1. Readings 4.1 and 4.2 both discuss and analyze social class in America. The first article is based on a poll taken by the website, which asks random people what their perceived social class is. The second article takes information on median household income and applies it to subway stops in the five boroughs of New York, in order to illustrate its point on wealth inequality.

Both articles make important points about the separation of classes based on area. On the New Yorker model, income can, and often does, shift wildly from stop to stop. Additionally, both articles have an inherent view of income as being one of the most – if not the most – important factors in discussing and differentiating between classes. While the first article is more about understanding how people of different income levels view themselves (subjective social class), it mentions at the beginning that a study of objective social class would have to entail income. This gives some perspective into the beliefs on class of the writer of this article.

2. The median income of my subway stop is a little over 90,000. This would posit it, based on reading 4.1, as a majority middle class area. Frankly, I am a little surprised by this. Given how people dress, how people act, and the prices of groceries, food, and housing, I expected it to be around 110-120k. But when I thought about it it started to make more sense to me. While there are a lot of wealthy families and retirees in my area, there is also a large and popular student apartment building, which I assume lowers the median income a little bit.

3. Based on 4.2 I noticed that a lot of the areas for subway stops in Manhattan have a median over 100k. This was not completely surprising to me, but some of the extreme dips in Manhattan income did. The 23rd St. stop in Manhattan makes 114k, but the next two stops make in the 50s, only to immediately shoot up to 110k after them. While these dips are few, it was still interesting how quickly it changes so dramatically.

Additionally, I was surprised at how few stops in Brooklyn make a median over 100k. Even the “nicer” areas tend to have significantly lower medians than most of Manhattan.