Chapter 42: The American People Face A New Century

I. Economic Revolutions

1. Companies like Microsoft Corp. and the internet brought about the communications revolution.
2. Entrepreneurs led the way to making the Internet a 21st century mall, library, and shopping center.
3. New high-tech jobs were created and other jobs were erased.
4. White-collar jobs in financial services and high tech engineering were being outsourced to other countries like Ireland and India where wages were lower.
5. Many discovered that the new high tech economy was also prone to boom or bust, just like the old economy.
   • In the Spring of 2000, the stock market began its biggest slide since WWII in the "dotcom bust." By 2003, the market had lost $6 trillion in value.Many Americans' pension plans shrank to 1/3 their previous level.This showed that Americans were still susceptible to risk, mistakes, scandal, and the ups-and-downs of the business cycle.
6. 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.


• The movement started to fix genetic mutations.
• The "Human Genome Project" established the DNA sequence of the 30 thousand human genes, helping create radical new medical therapies.
• Breakthroughs in cloning animals raised questions about the morality of cloning humans.
• "Stem cell research", where zygotes or fertilized human eggs, offered possible cures for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
• The Bush administration, and many religious groups, believed that this research was killing people in the form of a human fetus.
• Bush said a fetus is still a human life, despite its small size, and experimenting and destroying it is therefore wrong. For this reason, he limited government funding for stem cell research.

II. Affluence and Inequality

1. 1. Americans were still an affluent people at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
2. Median household income declined somewhat in the early 1990s but rebounded by 2002 to $42,400.
3. 2004 average income was not meeting standards. Average was $18,850 for a family of four. That was less than 2/3 of human kind.
4. Causes of the widening income gap…
• The tax and fiscal policies of the Reagan and both Bush presidencies tended to help the business class.
• Intensifying global economic competition lowered wages.
• There was a shrinkage of high-paying manufacturing jobs for semiskilled/unskilled workers.
• Those who pursued higher education reaped even greater rewards.
• Part time and temporary work became more common and there was an increase of low-skilled immigrants.

III. The Feminist Revolution

1. All Americans were caught up in the great economic changes of the late twentieth century, but no group was more profoundly affected than women. 
2. Women made about 20 percent of all workers. 
3. By the 1950s, women's entry into the workplace was accelerated dramatically.
4. In 1950 nearly 90 percent of mothers with children under the age of six did not work for pay. 
5. A century later, a majority of women with children as young as one year old were wage earners. 
6. Women now brought home the bacon and then cooked it too. 
7. When the 1960s began, many all-male strongholds, including Yale, Princeton, West Point, and even, belatedly, southern military academies like Citadel and Virginia Military Institute, opened their doors to women.

IV. New Families and Old

1. By the ned of the 1990s, one out of every two marriages ended in a divorce.
2. Seven times more children were affected by divorce as compared to the beginning of the decade.
3. Traditional families weren’t just falling apart at an alarming rate, but they were also increasingly slow to form in the first place.
• The proportion of adults living alone tripled in the 4 decades after 1950s. In the 1990s, 1/3 of women age 25 - 29 had never married.
• Every fourth child in the U.S. was growing up in a household that lacked two parents.
• Single parenthood was the #1 cause of poverty.
• Child-rearing, the age-old goal of a family, was being pawned off to day-care centers, school, or TV (the electronic babysitter).
• Families now assumed a variety of different forms.
• Kids in households raised by a single parent, stepparent, or grandparent, and even kids with homosexual parents, encountered a degree of acceptance that would have been unimaginable a century earlier. 

V. The Aging of America

2. Old age was expected, since Americans were living longer than ever before. For someone born in 1900, the life expectancy was about 50 years. People born the year 2000 could anticipate living to an average 77 years.
• The longer lives were largely due to miraculous medical advances.One American in eight was over 65 years of age in 2000.
• This aging of population raised a slew of economic, social, and political questions. Seniors formed a potent electoral bloc that aggressively lobbied for government favors and achieved real gains for senior citizens.
1. The share of GNP spent on health care for people over 65 more than doubled in the 30 years after Medicare started.
2. However, the more money sent to health care meant less money elsewhere or an increased debt. The old are getting helped, but the young are being paying for it.
3. These triumphs for senior citizens brought fiscal strains, especially with Social Security.
1. At the beginning of the creation of Social Security, a small majority depended on it. But modern times, it has increased. And, now current workers’ Social Security contributions actually funds Social Security.
• Due to the baby boom generation, the ratio of active workers-to-retirees is at a low-to-high level. And, health care costs have skyrocketed in recent years.
1. The "unfunded liability" (the shortage between what the government promised to pay to the elderly and the taxes it expected to take in) was about $7 trillion.
2. Due to possible political repercussions, politicians are very reluctant to talk about changing Social Security. There are possible solutions are:
• To delay Social Security payments and persuade older Americans to work longer.
• To invest the current Social Security surplus in stocks and bonds to meet future obligations. This could also backfire, however, if the market drops.
• A portion of the Social Security money could be privatized if younger people wanted to invest some of their payroll taxes into individual retirement accounts.

VI.The New Immigration

1. Since 1980, newcomers continued to flow into modern America, at the rate of nearly 1 million per year.
2. In contrast to America's past historical patterns, Europe was one of the countries that contributed the leas to the migration, or the so called, "over-flowing."
3. Places like Los Angeles, Dallas, and Atlanta, were just some ogf the many places to go out and look for jobs. 
   • Contradicting history, Europe provided few immigrants. The largest portion came from Asia and Latin America. These immigrants came for many of the same reasons all immigrants:
   • They left countries where the population was increasing rapidly and…Where agricultural/industrial revolutions were shaking up old ways of life.
4. • Mostly, like always, they came in search of jobs and economic opportunities—a better life for their families.
• Some came with skills and even professional degrees and found their way into middle-class jobs. However, most came with fewer skills/less education. They sought work as janitors, nannies, farm laborers, lawn cutters, etc.
5. The southwest felt immigration the most, since Mexican migrants naturally arrived in that section of the U.S.
   1. 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.
   2. Latinos succeeded in making the Southwest a bi-cultural region by holding onto to their culture and language. Most immigrants had assimilated into "American" culture. Plus, it did help to have their "mothering country” right next door, not an ocean away.
6. Some “old-stock” Americans feared modern America’s capacity to absorb all these immigrants.
   1. The Immigration Reform and Control Act (1986) attempted to choke off illegal entry by penalizing employers of the illegal immigrants and by granting amnesty to many of those already here.
   2. Anti-immigrant sentiment was strong in California in the wake of economic recession in the early 1990s.
      • California voters approved a ballot initiative that attempted to deny benefits, including free public education, to illegal immigrants (it was later struck down by courts).
      • State then passed another law in 1998 which put an end to bilingual teaching in state schools.
7. By 2002, the U.S. population was made up of 11.5% of foreign-born people. The historical high-point had been 15% in 1910.
8. Pros about Immigration: 

(1) immigrants took jobs that Americans did not want 

 (2) the infusion of young immigrants and their offspring helped counter-balance the overwhelming rate of an aging population.

VII. Beyond The Melting Pot

1. Latinos were becoming increasingly the most important minority. 
2. The United States by 2003 was home to about 39 million of them.
3. This inclued 26 million Chicanos, or Mexican Americans, mostly in the Southwest, as well as 3 million Puerto Ricans, chiefly in the Northeast, and more than 1 million cubans in Florida.
4. Latinos also elected mayors of Miami, Denver, and San Antonio. 

• (UFWOC) leader, Cesar Chavez, succeeded in improving working conditions for the mostly Chicano "stoop laborers" who followed the cycle of harvesting across the American West. 
• 1. Asians also began prospering.
  2. Citizens of Asian ancestry were now counted among the most prosperous Americans. In 2003, the average Asian household was 25% better off than that of the average white household.
• American Indians, numbered some 2.4 million in the 2000 census.
  1. Unemployment and alcoholism had blighted reservation life. Half had left their reservations to live in cities.
  2. Many tribes took advantage of their special legal status of independence by opening up casinos on reservations to the public.

VIII. Cities and Suburbs 

1. 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 1980s, but then it leveled out in the 90s. Violent crime dropped notably after about 1995.

• Robbery and rape remained common in cities and rural areas and drove many more people to the suburbs.
• In the 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.
• Some affluent suburban neighborhoods stayed secluded, by staying locked in “gated communities.”
• By the first decade of the 21st century, big suburban rings and beltways emerged around cities like New York, Chicago, Houston, and Washington D.C.
• The cities as a whole were becoming more racially and ethically diverse, however local neighborhoods were often homogeneous.
• Suburbs grew fastest in the West and Southwest, in areas such as L.A., San Diego, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.
• Builders of roads, water mains, and schools could barely keep up with the new towns sprouting up across the landscapes.
• A huge shift of US population was underway from East to West, from North to South.
• The Great Plains were hurt from the movement. The entire Plains held fewer people than the Los Angeles basin.
• However, some cities started to show signs of renewal in downtown areas such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, and San Francisco.

IX. Minority America

1. Racial and ethnic tensions also exacerbated the problems of American Cities. Especially evident in LA and New York.
2. New York was for Asian and Latin American immigrants. 
3. However, the racial tension was felt more in Los Angeles.

• Racial and ethic tensions also exacerbated the problems of American cities. This was specifically evident in L.A. (a magnet for minorities).
• • There, in 1992, a mostly white jury exonerated white cops who had been videotaped ferociously beating a black suspect.
• The minority neighborhoods of L.A. erupted in a riot of anger. There was looting, arson, killings. Many blacks addressed their anger toward Asian shopkeepers who armed themselves in protection.The L.A. riots vividly testified to black skepticism about the U.S. system of justice.

1. Three years later, in L.A., a televised showing of O.J. Simpson’s murder trial fed white disillusionment with the court system and with race relations.
2. After months of testimony, the evidence (including Simpson's DNA) seemed overwhelmingly that O.J. Simpson was guilty. But, he was acquitted due to the fact some white officers had been shown to harbor racist sentiments.
3. In a a later civil trail, another jury unanimously found Simpson liable for the “wrongful deaths” of his former wife and another victim.
4. The Simpson verdicts revealed the huge gap between white and black America.
5. Blacks still felt that they were mistreated, as in 2000 election when they claimed that they weren’t allowed to vote in Florida.

1. In 2002, 52% of blacks and only 21% of whites lived in inner cities.
2. Single women headed about 43% of black families in 2002, 3 times more than whites.
3. Many single, black mothers depended on Welfare to feed their children.
4. Social scientists made it clear that education excels if the child has warm, home environment. It seemed clear that many fatherless, impoverished black kids seemed plagued by educational handicaps which were difficult to overcome.
5. Some segments of black communities did prosper after the Civil Rights Movement, although they still had a long way to go to reach equality.
   • By 2002, 33% of black families had a $50,000 income, putting them at middle class level.
   • The number of black officials elected had risen to the 9,000 mark. This included more than 3 dozen members of Congress and mayors of some big cities.
   • Voter tallies showed that black more blacks were going to the polls.
   • By the early 21st century, blacks had dramatically advanced into higher education. In 2002, 17% of blacks over 25 had a bachelor’s degree.

X. E Pluribus Plures

1. Kallen and Randolph Bourne, many intellectuals after 1970 embraced the creed of "multiculturalism."
2. In the 1970/1960s, ethnic pride became the catchword, and universalisitc assumptions lost their luster.
3. The Census Bureau enlivened the debate in 2000 when it allowed respondents to identify themselves with more than one of six standard racial categories such as : black, white, Latino AmericanIndian, Asian, and Native Hawaiian.)

XI.The Life of the Mind

Despite the TV, American read more in the early 21st century, listened to more music, and were better educated than ever.

Colleges awarded some 2.5 million degrees in 2004. One quarter of the 25-34 age group was a college grad. This fact helped the economy.

August Wilson retold the history of the blacks in 20th century emphasizing on the psychological cost of the northward migration.

George Wolf explored sobering questions of black identity in Jelly’s Last Jam about the life of a jazz musician. 

Sandra Cisneros drew from her own life as a Mexican-American kid to write on Latino life in working-class Chicago in The House on Mango Street.

XII.The American Prospect

aLTHOUGH America was well underway into the start of the 21st Century, it did have it's equal, social, and enironmental issues.

1. 1. 1. Women still felt they were short of first class citizenship.
      2. U.S. society also wanted to find ways to adapt back to the traditional family. But this was difficult if not impossible with the new realities of women working outside the home.
      3. Full equality still seemed to be only a dream for some races.
   2. eCONOMIC pROBLEMS .
      1. Powerful foreign competitors threatened the U.S. economic status.
   3. Issues withing the Environment!
      1. Coal-fired electrical energy plants produced acid rain and helped greenhouse effect.
      2. Unsolved problem of radioactive waste disposal halted the construction of nuclear power plants.
      3. The planet was being drained of oil and oil spills showed the danger behind oil exploration and transportation.
         1. The public began to look toward alternative fuel sources, such as solar power and wind mills, natural gas, electric “hybrid” cars, an affordable hydrogen fuel cell. Saving energy was always the goal.