Chapter 12: Income and Social Class

Money available to a household over and above what is required to have a comfortable standard of living is called ________.

• real income

• overtime pay

• discretionary income

• average of earnings

Consumers who buy everything in sight are called ________.

• tightwads

• spendthrifts

• justifiers

• balancers

The best predictor of major expenditures that do not have status or symbolic value is ________.

• social class

• income

• social class and income

• occupation

________ refers to the passage of individuals from one social class to another.

• Social class

• Social affinity

• Social mobility

• Social prestige

________ measures how optimistic or pessimistic people are about the future health of the economy and how they will fare in the future.

• Income inequality

• Credit score

• Saving rate

• Consumer confidence

Blue-collar workers with relatively high-prestige jobs consider themselves as ________.

• upper middle class

• working class

• upper lower class

• lower lower class

All of the following are important components of social class except for ________.

• gender

• income

• educational attainment

• occupational prestige

Most groups exhibit a structure called a ________ in which some members are somehow better off than others in terms of authority, power, or respect.

• status hierarchy

• social array

• social class

• mass class

When people are differentiated in terms of their aesthetic and intellectual preferences, a ________ is being applied.

• culture code designation

• social cluster

• taste culture

• consumption constellation

Which of the following theorists is best known for arguing that an individual's relationship to the means of production determines his position in society?

• Karl Marx

• Max Weber

• Horatio Alger

• Thorstein Veblen