Underclass - Knowledge

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of the underclass. This middle ground perspective requests that aid be given to members of the underclass considered to be deserving of aid, but withheld from members considered to be undeserving. However, proponents of the retail option often disagree on which members of the underclass are considered deserving and which are not. This appears to be the approach embraced by Auletta as he closes his book with reflections on some of the people he interviews throughout preceding pages. He says, "I have no difficulty giving up on violent criminals like the Bolden brothers or street hustlers like Henry Rivera. But knowing how a government helping hand made it possible for Pearl Dawson and William Mason to succeed, would you be willing to write them off?"

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horizontal mobility between these groups. Even more divergent from the initial notion of an underclass are the recent journalistic accounts of a so-called "genetic underclass", referring to a genetic inheritance of a predisposition to addiction and other personality traits traditionally associated with behavioral definitions of the underclass. However, such distinctions between criminal, social, impoverished, and other specified underclass terms still refer to the same general group—those beneath the working class. And, despite recent journalistic accounts of a "genetic underclass", the underclass concept is primarily, and has traditionally been, a social science term.

487:. The work by these authors' certainly do not compile an exhaustive list of suggested causes or solutions for the underclass, but they are arguably the most read proposals among social scientists. The contrasting causes and solutions highlighted by Wilson and Mead in particular have been popular points for debate. However, because prescription is dependent on diagnosis, much of the debates between Wilson and Mead have been on the causes and conditions of the underclass. Wilson highlights social isolation and the disappearance of quality work (for example, via 783:, campaigned for Louisiana Governor by complaining about the "welfare underclass". The underclass concept has been politicized, with those from the political left arguing that joblessness and insufficient welfare provided are causes of underclass conditions while the political right employ the underclass term to refer to welfare dependency and moral decline. Many sociologists suggest that this latter rhetoric – the right-wing perspective – became dominant in mainstream accounts of the underclass during the later decades of the twentieth-century. 557:. Wilson describes his proposed program as having a "hidden agenda" for policy makers "to improve the life chances of truly disadvantaged groups such as the ghetto underclass by emphasizing programs to which the more advantaged groups of all races and class backgrounds can positively relate". Universal programs are more easily accepted within the US' political climate than targeted programs, yet the underclass would likely experience the most benefit from universal programs. Wilson notes that some 25: 338:(1) the passive poor, usually long-term welfare recipients; (2) the hostile street criminals who terrorize most cities, and who are often school dropouts and drug addicts; (3) the hustlers, who, like street criminals, may not be poor and who earn their livelihood in an underground economy, but rarely commit violent crimes; (4) the traumatized drunks, drifters, homeless shopping-bag ladies, and released mental patients who frequently roam or collapse on city streets. 3753: 822:

income and/or racial minority populations. The cause of these differences in resources across similar neighborhoods has more to do with dynamics outside of the neighborhood. To a large extent the problem with the 'ghetto' and 'underclass' concepts stem from the reliance on case studies (in particular case studies from Chicago), which confine social scientist understandings of socially disadvantaged neighborhoods.

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that may not necessarily persist in high-poverty areas. In Wilson's writings on the underclass – a term he eventually replaces with "ghetto poverty" (see section titled "Critiques of the Underclass Concept")– the underclass is described as a population that is physically and socially isolated from individuals and institutions of mainstream society, and this isolation is one of a collection of causes to

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There are, of course, people who function well – the so-called 'deserving' or 'working poor' – and better-off people who function poorly, but in general low income and serious behavioral difficulties go together. The underclass is not large as a share of population, perhaps 9 million people, but it accounts for the lion's share of the most serious disorders in American life, especially in the cities.

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that nobody claims or invokes except to pin it on to others". And, although the underclass concepts is homogenizing, Wacquant argues that underclass imagery differentiates on gender lines, with the underclass male being depicted as a violent "gang banger", a physical threat to public safety, and the underclass female being generalized as "welfare mother" (also see

405:. Some scholars, such as Ricketts and Sawhill, argue that being poor is not a requirement for underclass membership, and thus there are individuals who are non-poor members of the underclass because they live in "underclass areas" and embody other characteristics of the underclass, such as being violent, criminal, and anti-social (e.g., gang leaders). 634:. They provide a detailed list of policy suggestions in the closing of their book. They argue that policies aimed at desegregation need to target the private housing market, where an overwhelming majority of housing is allocated. In doing this, the authors call upon the federal government to dedicate more resources to the upholding of the 414:

members who feel "cut off" from mainstream society. Linked to this discussion of the underclass being psychologically deviant, the underclass is also said to have low levels of cognition and literacy. Thus, the underclass is often seen as being mentally disconnected from the rest of society. Consider the following:

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from a structural term (in other words, defining the underclass in reference to conditions of social/economic/political structure) to a behavioral term (in other words, defining the underclass in reference to rational choice and/or in reference to a subculture of poverty). Gans suggests that the word

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Following the popularization of the underclass concept in both academic and journalistic writings, some academics began to overtly criticize underclass terminology. Those in opposition to the underclass concept generally argue that, on the one hand, "underclass" is a homogenizing term that simplifies

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The "retail option" includes those in between optimism and pessimism, what Auletta calls "skeptics". The retail option advocates for targeted efforts, recognizing the limits of government intervention, but is also aware of the positive impact social policy can have on efforts to fix specific problems

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The ecological dimension, a fourth theme in the literature on the underclass, is often used as both a description and an explanation for the underclass. The underclass is concentrated in specific areas. Although there are some writings on the "rural underclass", in general the underclass is framed as

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Various definitions of the underclass have been set forth since the term's initial conception; however, all of these definitions are basically different ways of imagining a category of people beneath the working class. The definitions vary by which particular dimensions of this group are highlighted.

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policy to generate a tight labor market and economic growth; fiscal and monetary policy not only to stimulate noninflationary growth, but also to increase the competitiveness of American goods on both the domestic and international market; and a national labor market strategy to make the labor force

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with the underclass. Living in areas of concentrated poverty is more or less framed as a common (and often necessary) condition of the underclass, but it is generally not considered a sufficient condition since many conceptualizations of the underclass highlight behavioral and psychological deviancy

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The economic dimension is the most basic and least contested theme of the underclass – the underclass is overwhelmingly poor. The underclass experiences high levels of joblessness, and what little employment its members hold in the formal economy is best described as precarious labor. However, it is

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The underclass is most visible in urban slum settings and is about 70 percent nonwhite, but it includes many rural and white people as well, especially in Appalachia and the South. Much of the urban underclass is made up of street hustlers, welfare families, drug addicts, and former mental patients.

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The underclass of Northton is made up of people who have failed to keep up with their brethren, both in employment and sociability. Essentially they can be seen as victims of the economic and social system. They make up the unemployed, the underskilled, and the poorly educated, even though some hold

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Social scientists often point to journalism as a primary institution conceptualizing the underclass for a mass audience. Many suggest that the underclass terminology employed by American journalists in the last quarter of the twentieth-century were partial to behavioral and cultural—as opposed to a

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The "wholesale option" includes both conservatives and liberals who are optimistic that government action can solve the underclass problem. According to Auletta, left-wing wholesale proponents call for increased public aid while right-wing wholesale proponents call for government to reduce taxes to

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The progressive tradition of extending new benefits and opportunities to the worst-off has made it next to impossible to address the behavioral difficulties at the bottom of society in their own terms. For to do that, authority, or the making of demands on people, would have to be seen as the tool,

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of the ghetto underclass and other disadvantaged groups. Wilson lists multiple examples of what this universal program would include, such as public funding of training, retraining, and transitional employment benefits that would be available to all members of society. With respect to the diagnosis

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Not only is the underclass frequently said to think differently, they are also said to behave differently. Some believe that the underclass concept was meant to capture the coincidence of a number of social ills including poverty, joblessness, crime, welfare dependence, fatherless families, and low

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Each of the above definitions are said to conceptualize the same general group – the American underclass – but they provide somewhat competing imagery. While Wright, Wilson, and Anderson each position the underclass in reference to the labor market, Auletta's definition is simply "non-assimilation"

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The material interests of the wealthy and privileged segments of American society would be better served if these people simply disappeared…The alternative, then, is to build prisons, to cordon off the zones of cities in which the underclass live. In such a situation the main potential power of the

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sees the underclass as a "category of social agents who are economically oppressed but not consistently exploited within a given class system". The underclass occupies the lowest possible rung on a class ladder. According to Wright, the underclass are oppressed. He believes this is because they are

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during the early 1990s. For Wilson, this replacement terminology is simply an attempt to revamp the framing of inner-city poverty as being structurally rooted. He states, "I will substitute the term 'ghetto poor' for the term 'underclass' and hope that I will not lose any of the subtle theoretical

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The concept of 'the ghetto' and 'underclass' has also faced criticism empirically. Research has shown significant differences in resources for neighborhoods with similar populations both across cities and over time. This includes differences in the resources of neighborhoods with predominantly low

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Thus, although we share William Julius Wilson's view that the structural transformation of the economy played a crucial role in creating the urban underclass during the 1970's, we argue that what made it disproportionately a black underclass was racial segregation. The decline of manufacturing and

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Similar to issues of defining and identifying the underclass, the outlining of potential causes and proposed solutions for the "underclass problem" have also been points of contestation. Debates concerning the diagnosis of, and prescription for, the underclass often mirror debates concerning first

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This quote partly concerns the spaces and locations for the underclass and reflects the leftist view of the other classes as acting against the underclass in unison, as opposed to other sociological views seeing class actors behaving as individuals reacting to individual incentives within society.

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has become a blanket term that frames urban blacks as behaviorally and culturally deviant. Wacquant notes that underclass status is imposed on urban blacks from outside and above them (e.g., by journalists, politicians, and academics), stating that "underclass" is a derogatory and "negative label

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of Southern blacks to the North and West during the early to mid twentieth century and the exodus of middle class blacks out of the ghetto during the 1970s through the early 90s. In 1991 Lemann also published an article titled "The Other Underclass", which details Puerto Ricans, and particularly

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beneath the working class. A few writings on the underclass distinguish between various types of underclass, such as the social underclass, the impoverished underclass, the reproductive underclass, the educational underclass, the violent underclass, and the criminal underclass, with some expected

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in the U.S., Myrdal's underclass refers to a "class of unemployed, unemployables, and underemployed, who are more and more hopelessly set apart from the nation at large, and do not share in its life, its ambitions, and its achievements". However, this general conception of a class or category of

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option" is pessimistic and its proponents are extremely wary of proposed solutions to a problem they see as unsolvable. Proponents of this perspective call for a drastic withdrawal of public aid for the underclass and are concerned with "quarantining the patient" instead of hunting for what they

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option) and one middle-of-the-road position (the retail option), but these are more discussions concerning the amount of public resources that should be dedicated to fixing, or attempting to fix, the underclass problem, rather than specific strategies. Auletta seems to support the retail option,

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Many writers often highlight the social-psychological dimensions of the underclass. The underclass is often framed as holding beliefs, attitudes, opinions, and desires that are inconsistent with those held by society at large. The underclass is frequently described as a "discouraged" group with

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Thus, the underclass is defined and identified by multiple characteristics. Members are persistently poor and experience high levels of joblessness. However, these trends are generally not seen as sufficient identifiers of the underclass, because, for many, the underclass concept also captures

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The underclass rejects many of the norms and values of the larger society. Among underclass youth, achievement motivation is low, education is undervalued, and conventional means of success and upward mobility are scorned. There is widespread alienation from society and its institutions,

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high-school diplomas. Many are intelligent, but they are demoralized by racism and the wall of social resistance facing them. In this context they lose perspective and lack an outlook and sensibility that would allow them to negotiate the wider system of employment and society in general.

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he problems of the ghetto underclass can be most meaningfully addressed by a comprehensive program that combines employment policies with social welfare policies and that features universal as opposed to race- or group-specific strategies. On the one hand, this program highlights

271:(1987), are popular accounts of the black urban underclass. Wilson defines the underclass as "a massive population at the very bottom of the social ladder plagued by poor education and low-paying jobs." He generally limits his discussion to those trapped in the post-civil-rights 334:, often credited as the primary journalist who brought the underclass term to the forefront of the American consciousness, describes the American underclass as non-assimilated Americans, and he suggests that the underclass may be subcategorized into four distinct groups: 348:

and his examples, along with Mead's definition, highlight underclass members' participation in deviant behavior and their adoption of an antisocial outlook on life. These controversies are elaborated further in the next section ("Characteristics of the Underclass").

670:", which requires welfare recipients to work in order to receive aid. For Mead, such a program design would evoke behavioral change since permissiveness is replaced with authority. Mead summarizes his call to replace permissive welfare with authoritative welfare: 222:

Unlike the working class, which he believes is routinely exploited for their labor power by higher classes, the underclass in Wright's view, do not hold the labor power worthy of exploitation. Wright argues his highly doctrinaire opinion of class malevolence that:

524:, Wilson highlights a conglomerate of factors in the last half of the twentieth century leading to a growing urban underclass. The factors listed include but are not limited to the shift from a goods-producing economy to a service-producing economy (including 429:

levels of education or work related skills. These behavioral characteristics, coupled with arguments that the underclass is psychologically disconnected from mainstream society, are occasionally highlighted as evidence that the underclass live in a

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Joel Rogers and James Wright identify four general themes by which these characteristics are organized within academic and journalistic accounts of the underclass: economic, social-psychological, behavioral, and ecological (spatial concentration).

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generally denied access to the labor market, and thus they cannot rise above their status easily but also thus are "not consistently exploited" because the opportunity for their economic exploitation is minimal for the classes above.

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Mead's diagnosis that permissive welfare is a primary cause of the underclass problem is followed by a prescription for a more authoritative welfare program that combines benefits with requirements. This proposal is often called

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underclass against their oppressors comes from their capacity to disrupt the sphere of consumption, especially through crime and other forms of violence, not their capacity to disrupt production through their control over labor.

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of labor not only in the industrial sector but also in substantial portions of the remaining service sector. These factors are aggravated by the exodus of the middle and upper classes from the inner city (first the well-known

433:. From this point of view, members of the underclass embody a distinct set of thoughts, perceptions, and actions – a "style of life" - that are transmitted across generations. However, just as the conceptualization of a " 731:

in 1981, and in book form a year later. Auletta is arguably the most read journalist of the underclass and many of his ideas, including his definition of the underclass, are included in this Knowledge entry.

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harmed many racial and ethnic groups, but only black Americans were highly segregated, so only among them was the resulting income loss confined to a small set of spatially contiguous and racially homogenous

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Small, Mario. L., & McDermott, Monica. (2006). The presence of organizational resources in poor urban neighborhoods: An analysis of average and contextual effects. Social Forces, 84(3), 1697-1724.

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believe is an imaginary cure. In other words, the laissez-faire option assumes that the underclass is generally hopeless, and thus the only public effort given to them should be the bare minimum.

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dimensions of psychological and behavioral deviancy. Furthermore, the underclass is generally identified as an urban phenomenon with its members typically living in areas of concentrated poverty.

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neighborhood, "The Village" (pseudonym), bordering a black ghetto, "Northton" (pseudonym), in an American city. Anderson provides the following description of the underclass in this ghetto:

1053:"From 'Underclass' to 'Undercaste': Some Observations About the Future of the Post-Industrial Economy and its Major Victims" in Urban Poverty and the Underclass (edited by Enzo Mingione) 116:

The underclass concept has been a point of controversy among social scientists. Definitions and explanations of the underclass, as well as proposed solutions for managing or fixing the

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an urban phenomenon and the phrases "ghetto poverty" and "inner-city poverty" are often used synonymously with the underclass term. However, many scholars are careful not to equate

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The specific concept of an underclass in the U.S. underwent several transformations during the decades following Myrdal's introduction of the term. According to sociologist

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with the least access to scarce resources. In this chart constructed by Gilbert, the American underclass is estimated to constitute roughly 12% of U.S. households (in 1998).

834:, sympathetic to criticisms brought against underclass terminology (particularly those criticisms posited by Gans), begins to replace his use of the term underclass with 561:

programs are still necessary, but recommends that they be framed as secondary to universal programming efforts. The following quote summarizes his policy call:

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While journalists' use of the underclass term is vast, a few popular sources are frequently cited in the academic literature on the underclass and journalism.

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world poverty more generally. However, in many writings on the specific notion of the underclass, some particular causes and solutions have been set forth.

662:. For Mead, welfare is too permissive and provides benefits to the underclass without requirements for its members to change their behavior and lifestyle. 745:

during the late 1980s and early 1990s. His 1986 writings on "The Origins of the Underclass" argue that the underclass was created by two migrations, the

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Given the prominent role of segregation in the construction and maintenance of the urban underclass, Massey and Denton call for policies that promote

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Wilson proposes a comprehensive social and economic program that is primarily universal, but nevertheless includes targeted efforts to improve the

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is one of the most vocal critics of the underclass concept. Gans suggests that American journalists, inspired partly by academic writings on the "

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Wilson, William Julius (1991). "Studying Inner-City Social Dislocations: The Challenge of Public Agenda Research: 1990 Presidential Address".

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often include a discussion of the urban underclass. Many writings concerning the underclass, particularly in the U.S., are urban-focused.

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As evident with Mead and Auletta's framing, some definitions of the underclass significantly diverge from the initial notion of an

2272:"Culture, Politics and National Discourses of the New Urban Poverty" in Urban Poverty and the Underclass (edited by Enzo Mingione) 771:

term has been transformed into a codeword to refer to poor inner-city blacks. For example, Hilary Silver highlights a moment when

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estrangement, social isolation, and hopelessness, the sense that a better life is simply not attainable through legitimate means.

3529: 2860: 2506: 798:"underclass" has become synonymous with impoverished blacks that behave in criminal, deviant, or "just non-middle-class ways". 507:. Auletta provides a different policy framework discussion by highlighting two extreme positions (the wholesale option and the 279:(see "Potential Causes and Proposed Solutions" section of this entry for a more detailed summary of Wilson on the underclass). 3524: 2417: 2384: 2339:"Dangerous Classes: Neglected Aspects of the Underclass Debate" in Urban Poverty and the Underclass (edited by Enzo Mingione) 2317: 2181: 973: 455:

and why the "social dislocations" (e.g., crime, school dropouts, out of wed-lock pregnancy, etc.) of the underclass emerge.

384:. The underclass harbors these traits to a greater degree than the general population, and other classes more specifically. 3534: 2441:

Logan, John, and Harvey Molotch. 1987. "Urban fortunes." The Political Economy of Place. Berkeley, University of California

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which would provide aid to underclass members deserving and hopeful and withhold aid to members undeserving and hopeless.

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Mead argues that the core cause of the underclass problem (or at least the perpetuation of the underclass problem) is

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people below the core of the working class has a long tradition in the social sciences, such as through the work of

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important to note that simply being poor is not synonymous with being part of the underclass. The underclass is

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The underclass generally occupies specific zones in the city. Thus, the notion of an underclass is popular in

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defines the underclass as a group that is poor and behaviorally deficient. He describes the underclass as

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and Nancy Denton concur with much of Wilson's suggested causes and proposed solutions, but introduce

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a heterogeneous group, and on the other hand, the term is derogatory and demonizes the urban poor.

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sought to describe the hitherto invisible world of casual workers, prostitutes, and street-people.

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The underclass is located by a collection of identifying characteristics, such as high levels of

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more adequate to changing economic opportunities. On the other hand, this program highlights a

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in real estate and banking, coupled with, and significantly motivated by, individual-level

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The charges against underclass terminology have motivated replacement terms. For example,

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Segment of the population that occupies the lowest possible position in a class hierarchy

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Puerto Ricans residing in South Bronx, as members of the urban underclass in the US.

102: 537:" and later the less-studied departure of the black middle class), which creates a " 43: 3720: 3594: 3494: 3324: 3132: 3022: 2973: 2946: 2699: 2694: 2547: 2463: 2140: 1540: 1126: 924: 919: 741: 635: 576: 538: 480: 311: 215: 801: 650:. Mead argues that most welfare programs encourage social dysfunctions, including 3465: 3157: 2968: 2714: 2704: 1130: 736: 622: 550: 377: 242: 86:

is the segment of the population that occupies the lowest possible position in a

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Ricketts, Erol; Isabel Sawhill (1988). "Defining and Measuring the Underclass".

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definition was abandoned by many journalists and academics, and replaced with a

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The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions

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A few of these propositions are outlined below, including those developed by

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the working class has a long tradition in the social sciences (for example,

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