Talk:Social class in the United States/Archive 3

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[edit] Archiving

There haven't been any discussions on this talk page since November. I have therefore archive all discussions. Please note that the last couple of sections that consitute roughly a fith or quarter of the article still do not have references-which they need in order for this article to make it up to GA status. Best Regards, SignaturebrendelHAPPY HOLIDAYS 21:52, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

UPDATE: I have re-written the last few unreferenced section and nominated the article for GA status. Regards, Signaturebrendel 08:41, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Withdrawal theory

This section seems to come out of the blue...who advocates this idea? Does anyone think the "withdrawal" scenario is plausible, or is advocating for it? How would it be possible to withdraw from society, and yet still be part of the economy? Or is this simply a rhetorical device to define a certain type of unfairness? The section also seems to confuse "assets" with "income". The idea that everyone *should* have the same income also has its critics, on the grounds it destroys economic incentives. See e.g. "Optimal level of inequality" at Income inequality metrics. -- Beland 01:06, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

It is not plausable! It is a "a rhetorical device to define a certain type of" income inequality (not unfairness). I put in a statement that clearly states that the theory should not be used in attempting to determine fairness. No one is advocating the concept. It is an absteact theory meant to give you a guidelines which you can use to decide whose a have and whose not. Please don't take that section literally-it does not say that everyone should have the same income-I doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't! Again, It is merely a hypothetical abstract sczenario by which to determine whose a have and who isn't. Signaturebrendel 01:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Where does the apparently misleading name "withdrawal theory" come from? Does anyone other than Douglas Eichar call it that? What about alternative views about how to define "haves" vs "have nots"? What about critics of the "have vs. have not" distinction? -- Beland 17:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately all other views of haves and have nots are even more subjective. All socioligists (there are quite a few as you can see in the reference) I know of endorse the have/have not principle (as people are well-off and others arn't). The name Withdrawl comes from the hypothetical scenario that "if workers were to withdraw from the economy with their per capita income share..." That's why withdrawal. As I added a new section and needed to trim this article, I removed the Withdrawal theory. Perhaps I'm going to put it in its own article-I'll see-I was aware when I added it that someday, someone would mis-read it ;-) Regards, Signaturebrendel 23:55, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name of article

This article only covers one aspect of "social structure" - wouldn't a better name be something like "Economic class in the United States"? -- Beland 17:21, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

No, because there is at least one caste, illegal immigrants, who by law, have a distinctive legal status. Also, class involves factors other than economic status, while social structure involves factors other than class. If it didn't you wouldn't be able to tell a "swamp yankee" from a "cracker". Fred Bauder 17:31, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
The article clearly covers occupation and educational attainment. Granted such class factors are somewhat economic, but class is a mainly socio-economic topic to beging with. I will soon add a section describing class-based sociolization, which will add a purely social perspective on the social structure. Overall this article does not put more emphazis on economics as do reputable textbooks on the subject such as Dennis Gilbert's The American Class System. The article is meant to reflect the manner in which textbooks view the nation's social-structure. At the bottom we have academic class systems lifted from the books almost work by word (in the case of Gilbert & Kahl I actually quoted their finidings). What aspects of social class arn't covered? Let me know if there is a prominent class factor mentioned in a popular college textbook that I have missed and I'll added ASAP. Signaturebrendel 23:41, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mean to say that there shouldn't be an article on the general social structure of the country, it's just that this article doesn't seem to be that. There are a large number of aspects of social structure that are ignored, such as the structure of families; conventions of friendship; the work/home distinction; a survey of major subcultures; the urban/rural distinction; social clubs and events; political parties; relationship of the individual to the neighborhood, city, state, and nation; law and regulation of social relations; travel and relocation; and language differences. Many of these are not directly related to "class", but the very general title "social structure" sounds like it should include them, in addition to discussion of class. -- Beland 08:33, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think than we have different definitions of social structure. The article that includes things such as "structure of families; conventions of friendship; the work/home distinction" is Culture of the United States. I first though you were implying that this article is an incomplete discussion of America's class system ;-). But I now understand what you are saying and, yes, this article pertains to the social class system or social strata if you will. Personally I am not opposed to re-naming this article, "Socal class in the United States." There'll be a lot of re-directs but I would not be opposed to that change. Signaturebrendel 08:39, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
OK, I'll make the move and help fix the redirects. -- Beland 17:42, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Moved, and all the double redirects have been fixed. -- Beland 17:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Good job, the only things that's left now is to fix the re-directs in articles that mention "social structure" instead of social class. Those will likely be fixed by other editors over time (and I'll change them when I come across one). I actually like this title as it is more likely to be searched for on the internet and a bit more direct. Signaturebrendel 18:37, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA on hold

After an hour and a half of reviewing the article according to the GA criteria I have come up with this:

1. Well written?: The article is very well written but there are various mistakes and suggestions that should be fixed:
    1. Include the first name of the people mentioned in the intro
    2. The link to middle class in the intro currently has a hyphen, and when you link to the other article, it has none. Please correct it on whichever it is supposed to be.
    3. The link for statistical middle class only links to American middle class, not the statistical section you wanted it to direct to. I think somebody renamed the heading of the section. The same thing happens for lower middle class. Also within the intro, some of the links that go to the same place are wikilinked twice, use the first instance and then unlink the second at least until you get to a new section of the article.
    4. Keep an eye on the link to classless in the What is social class? section as it is currently tagged with a merge request, so there may be a broken link in the future.
    5. Remove the a) and b) in "Social classes distribute persons so that a) only the most qualified are able to gain positions of power and b) all persons fulfill their occupation duties to the greatest extent of their ability."
    6. For the Income section, the first paragraph either needs a hard return or the second paragraph needs to be merged into it (between $32,140.[11] Per capita household income).
    7. In the statement "The table below features the lower thresholds for the top third, top quarter, top quintile (20%), top 15%, top 5%, top 3%, top 1.5%." add an "and" between top 3%, top 1.5%. Also, in the next sentence "The table below features the lower thresholds for the top third, top quarter, top quintile (20%), top 15%, top 5%, top 3%, top 1.5%.[13] It should also be noted that nearly all of those households in the top quintile and the top 15% are more privileged members of the statistical middle class not actually part of the upper class." it appears some more words should be added between middle class and not (such as "that are").
      I would add to this the suggestion that the phrase "It should be noted that..." be removed altogether. This phrase, along with a handful of others (such as "ironicly...") should not be used in an encyclopedia. That phrase makes it sound like editorializing or a parenthetical observation by the author. If something "should be noted", just note it and move on. Indeed, if it weren't worth noting, it wouldn't be in here.--William Thweatt Talk | Contribs 09:14, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
    8. In the education section, either wikilink higher education instead or move tertiary education to the first words in the paragraph.
    9. "Since 1970 several sociologists such as LeMasters and Melvin Kohl have set our repeatedly to research class based cultures." Include the first name for LeMasters, switch our to out, if that's what you meant.
    10. In the culture section, professional middle class does not link to any particular section like working class does right after it.
    11. Use the same quote format as you did before in earlier sections for the Sociologist Lillian Rubin quote in the Culture section.
    12. "The high salaries and, especially, the potential wealth through stock options, has supported the term corporate elite Top executives and, of course, Chief Executive Officers are among the financially best compensated occupations in the United States." I'm not sure if this is supposed to be two sentences or one. If it's two, add a period after the bold text.
    13. "While the median annual earnings for a CEO in the United States were $140,350[22] (already exceeding the income of more than 90% of US households), the Wall Street Journal reports the median compensation for CEOs of 350 major corporations was $6,000,000 in 2005. Most of the money came from stock options.[23]." Include the last sentence into the first one, perhaps as "...in 2005 with most of the money due to stock option benefits." Also remove the extra period after the inline citation.
    14. Some percentages bounce back and forth from being spelled out then to numerical values and some with both (one with a numerical value in parathenses afterwards). Stick to just one of the methods.
    15. "The middle class is perhaps the mostly vaguely defined of all the social class." I'm not sure if this is supposed to be "all the social class" or "all the social classes". Correct if necessary, if not, ignore this suggestion.
    16. "...disregarding considerable differences in income, culture, educational attainment, influence and occupation." Add a comma after influence.
    17. "As with all the social classes in the US there are no definite answers as to what and what is not middle class." I think it's supposed to be "as to what is and what is not", ignore if applicable.
    18. In the Upper middle section, the further information link should be indented/spaced properly as the Middle class is right above it with its main link. Same as Vernacular middle class.
    19. The commas placed in this statement (in the Working class section) don't appear correct: "Yet another, more dated, definition is that..."
    20. "As working class persons tend to lack higher education they are commonly not qualified to design, create and advise." Add comma after think.
    21. "While Lloyd Warner found the vast majority of the American population to be in either the upper-lower class or lower-lower class in 1949, many modern-day experts such as, Michael Zweig an economist for NYU-Stony Brook, argue..." Move comma after Michael Zweig.
    22. Fix the wording of "Overall, 13% of the population fall below the poverty threshold, hunger and food insecurity were present in the mundane lives of 3.9% of American households, while roughly twenty-five million Americans (ca. 9%) participated in the food stamp program."
    23. "A main, successful political goal of Jeffersonian democracy..." remove comma after main.
    24. "In contemporary times migrant agricultural workers, mostly Hispanic, perform field and packing work. [36]" Remove extra space between period and inline citation.
    25. "The scenario most commonly reordered currently by the country's top news publications is that the statistical middle is splitting into two, a well-off, high-income middle class -the professional middle class- and a lower-income middle class." After "two," switch the comma to a colon, and use &mda sh; for the hyphens. View edit mode on this talk page to see what this looks like.
    26. "The rising costs of some items often deemed as iconcially middle class, such as a suburban three bedroom home, a college education and private school." Add comma after college education.
    27. "Both, a decline in real wages and the rising costs of "middle class essentials" are commonly cited as reasons for increasing bancrupcy rates, overspending and reliance on two income earners." Change to "Both a decline in real wages and the rising costs of "middle class essentials" are commonly cited as reasons for increasing bancrupcy rates, overspending, and reliance on two income earners."
    28. In the Class ascendancy section, move "The more classic understanding of the American dream, however, is that each successive generation will have a higher standard of living than its predecessor." to the second sentence in the section.
    29. "Occupation, the perhaps most important class component, educational..." switch to "perhaps the".
    30. "As a result not all upper middle class households (who consititute 15% of households) are among the 15.8% of households who had six figure incomes, thus not all upper middle class houseolds had six-figure incomes." Again, either use six figure incomes or six-figures income (be uniform throughout the article).
  • Misspelled: Strucutre -> Structure (within the Dennis Gilbert book inline citation; occurs throughout the article), ineqaulity -> inequality, continous -> continuous (in the intro quote), presons -> persons (occurs twice in the Income section), exactely -> exactly, distriubtion -> distribution, Gilber -> Gilbert, (Dual income controversy section), nationl -> national, atteneded -> attended (both in the Education section), crafstmen -> craftsmen (Middle class section), vernecular -> vernacular, aricle -> article, newsanchors -> news anchors, espcially -> especially (Vernacular middle class section), Gilber -> Gilbert, consititutes -> constitutes, consititute -> constitute, clerial occuaptions -> clerical occupations (Lower middle class section), two thirds -> two-thirds (Working class section), Jacksonian Democracy -> Jacksonian democracy (Farmworkers section), phenonmenon -> phenomenon, understaning -> understanding, iconcially -> iconically, bancrupcy -> bankruptcy, (Middle class squeeze section), advantagous -> advantageous, life time -> lifetime (Class ascendancy section), furthemore -> furthermore, ture -> true, bureacratuc -> bureaucratic, accumalted -> accumulated, toutinized -> routinized, supervisedmanual -> supervised manual, cerlical -> clerical, (Gilbert & Kahl section), uproportional -> unproportional, consitituted -> constituted, predominantely -> predominately, repeatet -> repeated, consititute -> constitute, houseolds -> households (Thompson & Hickey section)
  • Wikilink or further explain: sociologists, incumbent, quintiles, scholarships, US Census Bureau, Nonconformity, Chief Operating Officer (perhaps further then #2 job, expand to the second highest rank in a normal corporate ladder, etc.), information technology, blue collar (pink is wikilinked right after it), white collar, proletariat, Karl Marx, food stamp program, immigrant, indentured servants, emancipation, Hispanic, California, & posited.
2. Factually accurate?:
    1. Provide an inline citation for this statement: "Class culture has been shown to have a strong influence on the mundane lives of people, affecting everything from the manner in which they raise their children, initiation and maintenance of romantic relationship to the color in which they paint their houses."
    2. Inline citation for "Parents from the professional class tend to raise their children to become curious independent thinkers, while working class parents raise their children to have a more communal perspective with a strong respect for authority."
    3. Don't use "On page 119 of his book, The American Class Structure (5th edition),", just include an inline citation at the end of the statement.
    4. "W. Lloyd Warner, perhaps one of the most prominent American sociologists of the twentieth century," Either remove the perhaps... statement or source it.
    5. In the upper class section, for the third paragraph, remove the space between the inline citation and the period.
    6. "salaries of powerful public officials are capped and they are forbidden to accept gifts." add inline citation
    7. "...and are effectively required to have a residence in their district as well as one in Washington.[1]" convert this into an inline citation instead of an outside link.
    8. "Large numbers of immigrants in the colonial period came as indentured servants as teenagers, and by age 30 or so became independent farmers." Add source or reword.
    9. "Less than 2% of the population of the United States is engaged in farming." Add inline citation. Also, combine it with the sentence right after it ("Most are proprietors of independent farms.").
    10. "Once the dominant American social class, this group diminished in overall numbers during the 20th century, as farm holdings grew more consolidated, farming operations became more mechanized, and the majority of the population migrated to urban areas." Add source.
    11. Source the statement by Gilbert in Academic models section: "Some class models are more convincing than others because they make better use of the facts and illuminate metters that concern us... But there is really no way to establish that a particular model is true and another false."
    12. Don't use "The American Class Structure, 6th edition (Wadsworth 2002) as well the preceding 5th edition,", just add inline citation/source at the end of the statements. This also includes "The class descriptions in quotes below are lifted from the 5th edition, pages 284 and 285."
    13. For the references, split it up into footnotes (for the inline citations) and put the books under a heading like "Further reading" or "References" (if you use References, then just make the footnotes a heading as well).
3. Broad in coverage?: This article does a very good job covering all aspects of the information. For the future, the article could include a section focusing about the future of social classes in the U.S.
4. Neutral point of view?: Appears NPOV, make sure it stays that way.
5. Stability?: No problems here.
6. Images?: Good use of images. If you can, on the image pages themselves include a description section explaining what the image is about/entails. For the first image used, either elaborate on "A stark reminder of class in the United States." or remove it.
    1. Elaborate on the statement "Thus the 1906 cartoon showing the middle class family in dire straits." in the Middle class squeeze section or remove it.

This article is very well written, but it needs some cleanup from the suggestions above. I think that this article can be improved within the seven-day holding period, so I will put it on hold. If you think that you can't finish these within seven days, let me know and I'll fail it for now and you can renominate it again in the future. Just do each thing one at a time to make sure you fix everything. Consider including a symbol or saying your done after you complete each suggestion. When you fix all the changes or if you have any further questions, please let me know on my talk page. --Nehrams2020 07:59, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

All the things you mentioned above can be fixed in quickly. In 48h I should have made all the changes. Signaturebrendel 08:11, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Most of the above suggestions are fixed and I crossed off the ones that are complete. However, there are some things that still need to be fixed. Again, don't use the page number after the statement, convert it into an inline citation with the page number listed within the inline citation. You still need to add wikilinks to all of those words I suggested for further clarification for the reader. For the 1906 image, you have the statement "Thus the 1906 cartoon showing the middle class family in dire straits." Elaborate on this to help point out why the image is used in the article. Maybe add another sentence or two in the paragraph about it. If you have any other questions about the suggestions that still need to be fixed, let me know on my talk page. Good work so far. --Nehrams2020 22:12, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
I'll get around to them withing the next couple of hours. Signaturebrendel 00:32, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi, again, its gonna take me 'til about 1600 tomrrow-as I have some unexpected things to do tonight. I'll message you then. Keep up the good work and happy editing! Signaturebrendel 05:04, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry to do this again-but I was really busy today and it's now almost 11:00PM- tomorrow I will finally have the time to make the above corrections- I know it's the last day-but I will make the changes just on time. Signaturebrendel 06:40, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA failed

I failed the article for now, just until the changes are completed and since it has exceeded its seven days. Let me know when all of the items are fixed, and I'll be happy to review it again before promoting it. Good job so far, but keep at it. --Nehrams2020 09:10, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your patience and continued assistance. I was quite unexpecately busy (as you have probably gotten from my posts) the last few days and have a project coming up next week. I will, however, check the above list of improvements once more and proof-read the article within the next week. Best Regards, Signaturebrendel 17:54, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question on wealth-class relationship

Apologies if this issue is often discussed on the sociolgy pages, but the article currently states that there is debate as to whether the "new rich" should be included in the "upper class". My question: Is this honestly a serious debate in the United States? Among actual sociologists? Surely, the basing of class purely on wealth attained, (rather than factors such as family history and private education), essentially means there is no class system in America. It's almost the same thing as equating beauty and wealth. It seems compltely absurd to me.--Zoso Jade 15:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I think misunderstand the term social class somewhat. Social class refers to a group of people who assume similar positions in society-it doesn't neccesarily refer to family history or pedigree. The upper class are those who are wealthy and powerful; in other words they assume influencial positions in society and reap great economic rewards- they own media outlets, large shares in corporations, invest to the extend that they can make a break companies, have attained ivy league educations, open and close employment opportunity for others, etc... Social class is a by-product of a complex society. In order for social class not to exsist everyone would need to assume a similar position with similar influence, authority and rewards. But a complex society can't work that way-we need highly educated professionals, big-time share holders, janitors, and secretaries-we need different groups of people assuming a variety of positions: social classes.
As to whether or not there is debate among sociologists-not really. All those with wealth and power are upper class. Society issues two main rewards: income & prestige (how other's think of what you're doing). Among the members of the upper class, some such as Presidents, Senators and many old money heirs receive more prestige than other members of the upper class such as celebs. Personally I have not seen a class model made after 1980 that differentiates between Old and New Money- Dennis Gilbert, whose class model may be the most used, actually made a point in his book not to differentiate between old and new money- as doing so it an out-dated practice. I hope that answer some of your questions. Signaturebrendel 17:57, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Numerical Adjustment Required

In an environment in which first year associates at NY and Chicago and Los Angeles make $167,000 just for showing up the first day, the broad categories contained in this article are in deep need of revision. CEOs and Politicians and second year associates at $200,000!

Those persons are exceptions. This article talks about what is typical, not what is exceptional- 50% of CEOs make less than $140k. Signaturebrendel 22:23, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

I just wanted to say that whatever one's view of the subject, this appears to be an interesting and well written page. I'm sure I will enjoy reading further. Thanks for your work. --Kenneth M Burke 07:11, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for those kind words. Signaturebrendel 21:00, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What the heck its that high?

Must be all those stuck up rich people. My family only makes $25,000 a year. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Uber555 (talk • contribs)

What is this supposed to mean? I probably should delete this comment but instead will use the opportunity to briefly mention the ambiguouity that sourrounds social class. As there are no offical or well defined class tresholds the concepts and perceptions persons have of class vary widely - especially when discussing the middle class. Thus it is understandable if some readers disagree with the current academic theories on the subject and "common" income figures identified by contemporary social scientists. Regards, Signaturebrendel 21:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)