Referenced in Bob Herbert's column "Send in the Clowns" 10/6/2007:
Meanwhile, there are many millions of Americans who are not doing well, and the nation is not addressing their plight. Thirty-seven million Americans, many of them children, are officially classified as poor. What is not widely known is that another 57 million are struggling just one notch above the poverty line. This is spelled out in a new book, “The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America,” by Katherine Newman and Victor Tan Chen.
Near-poor Americans live in households with annual incomes of $20,000 to $40,000 for a family of four. They work at jobs that are highly unstable and offer few if any benefits. Many of their children would qualify for insurance coverage under the S-chip program that the president so coldly vetoed on Wednesday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/06/opinion/06herbert.html?hpFrom Publishers Weekly
In this compassionate and clear-eyed analysis, sociologist Newman and journalist Chen posit that the middle class gains of the 1990s have been imperiled by the recent rollback of New Deal–style government aid. Millions of Americans climbed above the poverty line at the end of the 20th century, but since then, the risk of falling back has grown substantially. This policy-oriented collection of case studies addresses the plight of the 57 million near-poor, a largely overlooked missing class just out of reach of public assistance. Despite decent wages, the authors argue, the near-poor are saddled with various burdens that keep them hovering one disaster away from outright poverty and put their children at high risk of sliding down the economic ladder. Drawing on interviews conducted from 1995 to 2002 with families and public service professionals in the New York area, the authors chart in alternately uplifting and dismal detail the distinct perspectives of several low-income households. While they don't address those entering the missing class from above and perhaps too easily extrapolate from their conclusions, Newman and Chen contribute significantly to the dialogue on America's widening inequities. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Although the poverty rate in the U.S. is the highest in the industrial world, there is a much larger segment of the American population that virtually no one pays attention to: the near poor. Fifty-seven million Americans live in this nether region, beyond the ranks of the "working poor," yet still struggling financially to maintain a decent standard of living. This is what the authors dub the "Missing Class." Through a series of profiles of families living on the financial edge, the authors demonstrate the challenges this group faces when it comes to housing, education, health care, and debt. Although this group has largely been left out of the rush to home ownership, these cash-starved households have proven to be cash cows for credit-card companies, whose biggest profits come from those who can only afford to make the minimum monthly payments. Too poor to enjoy the comforts of the middle-class and too wealthy to qualify for government assistance, the Missing Class is often trapped without a safety net. This revealing exposé gives voice to this growing segment of the population. Siegfried, David
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
