Great wealth and extreme poverty existed side by side in Gilded Age New York. How was this reflected in the novel? Does the same degree of class stratification exist today?

Great wealth and extreme poverty existed side by side in Gilded Age New York with almost no middle class in between. The rich lived in European-inspired mansions along Millionaires Row while the poor crowded into tenements—sometimes living a dozen people to a room. How was this reflected in the novel? Does the same degree of class stratification exist today?

The novel did a great job describing the slums and showing that they were filled with the working poor who did the dangerous and menial jobs in the city. The wealthy rarely gave them a thought, except when offended by their conditions.
Unfortunately, I think that we still have huge disparity between economic classes. We also continue to have a huge disparity between the medical treatment that different classes receive, as witnessed during our recent Covid crisis.
Today we do have a stronger and larger middle class.

I agree with cathyoc!

The only difference now is that we have a larger middle class. Otherwise, we still see that the upper classes receive much better care and overall better privileges in life.

The novel accurately portrayed life in the inner cities during the Gilded Age describing the slums and the life and working conditions the poor had to endure to survive while the wealthy during that time tended to ignore these individuals. The extremes had been better but may be getting worse again for various reasons .including the economy and politics but there is more of a middle class then there was but this is also threatened.

I think we still have the 1% who control most of the wealth and therefore they control most of society. Financial, social and all other aspects of life are controlled by those who can influence politicians. The only possible difference is that more of the poor have some societal support. We don't see street kids living rough, although there may be some. We have a bigger middle class, that is shrinking, and that is a huge difference from the gilded age!

I think there is much that is the same in terms of the disparity between the very wealthy and the poor. I think it may have been much harder to move up the social ladder in the past even if you were to acquire wealth. I think the great social and economic divides were some of the elements that struck me a particularly relatable to today's society, certainly the conspicuous consumerism of social media and the strange world of social influencers. A new Gilded Age? Maybe that is part of what fascinates us about dramas and mysteries set in this age.

I think the gap between rich and poor is widening and the middle class is being pinched down into the poorer class. I think this has been and will always be a method of control by any elite group. I think it’s easy to look back on period pieces and think how different things were but in reality, history repeats itself. And history never “ends”.