Readings & Applied Concepts

Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed" Finding

It is not really possible to make a living on jobs available to unskilled people; hidden costs (distance to work, special costs, healthcare, second jobs) trap the working poor.

Desmond's "Poverty by America" Themes

Poverty is pain (physical labor, asthma, violence), traumatic (drugs, untreated illness), and unstable (rent soaring, incomes falling, employment unstable).

Desmond's Crystal Mayberry Case

A woman who bounced between 25+ foster homes, developed mental disorders, lost SSI benefits, and descended into homelessness and prostitution; illustrates how poverty is pain, traumatic, and unstable.

Putnam's "Our Kids" Finding

The American Dream has faded; children's life chances increasingly depend on class position; upper-middle class kids benefit from two-parent families, affluent neighborhoods, good schools, and intensive parenting; working-class kids face fragile families, unstable neighborhoods, and declining schools.

Putnam's "Our Kids" - Port Clinton 1950s

Socially integrated community; rich and poor kids mixed freely; adults referred to children as "our kids"; remarkable social mobility with nearly 75% getting more education than parents.

Putnam's "Our Kids" - Port Clinton Today

Manufacturing base shriveled; rising divorce, unwed births (40%), and juvenile delinquency (5x national average); class-segregated neighborhoods; rich kids and poor kids have diverging futures.

Residential Segregation Trend

Since 1970, proportion of families living in middle-income neighborhoods has declined from about 65% to just over 40%; proportion in poorest or most affluent neighborhoods doubled from 15% to 31%.

Class Identification (Centers)

A person's sense of belonging to a specific social class; Centers discovered that adding a "working class" category showed most Americans identify as working class, not middle class.

Why Trump Won (2016)

Racial resentment was the strongest predictor of voter preferences; Trump's racist rhetoric connected with white voters without college degrees who felt minorities were benefiting from unearned advantages; the "deep story" of a stalled line to the American dream.

Hochschild's "Strangers in Their Own Land"

The "deep story" of alienated whites who feel stuck in a stalled line leading up a hill to the American dream; they believe others (Blacks, immigrants, women) are cutting in line, leaving them as "strangers in their own land."

Nativism

The policy or attitude favoring native-born inhabitants over immigrants; historically used by employers to divide the workforce by placing immigrants in lowest-paid labor while reserving supervisory positions for native-born whites.

Shamus Khan's "New Elite"

The "new elite" claims to be based on merit rather than lineage; students at elite prep schools are "cultural omnivores" comfortable with both opera and rap, but they are not especially hardworking and have inflated illusions of their own talents.

M-C-M vs C-M-C (Marx)

Capitalism involves Money-Commodity-More Money (M-C-M') instead of Commodity-Money-Commodity (C-M-C); purpose is profit, not use.

Pauperization Thesis (Marx)

Capitalism always maintains a "reserve army" of unemployed workers used by capitalists to keep wages at subsistence levels; this relative surplus population provides revolutionary potential.