The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America

[Sapphire Blue]

article | posted July 26, 2007 (August 13, 2007 issue)
The Missing Class
Eyal Press

Sociologist Katherine Newman is best known for her richly documented, fine-grained portraits of the working poor. In books such as No Shame in My Game and Chutes and Ladders, she has chronicled the experiences of low-wage workers struggling against formidable odds to lift themselves out of poverty. Unlike many economists, Newman focuses less on statistics than on the barriers and opportunities people encounter in their daily lives, shedding light on the fault lines of the nation's class divide through intimate accounts of families and neighborhoods. In her forthcoming book, The Missing Class, written with Victor Tan Chen, Newman has turned her attention to the travails of the "near poor," a vast pool of workers who are neither officially destitute nor comfortably middle class. Recently, Nation contributing writer Eyal Press caught up with her at her home in Manhattan.

Who are the "near poor"?

The near poor are people with household incomes between $20,000 and $40,000 a year for a family of four, or 100 to 200 percent of the poverty line. And there are actually almost twice as many of them as there are people under the poverty line--57 million in the US. They represent, on the one hand, an improvement, forward motion, the promise of upward mobility. But their lives are not stable. They truly are one paycheck, one lost job, one divorce or one sick child away from falling below the poverty line.

(snip)

You call this a "missing class." Is it missing from the consciousness of Republicans or Democrats?

Pretty much both. John Edwards wrote the foreword to this book, so it's on his radar screen, but I haven't heard anybody else talk about these people, neither Republicans nor Democrats. I don't think the political parties reach out to them very much.

Yet I take it that what happens in Washington does have an impact on their lives.

Some of the policies set in motion over the past decade have had a particularly pronounced effect on the near poor. For example, welfare reform propelled a lot of people into the labor market. Meanwhile, No Child Left Behind created a system of high-stakes tests for kids in the public school system. Nobody was thinking about what these two policies would mean when they collided behind the closed doors of a family. But in a family, these things are colliding all the time: the demand placed on parents to be in the labor market and the demand placed on kids to pass those high-stakes tests, which they're far less likely to do if parents aren't around to take them to the library, read to them, look over their homework. There are stories in the book about mothers who had been able to go to their kids' schools, couldn't go anymore, didn't realize they were falling off the deep end, and then that kid ends up on Rikers Island.

Is there more, or less, awareness today of the challenges facing the working poor than when you began your research?

There's greater recognition now that we actually have a population called the working poor. I think that attempts to beat back some of the more successful policy innovations, like the earned-income tax credit, have failed in part because there's recognition that these people exist, that they should be supported and that we need to do something about their health insurance. What I don't see is much attention to fostering mobility out of working poverty. We seem to feel that as long as we've taken people off public assistance, our job is done. But it isn't done--it isn't good enough in a country as wealthy as this to replace welfare-dependent poverty with working poverty.


Continued @ http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070813/press

The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America
Authors: Katherine Newman, Victor Tan Chen



An urgent examination of the lives of millions of hardworking Americans—neither poor nor middle class—who live without a safety net

The Missing Class gives voice to the 57 million Americans—including 21 percent of the nation's children—who are sandwiched between poor and middle class. While government programs help the needy and politicians woo the more fortunate, the "Missing Class" is largely invisible and ignored. Through the experiences of nine families, Katherine Newman and Victor Tan Chen trace the unique problems faced by individuals in this large and growing demographic—the "near poor"—who have transformed their lives through hard work and determination.

Newman and Chen explain where these families came from, how they've struggled to make a decent living, and why they're stuck without a safety net. The question for the Missing Class is not whether they're doing better than the truly poor—they are. The question is whether these individuals—on the razor's edge of subsistence—are safely ensconced in the Missing Class or in danger of losing it all. An eloquent argument for the need to think about inequality in a broader way, The Missing Class has much to tell us about whether the American dream still exists for those willing to sacrifice for it.

http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=1885

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. That would be my family's class, then. We consider ourselves middle class, minus the money

[girl gone mad]

2. I guess it depends in part on where you live.

40,000 wouldn't be a terrible income for a family in many parts of the country. It would be a disaster in NYC or much of California, though.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. We're closer to the 20,000 mark, but we own our trailer so that helps.

[AwakeAtLast]

4. $20,000-$40,000 includes almost all teachers.

At least those w/ less than 10 years experience. So the near poor are also white collar. Sheesh is this country in the crapper. :eyes:

[ikojo]

7. I seriously doubt that most experienced

teachers make $20k a year. Seriously doubt that. We've heard the hue and cry of the poor underpaid teachers. Yes, they are underpaid when compared to a corporate manager or corporate trainer, but teachers are hardly subsisting on food stamps. I know many people who work as teachers and they lead comfortable middle class lifestyles. They are able to send their kids to college and have a home. Maybe that home is not in the wealthy suburbs but for the most part the teachers I know do live in the burbs.

They are able to take nice vacations. The neighbor of one of my friends teaches in the City of St Louis schools, he and his wife go visit her family in Turkey once a year.

Truth be told, most kids leaving college will be lucky to make a job paying $40k a year immediately upon graduation.

A job ad for the BEGINNING salary for those interested in teaching in the St Louis Public Schools, a city public school system that recently lost its accreditation.

http://www.slps.org/humanresources/teacher.htm

Classroom Teachers: St. Louis Public Schools is looking for energetic, motivated people who LOVE working with CHILDREN. This includes college EDUCATION graduates and experienced teachers and counselors. We need certificated teachers and counselors in all subject areas pre-school through grade 12. Vacancies exist in MAGNET and REGULAR schools. Requirements: Bachelor’s Degree or higher, MISSOURI CERTIFICATION OR PROOF OF ELIGIBILITY FOR CERTIFICATION (COLLEGE LETTER). Terms of Employment: Ten-month basis. Beginning Salary $33,412. Applicants will receive salaries in conjunction with their degree and experience.

District benefits include: paid health, dental, and vision insurance, $30,000 term life insurance, tuition reimbursement (Parsons-Blewett Memorial Fund), annual sick leave/personal days, and a St. Louis Public Schools retirement plan.

http://www.ucityschools.org/vnews/display.v/ART/2007/06/04/46646951bcf39

This site lists the salary for beginning teachers as well as those with a bachelor's degree plus 30 hours. The University City School District serves a primarily black student body. U City is not as wealthy a suburb as is Clayton or Ladue MO. I suspect teachers in Clayton and Ladue make a wee bit more than do those in U City and the City of St Louis.

[AwakeAtLast]

9. Ummmm.....I've been teaching 10 years, just hit 35,000 pay scale

So those teachers with less experience in my district are making less. We had to fight tooth and nail to get that this year, too, after many years with NO RAISE!

Sounds like St. Louis is doing O.K. by their teachers, but that is definitely not the way it is in other places. Look at the Dakotas for goodness sake. Those teachers need at least a second job just to live.

I was only taking the numbers given in the OP, and found it interesting that I, as a teacher, fall into that category. And when you say that we are paid less than a corporate trainer or manager, who has the more challenging job? Who has more education?

Give me a break.

[TahitiNut]

5. 2005 - Median wage: $23,962, Average wage: $35,449

[DarkTirade]

6. Wait... are you saying... I actually exist?

Nifty. :)

[Robbien]

8. Thanks for posting the article. There is so little reporting on this issue

Thus the label missing class.