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Another way to think about the influence of inequality on social problems is to examine the consequences of social problems for different groups. This can be seen at different levels--for individuals, for families and communities, and for society as a whole.

At the individual level, experiencing one social problem can lead to others. For example, studies find that having contact with the criminal justice system has a significant effect on one's lifetime earnings, thus exacerbating the initial effect of the problem of criminal labeling. Likewise, experiencing mental illness can decrease an individual's annual income by several thousand dollars. Sexual abuse not only is a problem in and of itself but is also a factor in high rates of school dropout, substance abuse, later sexual violence, prostitution, and even violent offending. However, the consequences of social problems are not always so devastating; social networks can facilitate coping with social problems. At the same time, disruption of one's support networks--influenced in turn by the strength of the network--can lead to further social and psychological distress.

The ripple effect of social problems occurs not just among individuals but also in families and communities. Among college students, for example, studies find that African American students from racially segregated neighborhoods experience higher levels of family stress than do other students--largely because of the social problems found in their home communities.

Finally, social problems have consequences for society as a whole, as is illustrated by considering the costs of maintaining people in prison versus the cost of investing in education. The government, including federal, state, and local direct costs, is currently spending over $185 billion per year on correctional facilities--a 423 percent increase since 1982. This amounts to $209 per person per year in the United States. And, while educational funding in total is still higher than spending levels for correctional facilities, many argue that the increase in incarceration witnessed in recent years comes at the expense of support for education, especially at the state level. Every social problem a society faces has costly consequences-- measured in both economic and social terms. The total cost of teen pregnancy to society is estimated at $9.6 billion per year, measured by summing the costs of public assistance, child health and welfare, incarceration, and lost tax revenues.

There are costs other than economic ones that cannot be measured in quantitative terms. Rising rates of fear in society, high rates of imprisonment, more gated communities (prisons for the lower class, gated housing for elites), and, potentially, greater violence all amount to societal level consequences. Furthermore, economic inequality threatens the very stability of societies and leads to more coercive social control. Cross-national research findings, for instance, show a tendency for expansion of state-based social control when there is internal economic inequality in a given society.

Bibliography:

1) Andersen, Margaret L. 2008. Thinking about Women: Sociological Perspectives on Sex and Gender. 8th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

2) Ferguson, Ann Arnett. 2001. Bad Boys: Public Schools and the Making of Black Masculinity. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

3) Fleury-Steiner, Benjamin Doy. 2004. Jurors' Stories of Death: How America's Death Penalty Invests in Inequality. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

4) Hays, Sharon. 2004. Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

5) Kennelly, Ivy. 1999. "'That Single-Mother Element': How White Employers Typify Black Women." Gender & Society 13(April):168-92.

6) Kozol, Jonathan. 1992. Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools. New York: Harper.

7) Kozol, Jonathan. 2006. The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. New York: Three Rivers.

8) Lewis, Amanda. 2003. Race in the Schoolyard: Negotiating the Color Line in Classrooms and Communities. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

9) Pellow, David. 2002. Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

10) Reiman, Jeffrey. 2006. The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison. 8th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

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