The Forgotten AmericansW. W. Norton & Company, 1993 - 219 Seiten Does the American Dream still exist when nearly 30 million Americans live in families in which workers find a paycheck and poverty in the same envelope? Just as Michael Harrington's The Other America shocked the nation with its disclosure of poverty in the 1960s, John E. Schwarz and Thomas J. Volgy's The Forgotten Americans exposes the breadth of poverty that exists today among responsible, hardworking Americans. At the end of the prosperous 1980s, the number of Americans living in working-poor families equaled the combined populations of the nation's 25 largest cities. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this situation is not largely confined to minorities, women, the undereducated or young adults. It is commonplace for workers from nearly all segments of society to be employed in low-paying jobs even during good economic times. The Forgotten Americans reveals the betrayal of the hopes and expectations of these industrious people through broad-based factual evidence and the real-life stories of individual families. Their hardship has been ignored at enormous cost to them and the country. Numerous problems at the forefront of national debate--welfare dependency, crime, and the inadequate performance of many American school children--are closely connected to the existence of working poverty on a large scale. Unless corrective action is taken, the country risks the creation of a deeply fractured society arising from the despair of millions of employed people who have discovered that practicing the work ethic yields little reward. The problem is staggering and often misunderstood by politicians, the media, and the public. Once Schwarz and Volgy have outlined the implications of this social and economic tragedy, they propose effective solutions that require simple changes to existing policies--solutions that are politically feasible and can be accomplished without new taxes. |
Inhalt
The American Ethos and the American People | 3 |
Two American Families | 16 |
Economic Selfsufficiency in Presentday America | 32 |
Americas Families American Workers and Economic | 53 |
Other Casualties of the Job Shortage | 92 |
A View from City Hall | 107 |
The Path of Action | 130 |
A Call for Action | 149 |
Appendix | 169 |
Bibliography | 199 |
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Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
150 percent 1988 elections academic skills adults afford American ethos American workers Anna assistance average Bartelles Basic Books basic necessities beneath self-sufficiency benefits Beth cities clothes cost Current Population Survey decent-paying jobs dollars Dukakis earnings economic development economy budget election employer employment enterprise zones Ernst family budget Family Income family of four federal full-time jobs fully employed Americans fully employed workers Gallup Gallup poll households housing Ibid incomes beneath increase Labor Lamberts large numbers living beneath low wages low-income manufacturing workers median ment minimum wage Mollie Orshansky nearly nomic nonvoters official poverty line parents Paul and Jane Paul Lambert Percentage Policy political poll poor Post National Weekly problem productivity proposal Robert Kuttner Sandra strategy supplements tax credits thrifty food U.S. Congress unable vote voters Washington Post West Germany white males workfare year-round full-time York
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