where they earn minimum wage. But compared to the other classes the opportunities become greater for people in the middle class and upper class. Even though people in the middle class don’t always get the chance to earn a college degree, do to not being able to afford all four years of college, they are still able to get a good education that will allow them to get a well-paying job that will allow them to support their families comfortably. People who live in the upper class have every opportunity available to them. They are able to go off to Ivy League colleges to obtain the best education that they can possibly afford and they are able to get any job that they desire. In some cases people who come from high income families that own businesses have kids that inherit high position jobs that pay them very well without really going off to college to receive an education. The amount of education depends on the amount of money someone has to invest in ones’ education. The fact is that the wealth of a family varies from class to class. With families who live in the lower class, generally their income of subsidized by government systems such as welfare and food stamps, maybe a little work here and there when they get the opportunity to. As for families who live in the middle class, their income comes from primarily from the jobs that they go to on a regular base. Within both the lower and middle class you can find people who work very hard to earn their income yearly, yet for families in the upper class they don’t have to worry about working as hard as others or eve working at all. For most people and their families in the social class their wealth is inherited from their grandparents or parents who own major companies and businesses that are well known to the world. As seen in last year’s Forbes 400, 37 of the people inherited their wealth (Leonhardt pg2)
The life style of each class differs in so many ways as well, but now and days it’s hard to tell what class people belong to due to the fact that many high end stores are making their products more affordable for everyone to have. Car companies, such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi already offer cars costing about 30, 000 and now plan to introduce models that will sell for about 25,000 (Steinhauer pg 4). Jewelry companies, clothing companies, and many others have figured out ways to develop the same product for less, allowing them to sale the item for less as well/
Even though looking at someone’s appearance at first glance doesn’t give you much insight on what class they belong to, the services that they take part in tells a lot. People who live in the lower class are capable of buying all of these expensive items that the upper class can afford by borrowing money from banks and charging things on their cards. (Steinhauer pg 5) With many people with access to credit cards and bank loans, people now owe about 750 billion in revolving debt, according to the Federal Reserve. (Scott pg 5) With people of all three classes now being able to afford the same items it is hard to tell what class a person belongs to. But the one thing that you can use to determine what class a person is in is by the types of services that they use such as how often they get their hair and nails done and what kind of camps that their children go to and how often.