America has "an unfair economic system" per the author. Wonder what she advocates as the alternative...I could hazard a guess.
She believes unless America moves to a strongly socialist society retired people will be dying in the street of America. Actual quote:
It has been a longtime in this country since elderly individuals in this country were dying in the
streets because of a lack of financial resources, but this is certainly possible in the future.
She ascribes 4 main reasons for people continuing to believe they can succeed in America when she feels it is impossible and are rubes due to wake up hungry in old age in the streets"
From Figure 10.1:
1) Participants have Low Economic Angst
2) Participants only have High/moderate Economic Angst but with mobility beliefs
3) Receipt of family capital which makes their lives possible
4) Conservative news media
Her "solution" to get more people to want to change the mirage of the American dream through exposure to:
1) Exposure to a different stratification ideology -- I believe this is basically understanding how well socialism would work
2) High Economic Angst with limited mobility optimism -- my take -- if you could just get people to be more pessimistic they would see how bad the United States economic system is
3) Exposure to an alternate economic reality
4) Positive intergroup contact -- if one just saw how many people truly suffer in America we would demand change to the economic model.
Her Solutions: page 469-470
Not in any particular order
1) Universal Health Care - Medicaid for all
2) Universal Basic Income
3) Every Baby born is given a baby bond at birth to buy a house or use for educational expense when they turn 18
4) Universal child care for all children under 5 pay based on income free at certain income limits
5) Universal Child allowance - government payment for the life as a child to offset the cost of raising a child
6) Significantly increase top income tax rate - she mentions 70-90% earlier in the article
7) All elections to be funded by government and private contributions to be banned
8) Eliminate voter ID declare election days a national holiday and allow automatic registration
9) Free college tuition at all public institutions
10) Eliminate social security tax gap
11) Ban companies the right to purchase their own stock
12) Create Federal Jobs guarantee to all Americans over 18 with a liveable wage and free benefits
13) Allow every American from age 22-33 the right to research a dissertation at the University of Michigan to study the ongoing benefits of the other 12 solutions - Ok I made this one up
She then concludes all social workers should consider this pursuit to be their main purpose of social work as this is most likely to improve the situation for people in need of social assistance.
Page 472 and basically throughout the paper
By helping clients (and other individuals) make sense of the structural factors that influence their economic hardships, social workers could increase the chance that they will come to support policy interventions that will improve their lives.
. Not explaining it well, but it does skew one’s beliefs about how easy or hard attaining financial success is as a general rule, whether having it bestowed or achieving it without one’s family’s help.
