Changing Your Social Class Essay

Social stratification is a ladder of positions with respect to economic construction which influences the social rewards to those in the positions (â€Å"Questions on Social Stratification†). With that, a person may belong to a specific class while being part of the whole society. Social class means the existence of sharing among the people of similar status with respect to wealth, power and prestige. For a layman’s understanding, social class refers to being rich or poor as regarded by the society. A concrete example of this is a situation wherein a person’s social class has changed overnight, where he suddenly becomes homeless. That situation happens to me, and I could say that at that particular moment, my life has changed drastically and dramatically. The privileges that I experienced when I am still rich were lost when I become suddenly homeless. In addition, my opportunities in life also changed when I become poor. While I am still in a higher social class, I do not need to work hard just to earn a living. At that time, I can hire people to work for me and help me to improve my life’s station. But when I become homeless, everything was altered such that I cannot even afford to pay all my basic commodities like food, shelter and clothing. For me, there is always shortage of food when I am already in the lower social class. My family is suffering so much since we need to share a little amount of food everyday. All we can do is to think of those times that we enjoy eating all the food that we want. Since I become homeless, seeking for a good shelter is a problem. I realized that living in the streets is possible. I learned to look for places where squatters stayed. Aside from that, my clothing materials are not enough to keep me warm all day. I need to ask help from those who have enough clothes and request for old but clean and usable clothing materials. With all these hardships that I encountered, people view me as living in extreme poverty. Moreover, the opportunity to work is limited since those people who knew me before no longer consider me as a friend. Yet, I tried hard to find a job just to earn a living. Although people view me recently as poor, I need to work hard and show to them that I am worthy for a decent living. I will work hard for me to rent a house for my family. While it is true that housing costs pose the biggest obstacle for low-wage workers, I also believe that there are realistic solutions to the lack of affordable housing. The government is the only hope for the poor people to help them have their own homes. What the government should do is to facilitate a housing project that offers an affordable housing loan to low-wage workers. The government may also provide homes for the homeless in such a way that presence of perennial squatters will be lessened.   In that way, those who are living in poverty will have the chance to work hard and pay for a simple yet decent home. As a worker, having a work system that does not offer benefits like overtime pay, retirement funds, and health insurance is not fair. The workers should be given good working conditions as they are considered the strength and backbone of the economy. Besides, the request for an increase of salary for workers is not the solution for lack of benefits. Both provision of benefits and increase of salary for workers is necessary things that a worker must have in the society. It is but fair for workers to receive compensation that could improve his station in life and escape from extreme poverty. Therefore, an increase of salary for workers could not redress the lack of benefits for them such that it is completely a separate problem. References Sociology Guide. (2006). Questions on Social Stratification. Retrieved November 11, 2008, from http://www.sociologyguide.com/questions/social-stratification.php.