SOC 131 – Flashcard

promotes an atmosphere in which the elderly are devalued, negatively stereotyped,and discriminated against.To the extent that older people accept these negative definitions of the aged, they may view abusive treatment as deserved

is the process by which individuals or groups adopt the culture of another group, losing their original identity. A principal indicator of assimilation is language. In 2000, slightly less than one in five Americans age 5 and older spoke a language other than English at home.

structure—a vertical, fourgeneration family structure.

three generation household, where parents care for their parents and their children.

Older women outnumber older men by a ratio of 3 to 2. As age increases, the disparity becomes greater—for those age 85 and older, there are about five women to every two men. By age 100 and older, four in five are women.

One out of three seniors depends on Social Security for 90 to 100 percent of their income. Two out of three seniors depend on it for more than half their income" ( Social Security has reduced poverty significantly among the elderly—from 35.2 percent in 1959 to 9.7 percent in 2008. "Without Social Security income, 54 percent of America's elderly would live in poverty" Negative Features: It is levied at a constant rate (everyone, rich and poor, pays the same rate). • It starts with the first dollar of earned income, offering no allowances or exemptions for the very poor.It applies only to wages and salaries, thus exempting income typical for the wealthy, such as interest, dividends, rents, and capital gains from the sale of property. • It is imposed up to a ceiling ($106,800 in 2009). Thus, in effect, in 2009 a worker making $106,800 and an executive or a professional athlete making a $5 million salary paid exactly the same Social Security tax.

An overarching problem is facing Social Security—how to finance it in the future. Three demographic factors make financing the program problematic. The first is that more people are living to age 65, and the second is that people live much longer after reaching 65 than in earlier generations.

the proportion of the population who are workers compared to the proportion not working

Medicare, begun in 1965, is the federal health insurance program begun in 1965 for those 65 and older. Everyone is automatically entitled to hospital insurance,home health care, and hospice care through this program (known as Medicare Part A). The supplemental medical insurance program (known as Medicare Part B) helps pay for doctor bills, outpatient services, diagnostic tests,physical therapy, and medical supplies. People may enroll in this program by paying a relatively modest monthly fee. Overall, Medicare is financed by payroll taxes, premiums paid by recipients, and a government subsidy

therapeutic care (the approach that focuses on meeting the needs of patients and on treatment), whereas homes housing welfare recipients tend to provide custodial care (the approach in a health facility that focuses on meeting the needs of the institution rather than those of the residents). This distinction is an important attitudinal difference; custodial"residents are conceived of in stereotyped terms as categorically different from 'normal' people, as totally irrational, insensitive to others, unpredictable, and dangerous. . . . Custodialism is saturated with pessimism, impersonalness, and watchful mistrust" (Kosberg 1976:427-428)

About 3.5 million people will live in a nursing home over the course of a year (Schmitt 2002). By 2020, it will be almost a million more. The data indicate that at any one time, between 4 and 5 percent of people age 65 and older are confined to nursing homes and other extended-care facilities. Nearly one in three of the nation's nursing homes has been cited by state inspectors for abusing patients. • Problems will likely increase as the rapidly increasing elderly population puts even greater pressure on the nation's nursing homes. • Nursing homes have become dangerous places largely because they are understaffed and underregulated (nine of ten nursing homes lack adequate staff). 20,000 die of pain or prematurely

As a result, as many as five out of six cases of elder abuse go unreported. found that 4 to 6 percent of older adults report experiencing incidents of domestic elder abuse, neglect, and financial exploitation. With about 35 million Americans 65 and older, a middle estimate of 5 percent yields an estimated 1,750,000 who are victims of some form of abuse

Some researchers have argued that senior citizens respond to the aging process by retreating from relationships, organizations, and society (called disengagement). This behavior is considered normal and even satisfying for the individual because withdrawal brings a release from societal pressures to compete, perform, and conform. Other researchers have quarreled with disengagement theory, arguing that many elderly people are involved in a wide range of activities.

• The total fertility rate (the number of children a woman bears in her childbearing years) is 2.1, exactly at the replacement rate. This rate varies by race/ethnicity: Whites (1.8), Asian Americans (1.9), African Americans (1.9), and Latinos (2.9). One out of eight (12.5 percent) in the U.S. population is foreign born. • The baby boom generation, roughly 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964, is the largest generation in U.S. history (at the crest of the boom, the total fertility rate was 3.8 children per woman). In 2006, they were 42 to 60 years old, and as they have done from the beginning, they are having an enormous impact on U.S. society. In 2011, the leading edge of the baby boomers will be 65. This means that beginning in that year, and for the next 20 years, an average of 10,000 additional people will become eligible for Medicare each day.

Non-Whites are the majority in four states—California, Texas, New Mexico, and Hawaii—and the District of Columbia. • Almost one in three Americans is non-White, compared to one in five in1980. • The number of Latinos in the United States is greater than the population of Canada. There are approximately 6 million Muslims and 1.1 million Hindus in theUnited States For all this diversity, though, California, especially southern California, is becoming more and more Latino. California holds nearly half the U.S. Latino population and well over half the Mexican-origin population. Latinos are expected to surpass Whites in total California population by 2025 and become an absolute majority by 2040 The non-White population is numerically significant, comprising more than one-third of the population (up from 15 percent in 1960). Four states have non-White majorities (California, Texas, New Mexico, and Hawaii). Minorities make up the majority in six of the eight U.S. cities with more than a million people—New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Detroit, and Dallas

New patterns of immigration are changing the racial composition of society. Among the expanded population of first-generation immigrants, the Asian born now outnumber the European born, and those from Latin America, especially Mexicans, outnumber both. This contrasts sharply with what occurred as recently as the 1950s, when two-thirds of legal immigrants were from Europe and Canada.

Immigration can be forced (e.g., the slave trade) or freely chosen. Immigration in this latter sense is clearly an act of human agency (rather than passively accepting structural constraints, people cope with, adapt to, and change their social situations to meet their needs). Most people in developing countries do not move. Others move, breaking with their extended family and leaving neighborhood and community ties, mostly to improve their economic situations or to flee repression

the elderly consume more than one-third of all health care in the United States.The cost of long-term care is prohibitive. The average cost of a year in a nursing home in 2008 was $213 a day or $77,745 annually and in some cities it is much higher.200,000 not covered by medicare

In 2009, the U.S. Census Bureau found that the median family income for Asian American households was $78,330, compared with $69,530 for non-Hispanic White households, $42,445 for Latino households, and $40,698 for African American households. Not surprisingly, then, 12.3 percent of Whites were officially poor, compared with 12.5 percent of Asian Americans, 25.3 percent of Latinos,and 25.8 percent of African Americans. Statistics indicate that Hispanic households experienced the largest decline in income (5.6 percent) compared to a 2.6 percent decline for Whites, a 2.8 percent decline for Blacks, and a 4.4 percent decline for Asian Americans.Americans of Cuban descent, many of whom were middle-class professionals in Cuba, have relatively low poverty rates, whereas Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and Central Americans have disproportionately high poverty rates. Similarly, Japanese Americans are much less likely to be poor than Asians from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.Native Americans have a slightly higher poverty rate than African Americans and Latinos (25.9 percent). 2.5 millions live on resevoir

Viewed erroneously as a trend for contemporary women to be more economically vulnerable than men. This view obscures the fact that women have always been poorer than men, especially older women and women of color.

These new poor are quite different from the old poor. The old poor—that is, the poor of other generations—had hopes of breaking out of poverty; if they did not break out themselves, at least they believed their children would

Having a job is not necessarily a path out of poverty. U.S. census data show that over 2.6 million full-time workers were below the poverty line in 2009, as were another 8.0 million workers who worked at least part of the year Despite working,these people remain poor because they hold menial, dead-end jobs that have no benefits and pay the minimum wage or below.

The near poor are people with family incomes at or above the poverty threshold but below 125 percent of the threshold (e.g., with the official poverty line at $17,163 for a family of three, 125 percent of that number is $21,454). In 2009,18.7 percent of the population was near poor, a significant portion of those being under the age of 18. The 2007 recession brought into focus the vulnerability of the near poor. The near poor are one accident, one illness, one job loss away from severe poverty, as indicated by the number of home foreclosures in 2008. Home foreclosure filings topped three million in 2008, up 81 percent from 2007 and 225 percent from 2006

6.3 percent of the population (19 million Americans) was severely poor ( living at or below half the poverty line). Some facts about these people who are the poorest of the poor are as follows: • Of these 17 million, 6.9 million are children under 18. • Of these 17 million, 4.6 million are African American. • Typically, the severely poor must use at least 50 percent or more of their income for housing. Since December 2007,the number of foreclosures in the United States has skyrocketed.

Today a full-time minimum-wage worker earns only 81 percent of the poverty level for a family of three (in 1968 a family of three with one minimum-wage earner had a standard of living 17 percent above the poverty line). Second, many of the poor who do not work are too young (under age 18), too old (age 65 and older), or have a work disability. Third, the main increase in the number of poor since 1979 has been among the working poor. This increase is the result of declining wages, higher numbers of working women who head households, a low federal minimum hourly wage, and an increase in housing costs.

We tend to assume that government monies and services go mostly to the poor (welfare), when in fact the greatest amount of government aid goes to the nonpoor (wealthfare). Most (about three-fourths) of the federal outlays for human resources go to the nonpoor, such as to all children in public education programs and to most of the elderly through Social Security Retirement and Medicare.

The upside-down welfare system, with aid mainly helping the already affluent, is also accomplished by two hidden welfare systems. The first is through tax loopholes (called tax expenditures). Through these legal mechanisms, the government officially permits certain individuals and corporations to pay lower taxes or no taxes at all.

when the poor pay sales taxes on the items they purchase, the tax takes more of their resources than it does from the non poor

When the customary ways of doing things, prevailing attitudes and expectations, and accepted structural arrangements work to the disadvantage of the poor

50.7 million people (7.2 millionchildren) had no private or public health insurance. About 15.8 million Hispanics, 8.1 million African Americans, and 23.7 million non-Hispanic Whites were uninsured.

The infant mortality rate in some poor urban neighborhoods exceeds the rate in developing countries. The United States has a higher infant mortality rate than most other industrialized countries. Reflecting the disproportionatenumber of African Americans in poverty, infants born to African American mothers are twice as likely to die before their first birthday than infants of White mothers. In Mississippi, for example, the infant mortality rate for non-White babies was 17.0 in 2005, compared to a rate of 6.6 for White babies

In 1954, the Supreme Court outlawed segregation in the schools. Yet the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling did not end segregation. By 2004, on the fiftieth anniversary of the historic ruling, U.S. racial gaps in education were on the rise, and schools had become increasingly segregated. Today, schools are nearly as segregated as they were fifty years ago. Almost half of Latino and Black students attend school where students of color make up more than 90 percent of the students body. In contrast, the average White student goes to a school that is 80 percent White (Williams 2007; Orfield 2009). Latino students are the most segregated group in today's public schools

Idea that race no longer matters in explaining inequality or in policy making because racism has been overcome.

Structural theories argue that inequality is the result of external constraints in society rather than cultural features of minority groups.

Deficiency theories view minority group members as unequal because they lack some important feature common among the majority

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) documented 888 hate groups in fortyeight states and the District of Columbia in 2008, a number that has swelled by 48 percent since 2000 (SPLC 2008). Hate groups include White supremacist groups with such diverse elements as the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Confederate groups (those describing Southern culture as fundamentally White), Nazi-identified parties, and skinheads. Many groups use the Internet to spread their literature to young people. As a result, more than half of all hate crimes are now committed by young people ages 15 to 24.

Every day, at least one hate crime occurs on a college campus, and every minute, a college student somewhere sees or hears racist,sexist, homophobic, or otherwise biased words or images. Of all hate crime incidents motivated by racial bias in 2008, 12.5 percent happened at schools or colleges

Individual racism is related to prejudice. It consists of individual behavior that harms other individuals or their property. Institutional racism is structural. It comprises more than attitudes or behavior. It is structural, that is, a complex pattern of racial advantage built into the structure of society—a system of power and privilege that advantages some groups over others

By 2010, African Americans (38.9 million) were 12.6 percent of the total population.50,000 legal immigrants In 2010, Hispanics or Latinos numbered 50.5 million, or 16.3 percent of the total U.S. population. 2/3 (65 percent) of all Hispanic Americans are Chicanos or Mexican Americans, 9.2 percent are Puerto Ricans, 3.5 percent are Cubans, and 6.6 percent are "other Hispanic or Latino between 1960 and 1980; Mexicans indigenous to the Southwest were forcibly annexed into the United States in 1848, whereas others have been migrating continuously since 1890. Puerto Ricans came under U.S. control in 1898 and obtained citizenship in 1917; Salvadorans and Guatemalans have been migrating to the United States in substantial numbers during the past two decades. In 2010, Asian Americans numbered 14.7 million, or about 4.8 percent of the U.S. population pan-asian, chinese largest asian pop. Not until 1952 were Japanese immigrants granted the right to become naturalized U.S. citizens Native Americans. Once thought to be destined for extinction, today the Native American or American Indian population is comprised of 2.9 million individuals As many as 7 million indigenous people lived in North America when the Europeans arrived. The conquest made them "Indians." By 1890, they were reduced to less than 250,000 by disease, warfare, and in some cases, genocide. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the U.S. government forced Indians from their homelands.