The issue of social class in America has been an ongoing phenomenon. There are three classes prevalent in American society, each of which has its own stigma, both negative and positive. The lower class is the class of the impoverished and poor. The middle class is the class in which a vast majority of people classify themselves as, and the luxurious high class closes out the third social class in the United States. Since people of lower class tend to classify themselves as middle class and those who are rich would rather classify themselves as middle class as well, the middle class in American society will be tossed out in this paper. The privilege of being a white-collar citizen in the United States has long been advantageous versus the lower class, which has seen nothing but negative connotations and disadvantages. There are many fascists of life that prove to be advantageous to wealthy people and vast examples that prove to be disadvantageous to blue-collar Americans on the flip side.
Personal Appearance: The first of ten examples that shows privilege in favor of high class is in regards to personal appearance. The initial judgment people make in American society is in large part due to ones appearance. People of the upper class exude a very professional look while low class citizens present a mundane, unprofessional look. You see a person walking down the street wearing a button-up shirt with a tie, shirt tucked into his new pair of khakis. The minds initial reaction is to stereotype this person as upper class. A lower class person who is going to a job interview, for example, that cannot afford the nice cloth an upper class person can, and could be equally as qualified as the sharply dressed upper class applicant. Solely based on appearance, the upper class interviewee has the upper hand.
Address: The immergence of how successful one group is versus the other in terms of a getting a job is actually a huge part of the upper class. In an equally negative manner, poor people without an address cannot even get a job. Many lower class people do not have a permanent address, meaning that they cannot apply for a job. Some jobs require that applicants have a permanent address and those from the lower class on occasion do not have the ability to get a job. What does this mean? Simply, it means that the poor will continue to stay poor because nobody wants to hire them. If an employer is going to deny a worthy applicant because he or she has no permanent address, you have nowhere to go but down.
Cost of Living: The example of appearance leads to another important aspect and that is the issue of money. The standard of living in America has created a huge gap between the upper and lower class. The cost to live has grown, while the rich have gotten richer and the poor have only found themselves trying to dig out of a larger and steeper hole year by year. In 2005, the average cost of living in Beaverton, Oregon was $53,518, which then had a sharp increase to $69,969 in 2006 (CNN Money). Poor people cannot afford the cost to live these days while the rich have nothing to sweat about; they have all the money to continue living comfortably.
Location of home: The privilege of cash in society also favors the rich in that it is a large determining factor in where one lives. Walking into a neighborhood with luxurious cars, gated homes, and high tech security systems is immediately seen as an upper class neighborhood. When the thought of lower class and location of ones home are paralleled, many people would agree that an image of a ‘ghetto’ area or even a trailer park are their initial thoughts. Upper class neighborhoods are far safer than ghetto, run down areas. People in upper class neighborhoods don’t have time to be messing with drugs, alcohol, and gang related activities whereas poor folk live in an area with people who, just as them, are not making money to support themselves, keeping them away from many negative aspects of life. It builds a poor community and this construction of ones self is difficult to dismantle and re-create.
Crime: Crime in relation to class is an area of focus that sometimes gets overlooked. People who had negative upbringings or people who had rough childhood experiences normally commit crime in America. How often does the news report that an upper class man committed a murder versus a murder committed by a lower class citizen? The answer is simple; people of lower class society are statistically far more likely to commit crimes than those who were born into a wealthy family. In June 2003, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation reported a total of 11.9 million criminal cases in the United States. Of these cases, 19,940 cases were reported in Detroit, where 2,073 people committed crimes in every 100,000 people (Human Rights Record). Detroit is notoriously known for lower income families, and with crime rates so high here, the issue of money and crime can be seen. Upper class families can raise their children in a positive environment away from all the drugs and violence of the impoverished lower class community.
Entertainment: Entertainment is a very interesting way to look at how high-class society has the upper hand versus the lower class. The amount of money one has affects the habitual decisions people make in what activities they will plan on doing during the course of a day. Going to multiple course meal restaurants as well as Broadway plays and the opera are all forms of entertainment in which the upper class finds themselves attending. Lower class citizens cannot afford to go to these events, which over a lifetime can really affect the perception of life. Life is more enjoyable when you can spend money freely and do whatever makes one happy. Even though a lower class family would love to go to high-end entertainment facilities, they do not have the cash to do so. A large dent will be evident in the checkbook of any low class family who plans on attending events that make life more entertaining.
Vacation: Also in relationship to entertainment is the area of traveling. Upper class families have the budget year in and year out to make plans to go on vacation as a family. Low class families do not have the kind of funds that are necessary to plan extravagant family vacations, or even a vacation for themselves to get away. Going one step further, low class citizens do not ever sit first class, they get to sit in the economy section for the most part uncomfortably, while all the wealthier passengers nap quietly and relaxed in first class. Having the experience to explore the world we live in is a series of events in which only upper class citizens have the opportunity to explore.
Power: Power in America is heavily bestowed upon the wealthy class of America. People of wealth occupy a majority of high positions in the workplace in America. “The president, vice-president, manager, division head, and foreman in a factory are all part of the command-hierarchy” (Rummel). These people possess the power that enables them to tell people what to do, who keeps their job and who does not, and how much money everyone below them is making. This power can be abused and because the CEO of the company has so much power, there is not much any below him or her can do about it. At the end of the day, the employees abide the rules of the boss to keep their job and make their hard earned money. High-ranking positions are not always occupied by people who start at the bottom of the ladder and work themselves up to the top. On many occasions, these positions are filled by friends or family members of the wealthy owner, for example. This manifests privilege to the wealthy upper class person.
Health: On a more serious note, privilege can also be revealed in the health setting. Medicine, healthcare, and just a simple visit to the hospital can show number of things about privilege. If you are poor and somebody gets injured in the family, bringing them to the hospital can be a life changing experience. The leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States is unpaid medical bills. Half of the uninsured owe money to hospitals, and a third are being pursued by collection agencies (Gladwell). For an upper class, financially stable family an injury may dent cash flow, but a low class family may need to give up everything they have just to pay off bills and take care of a member of a family. Most people in poverty do not even have Medicare, narrowing the lower class into a dark corner while upper class citizens stand out in the open in the sunlight, in sheer happiness that they have the money to get them by.
Happiness and life expectancy: This serious example brings up one of the most important and influential privileges in regards to social class, happiness in retrospect to dissatisfaction as well as life expectancy. Dr. Christopher Murray of the Harvard School of Public Health exclaims that millions of the worst-off Americans have life expectancies typical of developing countries. Southern low-income rural blacks, with an average of per capita income at $10,463, are expected to live 71.2 years (MSNBC). The correlation between income and life expectancy is eerie. To live life comfortably and not always worry about your financial state is far more impacting, in a positive manner, than to be living everyday in fear of what others think of your appearance and budgeting your money to make sure your making ends meet. This is not to say that the upper class is always happy and that the lower class is always dissatisfied, but a vast majority of people in each class, respectively, would agree that their class has a large impact on their daily life.