Those with new money are people whose wealth is earned.

This group includes sports stars, entertainers, and entrepreneurs, such as billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates. In 2004, Bill Gates led the list of the richest people in America (Forbes 2004). Forbes.com reported his worth at $48 billion. Following Gates on that list were investor Warren Buffett, having a reported worth of $41 billion, and Paul Allen Gardner, another Microsoft executive, worth $20 billion. Several members of the Walton family, whose wealth came from the Wal-Mart department store, tied for fourth. Their personal worths were recorded as $18 billion each. Michael Dell of Dell Computers, worth $14.2 billion. Oracle software executive Lawrence Joseph Ellison completed the top 10 with a worth of $13.7 billion.

On the other end of the stratification scale, some sociologists argue that those on the very bottom of the hierarchy are effectively treated like an outcaste—hence the term underclass. This term, they argue, depicts those trapped beneath the class structure largely by structural factors beyond their control. To others, underclass is a degrading term that implies personal deficiencies or values, rather than structural realities.

Classless societies have no economic strata. Although hunting and gathering societies may have been classless, no industrial society has ever been truly classless. The Soviets claimed to have created a classless society. However, that society was classless in name only. In practice, it was actually a system stratified by managers and workers with benefits for certain members of society.

Stratification in us

One central factor in stratification is economic inequality. An examination of the structure of economic inequality in the United States shows that it has been increasing over past decades. The Census Bureau provides information on how income is distributed that shows this change. One method of examining this data is to divide all households into equal-size quintiles (fifths) and then look at how all the income earned in the country is distributed among these five categories.

Table 1.1 shows that in 2003, 49.8 % of all income in the United States was earned by one-fifth of all households. These were the highest-earning one-fifth of all households. This percentage has increased since 1967, when this highest-income fifth of all households earned just less than 44 percent of house- hold income. Across all other categories, the share of income received by house- holds has decreased since 1967. Income disparity becomes even more striking when breaking out the income share of the top five percent of all households—in 2003, those with in- comes of $154,120 or more. In 2003, this small percentage of households earned 21.4 percent of the income earned in the United States. The other 95% of households shared less than 80 percent of the U.S. aggregate income (see table 1.2).

Year	Lowest Fifth	Second fifth	Third fifth	Fourth fifth	Highest Fifth
2003	3,4%	8,7%	14,8%	23,4%	49,8%
2000	3,6%	8,9%	14,8%	23,3%	49,8%
1990	3,9%	9,6%	15,9%	24,0%	46,6%
1980	4,3%	10,3%	16,9%	24,9%	43,7%
1970	4,1%	10,8%	17,4%	24,5%	43,3%
1967	4,0%	10,8%	17,3%	24,2%	43,8%

Table 1.1 – Share of Aggregate among Households (1967-2003)

Year	Percentage of Aggregate Income
2003	21,4%
2000	22,1%
1990	18,6%
1980	15,5%
1970	16,6%
1967	17,5%

Table 1.2 – Share Aggregate Income Earned by Top Five Percent of Housholds (1967-2003)