Social class, policy, and the public

1. Social Class, Policy, and the
Public Workplace
Equity and Diversity in Public Administration

2. Introduction
• We think of class in two ways:
• Social class – position in society based on family
name, education achievement, and job success.
• Very closely tied with…
• Economic class – position in society based on
financial assets and resources.

3. Introduction: Structure of the U.S. Class System
Underclass (8 – 10 percent)
Working Poor (12 - 15 percent)
Working Class (25 – 30 percent)
Middle Class (25 - 30 percent)
Upper Middle Class (18 - 20 percent)
Upper or Capitalist Class (1 percent)

5. Introduction: The Effects
of Class Status
• Studies show that these two classes can determine:
• Personal efficacy
• Self-esteem
• Life chances – ability to get ahead, wield influence,
and pass one’s social class along to one’s offspring;
closely related to social and economic class.

6. Introduction: Life Chances
Bottom (25%) Middle (50%) Top (25%)
General Health
Excellent
56% 82% 91%
Victims of violent
crime / 1000 pop
44 34 26
Own home 35% 64% 88%
Children 3-17 with
home internet access
10% 31% 51%
Children 18-24 in 4-
year college
14% 30% 42%
Find life “exciting”
(not routine or dull)
36% 45% 58%
See opportunities to get
ahead
66% 79% 85%
Very happy 20% 31% 43%
Source: General Social Survey, U.S. Bureau of the Census

7. Introduction: The Effects
of Class Status
• This means that class differences create…
• Social stratification – inequality has been
institutionalized, and there is a system of social
relationships that determines who gets what and why.
• Social Inequality – condition whereby people have
unequal access to valued resources, services, and
positions in society.
• Limited social mobility (changing social or economic
class) is the reality.

8. Introduction: American
Political Culture
• Individualism – commitment to a personal initiative,
self-sufficiency, and material accumulation.
• Social Darwinism
• “Those who are rich deserve to be rich, and those who
are poor are simply not working hard enough – they
deserve to be poor.”
• Stems from “survival of the fittest” concept associated with Charles
Darwin.
• Americans assume that people can change social classes
through hard work.
• This lecture will show this is not the case in most instances.

9. Social Class and Legal
Standards
• The Supreme Court, in San Antonio Independent School
District v. Rodriguez (1973), stated that social class is
merely subjected to the rational basis test.
• Rational basis test – a principle whereby a court will
uphold a law as valid under the Equal Protection Clause of
the 14th Amendment if it bears a reasonable relationship to
the attainment of some legitimate government objective.

10. Social Class and Public
Policy: Transfer Programs
• Transfer programs – government programs that transfer funds from one group
of people to another; provide resources to particular groups who are deemed
worthy of funding.
• Redistributive Policy – policies that tax one group of people to provide
benefits for another group.
• Welfare
• Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996
• Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF)
• Replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and Job Opportunities and Basic Skills
Training (JOBS)
• Created a system in which getting jobs was the top priority: must work within two years of receiving
assistance.
• Lifetime cap on benefits: five years (barring certain exceptions)
• Additional children not covered
• States suffer penalties (reductions in size of block grant) if outcomes are not met.
• Social Security (income stabilization)
• Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
• It is designed to help aged, blind, and disabled people, who have little or no income; and it
provides cash to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter.
• Public Housing (HUD)
• Healthcare (Medicare/Medicaid/Affordable Care Act)

11. Social Class and Public
Policy: Taxes
• Regressive taxes – taxes that impose a proportionately heavier burden on
people in the lower socioeconomic classes that they do on the wealthy.
• Sales tax
• Gasoline tax
• Excise taxes
• Progressive taxes – taxes that impose a proportionately heavier burden on
wealthier people and have the potential to equalize wealth in society.
• Examples:
• Personal income tax
• Actually lower now than in previous years for the upper class.
• Corporate income tax
• Corporations can use deductions for corporate expenses and avoid paying income taxes.
• Payroll taxes
• Social security only applies to the first $88,000

12. Social Class and Public
Policy: Education
• Introduction
• Most policy regarding education is handled at the state level.
• This is because the 10th Amendment reserves all powers not enumerated in the
Constitution under Article I, Section 8 to the states.
• However, there are a few federal policies with respect to education.
• Policies
• No Child Left Behind (Elementary and Secondary Education Act)
• Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
• Higher Education Act (HEA)
• Also Civil Rights legislation:
• Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Title IX: sex discrimination
• Title VI: race and national origin discrimination
• Americans with Disabilities Act
• Title II: disability discrimination
• Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
• Ensures that children with disabilities have equal access to free public education.

13. Social Class and Public
Policy: Unions
• Individualism – commitment to a personal initiative, self-sufficiency, and
material accumulation.
• The value of individualism has led to the acceptance of capitalism and laissez faire
attitudes as part of American culture.
• This leads people to believe that there are certain economic freedoms and opportunities
we possess as individuals.
• Why do we care about unions in the context of social class and policy?
• Unions provide a means for workers to unite and use the strength in numbers to fight
against potential abuses by employers.
• The ability to unionize can improve the economic situation of those involved in the
union which may help their ability to increase social mobilization and their social class.
• Increased earnings:
• In 2009, among full-time wage and salary workers, union members had median usual weekly
earnings of $908, while those who were not represented by unions had median weekly
earnings of $710.

14. Social Class and Public Policy:
Unions
• History
• With industrialization in the late 1800’s, issues arose surrounding the
conditions of workers:
• Length of the work day; Length of the work week; Wages; Child labor; Dangerous nature
of jobs
• Economic substantive due process – the doctrine that certain social policies,
such as the freedom of contract or the right to enjoy property without
interferences by government regulation, exist in the Due Process Clause of
the 14th Amendment, particularly in the words “liberty” and “property”.
• Between 1895 and 1935 the Court was characterized by a very conservative laissez faire
approach to economics and justice (see Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U.S. 578 (1897) and
Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 4 (1905) for examples).
• They focused on the word liberty and would come to call it the “liberty of contract” also
known as economic substantive due process (economic freedoms).
• This meant that there was freedom for employers and employees to negotiate terms of
employment without interference from government regulation.
• This view is rather shortsighted though as it was obvious that workers had no real
bargaining or negotiating power.
• As the Great Depression hit, people’s attitudes toward the superiority of the free market
began to change drastically.

15. Social Class and Public
Policy: Unions
• The National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act)
(1935)
• Workers given the right to engage in collective action
and unionize.
• Created the National Labor Relations Board which
regulates relations between unions and employers to
ensure that neither engage in unfair labor practices
(ULP).
• Makes it unlawful for an employer to try to stop
unionization.

16. Social Class and Policy Issues:
Income and Wealth
• Income – your paycheck or government benefit check or
dividend check, or your profit from selling an investment.

17. Social Class and Policy Issues:
Income and Wealth
INCOME 1970 1980 1990 2000 2012
Under $15,000 21.1 20.2 18.4 16.0 13.0
$15,000 –
24,9999
15.2 15.5 14.1 13.4 11.3
$25,000 –
34,999
16.3 14.0 13.7 12.5 6.6
$35,000 –
49,000
21.0 18.9 17.2 15.5 9.3
$50,000 –
74,999
17.6 18.7 18.8 18.9 16.4
$75,000 –
99,999
5.4 7.5 9.1 10.4 11.9
$100,000 and
over
3.4 5.2 8.7 13.4 21.9
Median
income
$33,746 $35,239 $38,446 $42,148 21.9

20. Social Class and Policy Issues:
Income and Wealth
• Income is not the best measure of economic power.
Why?
• Wealth inequality is of higher significance than income
inequality because wealth is a more complete measure of a
family’s economic power, since it consists of the value of all
the family’s assets minus its debt.
• Historically, family and inheritance have been major
sources of wealth among the rich in the U.S.
• The odds of the children of wealthy parents keeping their
wealth has been estimated to be about 3 to 1.

21. Social Class and Policy Issues:
Income and Wealth
• Wealth – private assets minus liabilities (debt). What you
own minus what you owe.

22. Social Class and Policy Issues:
Income and Wealth

25. Social Class and Policy Issues: Wealth
Inequality (Source: Forbes)
Name Amount of Wealth Source
Bill Gates 81.9 Billion Microsoft
Warren Buffet 72.9 Billion
Larry Ellison 52.9 Billion
Charles Koch 43.6 Billion Diversified
David Coch 43.6 Billion Diversified
Christy Walton 42.2 Billion Wal-Mart
Jim Walton 41.2 Billion Wal-Mart
Alice Walton 39.7 Billion Wal-Mart
S. Robson Walton 39.6 Billion Wal-Mart
Michael Bloomberg 36.6 Billion Bloomberg LP
Mark Zuckerberg 34.2 Billion Facebook
Sheldon Adelson 32.5 Billion Casinos
Jeff Bezos 31.2 Billion Amazon.com
Larry Page 30 Billion Google
Sergey Brin 29.5 Billion Google
Carl Icahn 26 Billion Investments
George Soros 24 Billion Hedge Funds
Forrest Mars Jr. 23.7 Billion Candy
Jacqueline Mars. 23.7 Billion Candy

27. Social Class and Policy Issues:
Income and Wealth
• Overall Result:
• The bottom 40% of the population has seen a decline of
75% in their net worth while the top 1% has increased their
net worth by more than 42%.
• The top 1% own more than 38% of the net worth in the
United States.
• The top 10% own more than 70% of all wealth.

28. Social Class and Policy
Issues: Health
• Health
• Class status directly correlates with morbidity
(sickness) and mortality rates.
• Lower class have more health problems such as low
birth weight, heart and lung disease, high blood
pressure, obesity, asthma, diabetes, mental illness, drug
and alcohol use.
• Access to health care

29. Social Class and Policy Issues:
Education
• San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriquez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973)
• The Texas public school system, like most systems in the United States, is funded by a variety of sources,
including federal, state, and local funds.
• One of these sources is local property tax, which can vary significantly from rich areas to poor areas.
• For instance, the Edgewood district of San Antonio had the lowest assessed property value at $5,960 per
student, whereas the nearby Alamo Heights school district had an average property value of $49,000 per
student.
• At the same time, however, the Edgewood school district had one of the highest tax rates in the state
($1.05/$100).
• Because these funds are distributed to the district based on where the property was taxed, this led to
inequalities in the funding of education across districts.
Aid Source: Poor District Rich District
Local $26.00/pupil $333.00/pupil
State $222.00/pupil $225.00/pupil
Federal $108.00/pupil $36.00/pupil
Total $356.00/pupil $594.00/pupil

30. Social Class and Policy Issues:
Education
• San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriquez, 411 U.S. 1
(1973)
• Does the system of funding in the Texas and the disparities of distribution
violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment?
• The Supreme Court decided that the the poor were not a suspect class,
and thus strict scrutiny was not applied, allowing for the rational basis
test.
• The Court accepted the state of Texas’s argument that local control was a
rational reason for the system of disbursement for educational funds.
• The Supreme Court also decided that education was not a fundamental
right as there is no explicit guarantee in the Constitution.
• Because education is not a fundamental right, the Court also cannot apply
strict scrutiny.

31. Social Class and Policy Issues:
Education
• Some state courts have ruled that unequal distribution of school funding
based on property taxes is a violation of equal protection.
• Washington:
• ARTICLE IX: EDUCATION
• SECTION 1 PREAMBLE. It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for
the education of all children residing within its borders, without distinction or preference on
account of race, color, caste, or sex.
• SECTION 2 PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. The legislature shall provide for a general and
uniform system of public schools. The public school system shall include common schools,
and such high schools, normal schools, and technical schools as may hereafter be established.
But the entire revenue derived from the common school fund and the state tax for common
schools shall be exclusively applied to the support of the common schools.
• Alabama
• Amendment 111
• Section 256
• It is the policy of the state of Alabama to foster and promote the education of its citizens
in a manner and extent consistent with its available resources, and the willingness and
ability of the individual student, but nothing in this Constitution shall be construed as
creating or recognizing any right to education or training at public expense, nor as limiting
the authority and duty of the legislature, in furthering or providing for education, to
require or impose conditions or procedures deemed necessary to the preservation of peace
and order.

32. Social Class and Policy
Issues: Education
• Results:
• Differences in the quality of education across school
districts.
• Lower standardized test scores in less affluent school districts.
• This allows access to better private and prestigious universities.
• College tuition rates continue to rise.
• This is important because a college degree determines:
• Whether a person enters the middle class
• Class mobility

33. Social Class and Policy
Issues: Voting

34. Social Class and Policy
Issues: Voting

35. Social Class and Policy
Issues: Unions
• Labor Management Relations Act (Taft-Hartley Act) (1948)
• Took away power of unions by declaring certain union activities to be
unfair labor practices.
• Allowed states to pass “right to work” laws.
• Right-to-work laws – state laws that allow workers to decide whether
they want to join the union that operates in their workplace.
• Eliminates “closed shops”
• Closed shop – workplaces where all employees must join the union.
• Open shop – workplaces where employees choose whether or not to join a
union.
• In open shops, unions still must provide benefits to non-union members.
• Free rider problem.

37. Social Class and Policy
Issues: Unions
• The number of union members has declined dramatically.
• In 2009, the union membership rate—the percent of wage
and salary workers who were members of a union—was 12.3
percent, essentially unchanged from 12.4 percent last year.
• The number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions
declined by 771,000 to 15.3 million, largely reflecting the
overall drop in employment due to the recession.
• In 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are
available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent and
there were 17.7 million union workers.

38. Conclusion
• Diversity – respect for individuals of different characteristics such as color, race,
ethnicity, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, or way of thinking.
• Why is diversity necessary?
• Diversity in public administration mirrors the diversity in the population.
• Diversity in public administration provides a work environment that is open to a variety of
lifestyles and ideas.
• Diversity in public administration eliminates the “good old boys” network (similar
characteristics, similar values).
• Diversity allows administrators to deliver public services more effectively.
• What problems with respect to diversity arise surrounding social class?
• Representation, whether active or passive, becomes difficult in the realm of politics
because those of lower socio-economic status don’t vote.
• Those of lower socio-economic status in public administration are not going to be in active
representation roles as they will be typically those without decision making authority.

39. Conclusion
• Equity – all individuals are equal in their moral worth, are entitled to
equal treatment under law, and should have an equal political voice.
• Social equity – the fair, just, and equitable management of all
institutions serving the public directly or by contract; the fair, just,
and equitable distribution of public services and implementation of
public policy; and the commitment to promote fairness, justice, and
equity in the formation of public policy.
• The overall tension between equality and freedom in the context of capitalism
represents the tension public administrators face in creating policy that
recognizes equity in the face of the American political value of freedom.
• Equality of opportunity
• Requires that there is a level playing field and that no one has an advantage or
disadvantage that is not based on individual merit.
• Equality of result
• If these are required it restricts freedoms.
• Massey says that U.S. laws do not require equality of opportunity or of result,
rather it only requires political equality (not social or economic).