This week's assigned reading discusses the issue of inequality and privilege. Based on the text, what is

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This week's assigned reading discusses the issue of inequality and privilege. Based on the text, what is the difference between income, wealth, and financial assets? Be sure to provide examples of each.

Pages 82-84 of the text provides an example of the challenges of economic mobility as it relates to college degrees and student loans. Briefly summarize that section of the text. Then explain whether you agree or disagree with the author's point that use of a college degree to achieve economic mobility can pose lots of challenges for the poor whereas wealthy students are privilege since their family wealth reduces some of the barriers to completing a college degree. (I have attached the assigned reading

Economic MobilityReal Inequality seems to be less of a concern where there is a high degree of mobility, so widespread poverty or concentrated disadvantage is less of a concern if the people living in those situations could easily improve their position. The United States has some opportunity for changing one's class, with anecdotal stories of self-made millionaires and billionaires being popular because they confirm the idea of mobility and the American dream. But systematic research examining larger populations finds less reason to be optimistic. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), high levels of inequality "can stifle upward social mobility, making it harder for talented and hard-working people to get the rewards they deserve" (quoted in Corak 2013: 79). An economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago notes that "income mobility has declined in the last 20 years" (Francis 2005) as inequality has increased.

A number of researchers have approached this topic and looked at the earnings of parents and adult children to measure upward and downward mobility across generations. They find that inequality produces an "inequality of opportunity":

Socioeconomic status influences a child's health and aptitudes in early yearsindeed even in uterowhich in turn influences early cognitive and social development, and readiness to learn. These outcomes and the family circumstances of children, as well as the quality of neighborhoods and schools, influence success in primary school, which feeds into success in high school and college. Family resources and connections affect access to good schools and jobs, and the degree of inequality in labor markets determines both the resources parents have and ultimately the return to the education the children receive. This entire process then shapes earnings in adulthood. (Corak 2013: 85)

We would add that with law enforcement and criminal justice focused on those at the bottom, criminal records are also more likely, which adds to social exclusion and limits a person's earning potential.

This explanation is not meant to be deterministic and recognizes that mobility happens, just less frequently than people think. Specifically, in "Finland, Norway, and Denmark, the tie between parental economic status and the adult earnings of children is weakest: less than one-fifth of any economic advantage or disadvantage that a father may have had in his time are passed on to a son in adulthood." Where the income of parent and child are loosely tied, economic mobility (both upward and downward) is more likely. In contrast, "in Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, roughly 50 percent of any advantage or disadvantage is passed on" (Corak 2013: 81).

Notice that the underlying research is based on studies of men's mobility. Drawing conclusions about everyone based on studies of men is a common problem in social science, medical, criminological, and other research (see chapter 6). While women have claimed a permanent role in the workforce, their struggle to enter the workforce and break glass ceilings (that limit upward mobility) is erased; most research implies that they have the same mobility patterns as men when they do not, or it implies that their mobility does not matter.

Further, many key issues about the labor force are then not discussed, such as the male models of successful leadership that women are expected to emulate even while they are criticized for acting assertively. Male standards of success require women to work long hours away from their families, which by itself is unproblematic when gender expectations are widened to include dual caretaking responsibilities for men. But many women still face social ridicule for spending more time at work than at home when they have families and even more ridicule when women choose to remain unmarried and child-free.

A brief examination of college degrees and student loans helps illustrate the challenges with economic mobility without the limitations of the surveys discussed above. Several decades ago, college was easier to pay for through part-time and summer jobs, along with financial aid in the form of grants. But college costs have increased, and more financial aid is in the form of loans, currently $1.1 trillionand paychecks are from an increasingly insecure, low-wage environment. So, college became less affordable just as it was becoming increasingly important for maintaining or improving one's economic prospects. Further, the federal financial aid website reports an expected family contribution that is much less than the bills students actually face (Goldrick-Rab 2016). This means that those without family wealth to support their education must work more and/or take out more loans, which has many important effects on a student's GPA, the likelihood of completing the degree, and the future effects of their indebtedness on their life's choices.

For example, community colleges are a relatively affordable way for a diversity of people to get, or start, a college degree. But a survey of thirty-three thousand community college students across twenty-four states found that about half of community college students were housing insecure, meaning that they had an inability to pay rent or needed to move frequently ("couch surfing") (Goldrick-Rab, Richardson, and Hernandez 2017: 11). Fourteen percent were homeless, with 4 percent saying they had slept in an abandoned building or car. In addition, the survey found about one-third of community college students had food insecurity, with 36 percent answering yes to the question, "Were you ever hungry but didn't eat because there wasn't enough money for food?" (2017: 12).

Students who are hungry are less likely to be engaging fully with class material, and many are working long hours at low-wage jobs, which makes them too tired to study and attend classes. Work and school schedules often conflict. All these factors make successful completion of the degree, or transfer to a four-year college, less likely. A study of three thousand undergraduates found that even when students successfully completed a four-year degree, they often had to go to great lengths to find money, which meant "a lower likelihood of participating in extracurricular activities, visiting professors during office hours, and spending time on campus." Such students have "fewer opportunities to build relationships that could pave the way for social networks yielding greater returns to the college degree" (Goldrick-Rab 2016: 33).

In contrast, families with some wealth can make contributions that can confer a number of advantages. Family wealth can expand the options for students, to wider geographical areas with more economic opportunities, and opening the possibility of attending more expensive, elite educational institutions. Having food and secure housing does not make college easy, but it does remove several formidable barriers. It stands to reason that students who enjoy reduced pressure to work long hours at a low-wage job, and without having to confront the decision about whether to drop out because of mounting debt, would perform better in college. (Having several years worth of debt but no degree is worse for many students than if they had not attended college [Goldrick-Rab 2016].) Finally, "low-income families hold student debt amounting to about 70 percent of their income, while wealthier families have student debt amounting to around 10 percent of their income (Goldrick-Rab 2016: 94). The lower levels of debt put fewer constraints on life after a bachelor's degreethere can be more options for graduate school or additional training, moving away from parents and in with a partner, or starting to save for a house and build their own wealth.

None of this is to say that students from wealthy families do not have struggles in college. Rather, the point is that family wealth reduces some serious barriers to completing a college degree and has the potential to set up conditions for them to build social networks that can help in the future, like with information about jobs. This wealth privilege combines with advantages from better schools, money for SAT preparation, lower debt-to-income ratios after graduation, and inheritances. The combination of these factors allows children of the wealthy to more easily accumulate wealth than those with less class privilege.

Class Justice Throughout most of the nineteenth and well into the twentieth century, a blatant kind of class justice prevailed in the selective enforcement and differential application of the criminal and civil laws to the "haves" and the "have-nots" (Auerbach 1976; Barak 1980). The law was heavily influenced by a reverence for private property and laissez-faire social relations ("let them do as they will," meaning few regulations beyond the protection of private property). In terms of commercial transactions, the philosophy of the day was caveat emptor, "buyer beware"; businesses sometimes used their freedom to produce dangerous goods or to misrepresent their product. In the area of business, farmers and merchants alike were subject to few regulatory laws of any kind. In other words, both groups were allowed the freedom to expand their particular domains and to compete and acquire both property and capital with little legal interference. By contrast, labor was highly regulated. Unions were an illegal interference with "freedom of contract" and an unlawful conspiracy that limited an employer's property rights.

Railroads were crucial to the expansion of the economy at the beginning of the twentieth century, and companies amassed large fortunes from this industry. However, they fought attempts at minimum wages for employees and often required employees to live in a company town, rent dwellings from the company, and shop at company stores. The prices charged by the company were usually more than the wage, so the debt bound families to the company as indentured servants. For industry as a whole, the average workweek was sixty hours. Fatigue, combined with the employers' indifference to workplace safety, created "an appalling record of industrial accidents. An incomplete survey showed that at least half a million workers were killed, crippled, or seriously injured on the job in 1907" (Gilbert 1998: 57).

In other areas, exposs of the meatpacking industry shocked the public and motivated legislators to enact the first food and drug acts. Certain journalists, called muckrakers, believed that "big business was 'bad business' insofar as it was more concerned with profit than human life" (Lynch and Frank 1992: 13). Congress passed the Sherman Act in 1890, with Senator John Sherman emphasizing,

If we will not endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessities of life. If we would not submit to an emperor, we should not submit to an autocrat of trade, with power to prevent competition and to fix the price of any commodity. (Khan 2017)