This document discusses inequality and the perpetuation of elite status. It argues that the top 1% use their money and power to stay at the top, in part by ensuring their children receive high-quality schooling. This increases the wage gap over time. Better schools and equal treatment of teachers in poor communities could increase social mobility. The document also examines gender inequality, noting women earn less than men even when controlling for career breaks to raise children. It suggests companies view women as poorer long-term investments. Overall the document analyzes factors that contribute to inequality and prevent social mobility.

1. Justification of Inequality by
Elite?
Jeff Smith
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2. The Facts
• The Top 1% are using
their money and authority
to stay at the top.
• Why is this happening?
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3. Schooling
• With educational attainment going
increasingly to the children of the affluent
and educated it increases the wage gap
more.
• We appear to be developing a self-
perpetuating elite that reaps a greater and
greater share of financial rewards.
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4. Poor Schools
• The National Education Association has made
an effort to eliminate any contract language that
forces the best teachers to schools with high-
needs (rich schools).
• Better schools for poorer communities would
dramatically increase the potential for success
regardless of race or gender.
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5. Inequality in the Workplace
• The median female income has risen
faster than the male median, growing from
about two-fifths in 1960 to three-fifths in
2008.
• Still, women remain over-represented
among low income earners and under-
represented among the super rich.
• WHY?
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6. The Cost of Being A Mother
• Working mothers not only earn less than men, but
also less per hour than childless women.
• “The pay gap between mothers and non-mothers
under age thirty-five is now larger than the wage
gap between young men and women.” (K& O-R
340)
• Women have a greater likelihood of interrupting
their careers for childbearing and other family
work. This makes females a poorer long-term
human-capital investment for a company.
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7. Family
• “…But fathers with working wives, who
presumably had a few more domestic
responsibilities, earned almost 20 percent
less. There it is again: a 20 percent family
wage gap.” (K& O-R 342).
• The reason given by executives is that
fathers from dual-career families put in an
average of two fewer hours per week (4%
less) than men whose wives were at home.
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9. Article 1
• The Paradox of the New Elite
• http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/opinio
n/sunday/social-inequality-and-the-new-
elite.html?pagewanted=all
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10. Article 2
• For Women in the Workplace, an
‘Upgrade Problem’
• http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/world/
europe/27iht-women27.html?
pagewanted=all
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11. Brick Lane
• Nazneen is forced to marry Chanu
• Nazneen tries to adapt to her situation, to
obey her husband and be content.
• However, she learns through friends and
her daughters over time that she doesn’t
have to be content with this lifestyle.
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12. Change
• It only makes sense to hire people based
on their experience/skill and to pay based
on solely on that.
• I believe that for serious change to happen
people will have to bring it to court.
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13. The Future
• “In their impatience for change, these
women often forget that their rise to
becoming half or more of the work force in
many places took place recently — in the
past 50 to 60 years.” (Clark).
• In the years to come women will hold
more elite positions in the workforce and
society in general.
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