A 3 page exploration of the category of "working class". This paper points out that this category is deeply subdivided. The lower subdivision barely subsists while the upper leads a relatively comfortable life. Neither, however, has any real power. Bibliography lists 2 sources.
Name of Research Paper File: AM2_PPworkCl2.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
The classification "working class" can be defined in a multitude of ways. In the book "The Working Class Majority: Americas Best
Kept Secret" author Michael Zweig proposes that class be defined on the basis of power rather than money. Using this definition the working class would be on the lower
echelon of American society. They have no real power yet, according to Zweig, they are the majority. On the other end of the spectrum, there are the privileged
few. By most perspectives, it is that end of the spectrum that holds all the power and all of the real money.
Working class Americans are found not just in the blue collar workforce but in the professional workforce as well. In the former category they fulfill duties ranging from those
of a hotel maid, to a waitress in Florida, to a janitor and nurses aid in a nursing home in Main, to a Wal-Mart employee in Minnesota. As so-called
white collared workers the working class is made up of everything as diverse as an accountant and a surgeon. This segment of the working class makes more money and
enjoys more privileges than the blue collar segment but they too have no real power. Just as the definitions of working class vary,
so too do the challenges and successes that they encounter. For the blue collar worker, most are unskilled labor and they live by the laws of supply and demand.
There are, in fact, thousands of Americans out there who clamor to take whatever jobs become available regardless of the actual inadequacies of the pay. In author Barbara