It is increasingly based on a vast difference in wealth between the richest 1% and an impoverished majority of "working poor."

Thus the population was sharply divided between a small powerful elite and an impoverished majority.

American aid was distributed to urban businesses although the impoverished majority received almost none of it.

There is nothing close to a middle class, as the gulf has widened between an extremely rich minority and an impoverished majority.

But he is the first to acknowledge that, with the majority still impoverished, the country has far to go.

The gentry consisted of a fairly impoverished majority and small extremely wealthy minority.

But the country's problems are rooted in a 500-year legacy of abuse of power and racism toward an impoverished Mayan majority.

Yet he seems to have failed woefully to control security police who play on rivalries that divide a frustrated and impoverished black majority.

Little economic growth trickled down to the impoverished majority.

But the society remains basically feudal, with a tiny elite ruling an increasingly impoverished majority.