Businesses often pay individuals a wage based on current market standards. Free-market economies usually dictate specific wages for various jobs. Governments attempting to subvert market prices can reduce the demand for new workers due to a high minimum wage. Individuals can face a few negative effects from minimum wage laws. Minimum wage increases an individual annual salary, bumping the employee into a higher marginal tax bracket.
Inequality is a term used to describe the unequal distribution of valued social resources therefore its an unfair situation, in which some groups in society have more money, opportunities or power than others. In both study materials, the making social lives DVD and Learning Companion 1, we look at City Road. This road consists of lots of different shops, majority of which are restaurants and takeaways targeted at the local ethnic minority and student populations. After studying both study materials I have come to acknowledge the many different inequalities on City Road. The first inequality I will talk about is an Ethnic inequality.
In this case, raising the minimum wage has increased employment. So who’s right? The debate actually centers on how to best help the unskilled, the low skilled, the poor and the near poor out of the abyss of poverty. Increasing minimum wage not only may fail to help those people but also actually hurt them. With that being said, while a minimum wage increase may lift some families out of poverty, they push even more families into poverty as employers try to control cost by eliminating jobs, displacing low skilled adults for more productive employees or shaving work schedules.
Conflict Theory has a macro sociological approach which means it has been done on a large scale using statistics, figures and research. One main feature of Conflict Theory is that there are power differentials within society and that these are in place to control and constrain those who aren’t in power to enable them to keep valuable resources to themselves resulting in those who are not in power or within the “ruling classes” to face inequality as they are unable to access these resources. These resources are private education, health care and better quality of housing amongst others. Another feature of Conflict Theory is that this conflict will result in change and that society is ever changing. While this feature can be used to explain incidents and changes that have occurred within society there is still a large gap between the resources available to those who are considered lower class or underclass compared to those with wealth within the United Kingdom and according to The Guardian newspaper inequality has risen faster in Britain than in any other country since 1975.
the American Dream. This theory is very useful in highlighting certain points that are not explained within other theories. Albert Cohen, describes the idea of status frustration. By which he argues that deviance and crime result from the inability of those in lower classes to achieve mainstream goals. It is useful for highlighting why, in the working class, those who cannot achieve in education, they then therefore suffer from status frustration and in this process turn to other people who also cannot achieve in this institution.
Even though all of these strains have an influence on the racial differences in crime, I believe that the community contributes a lot to these differences. By observing at a community, one can derive that a community branches out to numerous types of strain. According to the text, African Americans show a disproportionate number of residents who occupy areas where there are higher rates of violence and economical disadvantages. These disadvantaged neighborhoods usually lack good public schools, job opportunities, and more often promote criminal behavior. With the lack of job opportunities in a poverty infused area, one might succumb to criminal
This plays a major factor in the homicide rate in Philadelphia, although it’s not the only factor. Being unable to support yourself financially can lead to other illegal options for people in urban parts of the city. Men typically turn to the streets and drug dealing to meet their financial needs. This may lead to bad deals that result in feud amongst different parties. According to Schneider, homicide is highly gendered.
Shorris bluntly tells the poor they have been cheated. He tells them that the rich have learned the humanities and have the knowledge to use them in day-to-day life but the poor, do not. Shorris simply summarizes, “rich people know a more effective method for living in this society,” (Shorris 4). Rich people know how to successfully and politically fit into the gears of civilization. Since Shorris realizes that the rich have this unfair advantage over the poor, he decides to create a course designed for those that could not learn these humanities in private schools and expensive universities like the rich could.
Daniel Pacheco English 101 H. Barsamian 4/29/12 The Immortal Life of Segregation To me social class is what matters most today. People have judgments about others based on their economic standing. People treat other people differently because one is richer then the other. We are all separated into social class the lower class are all grouped together in one neighborhood and the rich in another but we cant be mixed we have to stay in our social class. If we look back in history race was what mattered most.
Opponents also typically insist that undocumented immigrants lower wages and labor standards by offering their cheap labor and by being willing to work under very harsh conditions (“Lower wages,” 2008). This, increases unemployment and affects the living conditions of the working class and poor Americans (“Amnesty,” 2009). Thus, according to opponents, a comprehensive immigration reform would reward “criminals” who, not only broke the law, but also exploit the US economy, degenerate society, and compete against natives for work opportunities that are running scarcer as more people continue to come to the US. Legalizing the millions of undocumented immigrants that currently reside in the US would send future immigrants the wrong message that it is acceptable to enter the US illegally and that they will, in the future, be similarly forgiven (“What is wrong,” 2005). Finally opponents complain that legalizing undocumented immigrants would be very unjust for both, those that went through the long, legal process of receiving a visa, and for those that are still waiting to receive one.