Claude Fischer and Michael Hout wrote, with impeccable evidence, about the differences in living standards of Americans. They wanted to see if the gap in living standards had improved or gotten worse over time. They looked at annual incomes, financial assets, consumption, and at their subjective evaluations of their own economic positions and the differences among race, region, and education. I found the statement, “Foreign visitors have long remarked on the political equality among Americans-at least, among free, white, male Americans” ironic, this is saying there is really no equality at all. Americans are more than just the white males.
One thing they talked about was the large physical gap between the very rich and very poor. They have almost zero contact with each other. The very rich live in their air conditioned houses, drive their fancy air conditioned cars to work, park in the air conditioned parking garage, take the air conditioned elevator to their air conditioned office until it is time to leave through the same air conditioned path as before. This population isn’t even breathing the same air as those who are begging for food or bus fair on the streets below their office. They are so close yet so far away. In addition to this, as Fischer and Hout point out, Americans live in class-segregated communities when you venture outside the big cities.
They show how the income gap has decreased and increased throughout the years in helpful graphs, and while this, like reading a book, helps a little to understand the “gap,” I feel a more impactful way of reading the gap is to actually get in the middle of it. This past summer I worked for Habitat for Humanity of Isabella Co and I was able to see people travel up in “status” just with home ownership. As Fischer and Hout tell us, “The single most critical “good” Americans own is also their single greatest investment, a home.” Home ownership rates have stayed relatively flat over the years, as opposed to the slight raise in income. Homes are both an investment and a consumption, which will make things tricky for new homeowners.
In conclusion, after reading What Americans Had: differences in Living Standards, I see that although other nations, and even ourselves, view the United States as being one of the nations as more equal than others, the truth is quite different. But we like to lie to ourselves now don’t we.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
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I also enjoyed the quote about free, white, male Americans. I think it’s ironic that the United States is known as “the land of the free,” and as the nation where anyone can be successful if they’re honest and hardworking. Obviously this isn’t the case. Millions of people slave their lives away in minimum-wage jobs, only to struggle to pay bills and put food on their tables. This reminded me of Weber’s life-chances theory. All people aren’t given the same opportunities to live the middle-class American dream. Minorities and immigrants have a far more difficult time attaining income comparable to whites. They have an even harder time gaining accumulated net wealth. As education has become increasingly important in recent years, it has caused the gap between the poor and the affluent to grow wider. Those who can afford education are shooting upward in economic and social classes; those who can’t afford it are struggling to keep up.
ReplyDeleteThe section that spoke of consumption also caught my attention. Fischer shows how the poor tend have similar commodities as the wealthy, even though they can’t afford it. He says, “typically, the poor borrow for immediate consumption and the rich save for investment” (191). This reminded me of Veblen’s theory of The Leisure Class, which says that people often seek “stuff” because they see other people with it, and also as a way of gaining status. The poor see what the rich have and desire to be like them. American’s don’t care to save anymore. They want flat screen TVs and Escalades, no matter the cost.
I loved the line, “what Americans care about more than economic equality of outcome is equal opportunity to get wealthy” (200). Fischer’s writing speaks of the disparities within our nation that make some individuals billionaires, while others sleep on the streets. However, the author reminds us that Americans don’t actually desire equality among all people; they just want to be rich themselves. They don’t seem to realize that the odds of being in the upper percentiles of the economic strata are very slim.