What does it mean to be poor? Or more precisely, what material things make up “what is enough?” This is the central question to scholars who study poverty. The number of people living in poverty varies by the agency that collects these data, and the percentage of poor used by government agencies is generally only an estimate. This chapter will consider the definition of poverty and how this construction affects who is considered poor and able to receive assistance. We then turn to the determinants of poverty and sociological theories that seek to explain who are the poor and predict how many people will fall below the poverty line in any given period. We conclude with the consequences associated with poverty as well as broad national policies and their effectiveness at reducing poverty.

Most Americans have thought about the chance that they will change social positions during their life. Trying to improve social status – that is, to move up the status hierarchy over time – is usually considered a desirable objective and a positive individual trait. It is common for young people to imagine that they can achieve more in their life than their parents, and many elements of the way we socialize children encourages or assumes that social mobility is a real possibility. Although we have begun to take for granted that social mobility is at least possible, the potential for change of this type is relatively recent. Throughout most of history and in most societies, people grew up to occupy the same social positions as their parents: peasants remained peasants, elites remained elites, and those in the middle remained in the middle. People even had surnames to indicate their social position (e.g., Bishop, Carpenter, Miller, and Wainwright). Today, we accept that through education, occupational change, entrepreneurship, and other processes, at least some people will not follow the same patterns as their parents. However, determining who is socially mobile and why is not a simple task.

The fact that people who rank high on one dimension of inequality (e.g., income, wealth) tend to rank high on other dimensions (e.g., power, prestige) suggests a permanence in social inequality that extends beyond the individuals in the structure. Structured inequality refers to the fact that inequality is not arbitrary. Rather, inequality tends to be systematic, and it is usually the case that the same people and groups who have more economic resources also have more prestige and power.

Before we discuss the sociology of sex inequality, we must first address the definitions of sex and gender. Some might ask, “Are the two not the same? There are two sexes and men are masculine and women are feminine, right?” This common perception fails to acknowledge the complexities associated with both sex and gender. We will investigate these differences as well as explain how social construction affects gender.

When asked, nearly 70 percent of American’s say they are middle class (Northwestern Mutual 2019) compared to 90 percent just over a decade ago (Taylor et al. 2008). But ask them to clarify what it means to be middle class, and they often reply it is because some people have more, and some people have less than they do. Being middle class, then, is a default category that says little about what class membership holds.

So far, our discussion has almost exclusively been about inequality in the United States. Although inequality and stratification in the U.S. are complex enough to warrant the space given them, it is important to remember that patterns of inequality and the processes leading to them are different in other countries. It is also useful to consider where the U.S. falls in the larger picture. There are no contemporary societies in which resources are equally distributed, but the degree of inequality varies dramatically among countries. In particular, the disparity between the very rich and the very poor often differs notably across countries. This is especially true when comparing developed countries (e.g., Australia, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom) with those that are still developing (e.g., Brazil, China, Hungary, India, and Mexico). Understanding how the United States compares to other countries puts in perspective the processes we encounter close to home.

Although the majority of the U.S. population falls into the middle class, it is often the people at the ends of the distribution who attract the most attention. This chapter discusses the top end of the hierarchy: the upper class. The term millionaire is often used to discuss the wealthy, and indeed, having a million dollars has its advantages. You might be surprised, however, to know that about 12 percent of Americans have $1 million or more in net worth. Those who are truly elite – that is, the smaller proportion of households who own the largest fortunes – have much more than a million dollars in wealth. Indeed, as we saw in Chapter 1, the group at the very top of the wealth distribution – the one percent – has at least $8 million in assets. In this chapter, we build on the basic estimates we provided in Chapter 1 and look more closely at who the top households are. If you are interested in learning about how many Americans fall into various wealth categories, you might explore this online tool: https://dqydj.com/how-many-millionaires-decamillionaires-america/