ch2 poverty and wealth

Question 1

__ is distributed unequally in the Unites states, with the riches 20% of families earning __% of all income, more than twelve times as much as the lowest paid 20% of families

Answer 1

income; 47.8%

Question 2

__ is even more unequally distributed with the richest 20% of families controlling __% of all privately owned wealth, while the poorest 20% of families are actually in debt

Answer 2

wealth; 85%

Question 3

the recent trend has been __ __ __. the top 20 percent of families have made strong gains while the bottom 20 percent have lost ground

Answer 3

increasing income inequality

Question 4

rich families have incomes that average about $___ (with some ten times this much or more) __ people, __ people, and __ are overly represented among the rich

Answer 4

$250,000; older, white, men

Question 5

the government defines “__“as families living with income below a poverty line roughly equal to three times the cost of food

Answer 5

poverty

Question 6

income for the average poor family in the United States is about $11,000 less than the poverty line, a difference called the “__”

Answer 6

poverty gap

Question 7

at greatest risk of poverty are __ , __ who head households, and racial and ethnic __

Answer 7

children, women, minorities

Question 8

the child poverty rate in the United States is high and now stands at __%

Answer 8

22%

Question 9

__ __ __ (including spender’s social Darwinism, Lewis’s culture of poverty thesis, and Bernstein and Murray’s bell curve thesis) view poverty mostly as the result of shortcomings on the part of the poor themselves

Answer 9

social pathology patterns

Question 10

__ __ __ views poverty as the result of rapid social change, which makes society unable to meet the needs of all its members

Answer 10

social disorganization theory

Question 11

__ __ highlights our socially constructed understandings of poverty. one common view is blaming the victim, which claims that poverty results from traits of the poor themselves

Answer 11

symbolic-interaction theory

Question 12

__ __ highlights how African Americans and people in other disadvantaged racial and ethnic categories are at higher risk of poverty

Answer 12

multicultural theory

Question 13

__ __ links the higher poverty rate among women to the fact that men dominate women in our society

Answer 13

feminist theory

Question 14

__ __ highlights the fact that inequality based on race, class, and gender combine, resulting in greater disadvantage for some categories of people

Answer 14

intersection theory

Question 15

__ believe that social standing is a matter of personal responsibility; people can escape poverty by taking advantage of the opportunities US society offers

Answer 15

conservatives

Question 16

__ believe that poverty is a societal problem, stemming mostly from a lack of good jobs

Answer 16

liberals

Question 17

__ __ __ __ claim that poverty results from the normal operation of the capitalist economy, which benefits the capitalist elite

Answer 17

radicals on the left