Class Based System & Poverty

The founding fathers in the fledgling United States of America feared a nation governed by self-interested, wealthy elites; the idea that a fixed faction of land-owning aristocrats would gain and hold control over the reins of power was anathema to them. And yet, today it would appear that by most accounts, this fear of the founding fathers has been realized. Entrenched, class-based systems are at play in the United States of the 21st century, benefiting the already wealthy and preying upon the existing poor. Government and institutional policies, particularly under the Bush Administration, are perpetuating and widening the class divide at an alarming rate. As cities support a higher percentage of poor than do outlying suburbs, so cities are perhaps impacted most adversely.

In the 1990s, a booming economy did not narrow the income gap between the rich and the poor; nationwide, from the late 70s through the late 90s, "the average annual income of families in the top 20 percent of the income distribution was $137,000 more than 10 times that of the poorest 20 percent of families (McGregor, 2000, p. 11). Adding insult to injury, it would appear that the IRS appears preys upon poorer families, auditing them the most frequently. This is an exhibition of classism at its worst; in 1999, the audit rate on individual returns reporting incomes of $25,000 or less was 1.36 percent, compared to a 1.15 percent audit rate for the wealthiest Americans earning $100,000 or more (Cho, 2

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Category: Economics - C