Social Exclusion

Because the United States is divided into social classes based on wealth, prestige, and power, it is said to have a system of stratification, a hierarchical system that puts those with the most wealth, power, and prestige at the top of the hierarchy and those with the least at the bottom. This article discusses stratification in the United States and focuses on social exclusion and poverty. It defines stratification, social class, and aspects of poverty. The distinction is made between social classes, especially the working poor and the underclass in the United States. The structural and economic reasons for inequality of wealth in the US are examined in terms of race, gender, and other categorizations that can affect life chances. The state of social class and poverty in the United States is discussed.

Keywords Absolute Poverty; Discrimination; Feminization of Poverty; Inequality; Living Wage; Meritocracy; Poverty; Prejudice; Relative Poverty; Self-Fulfilling Prophecy; Social Exclusion; Socioeconomic Status (SES); Spatial Mismatch; Stigma; Stratification; Underclass; Working Poor

Social Exclusion

Overview

It is perhaps not surprising that a discussion of social exclusion is a discussion about poverty in the United States. Many Americans believe that the United States is a classless society where people have reasonable expectations to be free, happy, and relatively well off. However, experts believe that the United States is one of the most stratified countries in the world and has the distinction of keeping its poor in their state of being for longer amounts of time and more often than most other western countries (Stephen, 2007). The country's income inequality was the highest of all G7 nations in 2020 (Schaeffer, 2020).

What is Stratification?

Because the United States is divided into social classes based on wealth, prestige, and power, it is said to have a system of stratification, a hierarchical system that puts those with the most wealth, power, and prestige at the top of the hierarchy, and those with the least at the bottom.

Several classes have been identified in American society, beginning with those in the upper class. This part of the hierarchy comprises only about 15 percent of the population, including the old-money rich, sports and entertainment figures, and highly educated professionals, but people in this class tend to have a great deal of influence on the economy and society (Gilbert, 2021). They also own approximately 40 percent of the nation's wealth (Rothchild, 1995). In 2020, the top 5 percent of families experienced the most rapid income growth of any category (Horowitz, J., Igielnik, R., & Kochhar, R., 2020).

Following that, another 60 percent of the population makes up the middle and working classes. The middle class includes white collar and skilled blue-collar workers, while the working class includes factory, clerical and retail sales workers.

Below these two categories, the working poor, about 20 percent of the population, includes laborers and service industry workers. These people are called the working poor because while they work full-time, they do not earn enough to support themselves or their families. Many single mothers belong to this class, as do Black Americans and Hispanics (Gilbert, 2021).

Finally, there is the underclass, about 5 percent of the population, made up of temporary, seasonal, or part-time workers, many of whom also receive some form of public assistance. This group is generally uneducated and does not work consistently, essentially remaining jobless much of the time (Gilbert, 2021).

How is Social Class Determined?

Some people have more of everything than others, which is a good way to begin a definition of relative poverty. If people experience relative poverty, it means that they can provide for the basic necessities of life such as food, shelter and clothing, but compared to those around them, they cannot afford the other material goods and services that are available. If people cannot provide even the basic necessities of life, they are said to experience absolute poverty. The ability to obtain material goods, as well as to accumulate wealth, power, and prestige, is linked to a person's socioeconomic status (SES), and to social class. The United States is a class system, which uses stratification, the institutionalization of inequality that distributes society's resources based on one's class.

Most Americans believe in a meritocratic system, where those who attain higher incomes, more prestige, and more wealth, must deserve their bounty. This belief goes back to what Max Weber called, "Protestant Work Ethic" (Weber, Parsons, & Tawney, 2003) and is referred to simply as "work ethic," which means that hard work and effort will produce the fruits, or rewards, of one's labor. Yet, inequalities exist that go against this belief, and these inequalities often run along race, age, class, and gender lines. A growing segment of the US population in the twenty-first century is falling below the poverty line and lies outside its boundaries. This underclass includes people who experience what is called social exclusion, and who have little or no chance of achieving the American Dream.

To compound and perpetuate the poverty problem is the fact that the US economy is blind to the needs of these people who have fewer resources than others. Thus, a large group of Americans making up the underclass are not only poor, but also less able to participate fully in society (Day, 2021; Koepke, 2007).

The Underclass

People identified as part of the underclass often have no measurable living wage. Their employment tends to be seasonal, or sporadic at best, and they must rely on public assistance programs to achieve even the dire levels of absolute poverty. Their children have only a fifty-fifty chance of rising out of the same poverty themselves (Gilbert, 2021).

The underclass is not simply poor for a short period of time; its members are chronically deprived because of their lack of education, jobs skills, and access to income. Blacks and single mothers make up a large part of the underclass (Gilbert, 2021).

Many social scientists believe that training and employment opportunities are the only things that can bring people out of this type of poverty. The underclass must have jobs that pay a living wage and that offer them some type of medical insurance. They need safe housing and neighborhoods, and healthy food for themselves and their children (Fine & Weiss, 1998). But these people are victims of social exclusion and poverty.

Further Insights

Social Exclusion - Another Name for Poverty

To exclude is to leave out. The very poor in America, the underclass, make up about 5 percent of the population. While efforts to help the poor are historic since the reform movements of the nineteenth century and later in the twentieth century, poverty is still with us. In the 1930s, the US government made efforts to create social programs to help people out of the poverty caused by the Great Depression. In the 1960s, more social programs to fight poverty were implemented. But in years past, the funding for these programs has begun to decline and education and training, decent housing and health care insurance have been lost to many poor Americans (Carrillo, 2006).

Who Are the Poor in America?

In 1963, the War on Poverty was launched with the Social Security Administration's concept of poverty and measures of poverty thresholds (http://www.irp.wisc.edu).

National statistics on poverty are calculated using the official Census definition of poverty, the same definition that was coined in the 1960s. “Poverty is determined by comparing pre-tax cash income with the poverty threshold, the federal poverty measure, which adjusts for family size and composition. In 2006, according to the official measure, 36.5 million people, 12.3 percent of the total US population, lived in poverty.” In the same year, "17.4% of individuals under age 18 lived in poverty. Poverty rates among Black and Hispanic children are much higher than among White children and have been so since the Census Bureau began making separate estimates” (Institute for Research on Poverty, 2007). In a positive turn, the official poverty rate in 2021 according to the US Census Bureau was 11.6 percent, meaning 37.9 million people were living in poverty ("National poverty," 2023).

Being poor means being short of money. An income below the absolute poverty line inhibits access to and provision of basic life needs, including food, clothing, and shelter. Research and experience with antipoverty programs have proven, too, that poverty involves not just a lack of money, but some very complex, interrelated and sometimes intractable socioeconomic, family, and individual issues. According to Haveman (2008), these include:

• Attaining minimum standards of food and shelter

• Sufficient available time for home production/childcare

• Access to important social institutions

• Cognitive and non-cognitive skills

• Educational attainment (e.g., less than a high school degree)

• Labor force and employment status (e.g., living in a jobless household)

• The quality of housing (e.g., crowding, lacking plumbing or kitchen facilities)

• Health and disability status (e.g., number of disabling conditions, presence of a severe mental health problem)

• Transportation availability

• Being linguistically isolated

In other words, the United States needs vastly improved information on nationally-representative households to develop policies that would reduce, or eradicate, poverty.

Root Causes of Poverty in the United States

Some may have the tendency to attribute poverty to the individual and assert it is the person's own fault for their condition. Others look at social issues—discrimination or the economic climate of the country. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights reported in 2006 that there is a strong and continuing link in the United States between poverty and race. This finding was still relevant in the early 2020s, as poverty rates for Blacks and Hispanics reached all-time lows, but inequality remained prevalent (Creamer, 2020). In 2018, the average income for Black households was 61 percent of an equivalent White household. This rate in 1970 was 56 percent, exemplifying the inequality persistence over time (Schaeffer, 2020). The report states that a person's well-being is linked to the ability to lead a "life of value," to do or be something that the person chooses (Carrillo, 2006). There are numerous, often subtle, systemic issues that perpetuate the problem of poverty:

The Feminization of Poverty

Women experience much more poverty than men. Even in the United States, one of the richest countries in the world, social policies fail to keep women and their children from the ranks of the poor. This is known as the feminization of poverty, or the concentration of poverty among women, a concept coined in the 1970s by Diana Pearce (Thibos, Lavin-Loucks, & Martin, 2007). While there have been improvements in the poverty of women with more women doing paid work, and a closing of the wage gap between men and women, higher divorce rates that leave women as the single heads of households with children have driven them back into the ranks of the poor, underclass, and the working poor. Another factor that puts more women in poverty is that they tend to live longer than men, and older women need more income for a longer period. But higher rates of poverty for young women also mean that their children are living in poverty, too. This could send poverty into a cyclical pattern, with the children living in poverty remaining poor in their own adult lives (Thibos, Lavin-Loucks, & Martin, 2007).

The Working Poor - Earning a Living Wage

The economic realities that low-income families face are directly related to the failure of the minimum wage to keep pace with inflation. These people are working full-time, but not earning enough to pay for basic necessities—food, shelter and clothing. Massive cuts in welfare, as well as the related welfare to work programs, have sent ill-prepared people into the workforce, only to find service sector jobs that pay very little. Some would also argue that corporate welfare programs that allow companies to operate with little or no payment of taxes to towns and municipalities, depletes tax dollars while keeping workers poor. Living wage campaigns throughout the United States define the living wage as equivalent to the poverty line for a family of four. They also lobby for other community standards such as health insurance, time off, and safe work environments (Living Wage Resource Center).

Job Sprawl & Spatial Mismatch

The effect of job sprawl on minority employment is a major concern of poverty study. Job sprawl impacts elements of both social and economic life, including health, pollution, and prevalence of poverty. Researchers study the high concentrations of minority households in physically cut off inner-city neighborhoods and how this segregation affects employment outcomes. Physical distance between employment opportunities in metropolitan areas and Black residential areas increased in the latter half of the twentieth century, despite increases in mobility. Minority residences have remained in older urban areas, while jobs have moved to the exurbs. Job sprawl was also found to be correlated with an increase in the suburban ownership gap, but metropolitan land use policies may be effective in mitigating this inequality (Ragusette, 2021; Stoll, 2005).

Viewpoints

Solving the Problem of Poverty in the United States

Welfare Reform

Welfare reform questions America's notions about quality of life and the distinction between personal and public responsibilities. Are the nation's children cared for, or are parents who seemingly fail to take care of their offspring punished? Are those who have been on the welfare rolls exhibiting individual irresponsibility, or do societal barriers, such as discrimination, feed the cycle of welfare dependency? The debate continues whether the underlying reasons for welfare reform is simply to save money or to raise people out of its debilitating clutches. The answer has not yet been determined, yet welfare reform goes on, and people are being taken off the system, sent to training programs, to basic education classes, and to low paying jobs. Very often, welfare mothers join the ranks of the working poor. Are they any better off?

Social Exclusion, Stigma & Discrimination

Social exclusion, the process where certain groups are not able to participate in and benefit from society's institutions, is often linked to stigmatization and discrimination. This leads to low self-esteem, self-fulfilling prophecy and powerlessness, and alienation and isolation from the community (Day, 2021; Stewart et al., 2008). In the United States, as well as in other societies, people want to have psychological and social distance from those deemed undesirable, what sociologist Howard Becker called, "a taste for discrimination" (Figart & Mutari, 2005).

Social exclusion can occur for other reasons than economic ones, although the social discrimination that takes place because of disabilities, mental illness, lack of education, and sexual preference, for example, can overlap with economic discrimination. There is also an economic element to exclusion for social reasons in that people are willing to pay what their incomes allow them to and to maintain their social distance from what they find distasteful (Figart & Mutari, 2005). For example, some are willing to pay tuition for their children to attend private schools, avoiding what they might consider an unfavorable environment in the public schools for which they pay taxes.

Disabilities

Social exclusion also occurs when people are set apart and labeled as a person with a disability. Consider for example, being deaf and wanting to use the public library. Some of the exclusionary tendencies are public announcements with no visuals to accompany them, crosswalks without hearing-impaired cross assist technology, or public signs without brail. These are difficult for people with disabilities to use or understand, making them, perhaps, unable to find the bathroom, cross the street, or respond to announcements. They are socially excluded, regardless of their socioeconomic status (Day, 2021).

Older Adults

US society tends to age-stratify its population. Consider that infants and preschool age children are put into daycare or preschool environments, school age children into public or private schools, working-age adults into office buildings and factories and older adults into senior citizen complexes or nursing homes (Longfield, 2008). Some of these placements are deemed more desirable than others. For example, the media and many services tend to cater to working adults. Children, and especially older adults, tend to be socially isolated from any intergenerational activities that allow different strata to associate. And while children may have the opportunity and the encouragement to look toward their futures, older adults are not represented in television programs, or in advertisements, unless the products are for more active older adults who have not reached the nursing home stage. This increases the tendency toward social exclusion and can affect the self-esteem, isolation, and social exclusion of older Americans.

Conclusion

Social exclusion causes many social problems for those who are experiencing the poverty, isolation, alienation, and powerlessness that it creates. Solutions to social exclusion are many and varied. They require, first and foremost, a bridging of the economic gap between the haves and the have-nots. But perhaps before that happens, there must be a change in prejudicial attitudes toward minority groups such as Black Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, women, and the LGBTQ population, to name a few. These are not just changes that will happen overnight. Because they are systemic in nature, woven into the fiber of American culture, they may never change to any measurable degree for every affected group. To eliminate social exclusion, we must practice social inclusion on a large level. The leadership for this must come, it seems, from government administrations to set public policies that will deliver shared wealth, and a more inclusive, equal society.

Terms & Concepts

Absolute Poverty: The inability to provide basic needs to sustain human life.

Discrimination: Unfair treatment of people because of prejudicial attitudes.

Feminization of Poverty: A growing number of women falling into poverty.

Inequality: Usually has to do with income, with some people having less than others.

Living Wage: A minimum amount of money and benefits to provide for the well-being of a person and his or her dependents.

Meritocracy: A system in which rewards are given to those who have extraordinary talents, abilities, or have made extra efforts.

Poverty: Having little or no money or material possessions.

Prejudice: A negative opinion toward a group of people without knowing them.

Relative Poverty: The ability to provide basic necessities of life, but none of the extra goods and services a society has to offer.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Negative beliefs about oneself lead to negative behaviors, thus fulfilling the negative beliefs.

Social Exclusion: Lack of access to opportunities and benefits of society.

Socioeconomic Status (SES): An individual’s social and economic status within society; determined by such elements as income, educational level, and occupation.

Spatial Mismatch: Jobs are located far from the neighborhoods of the people who can fill them.

Stigma: A condition whereby a person is labeled in a way that causes a loss of prestige, esteem, and perhaps even material well-being.

Stratification: Institutionalized inequalities in wealth, power, and prestige.

Underclass: About 5 percent of the US population, characterized by under-education, little or no regular work and extreme poverty.

Working Poor: People who work for a living, but do not earn a living wage, enough to provide basic necessities of life.

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Suggested Reading

Hills, J., Le Grand, J., & Piachaud, D. (2009). Understanding social exclusion. Oxford University Press

Pulido, L. (2007). A day without immigrants: The racial and class politics of immigrant exclusion. Antipode, 39 , 1-7. Retrieved August 18, 2008, from EBSCO online database Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=23849808&site=ehost-live

Sapon-Shevin, M. (2003). Inclusion: A matter of social justice. Educational Leadership, 61 , 25-28. Retrieved August 18, 2008, from EBSCO online database Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=11868843&site=ehost-live

Scanlon, C., & Adlam, J. (2013). Knowing your place and minding your own business: On perverse psychological solutions to the imagined problem of social exclusion. Ethics & Social Welfare, 7, 170-183. Retrieved October 29, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database SocIndex with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=88212394

Spinney, J. L., & Kanaroglou, P. S. (2012). Municipal taxation and social exclusion: examining the spatial implications of taxing land instead of capital. Canadian Journal of Urban Research, 21, 1-23.Retrieved October 29, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database SocIndex with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=86001155