Page 269 - Essencials of Sociology

242 CHAPTER 8 Social Class in the United States

Down-to-Earth Sociology

Some Facts about Poverty: What Do You Know?

Can you tell which of these statements are true? box on upward mobility on page 240—plus you have
Figure 8.7.
1. Poverty is unusual. False. Over a four-year period, one- 8. Most of the poor are African Americans. False. There
third (32 percent) of all Americans experience poverty for are more poor whites than any other group. Look at Part 2
at least two months (DeNavas-Walt et al. 2010. About half of Figure 8.7.
of the entire U.S. population will experience poverty at 9. Most of the poor live in the inner city. False. Most of
some time before they reach age 65 (Cellini et al. 2008). the poor live in the suburbs (Kneebone and Garr 2010).
2. People with less education are more likely to be 10. Most of the poor are single mothers and their
poor. True. Most definitely. children. False. About 38 percent of the poor match
3. Most poor people are poor because they do not want this stereotype, but 34 percent of the poor live in
to work. False. About 40 percent of the poor are under married-couple families, 22 percent live alone or with
age 18, and another 10 percent are age 65 or older. nonrelatives, and 6 percent live in other settings
About 30 percent of the working-age poor work at least (O’Hare 1996a, 1996b).
half the year (O’Hare 1996a, 1996b). 11. Most of the poor live on welfare. False. Only about
4. The percentage of children who are poor is higher 25 percent of the income of poor adults comes from
than that of adults. True. Look at Figure 8.7. welfare. About half comes from wages and pensions,
5. Most children who are born in poverty are poor as and about 22 percent from Social Security (O’Hare
adults. False (Ratcliffe and McKernan 2010). Also see 1996a, 1996b).
Figure 8.6 on page 238.
6. There is more poverty in urban than in rural areas. For Your Consideration
False. We’ll review this in the following section.
7. Most African Americans are poor. False. This ↑ What stereotypes of the poor do you (or people you know)
one was easy. We just reviewed some statistics in the hold? How would you test these stereotypes?

FIGURE 8.7 Race–Ethnicity and U.S. Poverty

Part 1 Of these groups, Part 2 Of all the U.S. poor, what
what percentage is poor? percentages are from these groups?
55%
All racial–
50%
ethnic groups
45% 44 White
Americans
40% 39 Asian
Americans
35
35% Latinos
Percentage 30% 27 27 28 1 27 African
Americans
Native
25%
20% 18 18 22 18 22 Americans
15 15
15% 14
13
11
10% 9
8
5% 4
2
0%
Overall The elderly Children
age 65 and over under age 18
1
The source does not break this total down by age.
Note: Only these groups are listed in the source. The poverty line is $22,314 for a family of four.
Source: By the author. Based on Statistical Abstract of the United States 2013:Tables 36, 722, and 724.