Social Class Ladder Essay

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Based on the model presented in the book, my family’s social class position on the social class ladder is upper middle class. My husband and I live a very comfortable life. I’ve earned a Bachelors degree and I have a successful career in Accounting/Finance. My husband is a business owner and has done really well for himself. We are definitely not poor, but we aren’t rich either. We work hard and are proud of the milestones we’ve achieved at a very young age. Some of the factors I am using to put my family in this social class are the following: my husband and I earn very good money, we are able to enjoy life without thinking about money and whether we can afford to do or buy something, we have the ability to travel and see the world, and we …show more content…

A lot of people purchase homes that they cannot afford and are literally house poor. By the time they’ve paid their mortgages, they’re left with hardly anything. This leads to accumulation of debt and so forth. Making good money doesn’t mean anything, if we don’t have the ability to mange our finances properly. If you’re middle class, chances are that you will climb the corporate ladder, while the rich own the ladder. I believe this is something that will always be present within middle class. A lot of times middle class people will work for someone else, while the rich own a business or are self …show more content…

Looking back, we can see how people were affected through the Great Recession and how the housing market crashed, and the financial market challenged. When the economy started picking back up, not every household/family benefited, and we notice how the wealth inequality expanded together with racial and ethnic issues. According to research, “the wealth of white households was 13 times the median wealth of black households in 2013, compared to 8 times the wealth in 2010….likewise, the wealth of white households is now more than 10 times the wealth of Hispanic households, compared to 9 times the wealth in 2010” (Pew Research Center). As part of the recovery from the recession, all American families have become more frugal by reducing their ownership of key assets, such as homes and stocks. However, we also notice that the decrease in key assets is much greater among minority households. There are also discrepancies in the wage structure. For example, a CEO typically makes three times the salaries earned by other staff members. They all may have the same type of education, but because of the CEO title, compensation differs

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