Omar Matiano

Professor Koning
English 113B
March 15, 2014
Project Text Reflection 1
According to the test that I took for my household/family, we are currently on the lower
middle section of the chart. I was not surprised at this result because my dad is the only one that
works and his occupation is a construction worker so he does not make much money. The chart
says that his occupation is in the 32 percentile meaning he is doing better than or equal to 32
percent of the population. My father did not have a good education and only made it to
secondary school so he is in the bottom fifth of the chart with his percentile being at 7 percent.
This is not that impressive because education wise 93 percent of the population did better than
him. His annual income is on average of 30 grand or more which is located in the lower middle
with 38 percentile. His place in the society as a whole is on average of 27 percentile. I was sort
of surprised with the total outcome of his place in society because I expected it to be much
lower. For my future occupation something that I realistically see myself doing would be
physical therapists that are among the 64 percentile. They are located in the upper middle living
a comfortable life. For my education I would have fulfilled a Bachelors degree rising to the top
fifth as appose to the lower middle where I currently am. I was surprised when I saw the
education statistics because I would have expected more people to be going to college to achieve
the American dream. An average physical therapist makes about 80-90 grand a year which is
better than 88 percent of the population. Compared to my current household salary a physical
therapist is almost triple the salary. Its ironic how Americans are portrayed as rich people but
the reality is that there are a surprising number of poor people living in the United States. For
wealth I want to own a house that is decent in size thats net worth be $100,000 to $500,000. As
I was playing with the taps I noticed that when you finish high school the red bar indicates that
they are in the middle class which is not always necessarily true due to the economy we are in at
the moment some type of college degree would be needed. This means that if you have a low
level of education there is a higher percentage that you are going to be in the lower income level.
I also found that Physicians and Surgeons are among the highest prestige there is because the red
bar was all the way to the top. The median salary for a surgeon was more than $350,000 a year.
They are in the 99 percentile which is pretty impressive. They are required to have a high level
of education meaning many years of school. I found the survey interesting because 29% of the
people they asked said to be considered rich they need to make an average of $100,000-200,000
per year. 38% of those people also said that their lives are looking better than their parents. The
parents said 31% of their children will be living better lives when they are the same age as their
parents. Overall, I was surprised how social classes are classified in the United States. Finding
my current family position was surprising compared to my future career goals position.