Inequality and Poverty is Determined by Social Class

Poverty in the United States is much like gender inequality, in the way that those with the more favorable position, men and the wealthy (including the middle class), often recognize the that inequality  exists and even express contempt towards the current structure. But while they agree that this inequality is wrong, they are unwilling to recognize the privileges that they have been born into that give them this upper hand. Or even more so, they are unwilling to give up their advantage in order to create equality. For example, many Americans believe that poverty is a problem in the United States but fail to recognize their own part in the unequal system. 

Scholarly Articles

I have attached a link to the article, "Social Class Culture Cycles: How Three Gateway Contexts Shape Selves and Fuel Inequality," published in the Annual Review of Psychology. Authors, Stephens et. all, bring up interesting points based on there extensive research that contradicts commonly held beliefs about poverty in the United states. One of their main points is that social class predicts and in ways determines life outcomes. Which directly contradicts the "American Dream" based off of a land of equal opportunity. 

http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115143
DOI:10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115143

Below is the link to "Counterfactual Models of Neighborhood Effects: The Effect of Neighborhood Poverty on Dropping Out and Teenage Pregnancy," by David J. Harding of Harvard University. This article shows the causal relationship between impoverished neighborhoods and teenage pregnancy. I thought this was interesting considering that single mothers and children make up a large percentage of the people below the poverty line in this country. 

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/379217
Article DOI: 10.1086/379217

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Watch This powerful TedTalk:

Speaker Ashley Canas has some very interesting thoughts on privilege and Poverty in this video, "Poverty versus privilege: Ashley Canas at TEDxLincoln" (2013).

Learn More:

Check out the US Census for up-to-date stats on our poverty rates and other supplemental information about the census, including definitions of terms used in the census (United States Census Bureau, 2014):

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/

Learn more about the National Center for Law and Economic Justice and how they approach inequality in the US at there website (National Center for Law and Economic Justice Inc., 2010): 

http://www.nclej.org/about.php