Rich on one side and poor on the other RICH-------------------------------------POOR

poor and rich difference between social groups

Economically marginalized groups are through economic factors from the norm deviating groups. This refers usually to groups of poor people (but it could also be rich people). The tendency is that these groups are then excluded from main-stream society. 1) ""Marginalized" refers to the overt or covert trends within societies whereby those perceived as lacking desirable traits or deviating from the group norms tend to be excluded by wider society and ostracised as undesirables. Sometimes groups are marginalized by society at large, but governments are often unwitting or enthusiastic participants. For example, the U.S. government marginalized cultural minorities, particularly blacks, prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This Act made it illegal to restrict access to schools and public places based on race. Equal opportunity laws which actively oppose such marginalization, allow increased empowerment to occur. It should be noted that they are also a symptom of minorities' and women's empowerment through lobbying. Marginalized people who have no opportunities for self-sufficiency become, at a minimum, dependent on charity or welfare. They lose their self-confidence because they cannot be fully self-supporting. The opportunities denied them also deprive them of the pride of accomplishment which others, who have those opportunities, can develop for themselves. This in turn can lead to psychological, social and even mental health problems." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empowerment#Marginalization 2) "Ravi Kanbur and Lyn Squire suggest a third problem for income-based definitions of poverty, namely that “economically marginalized groups tend to be socially marginalized as well,” so that they are disadvantaged with respect to both resources and power.14 They are right to assert that poverty often manifests as a form of powerlessness. However, the relationship between social marginalization and economic marginalization is much more profound and complex than Kanbur and Squire acknowledge. Individuals are always and everywhere entrenched in a web of power relations, such as racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, classism, heterosexism, etc., that either advance or hinder their life prospects. Thus, individuals’ social identity, in the sense of how they are positioned relative to social structures of power, is a crucial factor in their ability to both access and convert commodities into the fulfillment of basic needs." Source and further information: http://www.csus.edu/org/pswip/Papers/Poverty%20-%203000%20word%20version.doc