U.S. Stratification

• Income and wealth unequally distributed - richest 20% of the population own 80% of the country’s wealth and have 50% of the income

• The gap between rich and middle class and poor has been increasing recently.

• Who are the poor?

• Consequences of stratification

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Please read Chapter 11.

In the US, there are 268 billionaires and at least 36,000,000 poor; the top 1% has more wealth than the bottom 95% of the population. The middle class slide is the downward structural mobility rooted in the transition from industrial to post industrial, information age society. The new wealthy are those who are involved, in one way or another, in the information age enterprises.

Bill Gates is the wealthiest person in the world according to Forbes magazine. As a member of the capitalist class, his income and wealth- his net worth- outstrips that of the bottom 45% of the stratification system in the US. He is worth more than the 200 million Americans in the bottom 45% of the stratification ladder. You can discover exactly how rich he is right now at http://www.webho.com/WealthClock (1/29/00 he was worth over 110 billion dollars.)

And you can read about his problems (gee... poor Bill) with the Justice Department at these two links: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/ms_index.htm

and http://www.wired.com/news/news/antitrust/

And you can get a little revenge at: http://www.vegasdeluxe.com/comdex/gatesomatic.html or try: http://peoplespace.com/how/games/megalomania/play/ (you will need the Shockwave plugin to view these; it is free at http://www.macromedia.com).Of there’s SPOOGE: http://www.galaxymall.com/retail/spogge/

To be fair, here is the Chariman In His Own Words: http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/writing.htm#columns

In 1999 the official poverty line was $16,700 for a family of four. Children are at far greater risk of poverty than any other demographic group. About 20% of people under the poverty line are younger than 18. Furthermore about 2/3rds of all people living in poverty are women. Finally, Native Americans are the most disadvantaged group- about 1/3rd below the poverty line.

The middle class slide(nothing Bill has to worry about) is the increasing loss of relative earning power in the middle income ranges. Recent reforms in the tax laws have benefited the (say it ain’t so Bill…)upper income brackets, even though rhetorically disguised as what they call "middle class tax cuts to benefit working families" (which in reality benefit corporations and the wealthy.) This has resulted in more people at the lower end of the middle class slipping below the poverty line or into the category working poor. Meanwhile the income of the richest proportion of taxpayers has increased. (Bill Gates’ house cost $64 mil-- how much is yours worth?)