Deck 4: Economics

Question 1

While .05% of Americans earn over $500,000 a year, what percentage of Americans earn under $30,000?

A) 10%
B) 20%
C) 30%
D) 40%
E) 50%

Answer 1

50%

Question 2

The top 20% of American households control what percentage of the country's net financial assets?

A) 87%
B) 77%
C) 67%
D) 57%
E) 47%

Answer 2

87%

Question 3

Which of the following benefits was created from the New Deal legislation?

A) unemployment insurance
B) a minimum wage
C) workday limitations
D) assistance for veterans
E) all of these

Answer 3

all of these

Question 4

Which of the following groups had to be accommodated with compromises in order to draft New Deal legislation?

A) veterans of World War Two
B) southern arm of the Democratic Party
C) new women workers as voters
D) the NAACP
E) none of these

Question 5

The U.S. spent more than 95 billion dollars on this program in the three decades following World War Two, making it the single most comprehensive set of social benefits ever issued by the federal government under a unified initiative.

A) Social Security Act of 1935
B) Medicare
C) Unemployment insurance
D) GI Bill of Rights
E) none of these

Question 6

Which of the following would be an example of a person's income?

A) the house you own
B) stock portfolio
C) a weekly paycheck
D) series E savings bond
E) family owned farm

Question 7

Which of the following would be an example of a person's wealth?

A) money you make as a lifeguard
B) salary as a nurse
C) check from unemployment
D) your shares of Google stock
E) social security check

Question 8

Which individuals, separated by race, had the lowest median income in the U.S. in 2006?

A) whites
B) Hispanics
C) Asians
D) blacks
E) none of these

Question 9

In 1900, 39% of America's wealthiest people came from wealthy families; what percentage of wealthy people came from wealthy families by 1970?

A) 12%
B) 22%
C) 42%
D) 62%
E) 82%

Question 10

Which mechanism is often used by banks to impede nonwhites' access to home ownership?

A) disproportionately denying loans to nonwhite applicants
B) charging nonwhites higher interest rates
C) devaluing homes in nonwhite neighborhoods
D) conducting the discriminatory practice of redlining
E) all of these

Question 11

Comparing poverty across racial lines, which of the following groups has the lowest percentage of individuals who are poor?

A) blacks
B) Hispanics
C) American Indians
D) Asians
E) whites

Question 12

Which of the following is a structural cause of poverty in the U.S. as outlined in the text by the authors?

A) modern-day capitalism produces a pool of unemployed laborers
B) too much emphasis on agrarian means of production
C) too much wasteful spending on welfare programs
D) U.S. citizens don't possess the same work ethic of the previous generation
E) differences in work ethics between racial groups

Question 13

Your textbook provides which of the following reasons for why inner-city poverty in ghetto neighborhoods became more severe and concentrated?

A) inner-city dwellers are lazy
B) ghetto inhabitants only want drugs, not jobs
C) the brain drain
D) embeddedness
E) inner-city residents prefer living in those conditions

Question 14

How many black women and men have ascended to the upper ranks of Fortune 500 companies?

A) 12
B) 52
C) 82
D) 121
E) 200

Question 15

A white middle-class family on average could survive at the poverty line for an entire year; whereas the average middle-class black family could survive:

A) less than a month.
B) two months.
C) half a year.
D) nine months.
E) a little over a year.

Question 16

According to your textbook, the median household income for American Indians on reservations is what compared to the U.S. average?

A) one third
B) less than one half
C) about 60%
D) three fourths
E) about equal to

Question 17

Generally speaking, which of the following groups come to the U.S. with relatively high class privileges and tend to work as professionals and managers?

A) Caribbean
B) El Salvador
C) India
D) Mexico
E) none of these

Question 18

Which of the following mechanisms do the authors specify as determining how well immigrants fare in the U.S.?

A) structure of the economy
B) class privileges
C) ethnic enclaves
D) racial privileges
E) all of these

Question 19

For which of the following groups did the poverty rate increase for the children of children of immigrants or "the third generation"?

A) Hispanics
B) Asians
C) whites
D) blacks
E) none of these

Question 20

The nonwhite employment rate is how much when compared to the unemployment rate for whites in the U.S.?

A) one quarter
B) one half
C) three-fourths
D) about the same
E) double

Question 21

Which of the following would be an example of a resource whites "opportunity horded"at the expense of other races?

A) senate seats
B) hospital service
C) federal judgeships
D) college funding
E) all of these

Question 22

Your textbook provides which of the following as examples of class privileges?

A) education
B) soft skills
C) job training
D) connections to people in power
E) all of these

Question 23

Racial domination plays a lead role in creating and maintaining economic inequality.

Question 24

By the beginning of the twentieth century, a majority of nonwhite citizens had risen out of poverty.

Question 25

During World War Two women entered the workforce for the first time to make up for men shipped overseas to fight.

Question 26

The Social Security Act of 1935 provided old age insurance, aid to dependent families, and unemployment insurance to all U.S. citizens.

Question 27

The New Deal legislation created a toxic climate for the unionization of workers.

Question 28

During World War Two, anti-Asian sentiment increased along with anti-Jewish and anti-white Catholic.

Question 29

Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan both helped open the "floodgates"of federally mandated social benefits.

Question 30

To assume the white middle class somehow made itself through pure determination and gumption, especially during the period immediately after World War Two, is incorrect.

Question 31

On average a white man will make more than a black man, Hispanic man, and Asian man even if each man works the same hours, has the same work experience, and hold exactly the same college degrees.

Question 32

Researchers have found that immigration has little effect on income inequality.

Question 33

Racialized income disparities and wealth disparities are about equal in their severity.

Question 34

Poor whites possess equal amounts of wealth as well-off blacks.

Question 35

Research has shown education is the end-all-be-all solution to the U.S.'s racial income disparities.

Question 36

Banks are more likely to offer credit to whites than to nonwhites.

Question 37

The economy is embedded in society's history, culture, and cleavages.

Question 38

Class cannot be understood apart from race, and race cannot be comprehended apart from class.

Question 39

Poverty can be explained solely by concentrating on the behavior of those suffering through it.

Question 40

The number of social establishments increases as a neighborhood's poverty level increases but decrease as a neighborhood's proportion of blacks increases.

Question 41

The black middle class receives the same amount of attention from reporters and scholars as the black poor.

Question 42

Middle-class blacks have learned that money can help them ascend to very high places, but it cannot lift them above the veil of racism.

Question 43

The top 13% of Indian casinos account for 60% of Indian gaming revenue.

Question 44

Successful Indian gaming usually tends to chip away at tribes' political sovereignty.

Question 45

Using supporting details from your textbook, explain specifically what sociologist Ira Katznelson meant when he said, "Affirmative action then was white."

Question 46

Explain the doctrine of supply-side economics and discuss what the economic results were after this program was initiated.

Question 47

Discuss in great detail the sociological implications pertaining to race of Pierre Bourdieu's quote "it is not prices that determine everything, but everything that determines prices."

Question 48

Using examples discussed in this chapter, answer this question: Why do some immigrants in the U.S. climb upward while others slide down into the depths of poverty?

Question 49

Institutional racism denies qualified blacks and Latinos job opportunities. Discuss why those who believe "impersonal market forces"are really at work and not racism, and both right and wrong. In addition, define the opposing "discrimination matters"camps' position.

Question 50

Provide detailed support for why affirmative action does not threaten the U.S. value of meritocracy.

Question 51

Refute the view expressed by some that affirmative action imprints on its recipients a stigma of self-doubt. In addition, discuss how stigma also plays into people's perceptions of affirmative action hiring.

Question 52

Provide the structural causes of poverty as discussed by your authors. In addition, provide at least three realistic twenty-first century solutions for slowing and eventually eliminating the inequality so prevalent in the U.S.

Question 53

Drawing upon the vast data presented in this chapter, discuss the pros and cons of the U.S. providing "traditional"welfare to individuals versus the government providing corporate welfare to industries. Be sure to present your own opinion on which form of welfare is best for the country and provide specific examples and rational to support your position.

Question 54

After reading this chapter, discuss how (if they have) your opinions on immigration to the U.S. have changed. Include your families' personal experiences regarding the intersection between race, economics, and immigration. Does the future answer for the "immigration question"lie in immigration of conceptions of race? Why?