Sub-titled "portraits of the near poor in America", The Missing Class by Katherine S Newman and Victor Tan Chen was frankly a disappointment to me. While the title and introduction suggest the authors are doing an analysis of American families with incomes between twenty and forty thousand dollars per year, the book is very tightly focused on a number of black families in various Brookly, New York neighborhoods. Most all of these families have previously been on welfare but are now working and no longer collecting benefits. As someone whose household income falls squarely between the stated bench marks, I was already well aware that being near poor and receiving no government benefits actually leaves one somewhat worse off than being truly poor and receiving full benefits. What the authors seem to not realize or at least never acknowledge is that there are many "near-poor" families all over the United States, many of which have never received welfare of any kind, many of which are not black, not uneducated or poorly educated who struggle day to day just like the featured families in Brooklyn. While I did find the profiles mildly interesting, I was very put off by the authors’ very narrow focus and ultimately found the book to be a great disappointment. The Missing Class– Not Recommended.
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5 Responses to “The Missing Class”
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August 30th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
I once was part of the working poor class making about 125 per week with a wife and baby. But that was back in the 1970’s in Boston. One part of this equation that needs to be remembered is that when you have a job you may be working harder and making less than someone on welfare BUT you have a future. The average time that someone spends in this situation not very long compared to the hopeless situation of someone on benefits.
August 31st, 2008 at 8:40 pm
But David, what sort of future does someone earning the miniumum wage have. The road up from there is steep, narrow and will only be traveresed by the few, at least as things stand now.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Aw, and this looks like a book I’d find interesting, too. Too bad it has such a narrow scope.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
One hard thing about working poor, having lost everything once is that it becomes a trap if you rely solely on welfare. Not working becomes a habit and that habit stretches into a trap which is hard to get out of. People are willing to stretch a hand out in a different way to a person who is working poor than welfare. They see you are working and capable of working and doors open for college scholarships or trade apprenticeships or even the military. I lived in a little six foot by six foot room in a big house with eight people for $200 a month when I was in college on a scholarship and lived on vegetables and rice and tea.
Sometimes benefits are necessary though. If a person has a child and no one to help them that is before school age, working is not really much of an option. They may pretend to be in training programs or workfare, but ultimately, they need to take care of the child until it gets into school.
September 27th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I’m not American however the title caught my attention because it seems that the ‘Middle Class’ became a notable issue in many societies and of course the ‘definition’ in terms of income differers from country to country.