Ch 42
Economic
Revolutions
--->Entrepreneurs
led the way to making the Internet a 21st century mall, library, and
shopping center
--->White-collar
jobs in financial services and high tech engineering were being
outsourced to other countries like Ireland and India
--->In the
Spring of 2000, the stock market began its biggest slide since WWII
--->By 2003, the
market had lost $6 trillion in value
--->American’s
pension plans shrank to 1/3 or more
--->Scientific
research propelled the economy
--->Researchers
unlocked the secrets of molecular genetics (1950s)
--->They
developed new strains of high yielding, pest/weather resistant crops
--->They sought
to cure hereditary diseases
Affluence and
Inequality
--->Median
household income in 2002 = $42,400
--->Americans,
however, weren’t the world’s wealthiest people
--->The richest
20% in 2001 raked in nearly half the nation’s income while the
poorest 20% got a mere 4%
--->The Welfare
Reform Bill (1996) restricted access to social services and required
able-bodied welfare recipients to find work
--->Chief
executives roughly earned 245 times as much as the average worker
--->In 2004,
over 40 million people had no medical insurance
--->34 million
(12% of population) were impoverished
--->the increase
of low-skilled immigrants
--->under
funding of many schools in poor urban areas
The Feminist
Revolution
--->1990s,
nearly half of all workers were women
--->Many
universities opened their doors to women (1960s):
--->Yale
--->Princeton
--->West Point
--->The Citadel
and Virginia Military Institute (VMI)
--->women still
got lower wages
--->For example,
in 2002, on 29 % of women were lawyers or judges and 25%
physicians
---->Women still
voted for Democrats more than men
---->Mens’
lives changed in the 2000s as well
--->More men
shared the traditional female responsibilities
--->cooking,
laundry, and child care
--->In 1993,
congress passed the Family Leave Bill, mandating job protection for
working fathers as well as mothers who needed to take time off from
work for family reasons
New Families and
Old
---->by 1990s,
one out of every two marriages ended in divorce
--->7x more
children were affected by divorce compared to the beginning of the
decade
--->The
proportion of adults living alone tripled in the 4 decades after
1950s
--->In 1990s,
1/3 of women age 25 - 29 had never married
--->Kids in
households were raised by a single parent, stepparent, or
grandparent, and even kids with gay parents encountered a degree of
acceptance that would have been unimaginable a century earlier.
--->y marriage
and teenage pregnancy was on a decline after the mid-1900s
The Aging of
America
--->Old age was
expected, due to the fact that Americans were living longer than ever
before, people born in 2000 could anticipate living to an average 70
years
--->1 American
in 8 was over 65 years of age in 2000
--->The share of
GNP spent on health care for people over 65 more than doubled
--->The ratio of
active workers to retirees had dropped so low, that drastic
adjustments were necessary
--->As WW2 baby
boomers began to retire the Unfunded Liability the difference between
what the government promised to pay to the elderly and the taxes it
expected to take in was about $7 trillion
--->Pressure
mounted:
--->to persuade
older Americans to work longer
The New Immigration
--->Newcomers
continued to flow into Modern America
--->Nearly 1
million per year from 1980s up to 2000s
--->Contradicting
history, Europe provided few compared to Asia/Latin America
--->What
prompted new immigration to the US?
--->New
immigrants came for many of the same reasons as the old…
--->they came in
search of jobs and economic opportunities
--->Some came
with skills and even professional degrees and found their way into
middle-class jobs
--->However,
most came with fewer skills/less education, seeking work as janitors,
nannies, farm laborers lawn cutters, or restraint workers
--->The
southwest felt immigration the hardest, since Mexican migrants came
heavily from there
--->By the turn
of the century, Latinos made up nearly 1/3 of the population in
California, Arizona, and Texas, and nearly 40% in New Mexico
--->Latinos
succeeded in making the south west a bi-cultural region by holding
onto to their culture by strength in numbers, compared to most
immigrants whom had to conform. Plus, it did help to have their
‘mothering country” right next door
--->Some
“old-stock” Americans feared about the modern America’s
capacity to absorb all these immigrants
--->The
Immigration Reform and Control Act (1986) attempted to choke off
illegal entry by penalizing employers of the undocumented aliens and
by granting amnesty of those already here
--->Ant-immigrant
sentiment flared (a lot in CA) in the wake of economic recession in
the early 1990s
CA voters approved
a ballot initiative that attempted to deny benefits, including
education, to illegal immigrants (later struck down by courts)
State then passed
another law in 1998 which put an end to bilingual teaching in state
schools
--->The fact
was, that only 11.5% of foreign-born people accounted for the US
population
Beyond the Melting
Pot
--->Thanks to
their increasing immigration and high birthrate Latinos were becoming
an increasingly important minority
--->By 2003, the
US was home to about 39 million of them
--->26 million
Chicanos, Mexican American
--->3 million
Puerto Ricans
--->1 million
Cubans
--->Flexing
political powers, Latinos elected mayors of Miami, Denver, and San
Antonio
--->After many
years of struggle, the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee
(UFWOC0, headed by Cesar Chavez, succeeded in making working
conditions better for Chicano “stoop laborers” who followed the
planting cycle of the American West
--->Asian
Americans also made great strides
--->By the
1980s, they were America’s fastest-growing minority and their
numbers reached about 12 million by 2003
--->Citizens of
Asian ancestry were now counted among the most prosperous
--->In 2003, the
average Asian household was 25% better off than that of the average
white household
Indians, the
original Americans, numbered some 2.4 million in 2000 census
--->Unemployment
and alcoholism had blighted reservation life
--->Many tribes
took advantage of their special legal status of independence by
opening up casinos on reservations to the public
--->However,
discrimination and poverty proved hard to break
Cities and Suburbs
--->Cities grew
less safe, crime was the great scourge of urban life
--->The rate of
violent crimes raised to its peak in the drug infested 80s, but then
leveled out in the 90s.
--->The number
of violent crimes substantially dropped in many areas after 1995
--->None the
less, murders, robberies and rapes remained common in cities and
rural areas and the suburbs
--->In
mid-1990s, a swift and massive transition took place from cities to
suburbs, making jobs “suburbanized.”
--->The nation’s
brief “urban age” lasted for only a little less than 7 decades
and with it, Americans noticed a new form of isolationism
--->Some
affluent suburban neighborhoods stayed secluded, by staying locked in
“gated communities”
--->By the first
decade of the 21st century, big suburban rings around cities like NY,
Chicago, Houston, and Washington DC had become more racially and
ethically diverse
--->A huge shift
of US population was underway from East to West
--->The Great
Plains hurt from the 60% decline of all counties
--->Commercial
redevelopment gained ground in cities like…
--->New York
--->Chicago
--->Los Angeles
--->Boston
--->San
Francisco