RPW 111
Class In America: Engaging The Text
1.
Myth #1: Mantsios argues that The United States is in fact a society separated by class.
Health care is not provided to all regardless of economic standing. Mantsios debunks the
myth by doing research. He explains that approximately 13 percent of the American
population lives below the official poverty line. On the other side of the spectrum, there
are four hundred billionaires living in the U.S today. These are huge extremes, living in
two extremely different classes.
Health care in this country is expensive and some Americans are denied it because of
financial means. I have seen over crowded hospitals with patients beds lined up in the
waiting room because their health insurance, or lack there of, did not cover a room. Poor
people are at a higher risk of needing health insurance. Cheryl Mitchell for example lives
in a poorly ventilated apartment and works around sick people every day. She needs
quality health insurance but cannot afford it.
Myth #2: We are not a middle class nation because the wealth is not distributed equally.
People only assume this because “it is acceptable to talk about the middle class,” and
because the term “mutes the class differences.”
Myth #3: We are not getting richer. Before our generation, it was expected that children
would grow up and would be able to make more money than their parents did. This is not a
guarantee anymore. “The middle class in the US holds a very small share of the nations
wealth and the share is declining steadily. The gap between rich and poor and between rich
