Chapter Objectives

Chapter 2: WEALTH AND POVERTY: U.S. AND GLOBAL ECONOMIC INEQUALITIES

By the end of this chapter students will be able to:

• Understand social stratification and how it leads to social inequality.
• Recognize the characteristics of high-income, middle-income, and low-income nations.
• Define and apply the concepts of absolute poverty and relative poverty, how they are similar and how they differ.
• Analyze class inequality in the United States.
• Summarize the various class models proposed by Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Erik O. Wright.
• List the social classes recognized in the United States and discuss the characteristics of each.
• Develop a profile of who are the poor.
• List and discuss the consequences of poverty.
• Trace the development and modification of welfare programs in the United States.
• List and discuss the various theories of why poverty exists.
• Offer solutions on how class-based inequality can be reduced.