AMERICA AT RISK

THE CRISIS OF HOPE, TRUST, AND CARING

ROBERT PERRUCCI AND CAROLYN C. PERRUCCI

America at Risk
America at Risk
The Crisis of Hope, Trust,
and Caring

Robert Perrucci and Carolyn C. Perrucci

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

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Perrucci, Robert.
America at risk: the crisis of hope, trust, and caring / Perrucci, Robert, and
Carolyn C. Perrucci.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7425-6369-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7425-6370-4 (pbk. :
alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7425-6632-3 (electronic)
1. United States—Social conditions—1980– 2. United States--Economic
conditions—2001– 3. Social classes—United States. I. Perrucci, Carolyn
Cummings. II. Title.
HN59.2.P464 2009
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Printed in the United States of America

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For American workers
Contents

Preface ix
1 Diagnosis: How the New Economy Has Eroded Hope, Trust,
and Caring 1
2 Job Loss and Declining Wages 13
3 The American Dream Is Fading 33
4 Confidence in Institutions 53
5 Identity, Grievance, and Trust 73
6 Work, Family, and Caring 95
7 Forgotten Americans: The Poor, Homeless, Aged,
and Incarcerated 113
8 Confronting the Crisis 131

Notes 147
Index 157
About the Authors 161

vii
Preface: Why We Wrote This Book

This book is the latest effort in a thirty-year project to understand the most
significant transformation of American society since the Industrial Revolu-
tion. This transformation was first identified in an extended and systematic
way by Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison, in their The Deindustrializa-
tion of America, 1982, and has continued to develop with many unforeseen
consequences for all segments of American society. Our initial effort to
examine this transformation was in a study of plant closings in the mid- to
late 1970s, in Carolyn C. Perrucci, Robert Perrucci, Dena B. Targ, and Harry
R. Targ, Plant Closings: International Context and Social Costs, 1988, 2005.
The loss of jobs in the automobile industry and the movement of pro-
duction abroad were accompanied by increased foreign investment in the
United States, initially by the Japanese automobile industry. This devel-
opment was identified in Robert Perrucci, Japanese Auto Transplants in the
Heartland: Corporatism and Community, 1994.
As more and more high-wage, blue-collar jobs were lost to offshoring and
technological change, it became apparent that the U.S. class structure was
also changing, most significantly by the decline of the middle class. This
significant development was the subject of Robert Perrucci and Earl Wysong,
The New Class Society: Goodbye, American Dream?, 1999, 2003, 2008, which
serves as the foundation for our current book on the crisis in America. The
New Class Society described the emergence of a polarized society with a pros-
perous privileged class, a shrinking middle class, and an insecure working
class, with historically unprecedented disparities in income and wealth and
declining opportunities for improvement in job security, wages, and a better
life for the next generation. The cumulative impact of this polarized society
on the average American over the last thirty years or so has been the loss of

ix
x Preface: Why We Wrote This Book

hope for a better future, the decline in trust for our mainstream institutions,
and the declining support for government programs that express help and
caring for those who live on the fringes of society.
The far-reaching effects of economic change, technological change, and
organizational change extended to all levels and sectors of the workplace,
family life, and community life. We attempted to capture these develop-
ments in Carolyn C. Perrucci and Dena B. Targ, Marriage and the Family:
A Critical Analysis and Proposals for Change, 1973, and Robert Perrucci and
Carolyn C. Perrucci, The Transformation of Work in the New Economy, 2007.
Our concern in this book is to identify how the broad economic and
technological forces have changed the way Americans think about them-
selves, their future, and the lives of their children and neighbors. Although
not yet well understood, we believe what has occurred has been a change
in belief in oneself and a belief in social institutions that we have chosen to
refer to as a decline in hope, trust, and caring. We believe that hope, trust,
and caring are essential for healthy individuals and that a healthy society
creates conditions for their realization. Our central thesis is that hope, trust,
and caring are interconnected. The erosion of one leads to the erosion of
others, and an improvement in one can lead to improvement in others.
Thus, the solutions that we propose are designed to build hope (jobs and
wages) that can lead to greater trust of institutions and leaders and can
expand the spirit of caring for the less fortunate by reducing opposition to
government programs to help marginalized Americans. Our solutions also
try to encourage partnerships between citizens and government that can
create positive cycles of hope, trust, and caring.
This book was conceptualized in 2007, and as we worked on the book
throughout 2008, we often felt that the various candidates in the primaries
and election were peeking into our manuscript and using our ideas. The
election is now behind us, and this book is not specifically about the 2008
presidential campaign or Wall Street crisis, although both are relevant to
our argument. Rather, we draw on data and trends over the last thirty years
in America to focus on the loss of hope, trust, and caring more broadly, and
offer recommendations for change.

OUR APPROACH

The authors’ approach in this book is critical sociology, which has two distinc-
tive features: (1) a focus on the dominant economic, political, and cultural
institutions as the source of the main social problems afflicting Americans;
and (2) a belief that knowledge of the social world enhances consciousness
and stimulates human action to change society in ways that further human
fulfillment. Thus, we hope that our analysis of events over the last thirty
years will enlighten working Americans to see the institutional conditions
 Preface: Why We Wrote This Book xi

that have produced their present human condition and will motivate them
to act on behalf of their individual and collective interests.
The conditions that we identify as the source of social problems are also
the product of the values that we endorse. Although empirical research evi-
dence about social conditions is important for identifying social problems,
ultimately we rely on our value preferences to guide the selection of what
we present to the reader in this book. Our own values and preferences are
based on assumptions about what makes for a healthy human being and
a healthy society. In our view, healthy individuals must have resources to
meet their basic physical needs, and they must feel free of future insecurity
regarding those resources. Healthy individuals must be fully informed
about the policy decisions that affect their daily lives and they should have
the opportunity to express their views about policy in public meetings with
elected officials or in computerized referenda. Finally, a healthy society
encourages the development of individuals who will contribute to the well
being of other members of society.
Our approach also includes policy proposals that we believe can contrib-
ute to a healthy individual and a healthy society. The choice of these partic-
ular policies is also based on value preferences and a belief that these poli-
cies can help to shape social institutions that will better serve the American
people. Our view of the value preferences that can guide new social policies
was expressed in a January 11, 1944, message to Congress on the State of
the Union when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called for a second
Bill of Rights that proposed a new basis for security and prosperity:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms
or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy
good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness,
accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.

We thank anonymous reviewers for their comments and criticisms, and

especially Jack Niemonen for extensive and helpful comments on an earlier
draft. We thank our coauthors of other books, Earl Wysong, Dena Targ, Harry
Targ, and Lee Trachtman, for their indirect contributions to this work. Caro-
lyn Perrucci thanks Purdue University for a sabbatical leave for the spring
semester 2008. We also thank our editor, Alan McClare, for his support of the
project and contributions to its development, our associate editor Sarah Stan-
ton for helping us shape the final draft and guiding the project to comple-
tion, and Lynn Weber for her contributions as production editor.
1
Diagnosis: How the New Economy
Has Eroded Hope, Trust, and Caring

There is a strong feeling across the land that something is amiss in America.
You sometimes hear about these feelings when people discuss their con-
cerns about how the baby boom generation is going to bankrupt our social
security or Medicare programs, or about the growing size of the national
debt that will be paid for by future generations. Concerns about these pro-
grams are real and important, but they are often part of a deeper sense of
insecurity that Americans have about their future that are difficult to put
into words. In conversations with friends and casual acquaintances we
frequently hear them saying: Something is wrong with America, or This isn’t
the America I grew up in. I don’t recognize it anymore. Even solicitations for
money or requests for signatures on petitions from political organizations
begin with an angry phrase like: Let’s take this country back! Our country is run
by criminals and liars, the opposition party lacks a backbone, and the corporate-
controlled media gave up on reporting most real news a long time ago.1 Some may
respond to these charges by saying: So what’s new, Americans have always
grumbled about what’s wrong with their country. That’s probably true, but the
statement refers to experiences within the speaker’s lifetime. People have
been grumbling about conditions in America, and they have been doing
so with increasing shrillness, especially in the last thirty years. Something is
amiss in America. What is it? Can we begin to identify some of the symp-
toms of the collective angst that seems to plague America? We want to try
to answer some of these questions, so let’s begin.
Initially, let’s dismiss any crazy notions about why America is in trouble.
We don’t believe that America’s problems are due to any purposely de-
veloped plan by some malevolent group to bring down America. People
do conspire to harm those they dislike or to advance their interests, but

1
2 Chapter 1

they tend to do so on a much smaller scale. We think it is more useful

to search for the problems facing our country in its recent history, and in
its economic, political, and social institutions. The American people and
their collective institutions comprise an enormously complex society, or
what a French sociologist once called Le grand etre, The Great Being. And
although a society is not a living organism, it does, like all living things,
evolve and change in response to conditions in its environment. Observing
the evolutionary process for a human society is not a pretty sight, because
not everything changes in a smooth, consistent fashion. There are many
things that often seem out of sync—ideas or practices that are better suited
to an earlier time in a country’s history and just don’t work well today. A
sociologist named William Ogburn referred to this condition as cultural lag,
or the difficulty that people have in modifying their behavior to fit the new
conditions or the challenges facing governmental or social organizations
when trying to modify their practices to face new conditions. During the
twentieth century, American society experienced a broad range of changes
that have transformed social institutions and the way that people live. To
name some of the more obvious change agents: electricity, telephone, inter-
nal combustion engine, assembly line, television, air travel, nuclear energy,
heart transplants, cloning, computers, Internet, and on and on—all in the
last hundred years. These innovations have transformed the way people
work, who works, their family life, and they have generated new laws,
regulations, and social practices to adapt to the new innovations. But the
social adaptations have been messy, and they will continue to be messy. It
is this messiness that creates a condition of social strain in human affairs that
is the basis for what ails America. Wide-ranging scientific and technical in-
novations have transformed how people live within their lifetime, making it
especially difficult for people to adapt and for social institutions to change
rapidly enough to deal with time-based dislocations. In the past, change
was much slower, often occurring across generations, and thereby making
adaptation easier.
There are probably many conditions that can erode hope, trust, and
caring in a society. For example, an acute crisis like the 9/11 attack, or the
2008 Wall Street crisis can make people fearful and insecure about the
future. Another example would be how the traditional American value of
individualism can reduce a sense of caring and responsibility to help oth-
ers. However, our emphasis is elsewhere, namely, long-standing chronic
conditions that have gradually affected the social body and the American
spirit. We believe that the cumulative consequence of rapid social change
that has occurred over the last thirty years has exposed Americans and
their institutions to greater strain and has produced three outcomes that
are so potentially harmful that they have led us to claim that America
is at a critical juncture in its history. The three outcomes or products of
 Diagnosis: How the New Economy Has Eroded Hope, Trust, and Caring 3

rapid social change are latent, in that they lie below the level of immedi-
ate consciousness, but they are ever-present in shaping social life. To use
a medical metaphor, the three conditions act like low-grade chronic infec-
tions, and if left untreated, will produce continued decline in the health
and well being of persons and social institutions. We refer to these three
conditions as deficiencies in hope, trust, and caring. We believe that hope,
trust, and caring are necessary for a healthy human being and that they
are the vital signs of health. And we further believe that a healthy society
is one in which its institutions facilitate the experience of hope, trust, and
caring in its members.
We believe that the decline of hope, trust, and caring is the unanticipated
consequence of the major transformation over the last thirty years in the
kind of goods and services produced in America, in the technology that is
used in production, and in the people who are involved in the production
process. We call the composite of these changes the new economy. The new
economy made its appearance in the mid-1970s, beginning with the slow
but steady decline in the manufacturing sector of the economy. Although
production plants in the auto, steel, and textile industries were being
closed, no one seemed to notice because there was an expansion of jobs
in the service sector and a growing demand for people to fill professional,
technical, and managerial occupations. It took a while for people to realize
that most of the jobs that were being created were low-wage service jobs in
food preparation and service, janitorial services, hospital and nursing home
services, and retail sales. Workers in relatively high-wage, often unionized,
jobs, with pensions and health insurance, were being replaced by jobs with
little security and no benefits.
A second feature of the new economy is the expanded role of computer-
based technology in many different sectors of the economy, such as manu-
facturing, banking and financial services, customer services, and mid-level,
white-collar, paper-processing jobs. The new computer-based technology
had the benefit of increased productivity, which meant that more work
could be done with fewer workers. Aiding the use of computer-based tech-
nology were new innovations in telecommunications that made it possible
to communicate, coordinate, and control activities and people who were
working in geographically separated places. This provided the means for
the geographical dispersion of the production and delivery of goods and
services. American companies could now produce a car, a refrigerator, a
computer, or clothing in factories scattered around the globe using workers
from many different countries.
The third feature of the new economy is the use of new ways of or-
ganizing work and controlling workers. This change is reflected in the
increased use of self-directed work teams, whose members are cross-
trained to carry out each other’s tasks and are guided by continuous
4 Chapter 1

improvement goals requiring team members to work smarter and faster.

It also involves the use of nonstandard work arrangements based on
part-time and temporary workers. An additional aspect of the new work
organization is the use of computer-guided control of work flow and the
continuous measurement of individual productivity. For example, in a
plastic film plant that we recently studied, management used the practice
of making daily postings on bulletin boards of how much product had
been produced by each machine and each worker.2 Similar techniques
have been introduced into many data-entry jobs involving computers,
whereby operators are informed by their machines if their keystroke rate is
falling behind a set standard.3 This level of detailed monitoring is made
possible by the use of computer-based measurement of work flow. The
combined effect of these innovations in work organization resulted in
reduced job security and increased control of both blue-collar and white-
collar workers.
We describe these key features of the new economy as involving (1) global-
ization of production and distribution of goods and services, (2) computer-
based production technology and telecommunications, and (3) flexible
organization of work and workers. Let us examine further how each of these
new developments has changed American society.

GLOBALIZED PRODUCTION

Beginning in the mid-1970s, many countries whose industrial base had

been destroyed in World War II had recovered and were now competing
with U.S. firms. With many new players in the global economy, the U.S.
rate of economic growth slowed. Many firms responded to their declining
domestic profits by increasing their direct and indirect investment in for-
eign countries, thereby creating multinational subsidiaries of the U.S. par-
ent firm. One result of this shift in investment for multinational firms was
the realization of a higher rate of profit from foreign investments than for
domestic operations. This increased the attractiveness of foreign investment
for many U.S. firms.
In the pursuit of higher profit margins, the shift of investment to coun-
tries with lower wages, less regulation of industry, and nonunion environ-
ments resulted in the loss of millions of high-wage, unionized jobs held
by American workers. While manufacturing jobs were being lost, millions
of new jobs were being created in the service sector, where workers were
employed for fewer hours per week and at lower wages.4 The deindustrial-
ization of America had begun, and it would continue at an accelerated pace
into the twenty-first century through a variety of practices involving plant
closings, downsizing, and outsourcing work overseas.
 Diagnosis: How the New Economy Has Eroded Hope, Trust, and Caring 5

COMPUTERIZED PRODUCTION

The globalization of production could not have taken place without new
computer-based production and new telecommunications technology.
Computer-assisted design and computer-assisted manufacturing (CAD-
CAM) made it possible to produce products abroad with a new interna-
tional worker. Workers across the globe no longer needed high levels of
literacy or numeracy to work in manufacturing because of the “smart”
machines. The physical work and experience-based skills of the traditional
factory worker were no longer at a premium, and lower-skilled foreign
workers in factories around the globe who were not unionized and had
limited skill-based or market-based power to demand better pay and work-
ing conditions could now be employed as “machine tenders.” The skilled
worker with market-based power based on their scarce supply was now re-
placed by less experienced and skilled workers who are not in short supply
and thereby less powerful in their relations with employers.
The dispersal of production across the globe required the means to coor-
dinate and manage the activities of many people in different plants across
the globe. If General Motors was going to produce a “global car” from
components produced in Detroit, Mexico, and the Philippines, it needed
the means to oversee and manage these dispersed operations. Advances in
satellite-based telecommunications and computer information systems,
combined with CAD-CAM production, made it possible to build the en-
gines in Detroit, transmissions in Mexico, tires in the Philippines, and to
ship the products to yet another country for assembly into a finished auto-
mobile that could be sold in worldwide markets.
At the same time that computer-based work was eliminating jobs in the
United States, and deskilling the workforce, it also created demand for a
new class of “knowledge workers.” These college-educated engineers, com-
puter analysts, and technicians became the higher-wage “symbol analysts”
who were essential for developing and maintaining the new production
and telecommunications technology. These new college-educated techni-
cal professionals contribute to the growing income and wealth inequality
generated by the new economy.

FLEXIBLE WORK ORGANIZATION

The third feature of the new economy is a set of practices that give com-
panies greater flexibility in the type of workers they hire and in their work
arrangements.5 In the old economy there existed a “social contract” between
employer and employee that was the basis for job security; this “contract”
was a tacit agreement of continued employment for productive workers. In
6 Chapter 1

the new economy this agreement has been replaced by the continued pres-
sure on firms to be competitive in their prices, innovations, and services,
resulting in the use of corporate restructuring and downsizing that has
resulted in greater job insecurity for blue-collar and white-collar workers.
This insecurity was linked to the greater use of part-time and temporary
employees and increased efforts to increase work intensity through the use
of work teams. Although work teams may be more productive, they also in-
crease work intensity through the use of peer pressure and group discipline
and technical forms of control of the work flow.6
The new economy was accompanied by a new political philosophy about
the proper role of government in American life that has been referred to as
“neoliberal globalization.”7 This involves a reduced role for government in
regulating corporations and the economy and in assisting those Americans
who have been harmed by rapid economic change. For example, work-
ers who have lost jobs due to plant closures and global competition are
eligible for federal grants to support retraining or additional education
and extended unemployment benefits. The neoliberal view places greater
reliance on the market to solve problems and is more sympathetic to the
idea that individuals are responsible for their own success and failure in the
marketplace. Moreover, the neoliberal view believes that the new economy
provides greater opportunities and therefore the government should not
be in the business of worrying about winners and losers. While winners
and losers were being sorted out, the social safety net was being rolled up,
resulting in less government support for social welfare programs and public
services.
The replacement of government programs with individual responsibility
and market forces was the centerpiece of the neoliberal project, and it con-
tributed to the currently popular practice of “privatization,” which shifts the
provision of public services to private firms operating on a for-profit basis.
Examples of privatization are found in the area of public education, where
there is continuing interest in providing alternatives to public schools.
Edison School, Inc., a private sector school, enrolls over 50,000 students
in over 1,000 schools that are run on a for-profit basis. Other examples of
privatization of services from public to private providers are found in the
areas of state highways, social welfare services, child welfare systems, and
prisons. The governors of Pennsylvania and Indiana recently leased the
Pennsylvania Turnpike (514 miles) and the Indiana Toll Road (157 miles)
to foreign firms for seventy-five years in return for $12.8 billion for Penn-
sylvania and $3.8 billion for Indiana. The foreign firms will be responsible
for operating and maintaining the highway in return for the toll revenue.
Privatization of public services, from schools to highways, will seriously
damage the social safety net for poorer and more vulnerable Americans,
and it will threaten the job security of millions of public employees.
 Diagnosis: How the New Economy Has Eroded Hope, Trust, and Caring 7

Public services in areas such as education, transportation, fire and police

services, and town planning are provided to all citizens regardless of in-
come. In cases where such services cannot be publicly provided or financed,
government regulates them to guarantee quality service and fair use. The
erosion of public services and a shift to private free-market services has con-
tributed to a decline in the American people’s confidence in their political
institutions. Because of the decline in federal support for public programs,
many states and local governments are saddled with responsibilities that
they cannot afford without raising taxes. Thus, the expanded use of the
private sector to deliver public services will continue to cut into the avail-
ability and quality of services to Americans and their communities, and it
will undermine the unions that represent public employees and protect
their wages, health, and pension benefits.

THE NEW ECONOMY AND THE 2008 WALL STREET CRISIS

We view the 2008 financial crisis, including the subprime mortgage scandal
and the financial turmoil on Wall Street that affected the value of homes,
threatened business investment, and harmed the retirement savings of
millions of Americans, as the latest example of the failure of the “new
economy.” The unfolding of the new economy over the last thirty years
has sharply reduced the role of the manufacturing sector and sharply in-
creased the role of the service sector, including financial services. The 1980s
witnessed the growth of investment banks that became household names:
Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley, Goldman
Sachs, Citibank, Bank of America. At least four of these banks failed dur-
ing the crisis, but not before their CEOs and their upper-level management
took away millions in salary and bonuses. The growing importance of the
financial sector as the new producer of wealth led many political lead-
ers to believe that as long as the national economy was growing it didn’t
make much difference if the growth was coming from producing cars and
home appliances or creating new schemes for financial investments. What
many leaders failed to realize was that a truly healthy and vibrant economy
depends upon having average consumers (the “middle class”) who have
secure jobs and the expectation of growing wages. In short, the benefits of
economic growth and expanded wealth must be broadly shared. Painfully,
we have learned that the “smartest guys in the room” were wrong. How did
this happen? Here is our view of how this train wreck occurred.
During the last thirty years in the United States we have seen the largest
transfer of wealth from bottom income groups to the top 20 percent of
Americans. Year after year the income gap has widened between top and
bottom income groups. According to a 2005 study by the Economic Policy
8 Chapter 1

Institute, the after-tax income share of the top 20 percent of U.S. house-
holds had grown to 47.9 percent, which was almost as much as the share
of the bottom 80 percent.8 This historic transfer of wealth is seen most dra-
matically in a comparison of top corporate earners, like CEOs at large firms,
and average workers. In 1980 the average total CEO compensation was
forty-two times what average workers earned. In 1990 this ratio increased
to 107:1, and in 2005 it rose to 411:1. While CEO pay increased tenfold,
average annual incomes of production workers decreased slightly, while
minimum-wage workers experienced a 30 percent decrease.9
This transfer of wealth occurred under both Democratic and Republi-
can presidential and congressional control and was greatly facilitated by
government actions. In 1999, under the Clinton administration, Congress
repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, opening the way for banks to own other
financial institutions and to underwrite and trade mortgage-backed se-
curities. It also permitted the creation of lightly regulated “hedge funds,”
which served as investment vehicles for the superrich (investors with at
least $5 million of net worth). This Wall Street scheme extended the op-
portunity for banks, financial houses, Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae to buy
mortgages with money borrowed at low government rates and repackage
them for sale at higher interest rates. While congressional committees
responsible for oversight were either distracted or looking the other way,
the financial organizations were “cooking the books” to conceal how little
actual cash was behind all this leveraged investment. By December 2008,
Congress has provided a $700 billion package of loans and other support
for troubled banks and mortgage holders. All the major players—President
Bush, President-elect Obama, Senate and House majority leaders Reid and
Pelosi—and the mainstream media seem to be supportive of this plan to
transfer more money from the American taxpayer to bail out Wall Street.
Of course, the government had to do something to prevent a loss of
confidence in American financial institutions and a widespread collapse of
markets in the United States and around the world. But there were other
possibilities that might have used fewer taxpayer dollars and imposed
greater costs on the institutions that were responsible for the crisis. The
government’s plan does little to change the rules of the game that favor the
wealthy and privileged at the expense of working Americans.

ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK

Up to this point we have made the argument that the new economy has had
a negative impact upon most Americans and that it has affected their sense
of hope, their feelings of trust, and their expectation of caring in a time of
need. Let us now be more specific about what we mean by hope, trust, and
 Diagnosis: How the New Economy Has Eroded Hope, Trust, and Caring 9

caring and indicate how we will continue with our argument throughout
the remainder of the book.
First, Hope is a positive feeling or emotion that is based on an assess-
ment of one’s current life experiences in different venues such as family,
work, or community, and the expectation that the future will improve
these experiences. A person may have very negative feelings about a current
situation at home or at work but may expect an improvement in the fu-
ture, and thereby be hopeful. Similarly, the situation may be reversed, and
one may have limited hope because of current problems and diminished
expectations about what the future will bring. Feelings of hope or lack of
hope may extend beyond one’s personal situation to an assessment of what
the future may bring for one’s children, other family members, neighbors,
or associates at work. A feeling of hope might have little to do with one’s
personal situation or the situation of others, but may be based on a general-
ized optimism about one’s country. For example, a person may believe that
America is the kind of country where “anybody can become somebody.”
Thus, a general feeling of hope or hopelessness may be a composite of one’s
personal and future situation, expectations about what the future may hold
for others, and a general sense of optimism about the future.
In chapter 2 of this book we examine data from 1975 to 2007, describing
patterns of job loss and job growth in the changing occupational structure
in the United States. We focus on what has happened to wages in the past
thirty years, and what jobs have been eliminated and added to the work-
force. We also examine changes in job security and health and pension
benefits during the same period. We believe that most working Americans
are experiencing an erosion of hope because of over thirty years of growing
job insecurity. In chapter 3, we also examine the decline in the American
Dream, with special attention to the opportunities for upward mobility.
Special attention is devoted to the American educational system as a path-
way for mobility. The combination of job losses, wage stagnation, and
declining opportunity for upward mobility has also contributed to the dis-
appearance of the middle class in America and to a polarized society made
up of a “privileged class” of winners in the new economy and a much larger
percentage of losers in the new economy because of their insecure jobs and
limited income and savings.
Second, Trust is about relationships with others and can be divided be-
tween personal trust and generalized trust (chapters 4 and 5). Personal trust
is the belief that one’s family members, co-workers, or friends are truthful,
honest, and reliable. In short, they can be counted on to “do the right
thing” in their relationships with you. This may mean that they will fulfill
commitments and obligations based on blood ties or long-standing friend-
ship. Generalized trust is about what you expect from people in general, or
people in positions of authority who make decisions that affect your life.
10 Chapter 1

Do you trust the younger generation to be honest, hardworking citizens or

parents? Do you trust politicians to make policies that are in the best inter-
est of average Americans? Do you trust the police, newspapers, corporate
executives, and the Supreme Court? It is possible for a person to have high
levels of personal trust but very little generalized trust. This may happen
because of very strong familial or ethnic-religious ties, which produces high
trust among in-group members but low trust of the out-group.
In chapter 4 we focus on national poll data concerning Americans’
confidence in their institutions. We focus primarily on the loss of trust in
government, political leadership, and corporations. We trace the source of
this decline to the actions of government and corporations that led to mas-
sive job losses linked to free-trade policies. In chapter 5 we argue that the
decline in confidence in major American institutions has led to a search for
security in ethnic and religious groups, giving rise to greater mistrust among
groups and increasing concern over past and current grievances among
the groups. Declining job security and the opportunity for a better future
for individuals and families has contributed to increased competition for
scarce resources such as jobs and housing, creating a climate of suspicion
and distrust of members of different racial, ethnic, and religious groups. It
is probably also the basis for increased hostility toward recent immigrants,
especially illegal immigrants, for allegedly taking the jobs or threatening the
wages of other Americans.
Third, Caring is a combination of the desire to contribute to the well
being of others and the opportunity to act on those desires. Caring may be
expressed impersonally and indirectly, as in checkbook caring, or personally
through face-to-face efforts to assist others. People who write checks to sup-
port groups that assist the homeless or the poor are an important part of
the culture of giving.
Sometimes the importance of checkbook giving is dismissed as inau-
thentic or guilt-based; but what’s wrong with guilt if it results in helping
the less fortunate? Checkbook giving may at least reflect a recognition that
people must assume some responsibility for the consequences of their ac-
tion or inaction. Many people may have the desire to help others who are
less fortunate, but they lack the resources of money or time to act on those
desires.
In chapters 6 and 7 we focus attention on the declining opportunities for
Americans to adequately care for the young, the next generation expected
to carry the economic, political, and civic burdens of being productive
members of society. With a growing number of American families being
dual earners, there is a consequent decline in time available to parents to
be with their children at home and in the community. Only families with
sufficient financial resources can avoid being dual earners, or, if they are,
can purchase quality child care or the cultural and educational experiences
 Diagnosis: How the New Economy Has Eroded Hope, Trust, and Caring 11

that contribute to better child development. In addition to the growing

“time bind” of the contemporary family, there is the growing number of
single-parent families that put their children at greater risk. Finally, there
is the matter of the increasing importance of more and better education to
give children a chance for better jobs and a more secure future. This leads
us to examine the problem of parental involvement in their child’s school
activities and of large differences between resource-rich public schools and
resource-poor public schools. Caring for the next generation must be linked
to better schools for all children.

CYCLES OF HOPE, TRUST, AND CARING

One of the more interesting aspects of hope, trust, and caring is that they
are interrelated. People who lack hope because of job loss or job insecurity
are very unlikely to engage in behavior that reveals trust in other people or
institutions or to have attitudes and behavior that reflect caring for others.
Similarly, people who lack feelings of generalized trust are not very likely
to exhibit caring behavior toward others who are not members of their in-
group. And people who believe that they are “all alone out there” are not
likely to be very sympathetic to the needs of others or to exhibit attitudes
and behavior reflecting hope and trust. As a general principle of social life
we may say that people who lack belief in a positive future or who believe
that other people cannot be trusted or do not deserve caring are not likely
to exhibit any of these positive qualities in their relations with others, or in
their views of their social institutions.
Recognizing that hope, trust, and caring are interrelated is especially
important when we start to think about remedies to improve the lives of
Americans (chapter 8). For example, it may be technically and politically
feasible to develop strategies to improve hope by expanding public employ-
ment opportunities. But if the policy excludes Americans who believe that
they also are deserving of help, then hope will have been extended at the
expense of trust; that is, loss of trust in a political system that helps some
but not all who are deserving. Thus, when we begin to think about remedies
in chapter 8, we will be mindful of the way that hope, trust, and caring
can be part of an upward spiral of improvement, or a downward spiral of
continued decline.
2
Job Loss and Declining Wages

In the spring of 2004, several months before the presidential election that
pitted incumbent George W. Bush against John Kerry, a national poll re-
ported that almost two-thirds of Americans expressed concern that they
could lose their job because their employer might move that job to a for-
eign country. This poll happened to follow several high-profile articles in
the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal about senior IBM officials
discussing plans to move jobs in computer programming to foreign work-
ers in China and India. This practice came to be labeled as “outsourcing” in
the mainstream media, and some may have thought that the poll responses
were influenced by the well-publicized comments by IBM officials. But the
anxiety of the Americans answering the poll was probably also related to
their awareness of the fact that some 2.8 million manufacturing jobs were
lost between 2000 and 2003.1 The average American would have to have
been living in a cave not to be aware of what was happening to jobs of
American workers, especially in manufacturing. And they weren’t living in
a cave, because when they were polled about the economy in 2007, only
27 percent of Americans rated the economy as “excellent” or “good,” and
78 percent said the economy is “getting worse.” When they were polled
again in 2008 in a New York Times/CBS News poll, only 21 percent of the
respondents said that the overall economy is in good shape.2
What were the economic and political forces that changed the state of
manufacturing in the United States and made Americans so negative about
their job situation? How is it that after World War II manufacturing made
up 40 percent of the labor force, but in 2005 that share had slipped to 12
percent? Why is it that both Democratic and Republican candidates for
the presidency in 2008 seemed to be clueless about what has happened

13
14 Chapter 2

to American jobs? The politicians may not want to know what happened
because they played a central role in the demise of manufacturing, but the
answers are there for anyone interested in knowing the answers. In this
chapter we shall examine the American economy and what happened to the
jobs and wages of the average American worker in two thirty-year periods:
from post-WWII to 1975, and from 1975 to 2008.

POST–WORLD WAR II TO 1975: SOCIAL CONTRACT

In the early years following World War II, the United States was the domi-
nant economic and military power among the industrialized nations of the
world. This was due in large part to how and where the war was fought.
In the years before the United States entered the war, industrial capacity
was increased dramatically as the United States became the major supplier
of military hardware to those nations already at war with Nazi Germany.
But of greatest significance was the fact that the industrial nations of Eu-
rope—England, France, Italy, Germany, and the Soviet Union—were the
battleground for the war. Not only did they suffer millions of military and
civilian deaths but also their national industrial might and infrastructure
was destroyed as a result of the air and ground assaults undertaken by
both sides in the war. In the Far East, the once mighty industrial machine
of the Japanese nation suffered greatly from the millions of tons of bombs
dropped on the island, to say nothing of the effect of the two atomic bombs
dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
These war-torn nations lost the factories that would produce the con-
sumer goods for their people, and they lost a generation of young men
and women who would make up the workforce they would need to do
the work of rebuilding the nation. While the United States also suffered
significant military deaths (about 450,000), the women and men in the
civilian population were hard at work in the fields and factories producing
food and military equipment. After the war the industrial capacity of the
United States was shifted to the production of civilian goods. Many women
who had been working full time and part time during the war left the labor
force, but many remained to begin what would become a long-term trend
of working women. Many returning veterans were reabsorbed into the la-
bor force, but hundreds of thousands also used their GI benefits to enroll
in colleges and universities throughout the nation.
The postwar experience of many Americans, both veterans and nonvet-
erans, who embarked on new occupational careers and new educational
pursuits laid the foundation for what was to become a generation who
would build the American Dream of stable jobs, rising incomes, and
home ownership. It is important to note that not all Americans were en-
 Job Loss and Declining Wages 15

joying the new opportunities of the postwar world. Black Americans who
were veterans also had the benefits of the GI Bill, but in the late 1940s,
America was still a segregated society and black veterans could not attend
most institutions of higher education. They could use their educational
benefits to attend only historically black colleges that lacked the same
diversity of programs and career opportunities that were available to the
white GIs.
At the close of the war, there was concern that the U.S. economy could
not sustain the high level of production, profits, and employment that was
stimulated by war mobilization. The memory of the Great Depression and
a fear that it might return, with its high level of unemployment and stagna-
tion, led the United States to establish a new world economic system that
would maintain its economic, political, and military dominance. The post-
war geopolitical system of the United States was to provide extensive for-
eign assistance to the war-torn economies of Western Europe. The foreign
assistance policy known as the Marshall Plan provided $22 billion in aid
over a four-year period. This policy stimulated U.S. investment in Europe
and provided the capital for European nations to buy U.S. agricultural and
industrial products.
The dominance of American industry in the world economy was reflected
in its role as the major exporter of goods and services to other nations,
while importing very little from the rest of the world. This imbalance of
exports versus imports was due to the previously mentioned devastating
effects of the war on other industrialized countries. It would take years for
the Japanese and European nations to rebuild their industrial capacity and
to produce goods for their citizens and for export. In the meantime, the
United States would dominate the world economy through its control of
three-fourths of the world’s investment capital and two-thirds of its indus-
trial capacity.
The postwar system was the basis for U.S. growth and prosperity dur-
ing the 1950s, the 1960s, and the early 1970s. This period of general
economic expansion continued despite the Korean War in 1950–1953
and the U.S. war in Vietnam in 1965. This was also a period of strong
union activity and the establishment of what became known as a “so-
cial contract” between management and organized labor. This informal
agreement said that management would provide workers with stable
wage increases, pensions, health insurance, and paid vacations; in return,
workers provided high-productivity work performance, agreed-upon
work rules, and minimal disruption of the workplace in the form of un-
authorized strikes.
The clearest evidence that the social contract was working is the data on
income growth for all income groups in the country. An examination of the
income gains of each income quintile in the United States for the period
16 Chapter 2

1949–1975 indicates that all income groups realized income growth, and
that the highest rate of income growth was among the poorest 20 percent of
Americans.3 Clearly, these statistics indicate that economic growth during
this period was a case of “a rising tide lifting all boats.”
Some have argued that the gains of American workers during this period
were won at a very high price. After a period of labor militancy reflected in
local strikes and nationwide walkouts, a major labor-management accom-
modation was reached, which is described by Mike Davis as follows:

The 1950 contract [between the UAW and General Motors] with its five-year
no-strike pledge symbolized the end of the New Deal/Fair Deal cycle of class
struggle and established the model of collective bargaining that prevailed
until the 1980s. On the one side, the contract conceded the permanence of
union representation and provided for the periodic increase of wages and
benefits tied to productivity growth. On the other, the contract—by relin-
quishing worker protection against technological change, and by ensnaring
grievance procedure in the bureaucratic maze—also liquidated precisely that
concern for the rank-and-file power in the immediate labor process that had
been the central axis for the 1933–37 upsurge in auto and mass production
industries. As Fortune slyly put it at the time: GM may have paid a billion for
the peace . . . It got a bargain.4

According to this critical view of the postwar social contract, organized

labor became a major supporter of the postwar social order, and labor’s
commitment to businesslike collective bargaining left it ill-prepared for
the impact of technology and global competition that it was to face in
the 1970s.

FROM 1975 TO 1985: GLOBAL COMPETITION

The earliest warning sign indicating that the American economy was slow-
ing down was found in the changing balance of economic power among
industrialized nations. By the mid-1970s there was evidence of major im-
provements in the war-torn economies of Western Europe and Asia. The
U.S. gross domestic product was three times as large as the Soviet Union’s
in 1950, but it declined to less than twice as large; it was less than four
times the economy of Germany (down from nine times in 1950); and less
than three times that of Japan (down from twelve times in 1950). As all
these countries joined the United States in the production of goods for do-
mestic consumption, it could be expected that the rate of economic growth
in the United States would slow. The key questions were how much would
it slow and what would corporate executives and elected government lead-
ers do about it.
 Job Loss and Declining Wages 17

As annual corporate reports were released in the mid-1970s, it was clear

that profits were in sharp decline; they went from an annual return of about
15 percent in the early 1960s to below 10 percent after 1975. The increase
in global competition and the decline in corporate profits led to many dis-
cussions among corporate leaders, politicians, and the media about what
went wrong and what could be done to change direction. The search for
answers produced the following list of suspects.

1. In a version of blaming the victim, there was much discussion of the

undue influence of organized labor that imposed heavy costs on cor-
porations in the form of high-wage agreements and inflation-linked
wage increases. There was also the claim that union control of work
rules limited management’s ability to try new production innovations
to compete more effectively.
2. Another version of blaming the victim was the charge that American
workers had become too secure and they therefore lacked the work
ethic to compete in the global economy. American workers were often
compared to Japanese workers who were held up as the icon of the
committed worker.
3. The third suspect was the government with its new arsenal of regula-
tions that imposed excessive costs on corporations and that tied the
hands of management. Corporate executives complained about new
workplace standards required by the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA), and air and water pollution standards re-
quired by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

All of these criticisms laid the basis for attacks on organized labor and
on workers’ wages and for demands for relief from excessive government
regulation. They also provided the justification for corporate decisions to
close plants in the United States and move to low-wage countries with no
unions and few regulations comparable to OSHA and EPA. They also led
to expanded investment overseas, where profits from foreign investments
greatly exceed profits from domestic investments.
What political leaders or the media rarely discussed was the failure of
major U.S. corporations to respond to the increasing competition in the
areas of autos, steel, textiles, and electronics. American corporations failed
to follow the well-established management approach to competition, loss
of market share, and declining profits, like investing in more efficient tech-
nology and research and development in support of product innovations.
Instead of competing with foreign producers by strengthening the core
industries of manufacturing—autos, steel, textiles, and consumer electron-
ics—many of the largest U.S. multinationals embarked on a thirty-year
frenzy of increased foreign investment, mergers and joint ventures with for-
18 Chapter 2

eign firms, plant closings, downsizing the workforce, and outsourcing and
offshoring domestic production. By 1981, the United States “was importing
26 percent of its cars, 25 percent of its steel, 60 percent of its televisions,
tape recorders, radios, and phonographs, 43 percent of its calculators, 27
percent of its metal-forming machine tools, and 53 percent of its numeri-
cally controlled machine tools.”5 Imports from developing nations went
from $3.6 billion in 1970 to $30 billion in 1980.
We now examine how changing global competition and the actions
of corporations first impacted blue-collar workers, and later, white-collar
workers.

PLANT CLOSINGS AND CAPITAL FLIGHT

On December 1, 1982, an RCA television cabinet factory in Monticello,

Indiana, closed its doors and shut down production.6 The town with its
population of 5,000 people (the county had a population of 23,000) had
been home to RCA since 1946, and many of its workers had been with the
plant since the beginning. The 850 workers displaced by the closing were
members of Local 3154 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Join-
ers. The union had a successful record of negotiations with management
on wage issues, pension contributions, health care costs, and work rules.
But what can you do about a company that has decided to close its doors
and move production to another country? In the American system of law,
corporations have property rights, and they may choose to close down a
plant in one location and rebuild it elsewhere. But workers do not have a
right to their jobs in the RCA plant.
The initial response of workers was disbelief. Rumors of a plant closing
were believed by some to be a management ploy to extract concessions
from the union. But the company was not interested in negotiations; it sim-
ply stated that high manufacturing costs and foreign competition required
movement of production elsewhere. Worker reactions to the closing were
varied, ranging from despair and anger to confidence that they would find
another job. Many of them were strengthened by the fact that they were
solidly “middle class” workers who owned a home (along with the bank),
had cars, recreational vehicles, small boats for fishing, and took vacations
with their families.
What they didn’t realize is that they were part of a decade-long rash of
plant closings in a wide range of industries and that they would not be
able to find another job in that same industry. What was disappearing was
not just a plant or a job; an entire industry was either being eliminated or
reorganized with a sharply reduced workforce. Between the late 1970s and
 Job Loss and Declining Wages 19

the mid-1980s, more than 11 million workers lost their jobs because of
plant shutdowns, relocation of facilities to other countries, or layoffs. The
experiences of displaced workers were quite varied according to their sec-
tor of employment. Job loss was greatest for operators in manufacturing
and those in mining and construction. Reemployment was highest among
younger workers (<55) and lowest among workers who were displaced
from jobs in manufacturing. When displaced workers found new jobs it
was often in a sector with lower wages and no benefits and was often tem-
porary or part-time employment. As we shall see in the next section, job
loss among white-collar workers resulted in their own pattern of difficulties
with reemployment.
During this decade of plant closings and worker displacement, direct
investment abroad by U.S. corporations increased sharply. In 1970, di-
rect investment abroad by U.S. firms was $75 billion, and it rose to $167
billion in 1978. In the 1980–1985 period, it remained below $400 bil-
lion, but it would continue to increase to a level of $716 billion by 1994.
Foreign investment reached such high levels that by the mid-1990s the
hundred largest multinational corporations would report anywhere from
30 percent to 68 percent of their total revenue from foreign sources.7
American corporations were maintaining their profit margins by in-
creased investment in affiliates abroad and by mergers and acquisitions,
rather than investing in domestic production of autos, steel, and textile
companies.
Building production facilities in foreign countries was made possible by
extraordinary technological developments in computer-assisted design and
manufacturing (CAD-CAM) and computer and satellite-based telecommu-
nications systems. These innovations made it possible to have a spatially
decentered firm, or a company that could produce a product with compo-
nents manufactured in plants located in five or six other countries and then
assembled at a single location for distribution and sale. The home head-
quarters of a global company could coordinate, via telecommunications,
all the geographically dispersed activities of research, development, design,
production, and sales decisions that go into making and selling a product.
These innovations also made it possible for multinational firms to think
about the existence of a global division of labor rather than being limited
to workers in the home country.
Provisions in the corporate tax code also encouraged foreign investment
by U.S. companies. Corporate profits made overseas are taxed at a lower
rate than profits from domestic operations, and sometimes no taxes are
paid until profits are returned to the United States. Thus, U.S. firms can
amass significant profits and avoid taxes by continuing to reinvest their
profits in overseas operations.
20 Chapter 2

1985 TO 1995:
AUTO TRANSPLANTS, DOWNSIZING, AND NAFTA

Although corporations continued to move production abroad and to invest

in overseas operations, two major events in this decade would have sig-
nificant impact on American workers. The first event was the competition
among states and communities that were hard hit by plant closings and
substantial job losses to try to attract new companies and jobs. Several of
the so-called Rust Belt states like Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois were drawn
into competing to attract new industry, and the big prize at the time was
Japanese auto assembly plants.8 The 1980s was a time when the number
of imports of Toyota and Honda cars was expanding and was having a
significant impact on the sales of autos produced by the Big Three (GM,
Ford, and Chrysler). The White House and Congress were considering
establishing quotas on the number of autos imported into the United
States, but there was concern that this form of protectionism might lead to
a trade war between the United States and Japan. An alternative idea was
to encourage the Japanese to build auto plants in the United States and
produce cars for the domestic market. The Japanese liked this idea because
they feared that Congress might set quotas on imports under pressure from
the Big Three and the United Auto Workers union that had experienced
major job losses in the auto industry. The Big Three and the UAW liked the
idea because they thought this would level the playing field between the
Japanese and American auto manufacturers. American auto executives and
union leaders believed that the Japanese production efficiencies in Japan
were the result of having a workforce that was more easily intimidated by
their management and more willing to accept work rules and work pressure
that American workers would never accept. American auto executives also
believed that when the Japanese had to build cars with American workers
and pay U.S. wages and benefits, they would no longer have a competitive
advantage. What American leaders failed to understand is that Japanese
production methods were able to produce higher quality cars with long-
term reliability and that these methods would be brought to and applied
in the United States.
So the Japanese said “yes,” they were willing to build auto assembly
plants in the United States, and the competition began in earnest among
the states to get Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi, and Subaru-Isuzu to
choose them for their plant site. And how did they compete? They did so by
offering Japanese companies “incentive packages” filled with taxpayer sub-
sidized “goodies” like preparation of the land site with road improvements
and utilities, property tax waivers, worker training costs, and even funds for
special educational programs for the children of Japanese executives. The
state of Kentucky, for example, provided Toyota with about $200 million
 Job Loss and Declining Wages 21

in incentives, including $12.5 million for purchase of land, $20 million to

prepare the land for site plant construction, $47 million for road improve-
ments, $65 million for worker training, and $5.2 million for special educa-
tional needs of Japanese families.
The Toyota-Kentucky incentive package was repeated with local varia-
tions in Ohio (Honda), Michigan (Mazda), Illinois (Mitsubishi), Tennes-
see (Nissan), and Indiana (Subaru-Isuzu). A total of more than 1 billion
“incentive package” dollars was put up front to secure Japanese auto plants
in six Midwest states. For the 1,000 to 2,000 workers who would be hired
to work in these new plants, the money for the incentives would seem
like money well spent. And it would certainly be seen as a good idea for
the business community that benefits from growth, especially the banks,
lawyers, land developers, and realtors who would facilitate the new growth-
related business that would follow the transplanted company.
Obviously, there are economic benefits associated with growth, but ben-
efits for whom? Nobody asked the people in the communities where the
Japanese plants located whether they thought that it was a “good deal” to
spend more than $50,000 of taxpayers’ money for each new job that would
be created. No one asked the local citizens if they would prefer to spend the
tax dollars in different ways, such as helping local small businesses to start
up and expand or to provide tax incentives to start up U.S. companies.
You are probably thinking, what difference does it make if the 2,000 new
workers are working for the Japanese or American companies? It makes a
difference that the Japanese plants are not union plants. It makes a differ-
ence that the Japanese plants pay about one-half the wage-benefit package
as U.S. unionized auto plants. This puts downward pressure on all wages
in a region and undercuts efforts to unionize workers in any industry. Yes,
union plants force employers to pay more in wages and benefits, which is
why strong unions help build a middle class with job security and wage
increases. An additional difference is that a foreign company does not
produce the entire vehicle in the United States. A GM plant is more likely
to produce the entire vehicle—body, transmission, electronics, etc.—in the
United States, but the Japanese produce their high-value-added compo-
nents like the drive train and electronics in Japan. This means that General
Motors employs more highly paid and skilled engineers, designers, and
technical professionals in the United States to produce their cars, while the
Japanese employ mainly lower-wage auto assembly workers. Finally, the
Japanese firms take their profits back to Japan for further investment, while
GM invests its profits, if it ever makes any, in the United States.
The end result of this effort to “level the playing field” by requiring the
Japanese to build plants in the United States was a steady decline in the sale
of autos produced by GM, Ford, and Chrysler and growth of the share of
the auto market going to Japanese auto firms. By 2007, Toyota would, for
22 Chapter 2

the first time in auto sales history, sell more cars than were sold by General
Motors. As the U.S. auto industry continued to lose market share, it would
respond by cutting jobs held by the still unionized, but much smaller,
United Auto Workers and moving production to lower-wage areas.
The second major event affecting American workers between 1985 and
1995 was the practice of “downsizing,” or slimming down the workforce in
order to save money. After a decade of success (1975–1985) in closing U.S.
plants, shifting production and investment abroad, and cutting both labor
and labor costs (both the number of production workers and wage-benefit
packages), major corporations now turned their attention to saving money
by cutting white-collar employees. When Sears, Roebuck and Company an-
nounced that it would cut 50,000 jobs in the 1990s, the value of its stock
increased, to the delight of Sears’s stockholders. Cutting jobs and reducing
waste became the new way companies would become “lean and mean” and
improve their profit margins. Every month seemed to carry a new downsiz-
ing decision: Tenneco Incorporated would cut 11,000 of its 29,000 employ-
ees; Delta Airlines would cut 18,800 jobs; Eastman Kodak chipped in 16,800
cuts; AT&T announced 40,000 cuts; and IBM got into the game with an an-
nouncement that it would cut 180,000 jobs between 1987 and 1994.
Not to be outdone, even the upscale financial sector joined in with down-
sizing plans. A rash of bank mergers resulted in new “efficiencies,” mean-
ing that they would reduce payrolls. For example, when Chase Manhattan
Bank acquired Chemical Banking Corporation in a merger, both banks
announced job cuts of 12,000 employees. The downsizing bandwagon was
fed by a desire for real efficiencies and by the need to show stockholders
that management was serious about eliminating “fat” and waste.
Downsizing took its greatest toll on better-educated and better-paid
workers who were classified as middle managers and supervisors. Just as
blue-collar workers felt the impact of new production technology in the
1975–1985 decade, white-collar workers found themselves replaced by new
computer-based data management systems and computer-based surveil-
lance systems that could oversee clerical workers and data-entry workers.
The new technology increased overall productivity without adding more
employees.
The downsizing efforts of this decade, combined with the job losses in
manufacturing in the previous decade, led to a new way that corporations
began to think about their employees. Some workers were viewed as part
of the “core,” meaning that they possessed the skills, knowledge, and expe-
rience that were essential to profit-producing operations of the company.
Being in the core is not the same as being in an occupational group; for ex-
ample, some engineers will be in the core and some will not. Some depart-
ments are in the core, and some are not. For example, the human relations
department is important in a company, but it does not contribute to core
 Job Loss and Declining Wages 23

functions that lead to profits. If a plant must cut costs, it is more likely to
look for savings in human relations than in production or sales. Being in
the core means that the work performed is essential to the profit-produc-
ing functions of the firm. The job security of core workers is linked to the
existence of a group of “temporary workers” who are hired and released
according to product demands and sales. The company not only makes no
commitment to “temps” but also it may have a different wage and benefit
package for them.
The Japanese auto plants in the Midwest that we discussed above also
made effective use of differentiating between core and temporary employ-
ees. For example, an auto plant with 2,000 production workers would
make “no layoff” commitments to 1,200 “core” workers and then hire 800
temporary workers through a national temporary worker agency like Man-
power, Inc. If sales decline and auto inventories increase, the temporary
workers are laid off while the core workers remain.
Joining the “core” and “temp” workers are “contingent workers,” who
are a mix of part-time employees and independent contractors. Contingent
workers are usually hired through a temp agency and they may include
production workers, clerical, engineers, computer specialists, and lawyers.
They are usually employees of the temp agency that contracts them to com-
panies for short-term, specific jobs. Contingent workers and temp workers
probably harbor the hope that the company will recognize their value and
will keep them in permanent positions. This often leads such workers to be
“overperformers” and unintentionally serve as a means to intimidate core
workers to give their best.
The final “nail in the coffin” of lost working-class jobs was the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993. This legislation, which
was supported by President Bill Clinton and a majority of both houses of
Congress, was championed by political leaders as leading to “free trade”
between the United States, Mexico, and Canada and as creating more jobs
in the United States because of a growth in U.S. exports. Unfortunately, the
main thing that was exported was more U.S. jobs to Mexico. NAFTA also
allowed for the creation of Export Processing Zones (EPZ) in Mexico right
across the border from the United States. The plants that were built in the
zone were called maquiladora plants, and they were given very favorable
tax agreements in return for producing goods that were for export only.
It is worth remembering that in the 1992 presidential election that pitted
Bill Clinton against George H. W. Bush, there was a third-party candidate
named Ross Perot who was very concerned about U.S. companies shipping
jobs overseas. One of his favorite lines in his campaign speeches was to re-
fer to the “giant sucking sound of jobs leaving the country.” The corporate
elite and the political elite were not happy with Perot’s message, and the
mainstream media helped the elite’s “free trade” agenda by giving Perot
24 Chapter 2

the persona of a quirky, eccentric millionaire who was trying to buy the
presidency because he had nothing better to do with his money. Perot was
eccentric, and he was a millionaire, but he also had a message that many
Americans heard. In the 1992 election Perot received an astounding 19
percent of the popular vote, which is unheard of for a third-party candidate
in a presidential election. What Ross Perot achieved with his presidential
run was not a change in U.S. trade policies but probably the election of
Bill Clinton, because many of the votes that Perot received probably would
have gone to Bush. Perot was undoubtedly correct about the “giant suck-
ing sound,” because economists estimate that in the years 1994 to 2003,
NAFTA led to the loss of over 900,000 U.S. jobs to Mexico.9
Although millions of jobs were lost due to plant closings in 1975 to
1985 and downsizing and NAFTA in 1985 to 1995, this fact was often hid-
den from public view by the media because of the steady growth of new
jobs during the latter part of the 1990s. One of the frequently mentioned
achievements of President Clinton’s second term was job growth and the
historically low unemployment rate. However, what was rarely mentioned
was the fact that most of the jobs that were created were in the low-wage,
no-benefits service sector that were hardly comparable to the wages and
benefits of the manufacturing jobs that were shipped overseas. And as for
the low unemployment of 4.3 percent, as with every unemployment rate
it failed to report on part-time workers who want full-time work or on dis-
couraged workers who have stopped looking. If these workers were added
to the mix, the 4.2 percent unemployment rate would be 7.5 percent.10

1995 TO 2008: OUTSOURCING JOBS OFFSHORE

The final arrow in the corporate quiver of how to reduce jobs and wage
costs is “outsourcing,” and it surfaced as a prominent strategy in the last
decade. Outsourcing was facilitated by the Internet, which made it possible
for computer-mediated tasks to be conducted by persons in many different
geographical locations. The type of work that is most frequently outsourced
is that done primarily in customer service call centers and work by skilled
programmers.11 Outsourced call centers are especially attractive in India,
where college-educated, English-speaking young women and men can be
employed for a fraction of comparable U.S. costs.
The interest in Internet-linked programmers from India, China, or East-
ern Europe is based on a belief in the high quality of their computer train-
ing, and especially in the wage comparison between the countries. One
estimate places the cost of a programmer in the United States at $80,000
a year on average, compared with $20,000 or less in India.12 However, it
should be recognized that the decision to outsource the technical work of
 Job Loss and Declining Wages 25

engineers or programmers is based on more than wage differential. Some

projects require face-to-face meetings, and Internet-linked programmers or
engineers may not be the best choice. Finally, wage differentials may not
be large enough to offset the costs of building a new facility in China or
India, in transportation costs for supplies or completed products, or in the
availability of parts suppliers for certain products.
Many companies also outsourced work without sending the jobs over-
seas. For example, suppose an IBM facility has a maintenance department
that is responsible for cleaning and upgrading physical facilities like offices,
lunchrooms, meeting rooms, and restrooms. As employees in the mainte-
nance department they probably are eligible for the same benefit package
as other employees. If, however, IBM chooses to outsource the mainte-
nance functions to XYZ Cleaners, it can eliminate this group of employees
and avoid paying their social security and any other benefits. Even if the
number of employees remains the same, the wage-benefit level and job
security of XYZ employees might not be comparable to what they had at
IBM. A great many large companies have probably outsourced jobs to other
companies within the United States, but detailed data on such practices are
hard to obtain.

THIRTY YEARS OF JOB LOSS

AND DECLINING WAGES: CONSEQUENCES

The result of over three decades of plant closings, shifting investment

abroad, downsizing, and outsourcing by America’s largest and most well-
known corporations has had both intended and unintended consequences.
The intended consequence was to increase profits, increase productiv-
ity, and to remain competitive. Each individual corporation did what it
thought was rational for the company and its shareholders. But the com-
bined consequences of these individually rational corporate decisions pro-
duced the profound unintended consequence of dramatically shrinking the
middle class in America. The erosion of middle-class jobs with good wages,
security, and benefits left in its place a society made up of a privileged class
of owners, corporate executives, managers, and professionals (20 percent
of Americans), a shrinking class of skilled, middle-income workers (20 per-
cent), and a new working class of Americans (60 percent) with fewer skills,
insecure jobs, low wages, and no pensions or health insurance.
Table 2.1 provides a picture of how the economic class structure of the
United States has changed over the last thirty years. The table divides the
population of the United States into five quintile groups ranging from the
top 20 percent to the bottom 20 percent and reports the share of national
income received by each quintile group in 1974 and 2004.13
26 Chapter 2

Table 2.1. Share of National Income by Quintiles of Population

Percent Change
1974 2004 in Shares
Top 20% 40.6 47.9 18%
Second 20% 24.1 23.0  3%
Third 20% 17.6 15.4 11%
Fourth 20% 12.0 9.6 19%
Bottom 20% 5.7 4.0 26%

The top 20 percent received almost half (47.9 percent) of national in-
come in 2004, and the second 20 percent received a little more than its
share (23 percent). All other income groups received less than their share
of national income. Only one group, the top 20 percent, experienced an
increase in their share of national income (18 percent) while the other four
groups experienced declines ranging from a loss of 3 percent to a loss of
26 percent.
Thirty years of job loss and wage stagnation have produced a high level
of income inequality and wealth inequality between the top 20 percent of
Americans and everyone else. Finally, it produced trade deficits at historic
levels, making the United States a debtor nation, because we import more
goods from the rest of the world than we export to them. The value of
imports from other nations was $3.6 billion in 1970. By 2004, the deficit
reached a record high of $617.7 billion; $75.2 deficit with Japan, $162
billion with China, $45.1 billion with Mexico, $68.5 billion with Canada,
and $110 billion with the European Union. Multinational corporations in
the United States that had built plants and invested overseas were the big
winners from this trade deficit because they were producing goods made
by low-wage foreign workers and shipping them back for sale in America.
And they did it with the full approval and support of several presidents and
members of several Congresses with bipartisan support.
Discussion of trade deficits is usually presented to suggest that the United
States is importing goods from other countries like Mexico or China and
that we are competing with foreign producers of products for American
consumers. That is true in part, but it doesn’t tell the entire story. The cal-
culation of trade deficits identifies the geographic source of imports, not the
ownership of the company that is producing the imported products. So, the
$162 billion of imports from China in 2004 actually includes imports from
U.S.-owned firms that are producing goods in China and exporting them
to the United States. The U.S. Department of Commerce reports that 47
percent of consumption imports were “related party trade,” which means
“trade by U.S. companies with their subsidiaries abroad as well as trade
with U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies with their parent companies.”14
 Job Loss and Declining Wages 27

Thus, a major part of our trade deficit comes from U.S. companies produc-
ing goods in other countries and exporting them for their subsidiaries or
for U.S. consumers. As the comic strip character Pogo once said, “We have
met the enemy and it is us.”
Most members of the privileged class benefited greatly from the global
economy and the actions of multinational firms to increase profits by in-
vesting and producing in countries other than the United States. The aver-
age American also was supposed to have benefited from foreign imports
because the products that were imported and sold in the big retail stores
like Wal-Mart cost less, and it kept the cost of living for Americans low.
However, what the new working class received was greater job insecurity,
reduced wages and salaries, fewer benefits in the form of pensions and
health insurance, and no prospect that things might improve in the future.
Do you think the average American would rather have a secure job with
good wages or a sweatshirt that costs less than if it was produced in a textile
mill by American workers in South Carolina?
We now describe this new class structure in more detail, because it is
essential to an understanding of how events in the last thirty-plus years in
America led to a decline of hope, trust, and caring, which we believe are es-
sential for a healthy individual and a healthy society. In America today, the
class position of a family is based primarily on income, wealth, and educa-
tion, especially the source of education. Occupation is also important, but
entry into high-paying occupations is usually linked to higher education,
and one’s occupation is worth a whole lot more if you obtain your training
from an elite school such as Yale, or Princeton, or Harvard, rather than an
obscure state college or university.15 For example, if your law degree is from
an elite university you are more likely to become employed in a national
law firm with a six-figure salary.16 People with high incomes, accumulated
assets, and a quality education are likely to be members of the “privileged
class.” They are in the privileged class because they have stable and secure
resources that are found in four types of capital: consumption capital, or
income; investment capital, or stocks, bonds, and savings; skill capital, or
specialized training attained through experience or education; and social
capital, or networks of family, friends, and school-related ties. This class
contains about 1 to 2 percent of the population who are owners of large
businesses, earning six- and seven-figure incomes. It also includes about 13
to 15 percent who are mid- and upper-level managers and CEOs of corpora-
tions and public organizations, who also have six- and seven-figure salaries.
And there are about 4 to 5 percent who are doctors, lawyers, academics at
elite universities, and finance analysts with credentials from highly ranked
colleges and professional schools. Altogether, people in this class account
for about 20 percent of Americans, and they all have incomes ranging from
$100,000 a year to upper six figures (in 1969 only 4 percent of Americans
28 Chapter 2

had incomes in excess of $100,000). In 2004, the total income of this top
20 percent (top quintile) of Americans accounted for almost 48 percent of
all income. This means that the total value of income earned by the top
quintile of Americans was about equal to the total income earned by the
remaining 80 percent of Americans.17 While members of the privileged class
are similar because of their substantial economic resources, they may be
more heterogeneous on cultural values and their views on social issues like
abortion, gun ownership, or the death penalty.
While this privileged class was growing in numbers and accumulating
more income and wealth, middle-income Americans—the “middle class”—
were declining. In 1969, middle-income Americans ($25,000 to $49,999 a
year) made up 41 percent of the population, but that number declined to
27.2 percent in 2002.
Members of the privileged class also control a great deal of wealth, and
the degree of wealth inequality is far greater than income inequality. Wealth
is the total value of what people own, such as stocks, bonds, 401(k) ac-
counts at work, and homes, minus debt such as mortgages, car loans, and
credit cards. In 2001, the top quintile of Americans held 66 percent of total
wealth (financial assets plus real estate), while the bottom four quintiles
(80 percent) had 33 percent of wealth. If you exclude real estate and look
only at financial assets (stocks, bonds, etc.), the top quintile controls 93
percent of financial wealth and the remaining 80 percent of Americans
control 7 percent.18 The reason for the big difference between total wealth
and financial assets is that the wealth of most Americans is contained in the
value of their homes.
Middle-income, working-class Americans (20 percent of the population)
are not entirely homogeneous when it comes to income or their social
and cultural beliefs. At the top of this class are skilled workers like nurses,
schoolteachers, civil servants, carpenters, machinists, electricians, and own-
ers of very small businesses. Their incomes are usually between $35,000 and
$50,000 (a $20-per-hour job yields $40,000 a year) and some may earn more
because of overtime opportunities. Some in this group may have a higher
family income ($60,000 to $70,000 a year) because many are dual earners,
with a spouse who has a part-time or full-time job. Some in this group may
still have the protection of a union contract, but what they all have as their
source of security is that there is a labor market for their skill. For example,
nurses may have more security than machinists because health care is more
difficult to outsource. But security for all in this group is tenuous because we
know that many skilled jobs in the 1980s and 1990s were lost due to new
technology that displaced workers or made it possible for less-skilled work-
ers to do their jobs. Since the skill is embedded in the new technology rather
than in accumulated work experience, these jobs can always be outsourced to
less-educated and less-skilled workers in low-wage countries.
 Job Loss and Declining Wages 29

Located just below skilled workers are the vast number of less-educated
and less-skilled wage earners in clerical and sales jobs, personal services,
transportation, food services, and machine operators and assemblers. They
make up about 60 percent of the workforce. Members of this group are high
school graduates and dropouts, and increasingly, graduates of community
colleges or four-year colleges who are unable to find better job opportuni-
ties and have been forced into the lower-wage earner group. Incomes for
wage earners are in the minimum wage to $15 per hour range ($20,000 to
$35,000 per year).
Very few members of the middle- and lower-income groups in the work-
ing class have anything resembling wealth. A few have a defined-benefit
pension plan that is provided by the employer, but these pension plans are a
thing of the past and rarely found in today’s workplace. The most successful
may have been able to buy a home, but they probably still have a mortgage.
Some may have enough discretionary income, or have a working spouse,
to have started a 401(k), but most accounts will have modest assets.19 Only
the most affluent Americans have enough surplus income to amass enough
savings in such accounts to enable them to accumulate wealth over their
life span. They are members of the working class because they have limited
and insecure resources found in their income, investments and savings,
credentialed skill or education, and social connections.
The experience of working-class Americans over the last thirty years has
been like a dagger thrust into the heart of hope. The erosion of hope started
with the wave of plant closings that began in the late 1970s, and workers
who were caught up in this dramatic shift away from the post–World War
II “social contract” could hardly comprehend what was happening. After
working for the same company for years they woke up one morning to
find out that the company was gone, that it “moved.” Workers may lose
their jobs, and companies sometimes went out of business, but they didn’t
just up and move. There is a difference between a situation where some
workers are losing their jobs when the company is still operating and all
workers losing their jobs because the plant has closed and moved opera-
tions overseas. The reactions of the first wave of displaced workers that we
interviewed in the early 1980s reveal responses that capture exactly what we
mean by the loss of hope, trust, and caring. Consider the following com-
ments of a twenty-six-year-old divorced woman reflecting upon her experi-
ence with becoming a displaced worker following a plant closing.20

I have taken a lot of jobs since I lost my job at RCA. And I have found that
there is little I can do for the experience and education I have. Waitressing is
not my lifelong dream but I can find a job in that field better than any other,
so I have to do what I have to do. I have no benefits and future and no light at
the end of the tunnel. You survive and grow old with nothing to show except
30 Chapter 2

varicose veins and a smile from those who say “girl get me this” and “I thought
you went home you took so long.” Only four or five tables who want your
undivided attention at the same time. And a government that gets 8 percent of
the meager $2.00 per hour I get.

And a comment by a forty-five-year-old married man.

We are down to rock bottom and will probably have to sell the house to live or
exist until I find a job here or somewhere else. I have been everywhere looking
in Cass, White and Carroll counties. We have had no help at anytime except
when NIPSCO was going to shut the utilities off in March and the trustee paid
that $141. My sister-in-law helps us sometime with money she’s saved back
or with food she canned last summer. The factories have the young. I’ve been
to all the factories.

These two displaced workers are pretty much running on empty when it
comes to hope. But the effect of losing your job in a plant closing extends
beyond a loss of hope; it also involves a loss of trust in basic social institu-
tions and extreme cynicism about other people. Consider the following
comment by a thirty-two-year-old married woman who was displaced by
a plant closing.

I personally believe that our country’s problems lay with the dishonest per-
sons. From the man drawing a paycheck without service given, to lawyers and
Congress holding things up, stretching them out, which takes big dollars from
people and business. There seems to be 1,001 middlemen in business and
government and unions causing outstanding overhead. Agencies, like welfare,
so big they lost track of people. They play with paper and machines and we
are getting ripped off. The good old lying, cheating, drug-drunk bug is what is
killing our country.

And another comment by a thirty-nine-year-old married female displaced

worker.

I find that working for a company that kicks my backside out the door makes
me afraid to trust anyone. I’m afraid it will be years before I get up the courage
to buy a car, appliances, or anything that is on a long-term note. Regardless of
how good the pay is in a new job. If we all managed our homes the way the
government manages theirs we’d all be on welfare. I have a National Honor
Society daughter with one more year of school. If she can’t get aid there’s no
way she can go to school.

Anger is also among the responses of displaced workers, and one can see
the roots of using stereotypes and scapegoats as a way of dealing with their
frustration. Consider the following comment by a forty-one-year-old mar-
ried man who was displaced by a plant closing.
 Job Loss and Declining Wages 31

The government is trying to cut our wages and put their foot in the working class
and poor class face. Yet they keep raising their wages and find more ways than
necessary to spend the taxpayer’s money. Let the utility, telephone, and petro-
leum corporations, also the big money boys have their own way without fight-
ing for the behalf of all people of our country. They also let the illegal aliens take
our jobs away, give them welfare, unemployment compensation, college educa-
tion at our expense; do not check them for health and social diseases. Yet they
want to take all the veteran’s benefits away from those who fought their wars for
them. Government of the people, by the people, and for the people—Ha!

The loss of hope and despair expressed by these blue-collar workers who
lost their jobs when their plant closed and moved to another country would
be duplicated by white-collar workers confronted by downsizing in the
1990s. During the downsizing wave of the early 1990s, millions of older,
better-educated, and better-paid middle managers would lose their jobs be-
cause of mergers, technological efficiencies, and cost cutting. Consider the
case of an operations manager for a plant in San Fernando Valley.

[He] lost his $130,000-a-year job in January 1993 when the plant he managed
was shut down permanently. After giving twenty-six years of his life and loyalty
to one big corporation, Eastman Kodak, he found himself chasing white-collar
jobs in a market already glutted with unemployed manufacturing executives.21

This former manager is lucky compared to displaced blue-collar workers,

because his family survives on savings put away during the good times. His
optimism has been shaken (“I believe in the American Dream. I feel it fad-
ing.”), and he expresses concern that his wife and children will think less of
him: “I know I’ll never feel safe again. I lost my job, I failed my family.”22
Oddly enough, the erosion of trust and caring extends to those who
deliver the bad news when downsizing occurs (“the executioners”). They
describe how they are affected by their role in their former co-workers’
misfortune.

At first, it hurt in the stomach in the morning. It may seem callous, but after a
while there’s a sort of numbing. You go through the steps without getting too
emotional. And you think to yourself, “When will my day come to be on the
other side of the desk?”23

As we pointed out at the end of chapter 1, it is difficult to be caring about

the plight of those in trouble when you are also operating in a climate of
fear about Who’s next?
This chapter is the first step in our journey to document the decline of
hope, trust, and caring. In chapter 3 we consider the American Dream and
the experiences of Americans from three different age groups related to the
promise of the Dream.
3
The American Dream Is Fading

The American Dream is a set of beliefs that provides an idealized image of

the life that an average person can live in America. The Dream is made up
of four key beliefs. First is a belief that Americans should have a secure job
that provides enough income to cover their basic needs. Second is a belief
that through hard work and careful savings any American should be able
to become a home owner. Third is a belief that there is equal opportunity
for every American to reach his or her maximum potential. Fourth, that
children in the average American family will have the opportunity to exceed
the attainments of their parents. When the Dream becomes a reality for a
great many Americans, as it did for the post–World War II generation, you
have the ingredients of a middle-class society. This doesn’t mean that all
are able to live the Dream but that all will have the chance to do so, and
many actually do so.
As we learned from chapter 2, about one in five Americans (20 percent)
are living the American Dream to the fullest extent; they are in the privi-
leged class and for them it is the Dream on steroids. They have enough
accumulated wealth for their long-term security, and their incomes are suf-
ficient to cover not only basic needs but also all sorts of creature comforts
associated with expensive homes, cars, vacations, and consumption at a
level once reserved only for royalty. Moreover, their incomes permit them
to provide their daughters and sons with so many advantages that they
will easily be able to join their parents in the privileged class. The other 80
percent of Americans are in the middle- and low-income brackets and they
find that their jobs are increasingly insecure, that their incomes barely keep
up with inflation, and that owning a home, a car, and big-ticket household
luxuries may be slipping away as realistic aspirations. More importantly,

33
34 Chapter 3

the opportunity to achieve one’s personal version of the good life, or the
American Dream, may no longer exist for the average American, or for
their children.
Even today, at the time of this writing, Americans have a dim view of
their situation. An April 2008 poll conducted by the Pew Research Center
asked Americans the following question: “Compared with five years ago, is
it more or less difficult for middle-class people to maintain their standard of
living?” The middle-class respondents were those earning between $40,000
and $100,000, and 78 percent of them said they were having a more dif-
ficult time. If these Americans who are earning above the median income
for all Americans are having a more difficult time in the last five years, what
would Americans with earnings below the median income say? About 25
percent of all respondents said their economic situation had not improved,
and almost one-third said that they had actually fallen backwards. The fu-
ture does not look any brighter for those in the Pew survey, in that about
half of middle-class respondents said they expected to have to cut back on
spending in the years ahead and about 25 percent said they were worried
that they might be laid off, that their job would be outsourced, or that their
employer would relocate in the coming year.
There is also some evidence that black Americans have become more
discouraged about whether the American Dream applies to their race. Al-
though the African American middle class has grown from the 1960s to the
present, its members have started to question the likelihood of realizing the
American Dream.1
Most Americans are aware that the ideal of the Dream always confronts the
reality of existing inequality. They are aware that some young women and
men start out life enjoying the Dream. As the old baseball joke goes, “they
woke up on third base and thought they hit a triple,” meaning that they had
the good fortune to have had parents with good jobs and incomes while they
were growing up. They are aware that they live in a stratified society made
up of different occupational groups and different income groups. Although
it has been that way since the beginning of industrialized America, people
have always held the belief that the social position a person has at birth does
not have to become one’s destiny. People may improve their occupational
and economic conditions through their own efforts because of the existence
of established pathways of upward mobility. The belief and the reality was
that improvement could come within a generation, or certainly across gen-
erations. A family could start a small business in their neighborhood, usually
an ethnic niche, and provide a better life for themselves and their children.
Family businesses were started and grew and were often inherited by their
children. If children wanted something more than working in a family busi-
ness, much to the disappointment of the parents, that son or daughter could
go to college and be exposed to numerous new opportunities.
 The American Dream Is Fading 35

The opportunity for upward mobility was available to the second and
third generations of ethnic Americans who benefited from the struggles of
their parents’ immigrant generation during the early decades of the twen-
tieth century. Many, but not most, sons and daughters of Italian, Irish,
Jewish, and Greek immigrants became skilled workers through union-spon-
sored apprentice programs; many started their own small business; and
many went to college to become teachers and social workers, and some-
times doctors and lawyers. There was enough upward mobility by ethnic
sons and daughters to support a general belief in the reality of the Dream.
Probably every ethnic family in the early decades of the twentieth century
had at least one member of the kin group who “made it out.” After World
War II, a belief in the ideals and reality of the Dream was expanded by the
experiences of the returning veterans who used their GI benefits to go to
college and move up the occupational ladder.
African Americans were rarely participants in the Dream during the early
part of the twentieth century. They were living in a very segregated society
with limited educational opportunities and little chance to get into skilled
trade jobs. Unions were not very sympathetic to the desires of black work-
ers to become stonemasons or machinists or carpenters. There were a small
number of black professionals who received their education in historically
black colleges, and sometimes they received their advanced professional
degrees in white medical schools and law schools. But this advanced edu-
cation was often provided with the understanding that the new doctor or
lawyer would return to the black community to practice their profession. As
we noted in chapter 1, even black veterans of World War II could not take
full advantage of the GI Bill because most institutions of higher education
were segregated.

THE AMERICAN DREAM AND PAST GENERATIONS

The possibility of realizing the Dream continued throughout the 1950s and
1960s, for reasons that were unique to that time but would be difficult to
reproduce today. Let us try to use a personal story of the first author that
provides anecdotal evidence of the reality of the Dream in past decades. He
was the only child of an Italian-born father who came to this country when
he was nine years of age and an American-born mother who had Italian
immigrant parents. The father had a sixth-grade education and worked as
a construction laborer in the 1930s and as a taxi cab driver for thirty-five
years (he never was able to own his own cab because he never accumulated
enough money to buy a medallion—the license of ownership). The mother
claimed to have a high school diploma, and she worked as a domestic in
the 1940s and then for forty years as a clerk in a neighborhood dry clean-
36 Chapter 3

ing store. Their son had a good academic record in the primary grades and
eventually tested his way into a science-oriented high school that admitted
students from across the city based on scores on a competitive entrance
exam. The son never thought of himself as having embarked on the Dream.
In fact, he regretted his decision to attend the prestigious high school be-
cause it took him away from all his neighborhood buddies who went to
the same nearby high school. His grades were low, and he was so unhappy
at his special high school that in his senior year he simply quit and went
to work as a new-car mechanic in an Oldsmobile dealership and then as
a construction worker in the newly created Levittown on Long Island. In
1951 he was drafted into the U.S. Marine Corps and served until 1953.
When he was discharged he used his Korean War benefits to get his high
school diploma in a night school for dropouts and then enrolled in an
obscure state teachers college (probably the only place that would accept
his weak high school record; no SATs required) with the goal of becoming
an elementary school teacher. His GI benefits provided $90 a month for
four years (equivalent to about $500 per month today), but no money for
tuition or for book expenses. It may be worth noting that WWII benefits
provided a monthly stipend for four years, full tuition, and book expenses.
I wonder why the politicians were so much more generous to WWII vets
compared to Korean War vets? The tuition difference didn’t matter much,
since his college tuition was only $18 a semester. To make a long story
short, his performance in college was exceptional, leading several of his
professors to push him into graduate school. He eventually obtained a PhD
in sociology and became a professor at a very good state university.
A second personal anecdote from the life of the second author reveals
how unplanned intervention by forces beyond one’s control shape the
life course in ways that are consistent with the American Dream. She grew
up in a small town in the mid-South. Her performance in elementary and
high school indicated that she was an exceptional student. She definitely
planned to attend college and could easily have been admitted to an elite
private university in the state or to the state’s major public university. But
her family could not afford the cost of tuition and room and board to live
away from home. So she enrolled in the regional public university that was
located in her hometown and lived at home. Once again, her performance
in college put her near the top of her class, but she had no plans for post-
graduate education because of the costs associated with such a decision. But
fate interceded. In 1957, the Soviet Union shocked the world by launching
a satellite into space. The Soviet Sputnik circling the earth pushed the United
States into a rapid-response catch-up program. The government established
the National Defense Education Act, which was designed to support gradu-
ate education for the nation’s best undergraduates by paying tuition and
providing a fellowship to cover four years of graduate education. So, our
 The American Dream Is Fading 37

second author was awarded an NDEA fellowship, which she used to obtain
a PhD in sociology and embark on an academic career.
The personal anecdote of the first author is a good example of the Dream
at its best; someone who starts life at the bottom, makes lots of bad deci-
sions early in life like dropping out of high school, yet is still able to get
a second chance at going to college and entering a rewarding occupation
with high standing, security, and a good income. The personal anecdote of
the second author reveals the powerful role that the federal government can
play in providing opportunities for talented students with limited financial
means. The point of these stories is to make the argument that although the
Dream once worked, it probably could not be reproduced today. And why
is that? First, although the system of class inequality in the 1950s and 1960s
still made life difficult for people in the working class, that class structure
was more open to those who made the effort to improve their social and
economic positions. College was not the be-all and end-all for many young
people because there were still opportunities for people to become skilled
machinists or bricklayers or electricians; those were desirable and respected
occupations that provided rewarding work, respect, and material benefits. A
high school graduate would face a difficult choice deciding whether to take
a union job in an auto plant or a steel mill or go to college. A good union
job often provided better salaries and benefits than one might get as a pri-
mary or secondary schoolteacher or a social worker. For those who wanted
college, the choice of going to college after high school was also a more re-
alistic choice, because college education was the main avenue for significant
upward mobility, and it was more available in two respects. First, since the
number of people with high school diplomas was smaller, and the number
seeking college admission was much smaller than today, public colleges
and universities did not have the same requirements for admission such as
Scholastic Aptitude Test exam scores (SAT), and therefore they relied more
on high school performance records. The use of specialized exams for those
seeking admission to professional schools in law, medicine, or business has
also become a more standard requirement. Second, college tuition was also
much more affordable for students and families in the 1950s and 1960s.
Many students in large urban areas attended city colleges and paid very
low tuition. They often continued to live at home, thereby avoiding the
housing and food costs of living away from home. The main cost of going
to college for such students was the forgone income associated with going
to college and not taking a full-time job. In contrast, college attendance
today might entail at minimum about $20,000 a year for tuition, room and
board, books, and related expenses, and a maximum of $45,000 a year. A
family earning $60,000 a year, which is above the median income in the
United States, could hardly afford an annual expense equal to one-third or
two-thirds of their income.
38 Chapter 3

THE AMERICAN DREAM TODAY

The class structure in post-1975 America became much more rigid, mak-
ing it more difficult for people to achieve upward mobility by getting
better jobs or attaining more education. The disappearance of high-wage
jobs in manufacturing limited the opportunity for people to move up the
occupational ladder. Chances for upward mobility were also limited by
increasing inequality in education available to children from modest- and
lower-income groups. Primary and secondary schools became more strati-
fied into resource-rich schools in the suburbs and resource-poor schools
in the central cities, producing very unequal educational experiences for
children born into privileged families compared to those from working-
class families. Finally, higher education became highly stratified, with sharp
distinctions made between elite colleges and universities, nonelite state
schools, and community colleges. In contrast, in the 1960s and 1970s,
having obtained a college degree by itself was enough of an advantage in
the job market.
In this chapter we will do two things. First, we will examine evidence of
whether the economic conditions of workers declined after 1975, leading
to a decline in their income and standard of living. We also look at the op-
portunities for upward mobility in post-1975 America by examining avail-
able research evidence on rates of intergenerational mobility in pre- and
post-1975 America. These studies provide evidence of the chances for a son
or daughter born into a middle- or low-income working-class family to
achieve upward mobility by moving into a higher occupational or income
class. Second, we look at America’s educational system—primary, second-
ary, and higher education—because it is the main pathway for upward mo-
bility for young Americans. The availability of equal opportunity through
the educational system is the promise of the American Dream, and our task
is to assess that promise in America today.
Instead of focusing on the experiences of one group of workers, it will
add to our understanding of what is happening in America to compare
three different age cohorts and how the Dream has affected them. The
first group, which we will call Gen-1, were post-WWII babies born around
1950, and they entered the workforce around 1970 and remained working
through the 1980s and 1990s. Gen-1 individuals experienced good times
in their early working years, but they would also know firsthand the impact
of plant closings and all the other antiworker events of the later decades.
These individuals were probably hit hardest by a declining standard of liv-
ing coming from job loss and lost wages and benefits.
The second group, Gen-2, are the children of Gen-1, and they were born
around 1965. They would have grown up with parents who had secure jobs,
and by the time Gen-2 were graduating from high school in 1983 there
 The American Dream Is Fading 39

would be awareness among the general public that the economy was chang-
ing and that secure jobs and high wages were no longer the norm. Gen-2
individuals would enter the workforce with few expectations about long-
term job security, steady wage growth, pensions, and health insurance. They
would be the generation that was told over and over by parents and their
teachers that they had to work hard and work smart, and the payoff would
be lifetime employability with many different employers, but not necessarily
lifetime employment with a single employer. You could no longer count on
lifetime job security just because you had a job with a major corporation.
Gen-3 are the children of the 1965 cohort, and they were probably born
in the 1985–1990 period. By the time they graduated from high school in
2002 to 2007 they would have been provided with detailed information
on the earning differences between high school dropouts, high school
graduates, and college graduates. All high school graduates in this genera-
tion would know the advantages of a college degree. For children of the
privileged class, going to college is a no-brainer; the only question would
be how much time and effort to put into getting into an elite school. For
children of the working class, the question would be “Can I afford college,
and if so, where?”

INTRAGENERATIONAL MOBILITY

Intragenerational mobility is a measure of a person’s achievements within

his/her lifetime and during his/her working career. People may change
occupations during their career and they may experience movement into
higher-level positions with better working conditions, more rewarding
work, and more opportunities for improvement. As one accumulates work
experience, it may be accompanied with wage and salary increases, bo-
nuses, and better pension plans.
In the pre-1975 economy, Gen-1 workers experienced wage and benefit
increases as they accumulated years of work experience. Labor-management
wage agreements often adjusted wages upward to keep up with inflation,
and sometimes an increase in addition to the rise in inflation. This has not
been the case in the post-1975 economy. The average wages for production
and nonsupervisory workers actually declined between 1975 and 2005
when adjusted for inflation; they averaged $17.13 an hour in 1973 and
$16.11 an hour in 2005.2 If this wage rate is received over fifty-two weeks,
the 1973 worker had an annual income of $35,630, and the 2005 worker
received $33,509, resulting in a $2,121 decline in income.
The effect of flat or declining wages for workers over a thirty-year work
career produces a serious reduction in a family’s standard of living. Con-
sider the following hypothetical budget proposed by the U.S. Department
40 Chapter 3

of Labor for a family of four in 2006. Housing costs $946, food $659, auto
$663, health care $196, utilities $293, and five other categories of monthly
expenditure add up to a budget of $3,453, or an annual income of $41,436,
or a job that pays about $20 per hour. This hypothetical budget is obvi-
ously well above the average hourly wage in 2005 and indicates a severe
decline in a worker’s standard of living as measured by either the hourly
wage or the inability to match the Department of Labor budget for a family
of four.
While declining wages erode a worker’s standard of living on a day-to-
day basis, declining pension benefits are a threat to long-term economic
security. The preferred pension plan for most workers is a defined benefit
plan, whereby the employer makes contributions to a worker’s retirement
account and from which a worker receives a pension payout based on the
total value of the contributions and the accumulated earnings from invest-
ments over the course of a work career. In contrast, a defined contribution
plan (like a 401(k)) is based on employee contributions over the career,
and in some cases employers will make full or partial matching contribu-
tions. A worker’s monthly contributions to a defined-contribution plan
have the advantage of being pretax contributions; nonetheless, they reduce
the amount of disposable income that a worker has for monthly living
expenses.
In 1980, 84 percent of private sector workers (in firms with one hundred
or more employees) were covered by defined benefit plans; this declined to
50 percent in 1997 and declined again to 21 percent in 2005. In contrast,
by 2005, some 56 percent of workers had access to defined contribution
plans, but only 43 percent took advantage of the opportunity.3 These data
indicate an erosion of the quality of pension plans to workers since 1980.
The above findings on declining wages and changing pensions make it
clear that most Gen-1 workers experienced nothing but downward intra-
generational mobility; that is, downward mobility over the course of their
careers. Although many of the millions of workers who lost jobs because
of plant closings and downsizing found new jobs, only 62 percent worked
in full-time jobs, and three-quarters of these workers reported earning less
than what they had earned previously.4

INTERGENERATIONAL MOBILITY

In many public discussions of social mobility in America, it is often asserted

that there is more mobility in America than in Europe, stemming from
the European history of having ruling aristocracies and the U.S. tradition
of equality following the American Revolution. This may have been true
at one time,5 but recent research evidence indicates that it is not the case
 The American Dream Is Fading 41

today. The Economist magazine (May 27, 2006) reported the results of two
studies comparing the United States, Britain, European, and Nordic coun-
tries on the relationship between fathers’ earnings and earnings of sons.
Contrary to the belief in the greater openness of U.S. society, a son’s earn-
ings more closely resembled those of the father in the United States than in
any other country. An added finding is that in the Nordic countries, three-
quarters of the sons born in the poorest fifth of the population had moved
out of that category by the time they were in their forties, but only one-half
of the American men born on the bottom had moved up in income.
These findings on lower rates of intergenerational mobility for Americans
versus Europeans may be a surprise to America’s privileged class, who like
to believe in American individualism, and that people get ahead because
of merit. The findings are probably no surprise to America’s Gen-2 work-
ers who know firsthand about declining opportunities for mobility. There
have been two studies of intergenerational occupational mobility between
parents and their adult children. Both studies compared the occupations
held by parents and children in the middle and late 1970s and in 1998 and
2004. These studies permitted not only a comparison of the occupations
held by parents and their adult children at two points in time but also a
comparison when parent and adult children were about the same age.6 Both
studies indicate that there had been more room at the top in earlier years,
and less room at the top in recent years. In the 1970s fathers in the high-
est prestige occupations had far fewer of their children in the same high
occupations than did fathers in more recent years. Specifically, in 1973,
less than 30 percent of the top occupations were occupied by men whose
fathers held the same occupational rank when they were the same age some
twenty years earlier. In contrast, in 2004 the sons of fathers who held top-
ranked occupations held 51.4 percent of the top positions, and daughters
of fathers in top-ranked positions held 43.9 percent of the top positions.
The results of these studies should be approached with some caution, as
it is difficult to be confident about comparisons done at two points in time
that used different methods. However, the results of the studies of intergen-
erational income mobility and occupational mobility are very consistent
with the general hypothesis that the U.S. class structure has become less
open to upward mobility of persons from lower income and occupational
groups. One possible reason for the greater hardening of the class structure
is that the number of families in the upper privileged class has expanded
considerably in recent decades. This means that the sons and daughters
of the privileged class were more likely to obtain the level of education
needed to fill most of the highest-level occupations. In addition, in recent
years more women have entered the labor force in general and have entered
high-level positions in business, medicine, law, and academe. Large-scale
recruitment of young women and men from lower ranks is necessary only
42 Chapter 3

when the privileged class does not produce enough children to perpetuate
their class.

EDUCATION AND OPPORTUNITY

Gen-3 Americans (those born in 1985–1990) are currently located some-

where in the educational system, at the primary level, in high school, or
making choices about college. Expanding one’s years of education and im-
proving performance in the educational system are the two central means
by which young men and women can improve their chances to compete
for good jobs after completing their education. It is therefore essential that
there be equality of educational opportunity for Americans to get the best
education that the country can provide. This is not an issue for the sons and
daughters of the privileged class, for they already live in communities with
resource-rich public schools or are enrolled in private schools that prepare
them for entry into the country’s very best colleges. But it is an issue for the
80 percent born into families of middle- and low-income working-class
Americans.

Money and Opportunity

There is abundant evidence that in today’s America the educational
system at all levels—primary, secondary, and higher education—is highly
stratified and unequal by both class and race. It is unequal by class in three
ways. First, the quality of education that is provided students depends on
the quality of teachers in schools, the quality of the facilities such as librar-
ies and laboratories, and the quality of enrichment experiences that will
enable students to be better prepared for college. Each of these measures
of quality in education requires money, and funding for schools is closely
related to the income levels and tax base of the community in which the
school is located. Second, the parents of children in low-income areas are
often dual earners, thereby limiting the amount of time they may have to
participate in school activities and the time they have to help students at
home. Third, parents with limited income will not be able to provide their
children with opportunities for summer camps, for trips to libraries and
museums, or for participation in a variety of social and cultural activities
that encourage young people to value education. Consider the following
description of “how I spent my summer” by two fourth-grade students from
families in which parents are in professional occupations.

Top 10 Things I Did This Summer: (1) I went to Italy; (2) I read a lot; (3) I
went bike riding and did much better at it; (4) I had play dates; (5) There
 The American Dream Is Fading 43

was a book club meeting at my house; (6) I got a new piano teacher, and my
piano playing really got better; (7) I went online more often and improved my
typing; (8) I made candy dots and gingerbread cookies; (9) I was involved in
a C.U. [California University] research project; (10) I got my school supplies
early, and I am looking forward to getting back to school.

The second student reports:

We had sleep-away camp for two weeks—that was so great. Then Vacation
Bible School for a week. Then I think we had a free week. This week they had
Boy Scout Camp and swimming lessons—next week just swimming lessons.
Then, after that, grandparents come, they have Science Adventure Camp for a
week. Then we all go to Hawaii for two weeks.7

The researchers report that none of the working class or poor children in
the study had summer experiences that could compare with the above re-
ports. This obviously is a case where families with the resources of money
and time are able to provide enriched experiences for their children. These
stark differences in what families can do for their children must be con-
sidered when evaluating the reality of the American Dream and the belief
in equality of opportunity. In an earlier book we described the advantages
of middle-class children as “hot house kids who had been cultivated for
years in an environment of controlled feeding and sunlight.” Compared to
working-class kids, “They did not yearn for the freedom of adult status, for
their sense of self was fused with the wishes held for them by their parent
cultivators.”8
Recent research on childrearing practices in middle-class and working-
class families points to the importance of enriching experiences in aca-
demic and personal development. Lareau’s study of family life contrasts
middle-class parents’ practices of “concerted cultivation” with working-
class practices of “natural growth.” The former emphasizes adult-organized
leisure activities and extensive involvement with adults as relative equals,
while the latter emphasizes child-organized leisure activities and boundar-
ies between adults and children. Lareau believes that these two parenting
styles produce middle-class children with a “robust sense of entitlement”
and working-class children who “appear to gain an emerging sense of dis-
tance, distrust, and constraint in their institutional experiences.”9
The harsher realities of class inequality in primary and secondary edu-
cation are based on how schools are funded. Precollege public education
is funded primarily from local property taxes and some state and federal
funds. The amount of money available to schools for teachers, facilities,
and special programs is based on the money raised from taxes on the as-
sessed values of homes and businesses. Communities with more expensive
homes and with a stronger business sector will generate more revenue to
44 Chapter 3

be distributed to local schools. Per-pupil expenditures by schools is a good

indicator of the quality of its teachers (more experienced), class sizes, facili-
ties, and programs. In 2006 the national average of per-pupil expenditures
was $13,446. This average obscures very large differences between states
and between school districts within states. For example, Connecticut spent
$12,323 per student, and Montana spent $8,581.10 Six districts in New York
in 2000 spent $15,084 in the suburbs, and $7,299 in the central city.11 Ev-
erywhere, the pattern is the same: the wealthier the community the more
money for better teachers, better facilities, small classes, and enriching
programs.
The advantages enjoyed by wealthier school districts extend beyond the
tax-base differences that affect per-pupil spending. Although the data are
anecdotal, the Los Angeles Times reports that at Corona del Mar High School
in Newport Beach, California (a predominantly white community), a va-
riety of school-booster groups raise substantial funds for school programs:
The PTA raised $50,000 for the high school from a tour of luxury homes;
the Super Booster Club raises $35,000 annually to buy supplies for teach-
ers; the Touchdown Club raises $150,000 annually for the school sports
programs. In contrast, across the bay at Costa Mesa High School (which
has a large percentage of minority students), total funds raised by parents
were about $6,000.12

Race and Opportunity

Schools are also unequal by race in that predominately white or black
schools are a form of de facto segregation that contributes to the growing
gap in the quality of schools serving mainly whites (in suburbs) in contrast
to those serving large proportions of blacks and Hispanics. African Ameri-
can and Latino students disproportionately live in the poorest, mostly
urban school districts. In all of the school districts in which three-fourths
of the students are poor, at least three-fourths of the students are African
Americans. Many of the rest are Hispanics. At the state level, the greater the
proportion of a state’s population that lives in urban areas, the less that
state spends on public education per child, and that is after statistically
controlling for the state’s wealth and age structure.13 Integrated schools are
more likely to provide better educational experiences in both the academic
and social spheres and are less likely to develop stereotyped views of the
aspirations and achievements of their students. There is research evidence
that blacks and Hispanics who attend integrated schools learn more and
perform better in college and in employment.14
In heterogeneous schools, whether by class or race, where the children
of the privileged and nonprivileged, white and nonwhite, are in the same
school, there is a single allocation of funds to that school. In order for
 The American Dream Is Fading 45

that school to be responsive to the needs of students from privileged

backgrounds, it will provide better teachers and programs that will also be
available to the nonprivileged and nonwhite students. Schools that are het-
erogeneous are sometimes very clever about how they direct more of their
resources to the college-bound students (often from the privileged class).
They do so by developing a system of “tracking” that separates students by
ability groups and college intentions, which often becomes a substitute for
class and race groupings. It separates those students believed to be headed
for the labor market from those who are believed to be college bound.15
Schools that are in racially segregated low-income neighborhoods op-
erate in a social context that presents major problems for their students.
When students in racially segregated schools appear to show little interest
in what the school offers to them, it is often assumed to be a reflection of
the student’s different values, attitudes, limited abilities, and aspirations.
The blame is more likely to be placed on the students, and sometimes on
the quality of the school programs or teaching staff. The high dropout rate
of young black and Hispanic teenagers is often taken as evidence of their
failure rather than the absence of a realistic link between school perfor-
mance and job opportunities. Low-income inner-city neighborhoods suf-
fered major job losses in the 1980s in the manufacturing sector and among
workers classified as skilled trade and operators.16 Young people living in
these neighborhoods have fewer job opportunities and fewer adult models
of successful working families and are less likely to see school performance
as a pathway to a job.
An added problem of living in such neighborhoods stems from the
high concentration of poor and unemployed neighbors that can provide
support for non-normative, undesirable behavior.17 Thus, dropping out of
high school can be a response to the absence of conventional jobs and the
attraction of allegedly more lucrative illegal activities. In addition, unem-
ployment reduces the chances for conventional family life and contributes
to early sexual experiences and unmarried pregnant teens and absentee
fathers. Some may interpret these behaviors by young men and women
as an indicator of their inability to “defer gratification” and therefore an
unwillingness to engage in planning, saving, safe or no sex, and studying.
But this focus on individual deficiencies fails to account for the structural
conditions facing low-income neighborhoods, namely limited job oppor-
tunities.
Being a black or Hispanic teenager from a low-income environment
(family and community) is a complicated matter. Researchers have found
that such students often maintain a belief in two contradictory ideas, which
includes a belief in hard work and education as the “way up and out” at the
same time that they recognize the reality of their poor housing, the number
of jobless adults in the community, and their poor schools.18 They have
46 Chapter 3

a foot in two worlds, and on some days they may believe they do have a
chance, and on other days things look very bleak. Thus, some of their devi-
ant or dysfunctional behavior may be episodic and transitory, rather than a
fixed and unchanging commitment to a lifestyle that will keep them out of
the mainstream of American society.
It is also worth reflecting on the so-called “pathological” and “nonra-
tional” behavior of young black men and women. We referred to it above
with the phrase “inability to defer gratification,” in sex, violence, drugs, and
other forms of immediate gratification. Although these forms of instant
gratification are criticized when discussing young black men and women,
there is a failure to recognize that many of these same behaviors are often
glorified in the media and tabloids when they are exhibited by movie stars,
rock stars, and all sorts of cultural and sports celebrities. It is mainstream
media that glorifies sexual excess outside of marriage; it is celebrity culture
that treats pregnancy outside of marriage as normal and even desirable; it is
popular culture that makes drugs an acceptable form of exploratory behav-
ior. Moreover, the above features of immediate gratification are marketed
and promoted by corporate movie/media moguls in Hollywood and New
York as part of their search for profits from films and music products. While
we may not blame the media for the choices made by young men and
women in low-income communities, we can surely see how their limited
opportunities for stable jobs and future opportunities may predispose them
to pursuits that provide short-term and immediate rewards. Moreover, we
can surely recognize the possibility that patterns of behavior that are pre-
sented in popular culture as normative or acceptable could influence young
and impressionable teenagers. In fact, this possibility is supported by recent
research by a team of investigators from RAND who surveyed 2,000 ado-
lescents aged twelve to seventeen in 2001 and asked about their television
viewing habits and sexual behavior. They were surveyed again in 2002 and
2004 and questioned about TV viewing and sexual activities. Researchers
focused on twenty-three programs popular among teenagers that had high
levels of sexual content. The researchers summarize their findings by stat-
ing: “Our findings suggest that television may play a significant role in the
high rates of teenage pregnancy in the United States.”19
Young men and women from more prosperous and secure backgrounds
may also engage in all of the forms of immediate gratification without
paying the ultimate price of a totally ruined life. They can recover from all
sorts of youthful indiscretions because they have the resources, or more
likely their families have the resources, to get them back on the right track.
They may spend a year or two “finding themselves” or “sowing wild oats”
and then return home and resume a more acceptable educational or profes-
sional career.
 The American Dream Is Fading 47

Popular culture can be a double-edged sword for young men and women
who focus on the achievements of celebrity figures. On the one hand, ce-
lebrities may provide positive examples of how one gets started on a career
in the world of sports or music or entertainment. But popular culture can
also be a siren song for many young men and women, leading them to
accept unconventional behavior that looks so cool when it is glorified by
celebrity culture but may become a trap from which they may never escape.
Popular culture should be recognized for what it is; namely, a commercial,
profit-driven culture that offers little in return. The movie star, rapper, or
sports star should not be the only role models for American youth, but the
sad truth is that many low-income communities have few successful adult
role models in conventional jobs and few opportunities for young people
to enter those jobs.
The cumulative effect of living in a race- and income-segregated school
system and being exposed to a destructive popular culture contributes to
a loss of hope in the future, which in turn erodes any belief in the value
of education as a means of improvement. Whatever might be the mecha-
nisms of cumulative disadvantage, the results are quite clear. A study of
the graduation rates from public high schools in 1998 estimated those
rates by dividing the number of high school diplomas awarded in 1998 by
the number of students enrolled in public schools in the eighth grade in
1993.20 The researcher found that the national public high school gradua-
tion rate for 1998 was 71 percent. The rate for whites was 78 percent, for
African Americans 56 percent, and for Latinos 54 percent. Although the
study was not able to compare graduation rates for resource-rich schools
and resource-poor schools, it was able to report rates for large, urban, in-
ner-city districts. Among the fifty largest high school districts in the United
States, Cleveland had the lowest graduation rate of 28 percent, followed by
Memphis, Milwaukee, and Columbus.
There are noteworthy differences in the graduation rates across states,
suggesting that some schools have found ways to keep students in school
and to graduate them. For example, the highest graduation rate for African
Americans (71 percent) was in West Virginia, and the lowest rate was Wis-
consin at 28 percent. The highest rate for Latinos was 82 percent in Mon-
tana, and the lowest rate of 32 percent was in Georgia. For white students,
the state with the highest graduation rate was Iowa (95 percent) and the
lowest was Georgia at 61 percent. It is hard to know what part of the reason
for these different rates is due to the students and what part is due to the
schools. We need to learn more about the reason for these big differences
among the states in the graduation rates of each racial group of students
and devise ways for schools to improve how they can retain and graduate
their students.
48 Chapter 3

HIGHER EDUCATION: A TWO-TIERED SYSTEM

The most important long-term trends regarding higher education in the

United States are the expansion in the number of persons enrolling and the
expansion in the number of institutions offering degrees. In 1900, about
29,000 Americans received college degrees at the baccalaureate level and
higher; in 1960 this number increased to 485,600 degrees, and to 1.7 mil-
lion in 2000. This expansion, especially after World War II, was probably
related to major changes in technology that upgraded the skill requirements
of many jobs. Higher education became the main way to improve skill lev-
els and prepare people for the higher-skill-level jobs. Some scholars have
argued that the increase in educational levels required for jobs has less to
do with real skill requirements than being a way that groups holding these
desirable jobs protect access from others who also want them.21 When more
people started enrolling in elementary schools, the high school diploma
became the requirement for jobs formerly held by people with an eighth
grade education. As enrollments in high school increased, the bachelor’s
degree became the requirement for jobs formerly held by people with a
high school diploma. And with the expansion of higher education, with
1.7 million graduates a year, the new credential has become where you get
your bachelor’s degree.
In 2003, a total 16.4 million students were enrolled in 4,070 institutions
of higher education, including 2,243 four-year colleges and 1,727 two-year
institutions.22 In an era of small college enrollments, the college degree by
itself was a significant mark of achievement and a path to a good job. But
when 15 million young people are in college, the market value of a degree
is diminished, and people want to know if your degree is from Princeton
or Podunk. This new focus on where you went to school has introduced a
new level of inequality in higher education.
Higher education has become part of the two-tiered system of education
that prevents real equality of opportunity and realization of the Ameri-
can Dream. We described above how primary and secondary schools are
segregated by class and race. We now see the same thing happening in
higher education. In 2000, some 2.8 million students graduated from
high school and were eligible to enroll in one of the 2,300 four-year col-
leges or one of the 1,727 community colleges. In all likelihood, many
low-income students and those with weak academic records enrolled in
community colleges. Low tuition costs and the ability to live at home
while attending school make this an attractive option. What about those
who choose to go to a four-year college or university? Among the 2,000-
plus schools are about fifty elite colleges and universities where the costs
are high and the competition for admission is great. This is where the
sons and daughters of the privileged class enroll. A very small number of
 The American Dream Is Fading 49

working-class students “escape” their nonprivileged paths and are admit-

ted to elite schools. Many elite schools have a policy of admitting some
“working-class” students and “students of color” who have exceptional
academic records and scores on achievement exams. A number of reports
indicate that elite colleges have increased their financial aid packages
to aid more students from low-income families.23 The cost of attending
schools like Columbia, Chicago, Brown, or Cornell is about $45,000 for
tuition and room and board, and a financial aid package for students
from low-income families tends to be about $25,000. Elite public uni-
versities like the University of California, Berkley; University of Michi-
gan; University of North Carolina; or University of Virginia have lower
tuitions (in-state about $10,000 to $20,000; out-of-state about $30,000)
and their need-based financial aid packages tend to cover about one-half
of the costs. The efforts of many schools to provide financial assistance to
low-income students are important, but the number of students receiv-
ing need-based aid is small. For example, Harvard has a total of 6,600
undergraduates of which a handful come from families with incomes
below $40,000 a year whose expenses are covered by Harvard. But they
also have 763 students (11 percent of the total student body) whose fam-
ily incomes are between $120,000 and $180,000, and Harvard wants to
help these “middle class” families by limiting their college expenses to
10 percent of their total family household income per year. Thus, these
“middle class” families would only pay $12,000 or $18,000 per year,
rather than the regular annual cost of tuition and room and board, which
is $45,600 per year.
The elite schools obviously want to become more open to the sons and
daughters of all Americans of talent, but their efforts are limited, and they
must deal with the fact that they cater to the privileged class and the sons
and daughters of that class. It is almost a bad joke to call families earning
$120,000 to $180,000 “middle class” when they are simply on the bottom
rung of the privileged class. Educational opportunity for talented working-
class students will continue to be limited by costs, as the rate of tuition
increases at public and private colleges continues to outpace the growth of
family income or financial aid packages and is probably greater at public
universities than at elite schools.24
In addition to the fifty or so elite schools, there are about 200 large
state universities with large undergraduate enrollments and large graduate
programs that produce many of the doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers,
economists, and managers who become members of the privileged class,
although not necessarily near the top of that class. Talented young men
and women from the working class are able to enroll in these universities
because the costs are well below those of the elite schools. The cost of at-
tending a good state university may be about $20,000 a year (about $7,000
50 Chapter 3

for tuition and the rest for room and board), which is still far beyond the
means of many working-class families. For their sons and daughters the
challenge is greater, and they often take part-time jobs and take out loans
that they hope to repay after school.
When it became apparent in the mid-1970s that the economy was chang-
ing and that higher education was becoming more important for entry into
the best jobs, the privileged class got the message loud and clear. In 1975,
about 40 percent of the children of the privileged class earned college de-
grees, compared with only about 6 percent of high school graduates from
the poorest one-quarter of the population. By 1994, eight of ten sons and
daughters from the richest one-quarter of the population earned a college
degree, while the attendance rates for the poorest one-quarter increased to
8 percent.25 Today, almost all the sons and daughters of the privileged class
go to college, as do many children from better-paid working-class families.
But they do not all go to the same quality schools, do not major in the same
fields, and do not enjoy the same rewards after college.

THE MYTH OF MERITOCRACY

As the size of the privileged class has grown, and the levels of their income
and wealth have reached previously unseen levels, there is a natural ten-
dency among that class to be a little nervous about their enormous material
benefits, especially while everyone else is standing still or sliding back eco-
nomically. In order to convince the nonprivileged 80 percent of Americans
that the privileged deserve their high incomes and wealth, they stress the
fact that their achievements are based on talent and hard work. They claim
the talent is innate, and the hard work was the years of study and schooling
that provided the foundation for their success.
The reality is that most of what they call innate talent and hard work was
provided to them through the use of family wealth, which was used to buy
high-quality education and enriching cultural experiences for their sons
and daughters. After graduating from college, they have available to them a
wide range of business and social contacts that set them on a path to high
levels of income and wealth. Those who are born into privilege can hardly
claim that the benefits of that privilege are evidence of merit.
Most members of the privileged class are there because they were born
there, and they inherited their privilege from their parents who provided the
means by which they joined their class circle. One study of the 400 richest
Americans reported in Forbes magazine states that only three in ten of those
on the Forbes list can be called self-starters, i.e., their parents did not have
great wealth or own a business with more than a few employees.26 Half of
those on this list of wealthiest Americans started their careers with at least $50
 The American Dream Is Fading 51

million inherited from their family. This is not to deny that there are some in
America who started near or at the bottom and may have gone to college and
used their knowledge to found successful new businesses. Some like Bill Gates
do not even have a college degree, although he didn’t start life dirt poor. The
self-starters are to be applauded, but they are not evidence that the American
Dream is still real and is available to any American who wants to try.
Living in a society with 20 percent of Americans who are privileged by
their income, wealth, and job security and with 80 percent working hard
to make ends meet while fearing the future puts a very heavy burden on
working Americans, especially if there is a myth of meritocracy. It is difficult to
live in a society with a high degree of income inequality, especially when
there is little hope for a better life for you or your family. Every day you are
reminded of how good life is for some Americans and how difficult and
limiting it can be for others. But people go to work every day because they
need to pay the rent or mortgage, to put food on the table, to take kids to
Little League games, to be involved in their child’s school, and to carry out
a whole host of daily routines of living.
We think that it is easier to face your “private troubles” when you live
in a society with a low level of inequality than in one like ours that has
a high degree of income inequality. We think that this is especially true
when people have little hope for improving their lives, and doubly true
when they are fearful about their future security. The bottom 80 percent of
Americans are constantly reminded of the enormity of the income gap be-
tween themselves and their employers, their congressional representatives,
their doctors, movie stars, sports figures, and the millions of others whose
lifestyles are splashed across TV screens, magazines, and newspapers on a
daily basis. Sometimes, in a society caught in the myth of meritocracy, rela-
tive deprivation can be more punishing and destructive to the human spirit
than absolute deprivation.

A FINAL NOTE ON HOPE

In chapter 2 we provided evidence from 1975 to the present of lost jobs and
declining wages for millions of Americans. Many have experienced an ero-
sion of their standard of living to a point where we can say they experienced
downward mobility. In this chapter we examined America’s educational
system to determine if it still provides the means for those who are willing
to work hard and take advantage of opportunities to improve their lives. We
did not find much evidence of expanding opportunities for working-class
Americans to use education for upward mobility. The evidence and argu-
ments presented in these two chapters are the basis for our claim that there
is a severe deficiency of hope today for most Americans.
4
Confidence in Institutions

Efforts to assess American citizens’ confidence in their institutions has a

long tradition, with national polls taken almost every year by several major
polling organizations, such as Harris and Gallup. The interest in citizen
confidence is based on a belief that the essence of democratic societies is in
the commitment of their elected leaders to seek the consent of those gov-
erned before embarking on new policies, especially controversial policies.
The peoples’ confidence in their leaders and institutions is believed to be
the basis of legitimacy in democratic societies. It is important to note the
distinction between leaders and institutions, because leaders come and go,
but institutions are more stable and are based on rules that are expected to
prevail no matter who holds the positions of leadership.
Consider the cases of our two most recent presidents, William J. Clin-
ton and George W. Bush. President Clinton had the misfortune of being a
married man involved in an embarrassing situation with a young female
staff member. It is the kind of thing that happens with some frequency
and is sometimes referred to as a peccadillo and treated as a personal mat-
ter between the compromised party and his or her spouse. In the Clinton
case, however, the matter led to a political crisis leading to impeachment
proceedings. Clinton chose initially to follow a path of denial rather than
apologizing and seeking forgiveness and chose to go on national television
to deny the basic accusation (“I did not have a sexual relationship with that
woman . . .”). Subsequent events revealed that the television performance
was based on a bold-faced lie that Clinton believed would be successful.
When the general public finally recognized his lie, the result was probably
a loss of confidence in him as a person, because of his apparent willingness

53
54 Chapter 4

to do anything to maintain his power. But it is unlikely that people lost

confidence in the institution of the presidency.
Contrast this with the case of George W. Bush and his decision to invade
Iraq to remove its leader Saddam Hussein. The president’s decision was said
to be based on existing intelligence that Iraq was embarked on a program
to develop nuclear capabilities. It is now widely believed among the gen-
eral public that, at the very least, the president and his top advisers made
selective use of intelligence to justify a “preemptive invasion” they wanted
for ideological reasons, not security reasons. Those with a less-charitable
view of the actions of the Bush administration are inclined to say that they
lied, and they did it many times on television (just like Bill Clinton). Many
believe that Bush’s “lie” severely damaged the presidency, because it called
into question the operation of the office or the institution—that a person
or group of people could move the machinery of government in a direction
not supported by evidence. It should also be stated that many Americans
believe that the dispute over the Iraq War is really a political dispute be-
tween a president of one party and a Congress of another party.
In this chapter we take a different view about the basis for Americans’
confidence in their basic institutions. We do not think that confidence
of the sort that provides legitimacy in a democratic society is shaken by
lapses in personal conduct, such as Clinton, or even in the questionable
decisions of the Bush administration in going to war. Partisans wanted to
impeach Clinton, and partisans wanted to impeach Bush; in both cases the
partisan fighting was so extensive that the public is more likely to see it as
unfortunate wrangling but not threatening to undermine the institution of
government. Our view is that the public’s confidence in their basic institu-
tions is shaken when the policies of government across administrations
from both political parties produce outcomes that appear to be unfair, in
that they favor one segment of society over another. Thus, we believe that
confidence in America’s institutions must be viewed in the broad context
of events occurring over the last thirty years—events that were discussed at
length in chapters 2 and 3.

HAVE AMERICANS LOST CONFIDENCE?

In 1984, when we were studying plant closings, we talked with workers

who had just lost their jobs because their plant had closed and moved to a
lower-wage area outside the United States. We asked the workers about the
effect that the closing had on their feelings about the government, politi-
cians, and big corporations. While their level of confidence in these insti-
tutions was not extremely high, neither was it extremely low, contrary to
our expectations. We had expected that the recent shock of job loss would
 Confidence in Institutions 55

lead them to have little confidence in government and other leaders, but in
fact their level of confidence was about that expressed by the general popu-
lation. Indeed, displaced workers’ confidence in the media was slightly
higher than that of the general population, and their confidence in labor
unions was much higher than the view of the general population. Equally
surprising were their answers to two questions: one about whether corpo-
rate executives should have a limit placed on how much they can earn,
and a second on raising taxes on the rich in order to redistribute income.
Contrary to our expectations, displaced workers who were continuously
unemployed after the plant closing were no more likely to support these
“radical” policies than were other employed workers.
We believe that the reason for these surprising responses from displaced
workers was because what was happening to American workers in terms of
plant closings and job loss was a relatively recent occurrence and people
did not know that they were just seeing the tip of the iceberg that would
continue to bring job losses in the future. Moreover, the reality of income
and wealth inequality between the top 20 percent of Americans and the
rest of society had not yet been widely studied and reported. The first major
book on plant closings, The Deindustrialization of America, written by Barry
Bluestone and Bennett Harrison, was published in 1982. And although
there already was a body of research and scholarly writing on inequality,
the facts of the magnitude of income and wealth inequality did not start
appearing until the 1990s.
Today, when Americans are asked about their confidence in major in-
stitutions such as government, corporations, media, or Congress, their re-
sponses reveal very low levels of confidence. Table 4.1 shows the results of a
Gallup Poll of adults nationwide, conducted on June 11–14, 2007, regard-
ing the percent of Americans who said they had “a great deal of confidence”
or “quite a lot of confidence” in the selected institutions.1
The only institutions in which a majority of Americans said they had a
great deal or quite a lot of confidence were the military (69 percent), small
business (59 percent), and the police (54 percent). How can we account for
this dramatic difference between what displaced workers said in 1984 and
what a majority of Americans are saying today? Our speculation is that the

Table 4.1. Public Confidence in Selected

Institutions, 2007
Congress 14%
Big business 18%
The presidency 25%
Television news 23%
Newspapers 22%
Organized labor 19%
56 Chapter 4

American people have finally “gotten it” and are aware of the accumulation
of disastrous effects flowing from the failed policies of free trade promul-
gated by all levels of government in the last thirty years. “Big business”
has done what it always does—try to compete in the national and global
economy, maximize profits for its shareholders, cut costs, and expand its
market share. That is its job in a capitalist economy, and to do otherwise
could have serious negative consequences for the company and its leaders.
It is the job of government and elected officials to restrain the “appetite” of
corporations and protect the interests of the public, which means American
workers and American jobs. But what did government do instead?

1. It created tax policies that encouraged corporations to ship jobs over-

seas and to expand their investments offshore. This has resulted in a
trade deficit of over $800 billion dollars in 2007, but that deficit is
not just from foreign competition. Almost half of the nation’s imports
that make up the trade deficit come from the subsidiaries of American
companies, or the jobs that could have been done by American work-
ers if the companies had remained in the United States.2
2. In addition to providing incentives for companies to ship jobs abroad,
Congress continued to support a tax code with a corporate tax rate of
35 percent and enough deductions and tax credits for corporations
that resulted in six of ten U.S. corporations and seven in ten foreign
corporations paying no taxes from 1996 through 2000.3
3. It created trade policies such as the North American Free Trade
Agreement (discussed in chapter 2) that resulted in massive loss
of American jobs as U.S. companies built facilities in Mexico. To
be fair to President Clinton and the Congress that gave us NAFTA,
they knew that some workers would be hurt by this effort to help
U.S. companies compete in the global economy. So they put provi-
sions in the NAFTA that would assist workers displaced by import
competition, such as extended unemployment benefits and money
to retrain displaced workers for new and better jobs. Many members
of Congress honestly believed that these changes would benefit
workers in the long run by preparing them for better jobs in the new
“high-tech” economy. But by 2008, even high-level public officials
recognized that U.S. trade policies were not working as planned. For
example, when Governor Jennifer M. Granholm of Michigan was
trying to persuade one of the state’s biggest manufacturers to stay in
Michigan, promising to build a new plant and providing a new pack-
age of tax incentives, she reported the following: “They said, ‘there
is nothing you can do to compensate for the fact that we are able to
pay $1.57 an hour in Mexico.’ That’s when I started to say Nafta and
Cafta have given us the shafta.”4
 Confidence in Institutions 57

Several presidents, such as Bush 41, Clinton, and Bush 43, and the several
Congresses that supported them, believed that they were ultimately creating
changes in trade policy that would benefit most Americans. They must have
listened to President Reagan in 1985, when he included in his report to
Congress the following: “The progression of an economy such as America’s
from the agricultural to manufacturing to services is a natural change. The
move from an industrial society toward a postindustrial service economy
has been one of the greatest changes to affect the developed world since
the Industrial Revolution.”5 One has to wonder what Reagan’s advisers were
telling him about the marvelous “postindustrial service economy.” It could
not have been about the loss of a $25-per-hour job and the pressure to take
a $10- to $15-per-hour job, if a displaced worker could find one.
There is a lot of talk these days about how Americans have lost trust in
their government because “they lied to us about Iraq.” That may be so,
but that “lie” was understandable to many Americans, given the national
trauma of 9/11 and the desire of any leader to avoid being caught flat-
footed once again in the face of an international threat. No, the real lie that
no one talks about is that our leaders lied to us about the benefits of free
trade—maybe not initially, because they thought the United States was fac-
ing new global competition—but certainly after each phase of job loss and
trade deficits revealed their errors and their failure to readjust their policies.
They simply continued to compound their errors and deal with their guilty
knowledge of policy failure by a variety of “safety net” measures to soften
the blow of free trade. But it was working-class Americans who had to pay
the cost of the new global economy, and they are the people who have now
passed judgment on their political institutions and are saying very clearly:
NO CONFIDENCE to big business, Congress, and the presidency because
these are the three main actors who have given the American people the di-
saster of so-called free trade. In fairness to the proponents of free trade, the
alternative is protectionism, which has its own problems, such as reducing
U.S. exports and facing higher costs for imported goods.
If this list of failures of big business, Congress, and the presidency that
created the crisis of confidence is not enough, consider the 2008 meltdown
of the financial system. The president and Congress developed a massive in-
fusion of credit into financial markets in order to provide support for home
mortgages that have declined in value and for banks faced with a shortage
of cash. This “bailout” of banks and Wall Street firms (those opposing the
plan use this term) or “buyout” of mortgages for later resale (those sup-
porting the plan use this term) is said to be necessary to restore confidence
among U.S. and foreign owners of mortgage-based securities that their
loans will be paid. Everyone agrees that this is a crisis that could spin out
of control and threaten a slowdown in investment and credit that can result
in a long-term recession or even a depression. How is it possible that all the
58 Chapter 4

wizards on Wall Street, the federal agencies responsible for regulation, and
the congressional committees providing oversight failed to anticipate this
financial meltdown?

The Financial Meltdown

There is no easy answer to this question, and all parties share the blame,
and we discussed what we believe to be some of the causes in chapter 1
(The New Economy and the 2008 Wall Street Crisis). By way of summary:
The first reason for the meltdown was contained in the massive shift in
income and wealth that was associated with the transfer of manufacturing
jobs and companies from the United States to foreign countries. The aver-
age American worker lost jobs, income, pensions, health insurance, and
long-term job security. The big winners in the new global economy were
Americans with the right educational credentials and in the right industries,
like corporate executives, managers, engineers, scientists, doctors, corporate
lawyers, accountants, computer programmers, financial consultants, health
care professionals, and media/entertainment executives. Their incomes
grew in direct relation to the declining incomes of American workers and
the declining power of unions to protect workers’ jobs and income.
The second major reason for the meltdown was the expansion of the finan-
cial sector of the economy that accompanied globalization of production. As
the United States stopped being the manufacturer and exporter of products like
refrigerators, washing machines, TVs, clothing, and automobiles, the financial
sector became the center of all things related to money—investments, corpo-
rate mergers, and new ways of making money on Wall Street, like commodity
markets, derivative trading, hedge funds, and private equity firms that took
over companies for the sole purpose of reselling them. The average earnings
of the top twenty-five hedge-fund managers in 2007 were reported to be $892
million, up from $532 million in 2006.6 The third reason for the meltdown is
found in the actions of several presidents and Congresses to facilitate the new
forms of investment, and their inaction in failing to provide oversight.
It should be obvious why Wall Street and Congress support the “buy-
out” or “bailout” and why the American people are opposed to using their
money to support those who have benefitted the most from the decades-
long transfer of income and wealth. Most Americans seem to be saying that
those who benefitted the most from the wealth bubble should pay the costs
when the bubble bursts.

Loss of Confidence in Organized Labor

The next institution receiving low marks from the American people is
organized labor. Why is that? The reason is that the leadership of organized
 Confidence in Institutions 59

labor worked with President Clinton and Congress to pass NAFTA, and
this policy was not in the best interests of rank-and-file union workers. Big
labor is often in bed with the Democratic Party on important labor issues,
and they are often more likely to work with that party than to support a
worker-based political party, like the Labor Party. Mark Dudzic, Labor Party
national organizer, has been very critical of the Democratic Party because
it is dominated by corporate interests, and he has expressed his views as
follows: “Democrats . . . are chained to corporate interests that control
the money and media that define American politics.”7 They probably also
receive criticism because of their failure to protect American workers and
their jobs against the efforts of corporations and Congress to weaken labor.
Big labor is part of the “old Washington politics,” where people believe
that they must have a “seat at the table of power” in order to protect their
interests, and the way to get that seat is to support winning political parties
and candidates. Organized labor chose this pathway to influence rather
than to try to mobilize workers to oppose current policies. This view serves
to minimize the power of a mass movement of workers, and it underesti-
mates the power of the rank and file if they are mobilized. It is also possible
that some national labor leaders are cautious about mobilizing mass-based
union power because, once unleashed, that power could become a tool for
real reform of the labor movement.

No Confidence in the Media

Finally, how do Americans view the media? How can we account for the
low regard that Americans have for newspapers and TV news? We think that
one of the big reasons for the negative opinions of newspapers is because
of their failure to inform the American people about the big economic
changes that were transforming the lives of most Americans. It took the
New York Times until 1996 to publish a special report on the “Downsizing
of America,” and only then because downsizing was affecting white-collar
workers and middle managers. However, the Times never published such
a high-profile feature on the millions of Americans’ factory jobs that were
shipped overseas by multinational corporations in search of greater prof-
its.
On the matter of growing income and wealth inequality, the New York
Times waited until 2005 to publish “Class Matters,” a collection of a series
of news articles by their staff about income inequality and declining op-
portunities for upward mobility. The first article in the series provides a
good account of income inequality in the United States and also tells read-
ers about the existence of an enduring pattern of inequality that persists
over time. But subsequent articles are more anecdotal and tell a story of
Americans at all income levels and how they deal with issues of health
60 Chapter 4

care, cross-class marriages (as if that is a major problem for the country),
and how people at different levels of income and education usually form
social relationships among people very much like themselves. Overall, the
articles give the feeling that all Americans face issues of class inequality and
deal with it in different ways.
It is the same approach that the Times used when it published the
“Downsizing of America” in 1996. This account of massive job loss due to
free trade and American corporate investment abroad was twenty years too
late, and it focused only on the job loss of white-collar workers. Although
the Times was distressed about the job losses of educated white-collar work-
ers, journalists also wrote of the “guilt of the firing squad,” or the terrible
responsibility of the top managers who delivered the pink slips. We believe
this approach to critical journalism is a fraud because it panders to the no-
tion that we are in this together and calls upon Americans to understand
that we are all facing hard times. But the truth of the matter is that we are
not “all in the same boat” when facing the challenge of the global economy;
privileged-class Americans are riding in a yacht while the other 80 percent
are in a rowboat that has a very bad leak.
The other problem with the Times series on class in America is that it slips
into partisan politics and gives the impression that the Bush tax cuts are
what created the high level of income inequality. While it is true that the tax
cuts contributed to income inequality, it would have been more accurate
to point out that income and wealth inequality is the product of decades
of policies on jobs, taxes, education, and health care that have been biased
toward the privileged class. Moreover, these policies have been enacted
when Democrats and Republicans have been in control of the White House
and Congress. The persistent structure of income and wealth inequality is
a product of the way the privileged class uses its economic and political
power to enlist elected officials to advance its interests.
Another big reason why the American public has so little confidence
in television news and newspapers is probably because they have grasped
the idea that the so-called media is actually a small number of giant cor-
porations that control most of what Americans read in newspapers and
what they see on television. In the United States today there are a small
number of large, interconnected media firms with extensive operations in
both electronic and print media. They are General Electric, Time Warner,
Disney, News Corporation, and CBS Corporation, and they own or con-
trol cable television networks, newspapers, radio stations, magazines, and
film studios. The products delivered to the public in the form of news and
entertainment consistently favor probusiness content and a point of view
that does not benefit the working class or a more informed public.8 The so-
called liberal bias of the mainstream media has been the focus of the rela-
tively new conservative pundits like radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh
 Confidence in Institutions 61

and Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly. Although Limbaugh and O’Reilly do not pre-
sent a progressive or pro-working-class perspective on economic and politi-
cal news, they have been effective in challenging the mainstream media’s
one-dimensional view of the world. One result of the new challenge com-
ing from conservative radio talk shows is an increased skepticism of what
appears on TV news and national papers such as the New York Times and
Washington Post. Over one-half of Americans get their news from television,
followed by newspapers (about 25 percent) and radio (10 percent), which
means that the five major media conglomerates noted above are the main
source for what most Americans know about national and world events.9
It is worth reflecting on the three institutions that receive high confidence
from average Americans—the military, the police, and small business.
Why are they selected to be regarded with high confidence? After all, there
can be a lot of animosity toward police, especially when there are highly
publicized events suggesting that police may engage in the use of excessive
and unnecessary force or that they may not be respectful of the rights of all
citizens. And the military also comes in for criticism whenever the media
focuses attention how they are using force in Afghanistan or Iraq. But if
there are negative reactions to police and the military, it appears to be in
response to specific situations or events, rather than a fundamental distrust
of the institution. We think that what these three institutions have in com-
mon that commands the support of Americans is that what they do on a
day-to-day basis involves considerable risk for the people who get involved;
physical risk for military and the police and economic risk for small busi-
ness owners. In addition, the rewards for what they do are modest. When
what you do for a living involves high risk and modest rewards, people are
more likely to believe that what you do can benefit others and is not just
about self-interest.

A New Spirit of Populism

We think that the declining confidence of Americans in their major
political and corporate institutions also reveals a renewed spirit of popu-
lism, a spirit that has been encouraged in recent years by national figures
like Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan in the 1996 election, and John Edwards’s
speeches about the “two Americas” in the 2004 election. Nader has con-
sistently attacked both political parties for being influenced by corporate
donations to their political campaigns and for ignoring the real concerns
of the American people. When Buchanan ran against Bob Dole to be the
Republican nominee in the 1996 presidential election, he attacked NAFTA,
immigration policy, and corporate greed, and often provided the following
kind of rhetoric: “When AT&T lops off 40,000 jobs, the executioner that
does it, he’s a big hero on the cover of one of those magazines, and AT&T
62 Chapter 4

stock soars,” and “Mr. Dole put the interest of the big banks—Citibank,
Chase Manhattan, Goldman Sachs—ahead of the American people.”10
The populist spirit rests on criticism of the wealthy and powerful corpo-
rate executives, bankers, bureaucrats, and politicians for their excesses at the
expense of the average American. Populism attempts to rally discontented
Americans eager for change, and it does so with reference to the haves ver-
sus have-nots, the fat cats versus the common man. Ralph Nader’s lifetime of
battles with corporate giants on behalf of the American consumer served
as the basis for his entry into presidential politics in 2000 and 2004 under
the banner of economic populism. Pat Buchanan’s run for the presidency
in 1996 was also based on an appeal to working-class Americans with
rhetoric like: “The voiceless men and women in this country have no one
to represent them in Washington because the hierarchy of both parties re-
ally argues on behalf of those trade deals [NAFTA], which are often done
for the benefit of corporations who shut their factories and move them
overseas.”11 When John Edwards was the vice-presidential nominee of the
Democrats in 2004, he railed against the “two Americas,” “one for people
who live the American Dream and don’t have to worry, and another for
most Americans who work hard and still struggle to make ends meet.”12
When he ran to be the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in
2008, he focused his attention on poverty in America. He stopped talking
about the “two Americas” because he got “beaten up” by the mainstream
media for his “class warfare.”
This renewed populist spirit has contributed to a call for reforms that
recognize the importance of the needs of the average American in the
economic, political, and social arenas. The direction that will be taken
by this new populism is uncertain, for it can take two different paths. It
can become focused on economic inequality and become the basis for a
mass movement calling for greater redistribution of wealth in the form of
policies directed toward better social security benefits, higher wages, job
security, and single-payer national health care. The money for these new
programs would come from increases in corporate income taxes, higher
income tax rates on the rich, and a new tax on wealth. This new wealth tax
would relieve the guilt felt by a Warren Buffet who says that his maid pays a
higher tax than he does because all her money comes from taxable income
while his money may come from tax-free bonds and other investments pro-
tected by the tax code. Populist reforms would also push for serious reduc-
tions in defense spending and the reallocation of funds to rebuild decaying
cities, transportation infrastructure, and inner-city schools. This would be a
progressive expression of populism, consistent with some of the messages
of Ralph Nader and John Edwards.
But the new populism could also turn in a direction of a reactionary
populism of the sort found in the messages of a Pat Buchanan. Anger over
 Confidence in Institutions 63

the results of thirty years of free trade and globalization could produce a
new protectionism in trade policies and a renewed isolationism directed
against immigrants. It could also see greater withdrawal into new iden-
tity politics based on the narrow interests of religion or ethnicity. Jean
Hardisty’s analysis of resurgent right-wing conservatism illustrates how
reactionary populists used Americans’ insecurity stemming from economic
restructuring to mobilize resentment against government and hostility to a
wide range of liberal policies.13 This form of populism can only be offset
by a kind of class-based politics that puts broad economic interests first,
because they have the potential to benefit people of all religions, races,
colors, or ethnicities.

ELITE INTERESTS AND CONFIDENCE IN INSTITUTIONS

Up to this point we have argued that Americans’ low level of confidence in

their political and economic institutions can be traced to their experiences
over the last thirty years with job loss and declining wages and opportunity.
This would certainly be the case for working Americans who make up 80
percent of the population. But what about the other 20 percent, those more
privileged because of their secure high-paying jobs or their educational cre-
dentials? Do the more privileged Americans also lack confidence in their
political, economic, and media institutions?
We ask this question with tongue in cheek, because national polls on
Americans’ confidence in their institutions rarely report results for the up-
per-income classes, and also because it would be silly to believe that the
privileged class lacks confidence in the three big institutions that consis-
tently deliver policies and information that are to their liking. It is likely
that wealthy and powerful Americans think of themselves as having a major
say in how the dominant institutions are operating. If they are unhappy
with tax policies or trade policies, they can turn to their business lobbies
like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or the National Association of Manu-
facturers to contact members of Congress with their concerns. If doctors are
unhappy with current or proposed policies on Medicare or Medicaid pay-
ments, they can turn to the American Medical Association to represent their
concerns. Wealthy and powerful Americans, through their contributions to
both political parties and members of Congress, have purchased access to
the sources of political power, which they use to protect their interests. Elite
Americans do not think about confidence in their institutions but about
their effectiveness in getting Congress, agencies of government, and the
president to do their bidding.
Consider the following example of how the privileged class acts when
they have doubts about the direction of U.S. trade policy in the new global
64 Chapter 4

economy. In February 1998, the New York Times published a two-page open
letter to the Congress of the United States entitled “A Time for American
Leadership on Key Global Issues.”14 The letter was written at the time when
Congress was considering legislation that would extend NAFTA-like agree-
ments with other countries in Latin America, and such legislation would
be of great benefit to American corporations and banks to extend their
investment activities in new settings. Such legislation would be harmful
to the job security of working Americans, just as the earlier NAFTA agree-
ments contributed to massive loss of manufacturing jobs and large trade
imbalances.
The letter was signed by 132 persons who are undoubtedly privileged-class
Americans, including two former presidents (Carter and Ford), forty-two
former high-level public officials (Secretaries of Defense, Treasury, CIA, etc.),
and eighty-eight presidents of major corporations. Why would these 132
elites take the time and spend the money (about $100,000 for printing an
ad) to engage in this “American-as-apple-pie” form of political expression?
Surely, this group of elites had already expressed their concerns to individual
senators, representatives, federal agencies, and even the president. Were they
trying to reach “Joe Six-Pack,” or the average American who does not read
the Times? Not likely. What they were doing was mobilizing the millions of
other members of the privileged class across the nation to use their influence
(political contributions, phone calls to congressional representatives, letters
to the editor) to push this issue. They were trying to reach doctors, lawyers,
journalists, scientists, managers, stockbrokers, media executives, think tanks,
and opinion-shaping groups, and to enlist their support.
As we stated above, privileged-class Americans seek to shape and influ-
ence their political, economic, and media institutions, rather than to ex-
press their degree of confidence in those institutions. When elite Americans
do express a lack of confidence in a particular institution it is usually based
on a set of interests that are of importance to them. The interests of small
business owners might be primarily economic, and they would monitor tax
policies that affect their business; if things don’t go as they wish they might
express low confidence in Congress. Similarly, the interests of scientists
might focus on federal funding for research on cancer or AIDS, or stem cell
projects, and they would be unhappy if the federal budget did not reflect
these interests. Let us illustrate how elite interests may be reflected in their
confidence in institutions.
Elite Americans are those with educational credentials and high incomes,
and they are likely to be more involved in national and local organizations
reflecting political interests, cultural interests, health interests, and edu-
cational interests. They also are more likely to participate in single-issue
activist organizations that reflect their concerns about abortion, teaching
evolution in schools, stem cell research, global warming, poverty, or af-
 Confidence in Institutions 65

firmative action. It is our view that elite-class Americans reveal their confi-
dence in institutions according to whether they believe that their interests
are being advanced or thwarted by the actions of persons associated with
relevant institutions.
In order to test this idea, we examine the results of a small-scale study
conducted in a single small city.15 The study focused on people’s views
of science, and it selected sixty people who were members of single-issue
groups that could be affected by the work of science and scientists. There
were five groups in the study, and ten persons were selected from each
group. They included feminists (ten PhD holders involved in a Women’s
Studies program); environmentalists (ten members of local chapters of na-
tional environmental organizations such as Audubon and Sierra Club);
religious fundamentalists (ten pastors of fundamentalist churches); political
left (ten leaders or very active members of national political organizations
guided by liberal or socialist principles); and political right (ten leaders or
very active members of local politically conservative organizations). All
participants were college graduates, and a majority had advanced degrees
and would therefore qualify as part of an educational elite.
The ten persons selected from each group were interviewed about their
views of science and, luckily for our purposes here, they were also asked
about their confidence in institutions other than science. They were asked
whether they had “a lot,” “some,” or “hardly any confidence” in thirteen in-
stitutions and professional groups. Those who reported “a lot” of confidence
in this local study would be comparable to those members of the general
adult population from the national poll data reported above, who said they
had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in specific institutions.
The findings from this study confirm our view that elite Americans try
to protect their “turf” when they express either great confidence or no con-
fidence in institutions; they like the institutions that they believe support
their interests and criticize institutions that they believe harm their inter-
ests. Members of the different interest groups expressed very different views
of institutions. For example, only 12 percent of feminists and 12 percent
of members of political left groups expressed “a lot” of confidence in the
medical profession, but 71 percent of religious fundamentalists, 55 percent
of the political right, and 44 percent of environmentalists said they had “a
lot” of confidence in the medical profession. We believe that the reason for
these large differences is that the feminists and political left respondents
believe that the actions of the medical profession do not advance their
groups’ interests on issues like reproductive rights for women or support for
socialized medicine policies. Another example is their confidence in labor
unions; only members of the political left groups (50 percent) expressed “a
lot” of confidence in labor unions, but only one person from the other four
interest groups expressed any confidence in labor unions.
66 Chapter 4

The five interest groups—feminists, environmentalists, fundamentalists,

political left, and political right—were in agreement with the national poll
data (presented above) from the general population for three institutions:
Congress, journalists, and major corporations. Not a single person from the
five interest groups expressed confidence in these three institutions. These
findings are interesting because the three institutions deal with a broad vari-
ety of issues that can affect the interests of many groups. Congress considers
legislation and discusses policies that affect feminists (reproductive rights),
environmentalists (energy policy), fundamentalists (stem cell research), and
political left/right (market-centered programs or government programs).
In summary, we believe that the low level of confidence expressed by
working-class Americans in Congress, media, and corporations is a reac-
tion to decades of collusion between political leaders and corporate lead-
ers to enact policies that advance corporate interests at the expense of the
jobs, wages, and benefits of working Americans. In contrast, members of
privileged groups are not experiencing the same job insecurity and limited
resources as workers, and thus express their confidence in terms of their
group interests as religious leaders, feminists, or environmentalists. Work-
ing-class Americans face threats to their families and their economic secu-
rity, which we may call “survival interests.” In contrast, elite Americans face
threats to their values (e.g., right to life, air pollution, stem cell research),
which we consider to be secondary to questions of survival.

WHOEVER PAYS THE PIPER CALLS THE TUNE

Many of the national polls that have assessed Americans’ confidence in

their state institutions and corporations have also asked questions about
basic principles of democracy; namely, that it is government of, by, and for
the people. A CBS News/New York Times poll conducted on May 10–13,
2000, asked adults nationwide: “How much say do you think people like
yourself have about what the government does—a good deal, some, or not
much?”16 Sixty-four percent said “not much,” 25 percent said “some.” Only
10 percent said a “good deal.” The same joint poll was conducted on July
11–15, 2004, and a nationwide adult sample was asked: “Would you say
the government is pretty much run by a few big interests looking out for
themselves or that it is run for the benefit of all the people?” Sixty-four per-
cent said “a few big interests,” and 28 percent said “all the people.”
These poll numbers suggest the existence of a considerable gap between
the people and the government; a level of disconnect or alienation that
does not fit the “of, by, and for the people” ideal. We think that one source
of this alienation is the expanded role of money in politics. After the Demo-
cratic and Republican primaries selected their nominees for president in the
 Confidence in Institutions 67

November 2008 election, the two candidates embarked on campaigns that

spent over 1 billion dollars to get their message before the voters. Televi-
sion and print media present daily updates on what various candidates are
saying or doing, and we also get daily or weekly accounts of the fund-rais-
ing efforts of candidates, and estimates of a candidate’s strength are often
discussed in terms of their success in attracting campaign contributions.
Contrary to the media’s view of money in campaigns, there may be a hid-
den message about money that is being communicated to the average
American. Maybe the medium (money) is the message.
The role of money in politics (“money is the mother’s milk of politics”)
has been a corrupting force. The most obvious corruption is the oft-re-
ported quid pro quo arrangements between politicians and big contribu-
tors that often lead to convictions and prison terms for the contributors
and the politicians. There are many high-profile cases of alleged and proven
corruption that cannot have escaped the attention of average Americans.
The most recent case is that of Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist who pled guilty
to three criminal felony charges involving theft of over $20 million from
clients while presumably working with members of Congress on behalf
of his clients. The Abramoff case also led to the conviction of two White
House officials, one member of Congress, and nine other lobbyists and
congressional aides.
More frequent cases may not involve illegality, but impropriety, or the
appearance of corruption. A good example is the 1989 case of five senators
who were accused of improperly aiding the chairman of a failed savings
and loan bank that was under investigation by a federal oversight agency.
The senators were alleged to have approached the chairman of the federal
investigating agency with a request that he “ease off” the investigation. The
senators’ defense was that what they did was not illegal and that they were
following normal congressional practices to aid a constituent. That defense
is weakened by the fact that the five senators had collectively received $1.3
million in campaign contributions from the chairman of the failed bank,
which cost American taxpayers $3.4 billion in bailout costs.
Perhaps the most flagrant example of the “it’s-legal-but-appears-to-be-
corrupt-defense” is the practice of earmarks, which involves members of
Congress adding pet projects for their constituents or home communities
to legislation developed for other purposes. Earmarks are inserted into
legislation without identifying the member of Congress who sponsored the
earmark, and they direct funds to specific projects or recipients without a
public hearing or review. In 2004, there were 14,211 earmarks inserted into
legislation with a total cost of $52.69 billion. Earmarks may be directed to
schools, universities, community projects, or private companies. There has
been a $325,000 earmark for a swimming pool, $200,000 for a rock and
roll museum, $200,000 for a deer avoidance system, and $3 million for
68 Chapter 4

dust control. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)

provides an interesting analysis of this practice. One report issued by CREW
identifies what they believe are the twenty-two most corrupt members of
Congress who have used their positions for financial benefit of themselves,
their family members, or their friends.17
It is worth noting that Democrats were very critical of the Republican-con-
trolled Congress for their involvement in pork-barrel projects through the
use of earmarks in legislation. Still, when the Democrats regained control of
Congress, the number and dollar amount of earmarks increased. A health
and human services appropriation bill for 2009 contained $618 million in
earmarks compared to $278 million in 2008. The total number of earmarks
requested in bills for fiscal year 2009 was 3,796, worth about $2.7 billion.18
The biggest role of money in politics involves the millions of dollars that
must be raised by candidates running for Congress and the presidency. The
Center for Responsive Politics reports that in 1996 the money required to
cover all aspects of an election campaign was $367 million for a presiden-
tial campaign, $7.3 million for the Senate, and $1.14 million for a House
seat. In the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama raised over $600
million and John McCain raised over $300 million. Both candidates liked
to say that the majority of their donors contributed less than $200, but they
didn’t say that the majority of the money comes from wealthy individu-
als, corporate political action committees, and business and professional
groups. Those who give the big money expect something in return, and
what they get does not necessarily benefit most Americans who are sitting
on the sidelines.

ACTIVISM, INTERNET, AND INFOTAINMENT

During the last fifty years there were two periods in which Americans’
confidence in their institutions reached such low levels that it helped to
spark two national social movements against the federal government’s
international policies. These two antiwar movements involved millions of
Americans who had become so disenchanted with their institutions that
they went into the streets to express their discontent and thereby produced
a major crisis of legitimacy. The first was the anti–Vietnam War movement
of the 1960s, which was precipitated by the U.S. government’s decision
to send troops to Vietnam to support the South Vietnamese government,
which was fighting the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. It was a conflict
that the United States decided to enter after the French withdrew follow-
ing their defeat in the battle of Dien Bien Phu. Involvement started slowly,
when President Kennedy sent in advisers to assist the South Vietnamese
military. This small-scale decision would soon spiral upward and draw two
 Confidence in Institutions 69

other presidents, Johnson and Nixon, into an escalation that would reach
500,000 troops and over 50,000 American deaths on the battlefield.
Americans came to see the battle between the North and South Vietnam-
ese as a civil war that was of no interest to this country. The U.S. government
across three presidential administrations chose to see the war in the frame
of the Cold War struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union,
and the conflict between the two Vietnams as part of a domino theory that
required U.S. involvement to stop the Communists from spreading their
influence throughout Southeast Asia. Opposition to the war among Ameri-
cans was expressed through mass mobilizations in the streets of Washing-
ton, D.C., in dozens of cities, and on hundreds of college campuses. Many
demonstrations were peaceful, and many were violent. Demonstrators were
often beaten, jailed, and even killed. Civil disobedience reached critical
levels and the legitimacy of America’s political institutions was the first to
be discredited, but the crisis would soon spread to challenge broader social
institutions of the family, education, and the criminal justice system.
The second antiwar movement emerged in the 1980s and came to be
known as the Central America solidarity movement. In this period, the
U.S. government decided once again to intervene in the affairs of other
countries, in this case the Central American nations of Nicaragua and El
Salvador. The United States was unhappy with the Sandinista government
in Nicaragua because of their Socialist and Communist inclinations. The
Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN) had toppled the Somoza
regime, which was pro–United States but very unpopular among average
Nicaraguans. The United States did not intervene directly with troops, but
it did everything it could to topple the Sandinista regime, including creating
and supporting a military force in Nicaragua (the Contras) that they hoped
would topple the Sandinistas.
Another Central American country, El Salvador, also presented a problem
for U.S. policy in the region that was committed to supporting regimes
friendly to the United States. The government of El Salvador was led by José
Napoleón Duarte, and it was engaged in a political and military struggle
with indigenous opposition from the Farabundo Martí Front for National
Liberation (FMLN) and its political ally, the Democratic Revolutionary Front
(FDR). The United States channeled substantial military and economic aid
to the Duarte government in the hope of defeating the insurgents.
Opposition to U.S. policy in Central America was expressed through public
demonstrations, petitions to Congress to cut off aid to the Contras in Nicara-
gua and the Duarte government in El Salvador, and support for organizations
that provided aid to the Sandinistas and to the opposition groups in El Salva-
dor. One of the most notable groups was the Committee in Solidarity with the
People of El Salvador (CISPES), and they had chapters in many communities
across the United States and central headquarters in Washington, D.C.
70 Chapter 4

In both historical periods, the 1960s and the 1980s, there were mass
mobilizations of people to attend public rallies, to raise money to support
activists who had been arrested, to sign petitions, and to engage in a variety
of collective acts of civil disobedience. All this took place during a time
when there were no wireless phones, no iPods, no BlackBerries, no personal
computers, no Internet, no blogs, no MTV, no Facebook, no YouTube, and
no dozens of other pieces of personal technology that Americans use today
to communicate with each other and to access information. How was it
possible that without modern technology such as the widespread use of
personal computers and the Internet that so many people were mobilized
to engage in mass demonstrations that were successful in opposing govern-
ment policies in Vietnam in the 1960s and in Central America in the 1980s?
The answer is the pencil-and-paper telephone tree, used by hundreds of ac-
tivists to use landline telephones to call preassigned recipients and inform
them about a planned demonstration, film, speaker, petition, or fund-rais-
ing project. It was a combination of dedicated people and a specific plan
of communication, along with announcements in local newspapers about
such events. Newspapers were willing participants in the dissemination net-
work as long as you provided written announcements, media packets, and
the promise of a potential clash of opinions. Media survive on conflict.
There are two counterexamples of contemporary social activism that has
been facilitated by Internet-based mobilization. In 1999, tens of thousands
of activists came to Seattle, Washington, to protest against the World Trade
Organization and its free-trade policies. Designed to be a peaceful protest,
it developed into a full-scale confrontation with Seattle police and the Na-
tional Guard, who used pepper spray and tear gas to prevent the protesters
from disrupting the WTO conference. The assemblage of protesters repre-
senting labor, environmentalists, and human rights groups was undoubt-
edly facilitated by communication across Internet networks.
A second case of Internet-facilitated social activism was the United States
Social Forum in June–July 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia. Between 5,000 and
10,000 trade unionists, peace activists, and community organizers assem-
bled in the name of global justice and anticapitalism. For five days, they
attended workshops, plenary sessions, cultural events, and street actions.
The question of old style (telephone trees) and new style technology
(computer and Internet) as ways to reach people brings us to the question
of activism in the age of the Internet. The advent of the personal computer
and the Internet led many to believe that we were on the brink of an age
in which there would be a new democratization of media,19 because the In-
ternet would make it possible for citizens to limit the power of traditional
media (newspapers and television) to control what is presented to the pub-
lic. The symbol of this new age of the Internet became the MySpace/MTV
“presidential dialogues,” and the CNN/YouTube presidential debates that
 Confidence in Institutions 71

used questions submitted by YouTube users.20 These efforts were especially

attractive to young voters because of their extensive use of social network-
ing Internet sites and because of young voters’ limited interest in reading
newspapers.21 The Internet has also facilitated the mobilization of millions
of Americans for political campaigning and fund raising, and web-based
media have enabled people to work around elite-based media that are in-
creasingly distrusted by groups across the political spectrum.
We think that the jury is still out on the significance of personal comput-
ers and the Internet for an empowered citizen participation in politics and
for the development of greater confidence in political institutions. It is our
belief that after an initial burst of enthusiasm for the Internet as a tool for
enhanced political participation and a bottom-up framing of issues and
mobilization of people, there will be the same level of disenchantment
with the medium that had already been expressed toward traditional me-
dia. Why do we believe this to be so?
First, Internet-based activism is a very efficient and cost-effective way
to use direct mail lists to get contributions, obtain petition signatures,
and direct-letter-writing/e-mailing campaigns directed at political of-
ficials. However, it is a very passive form of participatory politics and is
less directed at bringing people into the streets than in creating new social
networks of “friends” and personal ties. These networks have the potential
to become activated, as we observed in the Battle for Seattle, but it has
yet to be demonstrated that public mass activism is here to stay as a new
form of political expression. Second, the amount of information that flows
through the Internet is enormous and is not subjected to any standards
of oversight or objectivity. This leads to a dependence on blogs as a way
to cut through the overwhelming amount of information presented to
Internet users. But bloggers provide little confidence to readers about the
objectivity, fact versus rumor and gossip, of the ideas presented in their
blogs, to say nothing of the identity and possible false personas of blog-
gers. Third, the dependence on blogs for political discourse can encourage
a discrediting of facts and objectivity and encourage people to think that
politics is all about opinion anyway. Bloggers are competing for audience
attention, and this will always encourage sensational claims over reasoned
arguments, given the limitations of time and audience attention span. The
erosion of reason and argument in political discourse cannot contribute
to the creation of new and more legitimate social institutions or to having
greater confidence in leaders or existing institutions. In the competition
for audience, bad blogs (sensationalism) will always drive out good blogs
(reasoned analysis). Politics is always a mix of reason and emotion, but
when it becomes all emotion the consequences are deadly. If the choice is
between watching a TV documentary on Paris Hilton or Eleanor Roosevelt,
we are all in trouble.
72 Chapter 4

The final source of the erosion of Americans’ confidence in their institu-

tions can be traced to the increasing tendency in all media, traditional and
modern, to blend entertainment and information. The ideal example of
this blending is The Daily Show on Comedy Central TV, which is devoted to
satirical analysis of news. While obviously a comedy show, the use of real
news items as the basis for humor generates such audience response that
the show seems to provide a model for serious news shows. Consider, for
example, the most popular news shows on TV: The O’Reilly Factor, Hannity
& Colmes, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and The McLaughlin Group. Each
show has a blend of regular panelists and guests who discuss the issues
of the day presented by the host. Each of these shows operates at a high
decibel level where participants often speak simultaneously and try to out-
shout each other to make their points. They frequently have the look of
squabbling kids around the family table, with the father-figure host trying
to maintain some semblance of order and coherent discourse.
This blend of information and entertainment on these shows apparently
works as a way to attract a viewing audience and to keep them coming back.
It is hard to doze off while watching these shows, and it is sometimes hard
to separate the heat from the light. Contrast this form of infotainment with
more staid programs such as News Hour with Jim Lehrer on public televi-
sion, and on commercial television, the late Tim Russert’s Meet the Press and
This Week with George Stephanopoulos. The format of these shows is serious
extended discussion of a limited number of news topics, and often with
a structure of two or more guests or panelists discussing a topic of some
importance. The viewer is usually presented with two sharply divergent
views on a subject, but in a very orderly manner. The questioning of guests
is serious and often seems designed to extract quotable comments that will
be picked up on the next day’s national news shows.
The problem with the conventional serious news shows is that their
content is often of interest mainly to the inside-the-beltway political class,
and their guests are usually lawmakers and government officials, and rarely
union leaders, workers, or populist interest groups. Research on televi-
sion news shows indicates that they rarely have guests who will challenge
mainstream opinion or represent the interests of average Americans. As one
media watchdog group stated: “True advocates for the left—people who
actually push for progressive social change and identify with left-of-center
activists—are almost invisible on TV.”22 Moreover, people of color—blacks,
Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans—are significantly underrepresented
in newsrooms and on the national TV broadcast side of the business.23
The age of the Internet contains the promise of a new way to bring Ameri-
cans back into politics and perhaps to restore their confidence in their lead-
ers and institutions. That promise has yet to be fulfilled.
5
Identity, Grievance, and Trust

Should a person vote for Hillary Clinton so that we can have the first woman
president? Should a person vote for Barack Obama so that we can have the
first black president? Should we vote for or against any candidate based on
their gender, race, ethnicity, or religion? Although these questions surfaced
in connection with the 2008 presidential election, they have been the basis
for numerous social issues and public-policy conflicts facing Americans in
the last thirty years under the name of identity politics. Identity politics in
its broadest meaning is about the attitudes and actions of groups based on
their race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation that focus on their dif-
ferential ability to influence decisions that affect their lives.1 The term has
been used with increasing frequency in U.S. politics since the 1970s.
However, before discussing identity politics it might be useful to say
something first about group identity, which must exist before it can be ex-
pressed in a political form. The identity of any group is a product of how its
members view themselves and how others view them. The self-definitions
of a group may be based on a common language or culture, common his-
torical experiences, or current circumstances, and member ties to the group
may be extensive or limited. Identity may also be imposed on a group, as
in the extreme case of slavery in America. Being part of an identity group
can provide one with a sense of a shared bond that provides support in
times of need, or under conditions when people move to new cities or new
countries and seek others who share their culture.
The importance of identity groups based on race, ethnicity, or gender
may have grown as there has been an apparent change in people’s pat-
terns of participation in a wide range of voluntary associations. In 1994,
Robert Wuthnow reported research evidence indicating that there was a

73
74 Chapter 5

new form of voluntary association, which he called “support groups,” that

were appearing in America in greater numbers and varieties, and which
he described as follows: “a small group that meets regularly and provides
support or caring for those who participate in it.”2 In concrete terms, they
are singles’ groups, youth groups, women’s groups, prayer fellowship, or
men’s groups. Wuthnow believed that the trend reflected a retreat from
participation in large-scale, rational, bureaucratic structures and a return to
more intimate, community-based, voluntary associations. In 1995, Robert
Putnam published an article entitled “Bowling Alone: America’s Declin-
ing Social Capital,” in which he presented evidence indicating a decline
in membership for all categories of voluntary associations in the United
States.3 Putnam believed that the small support groups identified by Wuth-
now tend to be self-absorbed, inward looking, and therefore lack interest in
issues affecting the wider community. We are interested in these questions
because we are concerned with whether or not the pattern of participation
in voluntary groups contributes to fostering a sense of community and trust
among Americans who participate in a wide variety of groups.
We are also interested in whether the changing patterns of voluntary
association and small-group membership may be associated with the role
played by identity groups in American life. Members of identity groups
often have a shared history, culture, or language that provides the kind of
primary bond that is missing in traditional voluntary associations that have
a more diverse membership in terms of their social backgrounds. In addi-
tion, members of an identity group may come to recognize a shared past
or present grievance that leads them to consider collective action outside
of their group. It could be a grievance that is local, like school programs
for their children, or national, like equal pay for equal work. When a group
uses its identity in an instrumental fashion to try to influence the actions
of others in the larger society in ways that may benefit their group, it enters
the realm of identity politics.
There are several aspects of identity politics that should be considered.
First, although this form of politics has been associated with grievances
based on race and gender, it quickly expanded to include many ethnic
groups and many other personal qualities such as sexual orientation and
physical disability. Second, the specific grievance that serves as the unify-
ing condition for the group is a particularistic grievance, in that it may be
claimed by a subset of Americans and excludes those who do not have the
quality or experience that is the basis for grievance. Third, those Americans
who are excluded from the aggrieved group are asked to acknowledge the
validity of the grievance and to support remedies designed to benefit the
aggrieved group. Fourth, if the grievance is about oppression that had its
origins in the past, the cost of the remedies is to be paid by persons who
may believe that they played no part in the original oppression. Fifth, those
 Identity, Grievance, and Trust 75

who make grievance claims based in the past may not be suffering from the
effects of that oppression today. For example, educated, middle-class blacks
may identify with the historic oppression of slavery, but their current lives
may not limited by that historic oppression. Similarly, Jewish Americans
or Italian Americans or Irish Americans may all have valid historic claims
of oppression (anti-Semitism, Hollywood stereotypes of Italians, Irish im-
migrants as unreliable workers), but their current lives may not be shaped
by that historic oppression.
An imposed group identity can inhibit the development of public policy
to assist disadvantaged groups. For example, in the 1980s, attacks on social
welfare programs by conservative groups often connected welfare with race,
and welfare recipients were depicted as if they were all African Americans,
when in reality there were more whites on welfare.4 Welfare recipients were
also framed as “nondeserving poor” when they were given the image of
“welfare queens” who would drive in fancy cars to pick up their welfare
check. This race-based attack on welfare recipients served to create divisions
between white and nonwhite poor, despite their common interest in hav-
ing a social safety net. The image of the nondeserving poor surfaced again
in the mid-1990s, when both political parties and both houses of Congress
voted to “end welfare as we know it,” and President Clinton signed the Per-
sonal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. The 1996 law ended the
Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and ended the federal
guarantee of cash assistance to poor families.
Although welfare mothers come in all shades, colors, and ethnicities,
they came to be identified with one race, thereby making it easier for poli-
ticians to attack the existing welfare program and to replace it with a less
caring and more punitive system.
The grievances of groups involved in identity politics are usually valid.
But the five features of identity politics discussed above often serve to di-
vide Americans who have other common interests and deflect attention
to the intergroup conflicts between blacks and whites, men and women,
Hispanics and blacks, Asians and blacks, gays and straights, and so on. In
order to build trust among different interest groups there must be a simul-
taneous recognition of their separate grievances and what unites them in
common grievances.
In contrast to the particularistic grievances often associated with identity
politics, there is a universalistic grievance that a majority of Americans are
(unfortunately) eligible to experience. That grievance is associated with
a family’s current income, job security, and educational opportunities.
Limited income and opportunity is an equal-opportunity grievance that
may affect any American regardless of gender, race, or ethnic group. And
more important, it is a grievance that may be used to unify diverse groups
of people to push for public policies that could benefit many Americans.
76 Chapter 5

This universalistic grievance is often referred to as class politics. At one time

Americans were more interested in class politics than in identity politics.
What are some of the reasons for this change?
There are several plausible reasons for the increasing interest of Ameri-
cans in their racial, ethnic, or religious identity, and thereby, the rise of
identity politics. We think that one reason is associated with our discussion
in chapter 4 concerning the decline in confidence in America’s major politi-
cal and economic institutions. As Americans became less secure about their
jobs and their futures, they lost faith in government and corporations, and
they looked for support in troubled times to others who were very much
like themselves. Uncertain about their future and unable to rely on the
government for help, they turn their attention to community groups who
could provide aid and comfort in time of need. Joining an identity group
provides an opportunity to discuss common concerns and experiences, to
obtain information about available resources such as jobs, and a chance to
act collectively to deal with shared concerns. We think that growing insecu-
rity and declining trust in government may also be related to the increased
interest in religion as an identity group in America. Let us illustrate.
In the social sciences there is the long-established idea that links eco-
nomic development to secularization. That is, as society becomes more
advanced and modern, especially with regard to improved economic,
educational, and social conditions, the population comes to rely less on
religion as a significant part of their lives. Two scholars have described this
idea in the following way.

We believe that the importance of religiosity persists most strongly among vul-
nerable populations, especially those living in poorer nations, facing personal
survival-threatening risks. We argue that feelings of vulnerability to physical,
societal, and personal risks are a key factor driving religiosity, and we dem-
onstrate that the process of secularization—a systematic erosion of religious
practices, values, and beliefs—has occurred most clearly among the most pros-
perous sectors living in affluent and secure post-industrial nations.5

There is support for the theory of secularization among most affluent

Western European nations, Canada, and Australia, where churchgoing has
declined in the last two decades. The exception is the United States, which
has high rates of religious participation. However, the researchers do not
see the United States as an exception to the secularization idea. They stress
the fact that the United States is the most unequal postindustrial nation
under comparison, and that its citizens “face serious risks of loss of paid
work by the main breadwinner, the dangers of sudden ill health without
adequate private medical insurance, vulnerability to becoming a victim of
crime, as well as the problems of paying for long-term care of the elderly.
Americans face far greater anxieties than citizens of other advanced indus-
 Identity, Grievance, and Trust 77

trialized societies about whether or not they will be covered by medical

insurance, be fired arbitrarily, or be forced to choose between their jobs and
devoting themselves to their new-born children.”6 In short, because survival
is more uncertain in the United States compared to Western European na-
tions, there is greater importance of religion in the lives of people with a
weak social safety net.
A second reason for the increased interest in identity politics is the failure
of past class-based movements, most notably the union movement. After a
period of major gains in union membership and strength after World War
II and continuing into the 1950s and 1960s, there has been a continual de-
cline under the impact of globalized production, labor-displacing technol-
ogy, and antiunion government policies. In addition, the union movement
did not always provide strong leadership in support of the full participation
of African Americans and women in their ranks, thereby undercutting the
universalistic potential of this class-based movement. We believe that the
decline of the union movement, and class politics, left a vacuum that would
be filled by a variety of identity groups.
A third reason for the increased interest in identity groups can be traced
to the declining belief in a “melting pot” America, where the processes of
assimilation and integration would eventually bring everyone together
under a common set of values and cultural practices. Although inequality
based on race and ethnicity may have declined, it has not disappeared, and
it stands as a refutation of the goal of assimilation. We now turn to a discus-
sion of the rise and decline of the goal of assimilation in American life.

THE RISE AND DECLINE OF ASSIMILATION THEORY

In the 1950s and 1960s most Americans shared a belief in how the
American Dream worked, and that belief was that the country welcomed
people from all over the world to become Americans and that becoming
American was achieved through a process of “assimilation and integra-
tion.” The assimilation-integration idea was born out of the experiences
of millions of immigrants who came to the United States in the early
part of the twentieth century. They arrived in the United States speaking
languages other than English and with knowledge of customs, traditions,
and social practices that were part of their home country but had to be
modified or discarded in order to live in America. Upon arrival in their
new national home these immigrants found themselves at the bottom
of the social ladder, but they did not believe that they or their children
were destined to remain at the bottom. When immigrants started their
new lives in America they usually lived among their coethnics who spoke
their language and who could provide advice and support as they found
78 Chapter 5

places to live and work. After receiving support from others who preceded
them, they would eventually be able to give help to others in the same
way that they had been helped. The assimilation story told the new im-
migrants that their place at the bottom of the social ladder was temporary
and that they would gradually become assimilated into their new country.
The assimilation process, as described by some sociologists, contained the
following steps or stages.7

1. The first and most difficult step is acquiring the language of the new
country. This is often difficult for the adults because they are living
among coethnics and are still speaking the language of their home
country. Children from immigrant families who are attending school
learn English more quickly and often assist adults in this process.
2. The next step involves acquiring the values, beliefs, and symbols of
the dominant culture, which may include clothing, food preparation,
and family life.
3. After assimilation based on language and culture, the next barrier is
joining the groups and organizations of the dominant society. This in-
volves contact with others in the workplace, friendships across ethnic
or racial lines, and joining civic organizations that are not limited to
one racial or ethnic group. This type of assimilation is more difficult
than cultural assimilation because it involves leaving one’s ethnic
community and joining a mixed ethnic community.
4. Next is marital assimilation, which is facilitated by contact with men
and women from other ethnic and racial groups. A high rate of inter-
marriage between first- or second-generation immigrants and mem-
bers of the dominant culture facilitates a weakening of ethnic identity.
Identity is now based on participation and success in the mainstream
institutions of the society.
5. The final stage involves a change in attitudes and behavior of domi-
nant groups who become more receptive to members of ethnic groups
and less likely to harbor prejudicial attitudes and engage in discrimi-
natory practices.

Assimilation theory had its day, but it started to unravel as a realistic

idea during the civil rights era. The early stage of the movement for civil
rights had an assimilation-integration thrust as black Americans sought an
end to the so-called separate but equal society. The movement called for
equality in public accommodations, schools, neighborhoods, and an end
to Jim Crow institutions. The early message of Dr. Martin Luther King, as
a national leader of the civil rights movement, had integration as the goal,
where people would be judged by the content of their character and not by
the color of their skin.
 Identity, Grievance, and Trust 79

As the spotlight was placed on the conditions under which black Ameri-
cans lived during 240 years of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow segrega-
tion, it became apparent that very little had changed with respect to jobs,
income, and opportunity. Assimilation theory may have worked for white
ethnics as each generation of sons and daughters of Italian or Irish immi-
grants moved up the educational and occupational ladder, but black Ameri-
cans seemed to be running in place. Assimilation for African Americans or
Native Americans was obviously much slower than for white ethnics, rais-
ing the possibility that prejudice and discrimination were deeply embedded
in American social institutions and that competition and conflict were the
normal conditions of intergroup relations.
The decline of the assimilation narrative was further facilitated by the as-
sassination of Dr. Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968. Many believed that
King became a threat to the status quo when he began to link issues of race
with issues of poverty and when he raised questions about how the war in
Vietnam was responsible for America’s lost war on poverty. King’s assassi-
nation was followed by the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy on June 5,
1968, during his bid for the presidential nomination; his political platform
contained a strong populist message about poverty in America.
The assassination of these two national leaders, who were in many ways
reformers and believers in the goal of integration, added to the disap-
pointment and disillusionment of many activists for civil rights and equal
opportunity. Disappointment with the promise of assimilation was also a
product of the growing tendency in political circles to blame the slow prog-
ress of African Americans on deficiencies within the disadvantaged group
rather than the failure of the institutional structure to adapt to the needs
of the disadvantaged group. The most prominent example of this tendency
was the so-called “Moynihan report,” a Department of Labor report titled
The Negro Family: The Case for National Action.8 The authors, Daniel Moyni-
han, then assistant secretary of labor, with the assistance of Paul Barton and
Ellen Broderick, argued that the history of slavery and subordination had
such a marked impact on the Negro family that many Negroes would be
unable to take advantage of the new opportunities that were made available
to them (“. . . at the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of Negro society
is the deterioration of the Negro family”).
The Moynihan report generated substantial controversy in government
circles, the civil rights movement, the press, and among academic social
scientists.9 This controversy coincided with the rise of a critique of “melting
pot” America referred to as pluralism theory. This idea stressed maintain-
ing patterns of ethnicity because the “maintenance of distinctive cultural,
organizational, and behavioral characteristics is often a way of coping with
discrimination.”10 As pluralism took hold, many race and ethnic-based op-
position movements were asserting the validity of their culture and their
80 Chapter 5

rights. Advocates of the cultural Black Is Beautiful theme and the political
Black Power theme turned away from the belief in integration and assimi-
lation and emphasized instead self-help community organizing and many
forms of black interest-group politics. The women’s movement and other
ethnic-based political groups soon embraced this model of identity politics.
Identity politics following the black movement were often directed at the
many forms of discrimination that affected a group’s material interests,
such as jobs, income, worker rights, and educational opportunities.
In recent years, however, identity politics has increasingly focused on the
cultural domain and on what we might call the “micro insults” inflicted on
a group when they seek recognition for their “cultural rights.” Consider,
for example, the following story reported by the Associated Press on March
5, 2008: “For Muslims, Harvard tests women-only gym hours.” Harvard
University banned men from one of its gyms for a few hours a week to
accommodate Muslim women who say it offends their sense of modesty
to exercise in front of the opposite sex. As one might expect, there was
opposition from some students who thought it unfair to deny access to a
facility that is supposed to be for everyone. Supporters of the policy stated
that “the majority should be willing to compromise. It’s just basic courtesy.
We must show tolerance and respect for all others.” A more telling defense
raised the fairness principle: “We get special requests from religious groups
all the time and we try to honor them whenever possible.”
This incident may seem amusing because the stakes are so low (how can
one offend women’s modesty in the age of YouTube and Facebook?), but it
has all the ingredients of many of the contemporary issues raised by iden-
tity politics. Consider, for example, the annual Christmas event in many
communities across the country when religious groups attempt to place a
Christmas scene (typically a manger scene) in the town square, in a public
park, or around a central courthouse. The requests of the Muslim women
or the Christmas-scene advocates can be seen, of course, as very modest
and reasonable and consistent with calls for tolerance and respect for all
beliefs. The problem is that the requests involve the use of public space and
involve inconvenience for some citizens to accommodate the requests of
other citizens. It also raises the question of competing experiences of “of-
fense.” The Muslim women or the Christmas-scene advocates are offended
by circumstances that conflict with their modesty norms or offended by ef-
forts to take Christ out of Christmas. Those who are unsympathetic to these
requests assert their own feelings of having their tax dollars used to support
activities that offend their beliefs in separation of church and state.
Public officials or university administrators who are faced with these
requests may wish to be tolerant and respectful, but they are also worry-
ing about the slippery slope of requests that may follow. What guideline
will they use to separate valid requests from frivolous requests, and isn’t
 Identity, Grievance, and Trust 81

the judgment of what is valid and frivolous in the eyes of the beholder?
There may be only two standards that can be applied to adjudicate requests
like those of the Muslim women or the Christmas-scene advocates: would
anyone be offended by the activity, or is public space open to all requests
regardless of anyone’s opinion of validity? If no person or group objects to
the religious identity requests, or if any person or group can request use of
public space for a display (subject only to scheduling limitations), then let
all identity requests be honored.
Another example of micro insults based on cultural differences between
identity groups was experienced by one author in a study conducted in a
unionized manufacturing plant. During the course of the research a con-
flict emerged between some white and black workers over the display of
symbols that each group found offensive. It started when a complaint was
lodged with the human resources department claiming that some workers
were displaying the Confederate flag at their work stations, typically on
their lunch boxes or tool boxes. The accused workers, who were white, re-
sponded that they were also offended by black workers who wore T-shirts
with Black Power symbols or Malcolm X quotes. The human relations
people wouldn’t do anything without support from the union, and the
union did not want to take a position that would engender conflict within
the union. The resolution was to ban both the flag and the T-shirts, a deci-
sion that both groups rejected on the grounds that their culture was being
disrespected.
When identity groups fight with each other in their versions of victim-
hood battles to see who has the biggest grievance, neither side wins very
much. Both sides are distracted from larger issues that should unite them,
like having better wages, greater job security, pensions, or paid sick days.
This brings us to the sensitive questions of who is in charge of identity
groups, and how do they decide on their priority issues? Who in identity
politics groups makes the decisions about which issues to take before
the public for remedy? Who decides whether their group should focus
on stem cell research, abortion, gay marriage, religion in public places,
hate crimes, or on income and wealth redistribution? We don’t know the
answer to this question, but we can make an educated guess. The leader-
ship cluster in many national identity politics groups are typically people
with educational credentials and some experience in leadership roles. They
probably enjoy somewhat higher social and economic standing than the
rank-and-file members of their identity politics group. In fact, they may
often be members with privileged backgrounds, as measured by their fam-
ily income, wealth, and general level of security. This being the case, why
would a privileged-class leadership select income and wealth redistribution
as the central social issue that requires attention when it would not be in
their class-based interests?
82 Chapter 5

One could not raise this question about the interests of leaders and rank
and file in the civil rights movement, when the struggle was to achieve
equal standing before the law and all persons of color would realize the
same benefits. But many contemporary identity groups contain a diverse
membership that may differ along class, race, or religious lines, and these
differences may shape their goals and strategies. Choices must be made
about whether to stress past grievances or current grievances; cultural re-
spect or income inequality. There may be different interests between iden-
tity groups, and there may be different interests within identity groups. But
before these groups can begin to trust each other and to work together, they
must begin to understand their respective grievances. With this objective in
mind, we now move to examine the question of past and present grievances
of dominant identity groups in the hope that we may identify things that
have the potential to divide Americans and things that may unify them.

GRIEVANCES: PAST AND PRESENT

Grievances abound in America. It is likely that almost every American can

tell a story of prejudice or discrimination experienced by a member of his/
her family. This almost universal experience of grievance is due to the fact
that every American family either immigrated to this country voluntarily or
was brought here without their consent. Native Americans have the distinc-
tion of having already been here when the Europeans arrived, and African
Americans were brought here against their will and subjected to legal dis-
crimination under slavery and Jim Crow laws after slavery was abolished.
Upon arrival, every immigrant family probably was confronted by groups
who were already here and who found something about the new arrivals
that offended them. The white ethnics who flocked to America in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century experienced a variety of forms of
prejudice and discrimination.
During the large immigration waves of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, new arrivals often lived in ethnic enclaves in large
cities. At this time there was an understandable tendency among new im-
migrants to preserve cultural traditions and to keep their “mother tongue.”
The strong ethnic identities of the first wave of immigrants often declined
as their children attended school, became speakers of English, and ab-
sorbed prevailing popular culture. Although some assimilation was occur-
ring and ethnic enclaves declined in size as people migrated out, there was
still a pattern of ethnic festivals that attracted first- and second-generation
Italians, Germans, or Irish to acknowledge their ethnic heritage. We would
call this a “soft” form of ethnic identification, reflected in a desire to ac-
knowledge and maintain cultural practices that were brought to the United
 Identity, Grievance, and Trust 83

States while still adopting new practices that were dominant in the new set-
ting. This was the intergenerational pattern of assimilation and integration
described earlier.
Although all early ethnic groups had difficulty with assimilation and
integration, extreme hostility toward them often occurred when they
shifted from being an ethnic group to being an interest group, which we
might call a shift from a “soft” form of ethnic identification to a “hard”
form. Let us illustrate the soft form with a personal example. When the
first author was fourteen years old he joined the Italian Sport Club (his
uncle already was a member), a bicycle road-racing club composed of
first- and second-generation Italian teenagers, young men, and older men.
The younger members spoke standard vernacular English, while the older
men used many styles of “broken” English, often mixing English and Ital-
ian. In the same city there were also French and German bicycle-racing
clubs. (Cycle racing was very popular in Italy and other Western European
countries, and the tradition was maintained in the United States.) Every
Sunday morning during the warm seasons there were intraclub and inter-
club road and sprint races. All bike riders wore a distinct jersey (the same
style as worn by bikers in the Tour de France today), and the Italian club
colors were red, white, and green. Although the club colors were those of
the Italian flag, that association was unspoken at weekly races, monthly
club meetings, or annual awards banquets. The colors were recognition of
a common heritage and culture, not a political statement. That is “soft”
ethnic identification.
Contrast the above anecdote with the experience during World War I
when the term “hyphenated American” became an epithet hurled at some
foreigners and was used to disparage Americans who displayed an alle-
giance to a foreign country. Even more remarkable is that the epithet was
used at the time by a former and a current president of the United States.
Hyphenated Americans became an issue when some German American and
Irish American groups called for U.S. neutrality at the start of World War
I. This produced great hostility toward immigrants who were charged with
having divided loyalties. Describing this period in a book in 1955, John
Higham wrote:

The two most distinguished men in public life lent their influence to the anti-
hyphenate movement. Theodore Roosevelt bestrode the movement; Woodrow
Wilson surrendered to it; and together they illustrated the change that the pro-
gressive impulse was undergoing. Roosevelt stood out as the standard bearer
and personification of unhyphenated Americanism. Wilson’s final address in
support of the League of Nations [delivered September 25, 1919, in Pueblo,
Colorado] stated: any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a
dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic when he gets
ready.11
84 Chapter 5

One might speculate that the antihyphenate movement was stimulated

by the political actions of German and Irish Americans to influence foreign
policy, and thereby becoming an interest group expressing “hard” ethnic
identification. When an ethnic group celebrates its history and culture, it
does not require anything of others except for understanding and respect,
and the result can be a healthy diversity. And all Americans have a heritage
to celebrate if they should choose to do so. But when a group takes a posi-
tion in an arena of economic, political, or value questions, it can expect a
pushback from other groups feeling that their interests are being threat-
ened. We offer this distinction between soft and hard ethnic identification
as perhaps one way of understanding the basis for intergroup hostility and
lack of understanding.
The common experience of grievance in every American family doesn’t
mean that all grievances have equal standing in their initial and continuing
impact on the targeted group. In the next section we examine the grievance
claims of identity groups and distinguish among them on two dimensions.
The first dimension is the severity of the harm inflicted in terms of the
numbers involved and the extensiveness of the harm. In some cases, the
harm could be extensive, such as genocide, but the number or proportion
of the group affected is small. The second dimension is the degree to which
a past harm continues to affect the targeted group today. Thus, we separate
grievances on two criteria: a severity dimension and a past-present dimen-
sion. The point of this analysis is to find grounds among identity groups for
understanding their grievance claims.

NATIVE AMERICANS

Past: When Europeans arrived on the eastern shores of the New World,
there was an indigenous population of between 1 million and 5 million
people that we will refer to as Native Americans. There were numerous
nations of American Indians who were already living within the borders
of what would become the United States, and they were certainly not “dis-
covered.” Scholars of Native American demography estimate that between
the time of initial European contact (about 1600) and 1850, the Native
American population declined from about 2.5 million to 200,000.12 This
extraordinary decline of population was undoubtedly due to a combina-
tion of factors including stolen land and starvation of displaced peoples,
infectious diseases brought by the Europeans, and outright killing of Native
Americans in the so-called Indian Wars.
Present: From the low point of 200,000 Native Americans, there has been
a gradual increase, especially after 1950, to a population today of about 4
million. It is believed that this population growth is due to better health
 Identity, Grievance, and Trust 85

programs that reduced infant mortality and to more Native Americans be-
ing willing to be so identified at census time. Most Native Americans live
in the Southwest, and only about one in five live on reservations. Current
social and economic conditions of Native Americans indicate that they do
not compare favorably with other Americans. Educational levels of Native
Americans are far below those of other ethnics and white Americans.13
About 71 percent of Native Americans graduate from high school, and
11.5 percent are college graduates, compared to 84.6 percent high school
graduates for white Americans and 27.2 percent college graduates. For black
Americans the figures are 80 percent for high school and 17.3 percent for
college; for Hispanics it is 57 percent high school and 11.4 percent college;
and for Asian Americans it is 87.6 percent high school and 49.8 percent
college graduates.
The income level of Native Americans is about two-thirds that of white
Americans. They are underrepresented in white-collar occupations and
overrepresented in blue-collar jobs, resulting in about 23.2 percent of Na-
tive Americans living below the official poverty line in 2000. This is the
highest poverty rate among all ethnic groups.14

AFRICAN AMERICANS

Past: The conditions of life under slavery are difficult to imagine. Consider-
ing only the legal conditions under which the institution of slavery operated
conveys some idea of what it was like for the first Africans in America.15

1. Blacks were to be slaves for life.

2. Slaves were both property and persons; owners held title to blacks as
property and had some responsibilities to blacks as persons.
3. Children would inherit their mother’s status as a slave.
4. Christian baptism did not automatically lead to freedom.
5. Marriages between blacks and whites were prohibited.
6. Blacks could not acquire or inherit property.
7. Blacks could not engage in litigation or enter into civil contracts; they
could not testify against whites in court, nor could they sit on juries.

Although there was concern about “humane treatment” for slaves, there
was little doubt about their “biological inferiority,” which extended to the
postslavery period and their continued exclusion from education, jobs,
housing, and civil rights. The legacy of slavery continued for the 90 percent
of blacks who remained in the South after slavery was abolished. They lived
primarily in rural areas and were tied to an agricultural economy that per-
petuated their oppression. World War I brought the first wave of migration
86 Chapter 5

of blacks into northern cities. The decline of external immigration during

the war and the need to meet wartime production goals combined to serve
as a major impetus for the migration of black Americans. World War II led to
a second major wave of black migration from the South to northern cities.
Present: In 2006, there were 36.6 million African Americans in the United
States. The cumulative effects of 350 years of oppression under the institu-
tion of slavery and Jim Crow laws, to say nothing of the informal levels of
prejudice and discrimination, can be measured in numerous years in which
unemployment rates were two or three times the national average, and a
2006 poverty rate of 21.6 percent, only slightly below Native Americans.16
The high school graduation rate of blacks in 2003 has improved to 80
percent (national average is 84.6 percent), but the college graduation rate
of 17.3 percent is well below the national average of 27.2 percent.17 The
median income of African Americans is about 60 percent of white earnings.
In addition to their low levels of income and wealth, they are saddled with
high levels of single-parent households, poor housing, inadequate neigh-
borhood schools, and a general pattern of dependency on public assistance.
Many of the present problems of black Americans can be linked to the
residential segregation patterns that keep them locked into areas with poor
job opportunities, poor housing, deteriorating neighborhoods, and limited
public services. In 2000, almost 87 percent of blacks lived in metropolitan
areas with high levels of residential segregation.

HISPANIC AMERICANS

Past: In the mid-1800s there was a significant Spanish-speaking popula-

tion in the southwestern United States. They were there along with Native
Americans to welcome the incoming white ethnics from the East. Treaties
between Mexico and the United States guaranteed basic citizenship rights
to Mexicans living in the new American territories. As the white ethnic
population grew, Mexicans were pushed to the margins and their culture
and language was overwhelmed. As the Southwest developed, an increasing
number of Mexican immigrants came to the United States as a source of
cheap labor and experienced the beginnings of prejudice and discrimina-
tion between the “old” and “new” Mexicans.
Present: The Hispanic population was 38.8 million in 2000, making them
the largest ethnic group in the United States. About 80 percent of Hispanic
Americans are Mexican in origin, with another 20 percent Puerto Rican and
Cuban Americans. Their poverty rate is 19.3 percent (2006), ranking them a
close third behind Native Americans and African Americans.18 Their rate of
graduation from high school is almost one-half that of non-Hispanics (44
percent), and their level of college graduation is well below the national av-
 Identity, Grievance, and Trust 87

erage (11 percent). Mexican Americans’ jobs are far below national averages
of upper-level white-collar jobs, and they are also below the participation
level of Puerto Ricans and Cuban Americans.

ASIAN AMERICANS

Past: Asian Americans are another diverse ethnic group like Hispanics but
even more heterogeneous. They are Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, and Ko-
rean, and they do not share the same language (in contrast to Hispanics)
or culture. According to the 2000 Census there were 13.1 million Asian
Americans, with Chinese and Filipinos being the two largest groups. Asian
Americans entered the United States voluntarily in search of opportunity.
The earliest to arrive in large numbers were Chinese, and they came to the
West Coast in the mid-nineteenth century to work in mining and railroad
construction. Their experience was similar to other ethnic immigrants,
meaning the usual stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. They shared
the same disadvantage of other ethnic groups of color in that their greater
visibility made them a greater target for unequal treatment.
The most significant example of formal/legal discrimination was against
Japanese Americans during World War II. In March 1942, President Roos-
evelt signed an Executive Order requiring 110,000 Japanese Americans to
be relocated to internment camps in six western states and Arkansas. The
relocation took place rapidly with the cooperation of those being interned.
In the process, Japanese Americans were forced to sell homes and busi-
nesses at prices far below their true value. They were released from the
camps in January 1945. Several government commissions were established
to compensate Japanese Americans for their losses, but claims were limited
to $2,500. In 1980, a second commission was established to reexamine the
question of compensation, and its recommendations included an official
apology to the Japanese Americans and a payment of $20,000 to each of
60,000 survivors of the internment camps.19
Present: The achievements of Asian Americans in the realms of education
and occupational attainment are exceptional. Their educational attain-
ments and occupational positions exceed that of other ethnic groups, even
white Americans. Their level of poverty is far below other ethnic groups,
and slightly above that of white Americans.20 Despite their achievements,
they continue to experience informal expressions of prejudice and discrimi-
nation, and in some cases violence. Current tensions for Asian Americans
are related to issues of growing economic competition with Asian nations,
especially China. The movement of jobs overseas and the outsourcing of
work to Asian countries continue to create a negative climate for Asian
Americans.
88 Chapter 5

WHITE ETHNICS

Past: White ethnics are made up of the millions of white immigrants who
came to the United States voluntarily at the end of the eighteenth century
and the beginning of the nineteenth century. The largest groups were
English, Irish, German, Italian, Polish, and Jewish. Although they had dif-
ferent languages and culture, what they had in common was the absence
of physical characteristics that made them easily identifiable. We say this
despite a literature discussing how Italians or Irish “became white,” which
argues that a commingling of racial and ethnic stereotypes created forms of
discrimination similar to what was experienced by immigrants of color. All
of these ethnic groups experienced prejudice and discrimination, but the
Irish and Italians were singled out for special hostility, due perhaps to the
added hostility toward Catholics.
Jewish Americans came to the United States with an exceptional historic
experience of persecution. Their oppression was highlighted during World
War II when 50 to 60 million civilians died, including 6 million Jews in the
Nazi concentration camps. The extreme persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany
and elsewhere precedes their entry into the United States; thus, they are less
likely to be seen as long-standing victims of oppression in this country, as is
the case with Native Americans and African Americans. Since the Holocaust
was a German crime and the criminals were not Americans, the grievance
claim of Jewish Americans is different from that of other groups.
Present: White ethnics have entered the mainstream of American society
with many exceptional achievements in the social, political, and economic
realms. The advantages of white skin and European origins reduced the num-
ber of obstacles that white ethnics faced. Although all white ethnics may be
exposed to continuing prejudice and stereotypes, especially their depiction in
television and Hollywood movies, they are more likely to fall into the realm
of micro insults rather than large-scale discrimination and exclusion.

WOMEN

Past: Women are the final identity politics group. Their grievances may be
those that are shared with each of the other identity groups that were al-
ready here to greet the Europeans. Alternatively, they came voluntarily or as
involuntary immigrant groups. Their unique grievance is a history of being
treated as second-class citizens, either because of being viewed as lacking
intellectual capability or being emotionally and biologically hampered from
entering the public roles available to men. Although they always carried out
vital domestic household roles that involved both family life and economic
roles, they have always been under the oversight and control of men.
 Identity, Grievance, and Trust 89

As an identity group they lack the specific historically linked grievance of

a common land theft, as with Native Americans, or subjugation as property,
as with African Americans. What they may lack in terms of the severity of
the harm inflicted, they make up for in the scope of their grievance. All
women, regardless of color or ethnicity, experienced a similar form of ex-
clusion from public life.
Present: As has been the experience of white ethnics, women have en-
tered almost all areas of mainstream life. Their educational attainments
are exceptional, and they have moved into many of the established male
professions of law, medicine, and biological sciences, although their gains
have been smaller in fields such as engineering, mathematics, and physics.
Their grievances today focus on equal pay for equal work and breaking
remaining barriers into the highest positions in corporate America, the pro-
fessions, and academe. Additionally, there still remain many occupations
that are gender segregated, such as the predominately female occupations
of elementary schoolteachers and nursing and many predominately male
blue-collar occupations.

SUMMARY

In summary, it should be clear that of the various identity groups examined,

only Native Americans and African Americans may lay claim to both historic
and current grievances. This conclusion is based on the two criteria we applied
to grievance claims, namely the magnitude of the harm experienced by the
target group and the continuity of that harm over time. Hispanic Americans
are a close second in terms of the current level of harm experienced, but not
on the harm experienced when first incorporated in American society. The
white ethnics and women also fall short on both of the grievance criteria.
This review of past and present grievances of identity groups is important
because such groups claim grievances as the basis for any specific rem-
edies that they propose. There often are competing claims of experienced
grievances among identity groups because grievance claims are the basis
for competing for public attention and public resources to remedy their
grievance. Since the number of claims usually exceeds the available public
space in media for their coverage, the competition for public attention
drives identity groups to fashion their grievances in the most dramatic way.
It also can lead to “grievance wars” among identity groups. Roger Cohen,
in an op-ed article in the New York Times, raises the question of why there
is a “magnificent Holocaust Memorial Museum” in Washington, D.C.,
when there is no memorial of equivalent stature “dedicated to the saga of
national violence that is slavery and segregation.”21 The answer lies in the
relative power of the groups making grievance claims.
90 Chapter 5

Grievance claims are usually fashioned in a manner to gain support from

other groups who see a way to advance their agenda while they help some
other groups. For example, a prochoice women’s group might fashion their
grievance claim in a way to attract a group interested in a broader question
of women’s reproductive health.
Since this chapter is concerned with the question of trust among Ameri-
cans (rather than trust in institutions as discussed in chapter 4), we believe
that grievance wars can have a number of unanticipated consequences. First
and most obvious, it may produce tension or conflict among groups that
really have more reasons to be united than divided. A good example of
this tension between identity groups with competing claims to the “great-
est grievance” is the competition for public attention that often occurs
between black Americans and Jewish Americans. The second unanticipated
consequence is that the growth in the number of grievance claims made
by identity groups can lead to saturation and “grievance overload.” Too
many grievances and too much repetition of the same grievance can lead
the general public to “turn off” all the messages from identity groups ask-
ing for support.

MAKING UP FOR PAST GRIEVANCES:

COMPENSATORY OPPORTUNITY

The 1976 Democratic Party platform contained the following statement:

“We pledge vigorous federal programs and policies of compensatory op-
portunity (italics added) to remedy for many Americans the generations
of injustice and deprivation.” The phrase “compensatory opportunity”
would become better known some years later as “affirmative action,” a set
of policies used primarily in employment and education that redress past
discrimination against members of minority groups. Many would say that
the original intent of affirmative action was to focus on African Americans,
but it was expanded to include sex, religion, national origin, and any other
condition or characteristic that became the basis for discrimination. This
expansion was accompanied by a change of terminology in academe about
its goals regarding the student body. More attention was given to diversity
when discussing the student body. This shifts attention from the black-
white mix in the student body to a mix of women, international students,
Asian students, physically disabled students, and so on. This helped uni-
versities to look heterogeneous, but it did not help African Americans gain
access to college.
The idea of affirmative action is a good one; nevertheless, it is flawed
and generates great resistance. The problem is that it makes all members of
a group eligible for favored treatment without requiring any evidence that
 Identity, Grievance, and Trust 91

all members share the same disadvantaged current conditions. Thus, all
African Americans would be considered to be eligible for preferential treat-
ment in admission to educational institutions even though some of those
African Americans enjoy better economic conditions than some members
of another group with less favorable economic conditions. Let us make this
issue concrete with the following personal example.
Both authors of this book are academics and we have often served on
committees responsible for selecting minority applicants for special fellow-
ships. The process of rating applicants typically produces a list of applicants
ordered by their academic achievements, special experiences, and personal
essays that reveal special qualities. There is usually considerable agreement
about the top two or three applicants for fellowships, and it is often the
case that although these applicants are deserving of the fellowships, they
really do not need them in an economic sense. Highly qualified applicants
often come from families with one or two professional parents who also
have educational credentials. They have had the advantage of going to
resource-rich high schools and being provided with enriching life experi-
ences at home and in the community. The “losers” in the competition often
have good academic records, but not as good as the “winners,” and they
often also come from less advantaged families. Thus, minority applicants
for a fellowship who have less economic need are favored over minority
applicants for whom the fellowship might make a life-changing difference.
There are millions of talented African American women and men who can
succeed in college if they had the economic resources to attend.
The advantage that is enjoyed by the economically privileged black ap-
plicant for college admission or a fellowship is the same advantage enjoyed
by the economically privileged white applicant. The advantage comes from
having attended resource-rich high schools that expect their students to
attend college and from having enjoyed the cultural capital of activities
and experiences that can be purchased with money and that contribute to
academic performance. Under the current rules of affirmative action, men
would be excluded from the gender-based affirmative action, and whites
would be excluded from the color- or ethnic-based program. This would
be true even if all the male and white applicants were in life situations
of greater current economic disadvantage than any of the qualifying ap-
plicants of gender, color, or ethnicity. This is the source of opposition to
affirmative action, namely a belief that it is unfair.
Whether or not the above-described situation is very likely to occur, it is
what the average person thinks about when she/he expresses opposition to
affirmative action. So what can be done to save the idea of affirmative ac-
tion, while making it fairer and more acceptable to most Americans? Here is
what we propose for consideration. Add economic disadvantage to affirma-
tive action programs when admitting and funding people for college from
92 Chapter 5

the categories or color, ethnicity, or gender. In order to redress past and

current grievances, colleges would admit and fund some of their applicants
who are economically disadvantaged, talented, and deserving. Economic
disadvantage would be determined by family income and wealth; talent
would be determined by a broader range of qualifications besides academic
performance in high school and test scores; and being deserving would be
determined by the applicant’s life activities that reveal a determination to
improve one’s life and the lives of others and being the first person in the
family to attend college. Every American high school student with a current
economic disadvantage would be eligible to compete for admission to col-
lege and for funding of college tuition and living expenses, although the
highest priority would go to African American applicants because of their
more valid claim of past and current grievances.
If a new affirmative action program that included economic need were
to be established, it would need to be combined with an effort to identify
potential college-bound students early in their high school careers, so that
they could begin to think of themselves as college material and thereby
aim their social and academic life toward this new goal. This effort could
be undertaken in each state by a joint program of colleges and universities
(especially publicly funded schools) to identify those high schools in their
state with a large number of students from economically disadvantaged
backgrounds. With funding from the federal government, the institutions
of higher education in each state could take responsibility for a cluster of
eligible high schools and begin entering those schools to identify first- and
second-year high school students who exhibit the talent and motivation
necessary for college admission.
There have been other arguments for creating a class-based system of
affirmative action. Richard Kahlenberg in 1997 proposed that affirmative
action in higher education and employment should be based on economic
disadvantage. Similarly, Walter Michaels in 2006 published a book critical
of the failure of American society to acknowledge the way “injuries of class”
affect lives, and instead is more preoccupied with matters of identity and
diversity.22
Critics of the call to include class in affirmative action in higher educa-
tion admissions have argued that it could hurt African Americans because
the much larger number of poor whites would “crowd out” applicants of
color, or that Asian Americans would be the biggest winners because of
their relatively low income and high test scores.23 However, since African
Americans are disproportionately poorer than whites they should enjoy
more opportunities from the inclusion of economic considerations for
admission and funding.
It is also important to recognize the difference between the goal of
diversity in higher education and class- or race-based affirmative action.
 Identity, Grievance, and Trust 93

Diversity is based on the idea that some groups are underrepresented in

college and that their inclusion would enrich the educational experience of
all students. This is an admirable idea, but it will not address the goal of af-
firmative action, which is about compensation for long-standing exclusion
and disadvantage. The group with the most valid grievance claim that calls
for compensation is economically disadvantaged African Americans.
Any effort to introduce class-based criteria for affirmative action must be
careful not to make things more difficult for low-income African Ameri-
cans. Even very strong supporters of race-based affirmative action who are
cautious about changing the policy recognize the merits of a class-based
policy. For example, Jane Hardisty has concerns about class-based poli-
cies because of the larger number of low-income whites over low-income
blacks. However, she also states the following:

A formula for affirmative action that takes race, class, and gender into account
would be complicated to administer and may not be substantially more popu-
lar with the voting public than the current race- and gender-based policies. It
may open the door to demands for affirmative action considerations from a
broad range of groups that suffer discrimination and lack opportunity. Because
race is so prominent in the hierarchy of American prejudices, the hostility to
affirmative action “preference” may persist in a “reformed” affirmative action
that considered class as well as race and gender. But it would improve the
fairness of affirmative action and better, if imperfectly, serve the goal of com-
pensatory justice.24

We believe that an affirmative action program of the sort described—a

mix of race and class—would have great potential for addressing current
economic grievances without generating resistance from people who op-
pose claims based on “old” grievances and who believe that they are being
excluded from existing affirmative action programs. We also believe that
such a program would unify people of different color, ethnicity, or gender
rather than divide them into competing identity groups.

A FINAL NOTE ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

A current issue facing Americans that has great potential for dividing them
into warring camps is the question of what to do regarding the estimated
10 to 12 million illegal immigrants currently in the United States. Most of
these undocumented migrants are Mexican nationals, while some come
from Central American nations. Most have come to the United States in
search of a better life for themselves and their children, and Americans are
divided about how welcoming we should be to people who have broken
the law and what should be done. Let us exclude for the moment the views
94 Chapter 5

of groups that have their own agendas, like political groups that see immi-
grants as potential voters, union leaders who see them as workers who can
be organized, and xenophobic or racist groups defending white supremacy.
The remaining Americans who disagree on this issue tend to be divided
into those claiming to be compassionate and generous versus those who
are firm law abiders.
In order to move beyond the shouting and divided zealots on both sides,
it will be necessary to identify a set of values that both sides embrace. For
example, if both sides in the immigration debate can agree on endorsing the
values of family and hard work, then it may be possible to develop legisla-
tion that both sides can endorse. Let’s call it the Working Family Pathway
to Citizenship Law and apply it to the current population of undocumented
immigrants. Under this plan, if an illegal is married, has a family, has been
employed in the United States for at least five years, has been paying Social
Security, has children in local schools, and gets a reference from an em-
ployer, then s/he will be on the fast track to U.S. citizenship. At the other
end of the spectrum, unmarried immigrants who have been in the United
States a short time and have erratic employment records will be eligible for
deportation. The law would list eligibility for citizenship according to the
family-work conditions of the immigrant, with some becoming citizens
and some deported.
We think that a Pathway to Citizenship Law that affirms certain shared
values has a chance of unifying Americans who, on the one hand, want to
be welcoming because they acknowledge that we were all immigrants once,
with Americans who place high value on being law abiding and fair. Our
approach here is the same one that we followed regarding affirmative ac-
tion. The goal is to find common ground on divisive issues by identifying
values that bring Americans together rather than those that divide. This is
the only way in which a nation of people that has many identity groups can
engender trust of each other.
6
Work, Family, and Caring

It has been said that an important measure of a country’s level of civilization

is the way in which its most vulnerable people are cared for. Generally, the
most vulnerable are the children, the aged, the chronically ill, and those insti-
tutionalized. Additionally, even those who are independent and productive
economically have needs for love and affection—caring broadly conceived.
Unfortunately, America does not measure up with respect to caring;
indeed, some would say that there is a “crisis of caring” in our country.1
In large part, this crisis comes from the persistence of an ideology of the
private nuclear family in which the husband/father is the sole or main
economic provider and the wife/mother is the dependent, unpaid, social-
emotional provider for those in the family unit. The reality, however, is
that today fewer and fewer people—indeed, only 23 percent —actually live
in such families. The most common family type is that of married couples
without children, where the couple has not yet had children or doesn’t
plan to have children, or where the children have grown up and left (28.5
percent). Similar in frequency are people living alone (26.4 percent). Other
household types are male- or female-headed families in which relatives
other than spouses or children live together (7.5 percent), female-headed
(7.3 percent), unmarried couple households (5.3 percent), and male-
headed single-parent families (1.7 percent).2

SHARING PAID WORK

At the turn of the twentieth century, women who were employed outside
the home were largely single, widowed, relatively poor, and/or immigrants.

95
96 Chapter 6

Their work was taking in laundry, marketing baked goods, working as do-
mestics in other people’s homes, housing boarders, and factory work. For
married couples, work and family were integrated, with the nuclear family
being the work unit, first in the home and then in early factories. With the
development of technology within the factory system, husbands, wives, and
children were separated from one another and under the supervision of
others, often strangers. This led to considerable social concern and eventu-
ally to the shortening of the workday and work restrictions on women and
children who were relegated to educational institutions.
During the latter half of the twentieth century, however, women, includ-
ing mothers of infants and young children, increasingly entered the paid
labor force. For instance, in 1900, only about 22 percent of women were in
the paid labor force. By 1970, 50 percent of wives with children between
ages of six and seventeen years were gainfully employed, and by 2005, that
figure had grown to 75 percent.3 Those in the labor force include a broad
spectrum of women, cutting across social class, race and ethnicity, age, and
parental status. For instance, white women have a labor force participation
rate of 60 percent, almost as high as that of black women (62 percent), who
historically have been more likely to work for wages.4 Moreover, women are
increasingly staying in the labor force throughout childbearing years, such
as 56 percent of married women with children under one year of age, and
they are staying for longer and longer years of their lives.
Child-development experts and the general public do not consider em-
ployed mothers problematic. For the wives themselves, benefits of employ-
ment include enhanced self-esteem, more power in the marital relationship,
greater economic independence, and a wider set of social relationships.
For husbands, some benefits from their wives’ employment include be-
ing relieved of sole responsibility for the financial support of the family,
having more freedom to quit jobs or change jobs, more freedom to go to
school, having a spouse with whom to share ups and downs of their work
roles, having a happier spouse, and having increased potential to more
strongly bond with their children through active child care.
Moreover, a 2001 survey of women in general found that 90 percent
agree that a woman can be a good mother and have a successful career.5
Recent research concludes that mothers’ employment does not cause
behavior problems in children.6 Additionally, research on maternal em-
ployment during the child’s first three years found no differences at age
twelve between the children whose mothers were employed versus not
employed in those early years of development.7 One area of some con-
cern is that children’s lives may be becoming more tightly organized with
school, organized sports, chores, and accompanying parents on errands
rather than engaging in unstructured play or self-organized activities with
other children.
 Work, Family, and Caring 97

Recent research indicates no difference in cognitive development and

psychological well being between children raised by homosexual parents
and those raised by heterosexual parents. Children in homosexual families
are no more likely to experience confusion about their own sexual orienta-
tion; the vast majority identify as heterosexual. They are more accepting
of diversity and open to homosexuality and less gender-typed in their
behavior. Lesbian coparents often have greater compatibility in terms of
childrearing views and practices and a more equal division of caregiving
responsibilities than either gay male coparents or heterosexual parents.8
Women tend to work in different types of jobs than men. The degree to
which men and women are concentrated in occupations in which workers
of one sex predominate is known as occupational sex segregation. This is
measured by the dissimilarity index, the proportion of workers of one sex
that would have to change to jobs in which members of their sex are un-
derrepresented in order for the occupational distribution between the sexes
to be fully balanced. The United States has a dissimilarity index of about
thirty-eight, meaning that about 38 percent of its female labor force would
have to change jobs in order to equalize their representation across occupa-
tions. Another way to measure occupational sex segregation is to look at the
percentage of workers of each sex that holds a specific job. For example, in
2001, 97.6 percent of construction workers, 95.3 percent of mechanics, and
94.7 percent of truck drivers were male. On the other hand, 98.4 percent
of secretaries, 93.1 percent of registered nurses, and 92.9 percent of book-
keepers were female.9
The extent of occupational sex segregation masks both industrywide and
establishment sex segregation. Industry sex segregation is when women and
men hold the same job title in a particular field or industry but actually per-
form different jobs. Women usually are concentrated in the lower-paying,
lower-prestige specialties within the occupation. For example, among real
estate agents, women are more often in residential home sales while men
are in the more profitable commercial real estate sales.
Establishment sex segregation is when women and men hold the same
job title at an individual establishment or company but actually do dif-
ferent jobs. For example, in a law firm, women often are concentrated in
family law, while men are likely to be in the more lucrative corporate and
commercial law.
Occupational sex segregation, then, results in women generally working
mostly with other women instead of with men. The result is that even full-
time work in women’s fields is remunerated at lower salaries, offers limited
upward mobility (“glass ceiling”), seldom has union protection, and gener-
ally does not come with access to pensions or prestige.
And there are other ways in which women are not welcomed and nurtured
in the work world. If they are few in number in the workplace compared
98 Chapter 6

with the number of men there, they are likely to be treated in stereotypical
ways, as representatives of their category, rather than as individuals. They
are more closely scrutinized by others, and they are treated as outsiders.
Many women also experience sexual harassment from men in the work-
place. This is defined as any unwanted leers, comments, suggestions, or
physical contact of a sexual nature, as well as unwelcome requests for sexual
favors. Research indicates that from 42 percent to 88 percent of women work-
ers experience sexual harassment at some point during their work lives.10
Then there is the wage gap, the difference in earnings between men and
women. The size of the gap varies, depending on occupation, and tends to
be greater in the higher-paying occupations, such as physicians. The size
of the gap also is related to occupational specialty and practice setting. Ad-
ditionally, the gender wage gap is due to different work patterns; namely,
women having fewer years of work experience, having fewer hours of work
per year, being less likely to work full time, and leaving the labor force for
longer periods than men’s work patterns. Women’s work patterns are often
adaptated to care for their children or others.11 It is debatable the extent to
which women freely choose to invest less in employment outside the home
(human capital theory) versus having to take the occupational opportuni-
ties available to them. The unexplained part of the gap is usually assumed
to result from discrimination.
Overall, in 2001, African American women earned 84.4 percent of what
white women earned; Hispanic women earned just 74.7 percent of what white
women earned. African American men earned 74.7 percent of what white
men earned; whereas, Hispanic men earned only 62.2 percent of what
white men earned.12
Due in part to the feminist and civil rights movements in the 1960s, the
federal government acted to make sex discrimination in employment ille-
gal. First came Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which forbids discrimi-
nation in hiring, benefits, and other personnel decisions, such as promo-
tions or layoffs, on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, or religion,
by employers of fifteen or more employees. This act has been implemented
and enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which
can bring suit on behalf of an employee or class of employees who have
been discriminated against by their employer.
Second is Executive Order 11246, which was amended in 1968 to
outlaw sex discrimination as well as discrimination based on race, color,
national origin, and religion by employers who hold federal contracts. It
requires employers to take affirmative action to recruit, train, and pro-
mote women and minorities. Contractor compliance has been monitored
by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance in the Department of Labor,
as well as the U.S. Department of Justice. The effects of Title VII and Ex-
ecutive Order 11246 have been limited by their complexity, which gives
 Work, Family, and Caring 99

judges considerable discretion, and by political change in the presidency

and U.S. Supreme Court.
Discriminatory pay policies have been attacked directly by the Equal
Pay Act of 1963. It prohibits employers from paying employees of one sex
more than employees of the opposite sex when their employees are en-
gaged in work that requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility and that is
performed under similar working conditions. Unequal pay is permitted if
the difference is based on employees’ relative seniority, merit, the quantity
or quality of their production, or “any other factor other than sex” such as
profitability of their work.13 The benefits of this act are limited, however,
because men and women are largely segregated into different jobs, and
predominantly female jobs are systematically devalued.14
As a result, women workers and others have increasingly called for
“comparable worth”; that is, equal pay for different jobs of similar value
in terms of skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions. In general,
the courts have not looked favorably on comparable worth because they
do not wish “to punish employers who rely on the market in setting wages
. . . and do not wish to become involved in evaluating the worth of differ-
ent jobs.” However, numerous states and local jurisdictions have adopted
comparable worth policies.15
Steinberg and Cook conducted a broader view of what it would take to
close the gender gap in wages:

Equal employment requires more than guaranteeing the right to equal access,
the right to equal opportunity for promotion, or the right to equal pay for
equal work, or even comparable worth. Additionally, it warrants a broader
policy orientation encompassing social welfare laws that assume equality
within the family; wide-spread use of alternative work arrangements that ac-
commodate the complexities of family life within two-career families; and a
rejuvenated union movement, with female leadership more active at work sites
in defending the rights of women workers. Social welfare laws, family policy,
and government services must create incentives toward a more equal division
of responsibilities for family and household tasks between men and women.
Increasing child care facilities, as well as maintaining programs to care for the
elderly, would help alleviate some of the more pressing demands made on
adults in families . . . This also means that tax policy, social security laws, and
pension programs must be amended to make government incentives to family
life consistent with a family structure in which husbands and wives are equal
partmers.16

Families turned to the wife as a second earner increasingly in the 1970s

when there was a decline of men’s jobs, especially blue-collar jobs, and
men’s earnings, and uncertainty in sectors that had been doing relatively
well. Women became less certain about being out of the labor force and
dependent on a husband’s earnings as the divorce rate grew. Also, the
100 Chapter 6

women’s movement reemerged, pushing for anti-sex-discrimination laws

that opened educational and occupational opportunities to women. The
majority of married women had become employed by 1979. But this led to
social concern once again, this time to reintegrate work and family.
The historical change from an agrarian economy in which the household
was the central economic unit to a capitalist market structure made fam-
ily caregiving problematic, as it ended worker autonomy and control over
the incompatibility between home work and market production. Children
increasingly became economic and social costs that mothers especially,
not communities or employers, bore. At the same time that demands on
families to raise well-rounded children were increasing, demands and re-
wards for market work were similarly increasing. As automation eliminated
human physical labor and globalization made labor cheap, workers were
encouraged to invest even more in a 24/7 economy.

SHARING UNPAID HOME WORK

So, who is providing the care for America’s homes and children? One possi-
bility is that since women now shoulder both economic provider and care-
taker roles, the same could obtain for men. Husbands of employed wives
do participate in more of the unpaid home work than husbands whose
wives are not employed. Women have reduced their hours in housework
from forty hours per week in 1965 to twenty-seven hours per week in 1999,
while men have only increased their housework time from twelve hours in
1965 to sixteen hours per week in 1999.17 Although housework is socially
and economically necessary work, it is not considered “real” work, not even
by many of the women who have primary responsibility for doing it. This
is because it is unspecialized, it is repetitive and never fully finished, it has
no fixed work schedule, it is privatized, it is involved with feelings of love
and care, and probably most importantly, it is unpaid.
Also, the tasks that men typically perform are different from those done
by wives. Women tend to do chores that must be done on a daily basis,
such as cleaning and cooking families’ meals at least once or twice a day,
every day. Husbands tend to participate in chores that need to be done only
occasionally and can be done at their convenience, such as mowing the
lawn and making minor repairs around the house.
Some men, especially young men, are choosing less competitive careers
to spend more time with their families. Indeed, a small minority of men
have given up employment to stay home to care for the house and family
while their wives work (“househusbands”). However, such men may have
to deal with challenges to their masculinity, resentment from co-workers,
and disapproval from employers who believe that employees should not
 Work, Family, and Caring 101

allow family responsibilities to interfere with labor-force involvement. This

puts a brake on the extent to which men take advantage of family-friendly
benefits that are theoretically available (e.g., paternity leave for professional
and managerial employees).
Women are responsible not only for most housework but also for the
bulk of child care. So, in general the overall amount of home work that
husbands perform does not approximate that done by wives, which is
called a “second shift” of unpaid work that amounts to an extra month of
work each year.18
The addition of children to a household increases household chores, fi-
nancial pressures, and stress for the couple, particularly mothers. Over the
past thirty years, there has been increased involvement of fathers in child
care, but mothers still participate in much more primary child care—bath-
ing, changing clothes, feeding—than fathers. Mothers also participate in
more of the “mental work” associated with child care—worrying, seeking
advice and information involved in childrearing. Fathers are least involved
when their children are infants and become more involved as the children
grow up, particularly in recreational or academic activities, not primary
care.
An expectation—by employers, co-workers, and many men themselves—
that men’s chief responsibility as a husband/father is as breadwinner under-
lies the unequal division of labor in the home. Mothers as caregivers could
be considered to have an advantage in bonding closely with their children
and being the “kin keepers” or links across generations of the family. Dis-
advantages for mothers include lost autonomy, less time and ability to pur-
sue interests outside the home, including paid work and leisure activities.
Significantly, women’s caregiving work is not covered by Social Security
because it is not paid labor, or by unemployment or workmen’s compensa-
tion. In the event of divorce, moreover, courts seldom count the economic
contributions of caregivers and place the bulk of childrearing costs on the
divorced mothers.19
Mothers may have not only child care responsibilities but also caregiving
to elderly parents (“sandwich generation”). And the number of individuals
in this sandwich generation will increase for several reasons. For one thing,
the over-eighty-five group, who are most likely to be frail and in need of
care, is the fastest growing segment of the American population. The care
that they will increasingly need, moreover, is to manage long-term chronic,
not acute, illnesses, such as Alzheimer’s. And there are fewer adult siblings
to help look after elderly parents because the latter had fewer children than
the elderly in previous generations. The adult children generally are com-
mitted to caring for their elderly parents and institutionalize them only as
a last resort. There are some benefits of caregiving, such as enhanced self-
esteem and a closer relationship to the dependent person. On the other
102 Chapter 6

hand, the effort, sacrifice, and decision-making on the part of the caretaker
may lead to an emotional toll—feeling guilt for not doing enough, resent-
ment from feeling burdened, and exhaustion from constant care demands.
Some strain can be relieved from home health care in which an employee
provides such services as bathing and dressing the parent and supervis-
ing medication. Also, there may be community services such as Meals on
Wheels to assist elderly persons who are homebound and cannot cook for
themselves anymore.
Often as a last resort, those in the sandwich generation decide to put an
aged parent, usually their mother, in some form of long-term care such as
a nursing home. Such a decision depends importantly on cost. Medicare
typically does not pay for long-term nursing care, leaving the middle-aged
child and the elderly parent to pay costs. It is only after most of the elder’s
funds have been depleted that Medicaid will pay for the cost of care. Other
considerations are the level of care needed by the elderly parent, the tem-
perament of the parent, the sense of responsibility of the adult child, the
length of time for providing care, and the privacy needs of the caregivers.
Not only does the middle-aged child often care for her elderly parents but
also some minor-aged children care for their parents (“parentification”).
Situations in which children become their parents’ caretakers include when
parents have become chronically ill, chemically dependent, mentally ill,
incapacitated after a divorce or widowhood, or socially isolated or inca-
pacitated. Parentification may become a normative part of childhood when
children only temporarily take care of a parent, e.g., after surgery or during
an illness. Parentification is considered destructive when the circumstances
become extreme and long-term and the responsibilities that children carry
are age-inappropriate. Some care-related consequences of parentification
for the children include the children’s delay in taking on the caretaking that
comes with marriage; the acquisition of certain personality characteristics,
such as feelings of excessive responsibility for others that make it difficult
to set limits with others or to concentrate on their own needs; the child’s
seeking as adult partners people who they can be caretakers for; and taking
jobs where they can physically or emotionally take care of people, as in
nursing.
In part, the imbalance in doing home work between spouses is due to
the great difficulty of combining employment with unpaid caregiving for
men as well as women in the United States. Usually the workplace is not
supportive of employees with family responsibilities. Caring for newborn
and young children requires rapt attention during the child’s waking hours,
which is incompatible even with home-based employment settings for the
small minority of workers whose jobs permit such flexibility. And work
start times conflict with school start times, and work hours typically extend
beyond the end-of-school day, not to mention during school holidays
 Work, Family, and Caring 103

throughout the year and during summers. Relatively few employers provide
on-site, full-day day care for infants and young children, leaving parents to
try to find their own solutions.

WORK-FAMILY SPILLOVER

Work affects people’s home life by absorbing time and energy and im-
pinging on their psychological states. Conversely, the demands of home
lives impinge on concentration, energy, and/or availability at work. These
relationships between paid work and family life are called “spillover.”
Overall, both women and men experience greater job-to-home spillover
than home-to-job spillover. Women experience higher levels of job-to-
home spillover than do men, and having a partner and children increases
negative spillover for women but usually not for men. Time pressures on
the job and long work hours have the most job-to-home spillover for both
women and men.
The U.S. economy has been called the “greedy institution” because of
the large amount of time required of workers. One view of how much time
Americans spend at work focuses on the amount of time that dual-earner
couples jointly work instead of the individual earner’s time. U.S. Census
data show that the family transformation from single (male) earner to
dual-earner couples in which wives work accounts for most of the growth
in working time. Additionally, there is an increasing segment of the popu-
lation working extremely long hours, namely, couples who are highly
educated and in high-profile professional and managerial occupations.
As noted above, women’s increased work has not been accompanied by
a corresponding increase in fathers’ home work, thus producing a time
squeeze.

Time Wars
Despite rising divorce rates, as mentioned above, women may scale back
their paid work to part time or quit work altogether. Also, the wife may in-
sist that the husband and their children participate in housework. She may
lower her standards for cleanliness and reduce her food preparation time.
Two-earner couples may hire household help and child care help.
Dual-earner couples, especially those with children, continually struggle
to find new ways to accommodate their work and family schedules. They
make daily and weekly assignments of who is going to take or pick up
the children from day care or from school. They partner with friends and
co-workers about carpooling and child pickup pooling. They use their cell
phones to give their child care providers a mile-by-mile update on exactly
104 Chapter 6

where they are on their trip from work to the child care facility. Husbands
and wives often have to renegotiate daily plans because of a change in work
schedules. And there is always the unanticipated event like a family illness
that throws a monkey wrench into the family schedule.
Couples may also try to solve the child care problem by shift work, in
which one parent works during the day and the other parent works the
evening or night shift so that one parent can always be with the children.
The routine scheduling problems of dual earners who work normal-day
schedules are even more complicated when one or both parents work a
nonroutine schedule; that is, something other than 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
on Monday through Friday. In the workplace today there are about 15 to
20 million workers who do shift work. If they work eight-hour shifts, they
may work 4:00 p.m. to 12:00 p.m., or 12:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m.; if they are
on twelve-hour shifts, it may be 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. or 7:00 p.m. to 7:00
a.m. These shifts may be fixed where a worker has the same pattern all year,
or they may be rotating where a worker works one month on the evening
shift and then rotates to one month on the night shift.20 Some workers
choose shift work because it accommodates their family needs. Consider
the following comments from two shift workers:

I am content with my work schedule. My wife works nights and I work days,
so we don’t have to purchase child care for our baby. She hates working nights
but it’s all we can do for now. I wish she didn’t have to work but in today’s
times that’s unrealistic.

I work 12-hour nights so I can take my children to school and pick them up.
This only allows me five hours of sleep on the days that I work. Which means I
try to sleep more on my days off, which I find difficult to do. I do work nights
by choice, because my wife’s schedule does not allow her to be there for the
children, and I do not trust anyone with my children.

Although some workers choose shift work to accommodate family sched-

ules, others report that their family life is under considerable stress. Con-
sider the following comments from dual-earner families with one spouse
doing shift work:

Working five days a week from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. means that I leave for
work only a few minutes after my husband gets home in the morning. When
my husband is having days off during my work week, I am resentful. He is able
to enjoy golf and fishing while I am at work. When my husband has weekends
off, our home is more harmonious, but when he works weekends, we never
see each other and I become depressed.

My husband’s work schedule makes me feel as though I have a roommate

more than a spouse. The majority of time we sleep at different times, visit our
 Work, Family, and Caring 105

families separately, and make plans on our own. We often communicate by

leaving notes.

Because of my schedule, my wife and I have been discussing divorce. Because

of my job and hers, we spend nearly no time together at all. She works days,
usually 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. I don’t get home until 7:30 a.m., then I usually
sleep until 4:30 p.m. or 5:00 p.m., and I leave for work around 6:00 p.m. We
see each other about eight to ten hours a week.21

Adjusting work schedules for shift workers in order to have more family-
friendly schedules presents a challenge to both employers and to workers.
The authors once conducted a research project in a shift-work manufactur-
ing plant that employed about 900 workers. During our time there, man-
agement and the union discussed a plan that might give younger workers
more flexibility in their work schedules. In this plant, seniority rules de-
termined shift assignments, so that new hires who were younger men and
women with family responsibilities usually were assigned to the evening
and night shifts. The plan under discussion would allow any worker to re-
duce his/her workday, week, month, or year by 20 percent. This meant that
a parent could get off work early each day in order to accommodate a fam-
ily need, or a parent could take time off during the summer months when
children were not in school. The time off would be unpaid, but it would
not affect other employee benefits.
Discussions about the proposed new policy took place over a year and
always ran into resistance from one side or the other. Management agreed
to consider the plan if they could employ temporary workers to fill in for
workers who took advantage of the 20 percent reduction option. The union
opposed this idea because using temporary nonunion workers would be a
violation of union policy. Management countered with a proposal to re-
quire mandatory overtime from workers to fill in for those on family leave.
The union opposed this idea because the current contract allowed only for
voluntary overtime.
Although both management and the union held serious discussions
about a more family-friendly schedule, an agreement was not achieved be-
cause of management’s concern about meeting production schedules and
union concern about avoiding new rules that might harm the union. Both
sides participated in discussions in good faith, but both had needs that
they were not willing to compromise. In short, there may be limits to how
far management or workers are willing to go in order to accommodate the
needs of younger workers with family responsibilities.
Dual-career couples in which both spouses pursue full-time, demand-
ing professional and managerial work may have travel requirements that
necessitate overnight child care. Finding such dependable household
help is possible only to the extent that there is a labor pool of low-paid
106 Chapter 6

workers. Moreover, upward career mobility may require geographical

mobility, which may make for a trailing spouse who relocates to accom-
modate the other spouse’s career. As an alternative, some couples live
apart as commuter marriages. Such an arrangement seems to work better
for established partners with a history of shared time, when there are no
dependent children, and when couples get together frequently. In general,
commuters are less satisfied with their partner and family life than with
their work life. A Gallup Poll in 2003 found that almost half —48 per-
cent—of American adults in general felt that they had too little time to
do what they wanted to do.22 Both men and women spent very little time,
about twenty minutes per day on average, in wider community activities;
i.e., organizational, civic, and religious activities.23
Relatively privileged married women can scale back their work to forgo
a serious career and/or take a “mommy track” or part-time work in an
effort to combine work with family responsibilities. They may leave the
labor force altogether for the time that their children are young but plan
on reentering at a later date. Reentry, however, may have its problems;
notably, inability to get full-time work and lost earning capacity. They also
lose important benefits and become more dependent on the good will of
husbands.

Parenting without Partners

There is a growing number of single women-headed households with
children who often live in poverty. In 2000, some 5 percent of married
couple families lived in poverty in contrast to 10 percent of single-father
families and 25 percent of single-mother families.24 Some parents are little
more than children themselves. The United States has one of the highest
rates of births to single teen mothers among Western industrialized coun-
tries. Fortunately, the rate of teen pregnancy and childbirth in the United
States has declined steadily since 1960. There were 89.1 pregnancies/1,000
girls aged 15 to 19 in 1960 compared with 51.1 pregnancies/1,000 girls
aged 15 to 19 in 1998.25 The decline in teen pregnancies is thought to be
due to there being more comprehensive sex education in the schools, teens
having sexual intercourse less, and those teens having intercourse being
more likely to use contraception in order to avoid contracting HIV/AIDS
as well as becoming pregnant. Motivation to abstain from sex or to use
contraceptives appears to be promoted by the availability of opportunities
besides parenthood for achieving status and self-esteem.
The teen birth rate for racial and ethnic minorities remains high—85.4
births/1,000 African American girls aged 15 to 19 and 93.6 births/1,000
Hispanic girls aged 15 to 19 in l998.26 These high rates have been linked
to the higher rate of poverty and lower levels of academic success among
 Work, Family, and Caring 107

minority girls. Babies born to teen mothers, moreover, are more likely to
be premature or have low birth weight; grow up in poverty; have serious
health problems; have difficulty in school; enter the criminal justice system
if they are boys; and become mothers themselves if they are girls.27
Mothers are also single in part due to widowhood, although the percent
of single-parent families in which the parent is widowed has declined
since 1970. Widowed women outnumber widowed men because men
have higher mortality rates and are more likely to remarry than widowed
women. Women are far more likely than men to experience financial dif-
ficulties during widowhood for several reasons: women traditionally have
had shorter and less stable employment histories than men; they earn less,
on average, than men, which limits their Social Security and asset accumu-
lation; and they are less likely than men to have been employed in occu-
pations that carry fringe benefits such as pensions. Nonwhite women are
especially likely to have a negative financial impact from widowhood.
The most common way in which women and men become single is
through divorce. In 2003 the crude divorce rate was 3.8 divorces per 1,000
population. Another way of looking at divorce is that current estimates
suggest that about 40 percent of those married in the past two decades will
divorce.28 About 25 percent of university students have parents who are
divorced. Women with limited education and income and who marry early
in life have less stable marriages.
Although research on single fathers is limited, it appears that single
fathers receive more support from friends, relatives, and neighbors than
single mothers receive. Single fathers’ most common complaint is that their
social lives and careers become more restrained by parenting demands and
that they are treated as less-competent parents.
Single mothers have more constraints in balancing work with children
because the jobs they hold often have less flexible work schedules and low
salaries. Their main problem is lack of money. Why are single divorced
women usually more in need of money than single divorced men? Some
observers attribute this to no-fault divorce laws in which spousal support
awards are limited; that is, the courts try to treat divorcing spouses as equals
when, in fact, the wife usually has fewer financial resources in terms of
wages, adequate social welfare, and child support from the father.

SOLUTIONS IN OTHER COUNTRIES

VERSUS THE UNITED STATES

Clearly, both single and dual-earner parents face increasing pressures at

work and at home and need assistance in meeting work and family respon-
sibilities. Many countries, both developing and developed economically,
108 Chapter 6

provide workers assistance in terms of parental leave following the birth of

a child and/or government-subsidized child care services. More than thirty
developing countries provide paid infant-care leave. Additionally, several
industrialized countries provide parental leave benefits, and it applies for
fathers as well as mothers. In Finland, for example, parents have a year of
fully paid leave.29 With respect to child care, in Finland parents can choose
between a subsidy to help pay for in-home care or a guaranteed, heavily
subsidized place in a child care center.
In contrast to the industrialized nations discussed above, in the United
States there is no paid parental-leave policy, or family allowances, child
care services, housing subsidies, or universal health care coverage. Instead,
there is some legal recourse for pregnancy discrimination provided by the
federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, which forbids employers
to fire, demote, or penalize a pregnant employee. This law pertains only
to employers with more than fifteen workers, although some state laws
extend this protection to smaller companies, including those with as few
as four employees. The law is not always followed, however; between 1996
and 2000, for example, almost 5 percent of women reported being laid off
while pregnant or within twelve weeks after giving birth.30
In 1993 the U.S. Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act
(FMLA), which allows eligible employees to take up to twelve weeks of un-
paid annual leave, with continuation of health benefits, for three situations:
after the birth or adoption of a child and to care for a newborn; to care for a
seriously sick spouse, child, or parent; or to recover from their own illnesses
that prevent them from working. An employee is eligible for leave only if
s/he has worked at least 1,250 hours during a twelve-month period at a
company that employs at least fifty people. A company may require or allow
employees to apply paid vacation and sick leave to the twelve weeks of fam-
ily leave, but the company does not have to pay workers who take leave.
To no longer lose jobs because of childbirth, sickness, or parental leave
is certainly a benefit to American workers. Additionally, all but the top-
level employees are guaranteed the same job or an equivalent job when
they return. Also, in 2000 about 40 percent of women had some paid leave,
which most companies funded through a general temporary disability
insurance plan.31
Limitations to the FMLA are that it provides only for twelve weeks of
unpaid leave, which many employees simply cannot afford to take; it does
not cover small companies, where 60 percent of employees work; it covers
only major illnesses; there are employer-employee disputes over what con-
stitutes “equivalent” jobs; and almost one-third of eligible employers offer
fewer than twelve weeks of unpaid leave, in violation of the FMLA.32
On the other hand, the United States is growing stronger with respect to
child support policy. This began in 1950 when federal legislation was en-
 Work, Family, and Caring 109

acted to enforce child-support payment. A 1975 act created the bureaucracy

to enforce private child-support obligations. From 1976 to 1977, mothers’
likelihood of actually receiving child support increased barely from 36 per-
cent to 42 percent.
A 1984 law requires states to adopt guidelines that the courts can use
to determine such obligations. Moreover, it requires states to withhold pay
from the wages and other income of noncustodial parents who have not
made their child-support payments. A 1988 act requires judges to provide
a written justification if they violate state guidelines. It also instructs states
to review and update child-support awards every three years.
Some corporations, especially large ones, have policies designed to
assist parents of young children. These include support groups for em-
ployed parents, workplace seminars and counseling programs, parental
or family leaves, subsidies for child care services or child care locator
services, sick-child care, and even on-site child care centers. Perhaps most
common are policies allowing flexible scheduling, such as flextime in
which there are flexible starting and ending times, with required core
hours. Also, some employers permit job sharing in which two people
share one position. Other flexible scheduling policies include working at
home or telecommuting, compressed workweeks in which an employee is
allowed to concentrate the workweek into three or four longer days, and
personal days off.
Working at home either for oneself or for an employer increased 55
percent between 1990 and 2000. In 2004, 15 percent of workers were
home-based as part of their primary job, and one-third of them were self-
employed. Two-thirds were managerial or professional employees, and
about half are women. Some home-based work involves piecework, such as
the assembly of medical kits, circuit boards, jewelry, and some textile work.
Other home-based work includes the direct selling of cosmetics, kitchen-
ware, etc., as well as an independent contractor to handle customer service
calls. While women say that they work at home in order to try to minimize
conflicts with housework and child care, they also report problems with
interruptions and tension between career advancement, which requires put-
ting in long hours, and family time.
The small amount of societal assistance with child care means that em-
ployed parents, especially mothers, then, must cobble together various
caregiving alternatives, such as extranuclear family kin. The major one is
for-profit day care. Guidelines for high-quality day care have been devel-
oped by the American Academy of Pediatrics and include the following: low
child-to-staff ratio; stable staff; a well-trained staff; staff sensitive to cultural
diversity; staff with warm personalities and interpersonal sensitivity; staff
who give age-appropriate attention to children and age-appropriate and
stimulating activities and play spaces for children; staff who are responsive
110 Chapter 6

to children and interact with them, rather than provide only custodial care
or allow lots of TV watching; staff who do not use physical punishment for
handling minor behavior problems that arise with children; and staff who
welcome parental involvement.33
Such high-quality care is limited in most communities and often not
affordable for many when it is available. More typically this leaves care in
institutional settings of questionable merit, usually performed by women
with limited preparation for child care, earning low wages and subject to
high turnover. Pressures to cut costs, government regulations, and bureau-
cratization are some of the factors that compromise such care, especially
social and emotional caregiving, which children need.
As noted earlier, the United States has no national child care program.
Moreover, only 7 percent of employers with fifty or more employees pro-
vide child care at or near the workplace; and at those who do, the costs are
too high for many low-wage workers.34
Arrangements that mothers make for child care depend on availability
of care, costs, hours of operation of the programs, and race/ethnicity. For
about 15 percent of children aged five to fourteen, almost double since the
1970s, this means self-care (“latchkey”) after school until an adult comes
home. Nearly twice the white five- to fourteen-year-olds compared to Af-
rican American and Latino children are latchkey kids to some extent. It is
questionable to what extent five- to nine-year-olds are able to deal with
household emergencies that may occur. Latino parents are more likely to
depend on relatives other than the parents, while African American parents
are more likely to use child care centers.
Economic dependency from low incomes and poverty leads many women
to remain living with even abusive partners and spouses and children to risk
abuse at home or in foster homes. Children of very young ages, females,
minorities, and those from unwanted or unplanned pregnancies are at high
risk of neglect and abuse. Mothers are more likely than fathers to abuse
children, possibly because of the greater contact with them. Stepfathers and
boyfriends of single mothers are also more likely than fathers to abuse chil-
dren. Traumatic effects of childhood abuse may continue into adulthood.
Based on survey data from large, representative samples of heterosexual
couples, about 12 percent of adult intimates experience some form of phys-
ical abuse from their partners out of every 1,000 couples; and 122 wives
and 124 husbands of every 1,000 couples are assaulted by their spouse.35
The less common and more extreme violence that causes serious injury or
even death is usually committed by men against women. Battered women
seldom have educational or employment opportunities that would facili-
tate their leaving an abusive spouse.
In 1994 the federal Violence Against Women Act was passed. It provides
for funding for battered women’s shelters and programs, a mandate for
 Work, Family, and Caring 111

harsher penalties for battering, and a provision that makes crossing state
lines in pursuit of a fleeing partner a federal offense. Another important
societal strategy for change would be to reduce violence-provoking stress
by reducing poverty and unemployment and providing educational op-
portunities for all.

UNEMPLOYMENT AND FAMILIES

Just as heavy work demands conflict with family responsibilities, so is un-

employment from restructuring and downsizing a major source of worker
stress. The economic strain involves financial concerns and worry, adjust-
ments to changes in income, and feelings of economic insecurity. With in-
creases in economic strain come increases in infant mortality, alcoholism,
family abuse, homicide, suicide, and admissions to psychiatric institutions
and prisons.36 Economic strain is also related to lower levels of marital
satisfaction as a result of financial conflict, the husband’s psychological
instability, and marital tensions. The families that are hardest hit by unem-
ployment are single-parent families headed by women, African American
and Latino families, and young families. Workers in female-headed and
minority families tend to remain unemployed longer than other types of
families. And young families with preschool children often lack the senior-
ity, experience, and skills to regain employment quickly. So, economic
downturns affect families in the early years of childbearing and childrearing
the most, driving many into poverty and even homelessness, the topics of
the next chapter.
In sum, the family’s role in caregiving has evolved with industrialization
and deindustrialization. While women responded to the increased demand
for their paid labor, there was no corresponding societal response to the
need for support for unpaid labor, especially the care of children. And with
increases in involuntary unemployment, there is increased need for social
supports for displaced workers and their families. Children are America’s
future, and their nurturance warrants priority—with increased money,
time, and laws and policies dedicated to reintegrating work and family
spheres of life.
7
Forgotten Americans: The Poor,
Homeless, Aged, and Incarcerated

Compromised care is characteristic not only of much child care, as discussed

in chapter 6, but also care of the poor, homeless, aged, and incarcerated.
At an earlier time, families had more responsibility for care of others in the
community, whereas now institutional care and government programs are
more common and necessary.

POVERTY

Poverty underlies many problems experienced by a large number of Ameri-

cans. It is a paradox that in the richest country in the developed world,
34.6 million or 12.1 percent of Americans live in poverty. Among African
Americans, 24.4 percent live in poverty; Hispanics, 21.9 percent; and Asian
Americans, 10.1 percent. That means that they lack access to basic needs
such as food, clothing, shelter, health care, and necessities for successful
work such as a decent education and access to means of transportation.1
In 2007 the official poverty threshold was $20,630 for a family of four
(two adults and two children). It was $10,200 for one person; $13,690 for
two; and $17,170 for a family of three. This refers to gross earnings before
taxes, unadjusted for differences in costs of living among different places,
and based on the assumption that families need only three times expendi-
tures for their basic food needs. It does not include either direct income or
in-kind income from public assistance.
Who are the American poor? They are children under the age of eighteen,
especially children of color, and especially those living in certain states. A
recent study of states using ten indicators of child well-being shows how

113
114 Chapter 7

the top state compares to the bottom state.2 With respect to the indicator of
percent of children living in poverty, in the bottom state of Mississippi, the
child poverty rate (30 percent) is three times greater than in the top state
of Maryland (10 percent). In 1999, one in six children, overall, 16.6 per-
cent, lived in poverty. One in seven, 14.2 percent, lack health care; a child
in Texas is five times as likely to be uninsured (21.2 percent) as a child in
Rhode Island (4.2 percent). This means they do not receive recommended
preventive health care visits and immunizations.
These children live largely in poor families who work but do not make
enough income to put them above the poverty line. This is tied to the de-
cline of high-wage jobs and the growth of jobs considered to be low wage.
It is also linked to the growing income and wealth inequality that is tearing
the American society apart. A study by the National Commission on Chil-
dren concluded that America was failing many of its children:
Although many children grow up healthy and happy in strong, stable families, far
too many do not. They are children whose parents are too stressed and busy to
provide caring attention and guidance. They are children who grow up without
the material support and personal involvement of their mothers and fathers. They
are children who are poor, whose families cannot adequately feed and clothe
them, and provide safe, secure homes. They are children who are victims of abuse
and neglect at the hands of adults they love and trust, as well as those they don’t
even know. They are children who are born too early and too small, who face
a lifetime of chronic illness and disability. They are children who enter school
ill-prepared for the rigors of learning, who fail to develop the skills and attitudes
needed to get good jobs and become responsible members of adult society. They
are children who lack hope for what their lives can become, who believe they
have little to lose by dropping out of school, having a baby as an unmarried
teenager, committing violent crimes, or taking their own lives.3

SINGLE MOTHERS

The poor are also women, especially women of color and some elderly.
Women’s poverty is directly related to their experience in the labor force:
differences from men in remuneration rates for comparable levels of educa-
tion, occupational segregation into low-wage jobs, and discrimination. In
2006 women who worked full time earned $0.81 for every dollar earned
by men. While the extent to which women and men work in different jobs
declined from 1960 to 1990, women and men continue to be segregated at
work. For example, in 2005, some 22 percent of women worked in office
and administrative support, compared to only 6 percent of men.4 Women
dominate lower-wage, caregiving occupations such as nursery school and
kindergarten teachers, registered nurses, librarians, social workers, elemen-
tary schoolteachers, and dieticians.
 Forgotten Americans: The Poor, Homeless, Aged, and Incarcerated 115

Households headed by single mothers are particularly likely to live at

poverty level, and the number of such households headed by single moth-
ers under age twenty-five is expected to increase from 831,000 in 1995 to
1.2 million in 2010.5 African Americans have significantly higher numbers
of never-married single mothers than do other groups. Looked at in terms
of births, each year 1 million children are born to unwed parents. The per-
cent of all births to unmarried women was only 4 to 5 percent of all births
from 1940 until the early 1960s. In 1980 this rose to 18 percent, and after
a decline in the 1990s, it rose to an all-time high of 39 percent in 2005.
Although child abuse occurs in families of all socioeconomic levels, it is
reported more frequently among poor and nonwhite families than among
middle- and upper-class white families. Indeed, families below the poverty
line have three times the rate of severe violence to children. While differ-
ences in rates may be due in part to differences in reporting, experts believe
there are also real differences. Parental stress is the most offered explana-
tion. Another circumstance related to child maltreatment is a mother’s co-
habiting with her boyfriend, who is more likely than a child’s male relative
to abuse the child.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, rates of child physical abuse and child
sexual abuse declined. Based on state reports in 2005, some 63 percent of
reported cases of child maltreatment were of neglect, 17 percent of physical
abuse, 9 percent of sexual abuse, 7 percent of psychological abuse, and 2
percent of medical neglect. The remainder of cases included multiple fac-
tors or unspecified abuse.6
A disproportionately high percent of children living below or near the
poverty level are foster children. In foster care, a child is taken into tempo-
rary or permanent custody by state or county officials because they have de-
termined that a child is being abused or neglected. Some foster care occurs
in group homes for several children who are cared for by paid professionals
who live elsewhere. Much of foster care takes place in a trained and licensed
foster parent’s home. Since the 1980s, some foster care is with biological
relatives of children in their homes. Unfortunately, a factor associated with
child abuse and neglect is that the children are foster children.
Measures taken by the government can improve the lives of mothers and
children in single-parent homes. In the 1960s there were massive social pro-
grams known as the “war on poverty” that cut the poverty rate almost in half.
Nearly 13 million people received Aid to Families with Dependent Children
(AFDC), 27 million more received food stamps, about 6.2 million children
received free school breakfasts, and 7.2 million pregnant women, infants,
and children under two years of age participated in supplemental food pro-
grams known as the Women, Infants, and Children Program (WIC).
Relatively few of those who fall below the poverty line are there perma-
nently; rather, they tend to be there for periods of time. About one-fourth of
116 Chapter 7

the American population receives welfare assistance at one time or another,

and about one-half of American children experience a poverty period at
least once during their childhood.
In the 1990s the war on poverty became a “war on welfare” as poverty
ceased being viewed as a structural feature of our society and the poor were
viewed as being to blame for their own poverty, undeserving of assistance.
In 1996, under then President Clinton, the law converted AFDC to a block
grant for a set amount to states, called Temporary Assistance to Needy
Families (TANF). There is a five-year lifetime limit on benefits for welfare
recipients. After two years of benefits, moreover, recipients are required to
do one of three things: to work, to enroll in on-the-job or vocational train-
ing, or to do community service. If the unmarried mothers are younger than
age eighteen, they must reside with an adult and attend school to receive
benefits. States could set eligibility rules and determine how participants
could meet work requirements. Amounts of financial assistance also varied
among the states; for example, thirteen states have a maximum TANF ben-
efit of under $300/month, whereas six states allow $600 and above.
For a number of reasons, including being ineligible for welfare assistance,
the number of welfare recipients nationwide dropped markedly. In 2004,
about one-third of adults on welfare were working. Many former recipients
are working at low-wage jobs that cause them hardships, such as skipping
meals for financial reasons, postponing needed medical care, and being
unable to pay their rent, mortgage, or utility bills.7
Just above those in poverty officially are over 50 million Americans, includ-
ing 20 percent of the country’s children, who are “near poor” or members of
what Newman and Chen call the “missing class.”8 Their incomes put them
above the poverty line but well below the middle class. They are families with
two parents and two children who live on between $20,000 and $40,000 a
year. This disqualifies them for almost all public subsidies, including health
care via Medicaid, and leaves them unable to be self-sufficient.
A growing fringe-economy sector is taking advantage of the growing part
of the U.S. population who are poor and economically insecure. This refers
to a variety of businesses that charge excessive interest rates, extremely high
fees, or exorbitant prices for goods or services. Some of these businesses
are payday lenders, check-cashers, pawnshops, tax refund lenders, rent-
to-own stores, and “buy-here/pay-here” used car lots. The large amounts
of capital to fund the fringe-economy corporations is coming increasingly
from mainstream financial institutions, such as Wells Fargo and JPMorgan
Chase Bank.9
This compares with the federal government providing what may be
called “corporate welfare”—$150 billion in 2002 in direct subsidies to
the shipping, railroad, and airline industries, along with exporters of iron,
steel, textiles, paper, and other products. Taxpayers fund corporate welfare,
 Forgotten Americans: The Poor, Homeless, Aged, and Incarcerated 117

leaving less money for financial assistance to poor, low-income, and even
middle-class families.10

THE HOMELESS

Among the Americans living in poverty are an estimated 750,000 people

who are homeless on any given night, with 20 percent of them considered
chronically homeless. These figures come from annual surveys, conducted
since 2005, by approximately 4,000 communities nationwide.11 The sur-
veys are coordinated to avoid double-counting the itinerant homeless. Nev-
ertheless, it is difficult to get a handle on the magnitude of the homeless,
who by definition live in cars, boxes, makeshift shelters, and with relatives
and friends from time to time.
Who exactly are the homeless in America? The fastest growing group of
homeless people is families, with families with children accounting for
40 percent of the homeless. This is up from 34 percent in the late 1990s.
Eighty-four percent of the children live in single-mother families. Their
plight is exemplified by the situation of a homeless, single-mother family
with three children living in her car and parking somewhere different each
night so no one would notice them. Children in homeless families are
sometimes instructed to tell anyone who asks about their residence that
they are staying with friends.12
Why is there homelessness among American families? There are a number
of factors including poverty, discussed above, as well as lack of education,
lack of marketable skills, unemployment, domestic violence (discussed in
chapter 6), substance abuse, lack of affordable housing, and the inability of
relatives and friends to provide social and economic support during crises.
Additional factors, clearly beyond people’s control, include declining job
opportunities, declining wages, declining public assistance, mental illness,
and physical disability.
In some communities individual religious congregations have outreach
programs for the poor and homeless. In the authors’ community, the
homeless are cared for by a private agency that is a partnership of forty-
seven congregations. It runs a homeless shelter that provides short-term
overnight sleeping space, with meals, showers, and a safe environment.
Passes are issued daily from 6:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with check-in between
9:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. The shelter closes at 7:00 a.m., after serving a
light breakfast. Each night this shelter accommodates up to forty-six adults.
Hundreds of volunteers manage the shelter and provide/serve the needs of
the homeless.
Our state of Indiana, with nineteen shelters, is one of forty-six states
on a homeless shelter list. Some of the states having the most shelters are
118 Chapter 7

California with sixty-three, Michigan with fifty-two, Alabama with fifty-

one, Georgia with thirty-two, and Texas with twenty-six.
Overall, lack of public housing is one of the main reasons for homeless-
ness. The situation in post–Hurricane Katrina New Orleans is instructive.
While one segment of the city has returned to normal, another segment,
estimated conservatively to be 12,000 people, up from 6,000, lives on
the streets. Some of the newly homeless are migrants from other states or
even other countries. But many are native to New Orleans who returned to
find marked declines in affordable housing and social services. By design,
relatively little federal money for rebuilding was designated to rehabilitate
affordable housing for renters, as opposed to going to homeowners. And
despite a doubling of homelessness, the already inadequate shelter system
dropped from 2,800 shelter beds to 2,045, some of which even charged a
fee. Mental health and detox services are all but nonexistent for the home-
less.13
As noted earlier, the United States lacks a national health care plan.
The expense of private health insurance limits access to medical care for
many, including those living in poverty and/or on the streets. In 2004, 16
percent of Americans had no health insurance, either private or employer-
sponsored.14 Moreover, 24 percent of the poor had no health insurance of
any kind, despite the existence of government programs such as Medicaid
and Medicare. Uninsured Americans are nearly four times less likely to
see a doctor when they need one, and not seeing a doctor when necessary
leads to illnesses and diseases that may cost taxpayers much more in the
long run.
For those with some insurance, moreover, the coverage limits care, es-
pecially mental health care, by restricting the amount and type of services
people can purchase. In addition, current procedures for screening people
into care are particularly biased against racial and ethnic minorities who
may not present or be judged to present standard symptoms.

THE ELDERLY

Unlike people in other age groups, in America there is ageism, or the sys-
tematic persecution and degradation of people who are old. Similar to sex-
ism, racism, and heterosexism, with ageism the elderly are stereotyped as
being less intelligent, less competent, and less active than younger people.
They are often shunned, discriminated against in employment, and some-
times victims of abuse.
There is diversity among the elderly in terms of physical and social
functioning. Thus, gerontologists, scientists who study aging and the aged,
often divide the older population into three groups: those age 65–74, called
 Forgotten Americans: The Poor, Homeless, Aged, and Incarcerated 119

the young-old; those age 75–84, called the middle-old; and those 85 and
over, called the old-old or oldest old. Americans in these age groups are
an increasingly large segment of the population with the old-old being the
fastest growing segment of this population. From 1890 to 1920 the older
population grew slowly, but from 1920 onward the rate of increase speeded
up and by 2000 older Americans made up 12.6 percent of the entire popu-
lation (34.8 million people). This growth is due to several factors: the re-
tirement of the so-called “baby boomers” (those born between 1946 and
1964); the declining proportion of children in the population; and longer
life expectancy.
The variability among older people is not only in terms of chronological
age but also in terms of a number of other dimensions. Take gender, for
example. Since women live longer than men, about five years on average,
older women outnumber older men, especially from age seventy on. This
results not only from biological differences but also from gender roles and
lifestyles. For example, women are more likely than men to seek medi-
cal attention and to work in less dangerous jobs. There are some lifestyle
changes among women that lessen the longevity of women, such as in-
creased smoking, use of alcohol and other drugs, and stresses related to
the “second shift” and caregiving for children and elderly family members.
Nevertheless, as the elderly population itself grows older, older women
are expected to increasingly outnumber older men. This gender difference
in life expectancy is important because across all racial and ethnic groups,
older women have fewer financial resources and are more likely to experi-
ence poverty than older men are.15
Marital status is another important dimension of variability among
the elderly. Seventy-five percent of older men are married and have their
spouses to rely on, whereas over half of older women are widowed. Women
comprise most of the widowed because they tend to live longer than men,
are usually three or four years younger than their husbands and thus more
likely to outlive them, and widowers age sixty-five and older are eight times
more likely than women to remarry.
Widowhood means that the elderly must deal with grief and mourning,
feelings of sadness, longing, bewilderment, anguish, self-pity, anger, guilt,
and loneliness, as well as relief. Almost half of elderly men and women
are resilient and cope with the loss of their spouse with minimal grief,
but about 16 percent experience chronic grief lasting more than eighteen
months.16
Widows are likely to have two distinctive problems. One is financial,
as the average living standard of widows drops 18 to 30 percent with the
death of the husband. This is due importantly to loss of his Social Secu-
rity income. Some widows are also ignorant about their family’s finances,
which they must learn to deal with. A second problem is loss of the role of
120 Chapter 7

wife, which may have been a central role. As noted above, widows have less
chance of remarrying than do widowers.
As they get older the proportion of men whose wives have died increases,
so that by age eighty-five, close to one-half of men are widowed. Widowers
have their own problems, especially if there had been a traditional divi-
sion of household labor between husband and wife. Such men are poorly
prepared to take on the daily domestic matters of cooking, cleaning, and
laundry. They have also lost their major source of intimacy and have to
find sources other than the spouse for social support—advice, approval,
caregiving.
Employment status also varies among the elderly. Prior to 1986, most
workers were forced to retire at age sixty-five whether they wanted to or not.
In single or traditional retirement, it is the husband who works and retires.
As married women increasingly enter the labor force, however, they and
their husbands are thereby affected. They adjust in one of three patterns:
husband initially, wife initially, or synchronized in which the husband
and wife retire at the same time. In general, incomes decline by one-third
to one-half after retirement, and such a decrease pushes some elderly into
poverty, especially the old-old.
In 1986, the U.S. Congress passed legislation ending mandatory retire-
ment for most workers. Nevertheless, in 2000, the elderly were 3 percent
of the labor force. This involved about 20 percent of men and 9 percent of
women over age sixty-five. Why are these people working? There are several
reasons, all related to finances.
First, in 1935 the Social Security Act was passed, now providing pension
benefits to more than 90 percent of the elderly. However, the amount of
benefits depends on the length of time people have been in the labor force
and how much they have earned; in general, it replaces only 39 percent of
an elderly person’s preretirement income, forcing many to work. Second,
in 2000 the Social Security Administration ended financial penalties for
working past age sixty-five, so this was an incentive for older employees to
continue working. Third, since the 1990s, many companies have reduced
or eliminated their employee pension plans, causing many older people to
continue working. Fourth, as indicated in chapter 4, there is less confidence
among workers that they will have enough money to live comfortably after
they retire, especially to pay for anticipated medical costs after retirement.
This causes them to continue working.
The growth of the elderly population is important because many older
people depend on their families, the government, or both for support in
terms of finances, physical support, and emotional support. Many employ-
ers, on the other hand, complain about the costs of elder caregiving, while
less than one-fourth of businesses offer employees elder care support ser-
vices and benefits, such as flexible hours and telecommuting.
 Forgotten Americans: The Poor, Homeless, Aged, and Incarcerated 121

The government pension of Social Security has lifted many of the elderly
out of poverty. For example, in 1959 about 35 percent of people over age
sixty-five were poor, while in 2000 only about 10 percent of the elderly
had incomes below the poverty line. The poverty rate for elderly minorities
is between two and three times higher than for elderly whites. The poverty
rate increases with age, and the number of Americans who will be eighty-
five or older is expected to triple by 2030.
In general, older women are less well off financially than elderly men for
several reasons, relating to their employment histories. Throughout their
working years, they were more likely to work intermittently and receive
lower earnings. Their segregation into lower-pay jobs also meant that they
have smaller pensions, if any; less Social Security benefits; and smaller sav-
ings and assets.17 If an older woman is married to a retired older man, she
may receive a spousal “allotment” equal to one-half of her husband’s ben-
efit, or receive benefits calculated on her own employment record, which
is often lower.
Despite low or moderate incomes, and having reared their children, a
growing problem for seniors who are grandparents is that they are increas-
ingly responsible for housing and rearing their grandchildren. This occurs
because the parents will not or cannot care for their children, often because
of emotional problems, alcohol abuse, or drug addiction. About 6 million
grandparents, especially grandmothers, are caring for their grandchildren.
This is about 6 percent of all children being reared this way. There is eco-
nomic stress because nearly one-fourth of grandparents caring for grand-
children have incomes below the poverty line. There is also psychological
stress for the elderly caregivers and a need for social support as they cope
with their grandchildren’s daily lives.
While grandparent caregiving cuts across gender, class, and race, it is twice
as likely among African Americans.18 Drug addiction of adult children is a
leading cause. This leads grandparents to seeing their grown children’s lives
disintegrate and having to deal with the effects of prenatal drug use on the
physical and mental health of the grandchildren for whom they are caring.
The living arrangements of older Americans vary by gender and race/eth-
nicity. Older women are less likely to live with their spouses (because hus-
bands predecease them), and are more likely to live alone or with people
other than their spouses. Among people aged sixty-five and older, African
Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanics are much more likely than
whites to live with people other than their spouses; e.g., grown children,
siblings, or other relatives.
As couples live longer together, the likelihood that one of them will get
ill increases, and the healthy one, usually the wife, becomes caregiver to the
other. If the elderly do not have a spouse to rely on, they usually turn to
their children for help.
122 Chapter 7

Between 70 and 80 percent of elderly adults have at least one living

sibling and they can provide emotional and other help in times of need.
Elderly siblings share a family history and provide potentially the longest
lasting relationship in life. Relationships may have been close throughout
life, or renewed in later life. Sister-sister relationships seem to be particu-
larly important sources of social support.
In general, elderly people without either a spouse or adult children re-
ceive less personal care and have a higher rate of nursing-home residency
than do older people with children. Overall, about 4.5 percent of elders live
in nursing homes, most being women. The likelihood of living in a nursing
home increases rapidly with age: 1 percent at age 65 to 74; 5 percent at age
75 to 84; and more than 18 percent at age 85 and over.19 About 2 percent
of elders live in homes for the aged and other group quarters. Less than 1
percent live in mental hospitals, tuberculosis hospitals, prisons, and institu-
tions for the developmentally handicapped. Long-term care alternatives are
increasingly necessary and are growing; they include in-home care, adult
day care, assisted living apartments, small group homes, nursing facilities,
and continuing care retirement communities. Cost, however, is an impedi-
ment for their use.
Who cares for elderly Americans when they can’t take care of themselves?
While elders are more likely than those in other age categories to engage
in preventive health practices, their need for health care and personal care
assistance is age-related. Health care needs include such things as catheter
maintenance and injections, whereas personal care consists of help with
daily activities such as bathing, doing housework, and preparing meals. The
percent of elders who have severe needs for personal care, for example, in-
creases from 5.4 percent at age 65 to 69 to 26.4 percent at age 95 and over.
Three-fourths of all long-term personal care services are provided by
informal helpers, mostly spouses, adult children, and friends. Ideally most
adult children in a given family would participate in parental caregiving in
some way, but most elder care is provided by women, usually daughters or
daughters-in-law.
Conflicts may arise involving previous unresolved antagonisms, the
caregiver’s inability to accept the elderly parent’s increasing dependence,
conflicts over loyalties between spousal or childrearing responsibilities and
caring for the parent, and resentment, anger, and conflicts over money or
inheritance matters. Elder caregiving seems to affect wives more negatively
than husbands when they become a caregiver to a parent in the household.
When caring for a parent out of the household, however, some women
seem to gain a greater sense of self-esteem and purpose.
It is not only spouses and adult children who are providing care to elders.
According to a National Alliance for Caregiving survey, about 1.4 million U.S.
children aged eight to eighteen are caring for another family member, often a
 Forgotten Americans: The Poor, Homeless, Aged, and Incarcerated 123

grandparent.20 Thirty percent of child caregivers are aged twelve to fifteen. In

general, someone else helps, also. But the care given by half of the children
involves help with at least one activity of daily living, including bathing, dress-
ing, or feeding. And almost all of the child caregivers help with such things
as keeping the elder company, shopping, preparing meals, or doing other
household tasks. In addition, young adult grandchildren are providing elder
care as well. As is the case for adult caregivers, child caregivers need breaks,
and support groups specifically designed for them. And when elders become
incontinent or suffer from dementia, family and friends may get overwhelmed
and need to turn to institutional options to ensure adequate care for the elder
and to maintain the mental and physical health of the caregivers.
A growing concern among middle-aged lesbians and gays, especially
those who do not have children or whose family has rejected them, is who
will provide care when they get old. They fear that they will once again have
to closet their sexual orientation when they enter retirement communities
and nursing homes. There are some retirement communities, assisted-liv-
ing facilities, and nursing homes marketed specifically to homosexuals, but
many lesbians and gays will not be able to afford them.
It is estimated that from 1 percent to 10 percent of people over age sixty-
five are abused or neglected. The most common form of elder maltreatment
is neglect, such as failing to take them to receive necessary medical care or
failing to provide adequate food, clean clothes, and a clean bed. Neglect
is followed by physical abuse, which is inflicting injury or physical pain
or sexual assault. Then there is psychological abuse, which includes verbal
abuse, deprivation of mental health services, harassment, and deception.
Social abuse involves unreasonable confinement and isolation, lack of su-
pervision, and abandonment. And there is legal abuse, which is improper
or illegal use of the elder’s resources. One other type of elder abuse is called
“granny dumping.”21 This is when adult children or grandchildren who
feel burdened with the care of their elderly parent or grandparent drive the
elder to a hospital and leave them at the entrance with no identification.
The hospital is required by state law to take care of the elder or transfer the
person to a nursing home, which is paid by state funds.
Such maltreatment results largely from caregiving stress and use of alco-
hol or other drugs. It is expected that such frustration will increase as baby
boomers age, draining already limited resources for the elderly, forcing
adult children and other family members to care for them with little gov-
ernment support. Stress can be lessened by giving the caregiver adequate
forms of social support, links to community services, and training. Putting
the responsibility on home care, however, will increasingly burden those
doing the bulk of caregiving, women.
The United States has fragmented systems for financing health care and
long-term personal care. They consist of Medicare, Medicaid, private health
124 Chapter 7

and long-term care insurance, and family savings. Medicare is a program

of health insurance for older Americans that is administered by the Social
Security Administration. It consists of two parts: hospital insurance, or Part
A, and supplementary medical insurance, or Part B. Medicare is funded by
three sources; namely, a payroll tax on the wages of working Americans,
premiums paid by Medicare beneficiaries, and the general revenues of the
United States. It has covered almost all Americans aged sixty-five or over
since July 1, 1966, but coverage is not automatic. Older people must have
participated in Social Security–covered employment or be the spouse, sur-
vivor, or former spouse of a covered worker.
Medicaid is a federal and state program to provide health care to the
poor, regardless of their age, which is administered by local human services
departments following federal guidelines and regulations. It is funded by
federal and state revenues, and eligibility is based on economic status. Med-
icaid pays for everything that Medicare does, plus many other services such
as long-term care in licensed nursing homes and home care in most states.
Together Medicare and Medicaid provide over one-half of the funds used to
provide health care to older people.
There are two types of private insurance policies that address elders’
needs for paying for health and long-term care. One type is to supplement
Medicare benefits, known as “Medigap” policies. In 2000, about 69 percent
of elders covered by Medicare had such coverage. The policies primarily
cover copayments and deductibles connected with services that Medicare
covers. They are of no help in paying for long-term hospitalization and
long-term care not covered by Medicare, leaving major gaps unfilled.
The second type of private insurance is long-term care policies, which
have been written since 1982. Long-term care insurance has been slow
to develop, bought primarily by middle-aged, middle-income people.
Those aged above seventy do not buy long-term care insurance because
the premiums are too high and/or they have the resources to self-insure.
For people in their late forties or early fifties, however, premiums are low
and do not increase with age, providing a slowing of the depletion of
savings.
Our systems for financing health care for older Americans leave serious
gaps. Medicare does not cover many aspects of care, and restrictive criteria
keep Medicare support for long-term care very low. Medicaid covers many
of the areas Medicare does not cover, but it is not available to most middle-
class people. Private long-term care insurance is too expensive for those
who wait until later life to buy it.
Similarly, there are difficulties in meeting personal care needs for many
people. They are those who do not have sufficient income to pay for the
needed help; those who not have family and friends who can help; those
whose care needs are so serious that they require 24/7 supervision; and
 Forgotten Americans: The Poor, Homeless, Aged, and Incarcerated 125

those for whom needed services are not available in the community or are
not acceptable because the services are unreliable or of poor quality.
With the “graying” of society has come a right-to-die issue. Some elderly
want to control their own death, rather than exist in pain or with loss of
bodily functions and/or generally becoming increasingly helpless over
time. In 1994 the voters of Oregon approved a referendum to legalize sui-
cide assisted by a physician. The provisions of the proposal were that two
different physicians had to agree that the patient was both terminally ill and
mentally stable. Then the patient was to have the lethal prescription filled
and to self-administer the drug. If the patient was not physically able to do
this, s/he was not eligible for the “physician-aid-in-dying” process. After
some attempts to appeal the referendum, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld
Oregon’s right-to-die law. In 1997, moreover, the Supreme Court left it up
to the states to decide the legality of doctor-aided suicide.
In 1935, when the Social Security Act was passed, life expectancy was
just below sixty-two years, compared to about seventy-eight today. The
growth of the elderly population changes the relative size of working- and
dependent-age groups. In 2000, for example, there was about one older
person for every five working-age people, while by 2030 it is expected that
there will be one older person being supported by fewer than three work-
ing-age people. Trends such as increases in rates of crime, substance abuse,
out-of-wedlock births, and children living in poverty will result in a small
group of people in the labor force supporting social service programs such
as Social Security and health-care benefit for a large numbers of retirees. It
is especially important to maintain Social Security, for unlike other groups,
the elderly in America have seen a decline in poverty, from over 30 percent
in 1959 to 10 percent in 2003. More than anything else, it is the social
policy that created Social Security that has lifted many elderly Americans
out of poverty.
The aging of the U.S. population calls for increased elder medical care
as well as residential care. The growth of nursing homes and home care
workers is the result. As noted earlier with respect to for-profit day care, the
workers who provide the day-to-day care for the institutionalized elderly
are usually women of color, many of them recent immigrants, and typi-
cally of limited training and income. And the same pressures to contain
costs, meet government regulations, and conduct work in a bureaucratic
manner mitigates against these caregivers providing social and emotional
caregiving and against care recipients being able to preserve their dignity
and autonomy.
Perhaps the greatest problem in providing adequate health and long-term
care services to the elderly is the inflation in the health industry. In 1975
Medicare spent $517 per covered person; in 1980 it spent $1,142; in 1998
it spent $5,114; and the costs keep escalating. The challenge is to provide
126 Chapter 7

adequate and available health- and long-term care within the boundaries
of what we as Americans are willing to pay.

THE INCARCERATED

Another group of marginalized and ignored Americans are those in jails

and prisons. The United States incarcerates more people than any other
country worldwide. The incarcerated now comprise 1 in 130 of the overall
population, and 1 in 100 of the adult population. In terms of numbers of
people, on December 31, 2006, there were 2,258,983 prisoners in federal
or state prisons or in local jails. This was an increase of 2.9 percent from
2005. Federal or state jurisdiction accounted for 1,502,179 of them.
The number of women in state or federal prisons also increased from
2005, up 4.5 percent to 112,498 inmates. Among female offenders, there
are more white women—93,500 or 94/100,000—but a higher rate of
black women, 68,800 or 358/100,000, and Hispanic women, 32,400 or
152/100,000. The rate of increase in imprisonment exceeds overall changes
in the crime rate and results largely from mandatory sentencing policies.
At year end 2006, there were 3,042 black males sentenced to prisons
per 100,000 black males in the population, compared to 1,261 Hispanic
males and 487 white males. Looked at another way, 12.6 percent of black
males age 20 to 34 are in prison, compared to 3.6 percent of Hispanic
males and 1.7 percent of white males. These rates are on a given day.
Over many years, the rates will be much higher. The Bureau of Justice
statistics say that 28 percent of black men will be sent to jail or prison in
their lifetime.22
The United States started a so-called “war on drugs” in 1969 under
President Nixon, and it continued full force through the terms of Presidents
Reagan and Clinton. While whites, who are the majority of the overall
population, constitute most of those arrested on drug-related charges, Af-
rican Americans are arrested at three times the rate of their representation
in the population.
Felony drug offenders, unlike almost every other category of offender,
stand to lose the opportunity to receive public assistance (Temporary As-
sistance for Needy Families or TANF), food assistance, higher education
funding, and income tax deductions for pursuing a college degree.
In 2004, state prisons had 633,700 prisoners serving time for violent
offenses (52 percent), 265,000 for property offenses (21 percent), and
249,400 for drug offenses (26 percent).23 Another 7 percent were in prison
for public-order offenses. While imprisonment may cut crime and be ap-
propriate for serious offenders such as murderers and rapists, it may not be
for nonviolent offenders, such as those arrested for driving drunk (DWI).
 Forgotten Americans: The Poor, Homeless, Aged, and Incarcerated 127

The cost is increasingly a large part of states’ budgets—an average of nearly

$24,000 per prisoner per year. This cost is causing some states to make
major changes with respect to nonviolent offenders. Texas, for example,
expanded drug programs and drug courts and revised parole practices.
According to a federal Household Survey, the overwhelming majority of
drug users are white (9.9 million or 72 percent), compared to 2.2 million
blacks (15 percent) and 1.4 million Hispanics (10 percent). However, of
the state prison inmates serving time for drug offenses at year end 2004,
112,500 or 45.1 percent were black, compared to 51,000 or 20.8 percent
who were Hispanic and 65,500 or 26.4 percent who were white.24
One of the more despicable features of a punitive prison system is the
impediments created to helping prisoners stay connected with family mem-
bers. One would think that telephone calls from prisoners to their children,
spouses, or other family members would be encouraged, because of their
role in rehabilitation of inmates. Unfortunately, in the prison system the
opposite seems to be the case. Henry Fernandez is the spouse of a public
defender in Pennsylvania, and he noticed that the collect calls from pris-
oners about defense work were being billed at very high costs. Prisoners
usually cannot receive telephone calls and must make collect calls to family
or attorneys using the telephone service contracted by the prison. What do
families of prisoners pay to accept collect calls from a son or daughter, or
a mother or father?
Fernandez reports that collect calls from prisoners to their homes were
billed at about $1.07 per minute.25 If a prisoner called home once a week
for fifteen minutes to stay connected with children or parents, the families
receiving the collect calls would pay a total of $834.00 per year. But Fer-
nandez found that residents of Pennsylvania could have unlimited calling
anywhere in the United States for about $480.00 per year. So why wouldn’t
a prison renegotiate with telephone service providers to obtain the lowest
possible rate for collect calls from the prison? Given the fact that contact
with families contributes to prisoner rehabilitation, one would think that
the telephone calling to parents, spouses, and children would be encour-
aged. Instead, the families of prisoners, who tend to be in the low-income
bracket, are overcharged for telephone services. As Fernandez states:
States ought to stop the pathetic practice of gouging poor families who just
want to keep in touch with loved ones in prison. It’s mean-spirited and bad
policy. It should end.

Prison living conditions are harsh, regimented, and degrading for both
men and women inmates.26 Women have more rules imposed on them
and are punished more harshly than men for rule infractions. Educational
and vocational programming is less available in women’s prisons, and that
which exists does not prepare women to survive economically or provide
128 Chapter 7

adequately for their families upon release (e.g., clerical work, cosmetology,
and garment manufacturing). Programming in men’s prisons focuses on
the skilled trades; that is, carpentry, electronics, plumbing, and construc-
tion.
Moreover, in 1994 Congress eliminated prisoner’s eligibility for Pell
Grants for college attendance. Lack of such educational assistance is partic-
ularly ironic in that prisoner participation in GED programs, and especially
postsecondary education, has been shown to reduce recidivism and help in
getting employment after release.
Relatively few prisons offer programs to address problems associated with
physical and sexual abuse, in spite of almost one-half of women inmates
reporting having been previously physically or sexually abused. Moreover,
most women inmates are guarded by men, some of whom sexually exploit
women prisoners.
Separation from their children limits women’s caretaking ability, despite
the fact that about two-thirds of female inmates have children less than
eighteen years old who had been living with them. Only about one-quarter
live with the father. The remainder of these children live with a grandpar-
ent, or other relative, or are placed in foster homes or institutional care.
Prisons vary widely in the amount of time mothers are allowed to visit with
their children, either in the prison or on furloughs at home or in halfway
houses. Most visits, moreover, are by mail or on the telephone because
most prisons are located more than one hundred miles from inmates’
homes. Separation of mothers and children has serious psychological con-
sequences for both parties.
Each year, an estimated 600,000 inmates are released and returned to
the community. More than one-half of those released will be reincarcerated
within three years of release. This revolving door of release and reimprison-
ment is costly in both human and financial terms and demands a massive
effort to try to change this destructive pattern. The 600,000 inmates reen-
tering the community each year join the approximately 12 million in the
community who have prior felony convictions. Finding steady work for
ex-offenders is the key to reducing incentives for crime and reducing recidi-
vism.27 After serving time in prison, ex-offenders face major challenges in
finding jobs, housing, and general assistance to deal with reintegrating into
the community. This requires prisons to provide educational programs,
job training programs, and rehabilitation programs dealing with anger
management, alcohol use, and drug use. Programs within prisons need to
be linked with postrelease programs to provide continuity of services and
a consistent message that there is a second chance for those who want to
work at it. National public opinion polls indicate that the U.S. public gives
their overwhelming support for rehabilitative services as opposed to a pun-
ishment-only system.28 And with almost unanimous bipartisan support,
 Forgotten Americans: The Poor, Homeless, Aged, and Incarcerated 129

the U.S. Congress has passed the Second Chance Act, which is to provide
money and leadership in making rehabilitation a central goal of the federal
justice system.
In sum, the United States has a dire need for caring services for the poor,
homeless, aged, and incarcerated. This is a major public challenge and re-
sponsibility given that these four groups of Americans number at least 35
million.
8
Confronting the Crisis

At this point in the book our argument should be clear: starting in the mid-
1970s and continuing today, the American economic and political systems
have changed in ways that have reduced the options for hope, trust, and
caring for most Americans. As noted especially in chapter 2, the country has
been undergoing a long process of deindustrialization and job relocation by
industries aiming to increase profits by moving or starting their operations
in low-wage, nonunion states and low-wage countries around the world.
This has been accompanied by increasing joblessness and an increasing
income gap for the most prosperous top 20 percent of Americans versus
the bottom 80 percent of working Americans who are increasingly insecure
about their jobs. These trends have (1) resulted in 35 million Americans
living below the poverty line, (2) been accompanied by a decline in afford-
able housing, (3) put increasing pressure on dual-earner families to meet
their family and financial responsibilities, and (4) deflected attention and
support for older Americans and those in nursing homes and prisons.1
Most of the solutions that have been offered to these problems focus
on the problems of the displaced workers rather than changing the poli-
cies that have produced the displaced workers. Consider, for example, the
views of Paul Krugman, a liberal economist and Nobel Laureate who can
be considered a friend of workers and a harsh critic of corporate America.
Krugman has taken the position that the growing trade between high-wage
and low-wage countries is a good thing for this country, but that “for
American workers the story is much less positive. In fact it’s hard to avoid
the conclusion that growing U.S. trade with third world countries reduces
the real wages of many and perhaps most workers in this country.”2 After
acknowledging that the import of manufactured goods has almost tripled

131
132 Chapter 8

between 1990 and 2006, he states: “So am I arguing for protectionism? No

. . . keeping world markets relatively open is crucial to the hopes of billions
of people . . . For the sake of the world as a whole, I hope that we respond
to the trouble with trade not by shutting trade down, but by doing things
like strengthening the social safety net.”
Krugman’s views are consistent with the editors of the New York Times,
where Krugman’s columns appear. The Times acknowledges that trade dis-
rupts life, but it is concerned that presidential candidates Barack Obama
and Hillary Clinton, in their primary battle, were critical of NAFTA and
called for renegotiating the terms of the agreement. The Times acknowl-
edges growing income inequality but claims that this has little to do with
trade; rather it is because of a shortage of education and skilled workers
and a slowdown in high school and college graduation rates. The Times
solution: “expanding the social safety net to help workers displaced by
trade.”3
Of course, it is important to provide a safety net for the workers and their
families, such as unemployment insurance, wage insurance, and funds for
retraining and education. But retraining is only meaningful if there are jobs
for retrained workers. If we do nothing more than strengthen the social
safety net by making it more generous, we are really writing off that genera-
tion of displaced workers and saying that they must be sacrificed for the
good of the whole world.
Can we provide realistic remedies to this crisis of hope, trust, and caring?
The objective of this chapter is to present remedies for your consideration.
The remedies we present for consideration require resources for their imple-
mentation, and these resources are investment capital, political capital, and
social capital. Investment capital means money, and some of our proposed
remedies will require substantial investment of the public’s money. Where
will this money come from? There are only two possible places: new taxes
on individual and corporate income and reassigned money from one
budget line to another. There are only three large pools of money in the
current federal budget that are available for reassignment: Social Security,
Medicare/Medicaid, and the defense budget. The first two money pools are
entitlements that are not likely to be targeted for reallocation; that leaves
the defense budget as the main source for new money.
Political capital means that elected officials have the will and the moti-
vation to mobilize the support of their colleagues and the public for new
initiatives. New projects requiring major new spending must be presented
to the American people with clarity and honesty. The government should
organize public meetings across the country to inform and involve the
public about why a new project is needed and how it will work to make
things better for most Americans. The consequences of inadequate efforts to
have public discussion of important issues can be seen in the public reac-
 Confronting the Crisis 133

tion to the early efforts by the president and Congress to restore credit and
confidence in our financial system in 2008. The American public initially
believed that they were being rushed into solving a problem that was not of
their making and without their full participation, and they expressed over-
whelming disapproval of the plan to spend $700 billion of taxpayer money
to restore confidence in the financial system. There was a very good argu-
ment for this “bailout,” but the rush to pass the bill left most Americans in
the dark about why the plan was needed, what were the alternatives, and
how would the various plans work. In hindsight, the early handling of the
2008 financial crisis was clearly not the way to ask the American public to
support a new project.
Finally, social capital means the people-to-people connections that can
grow exponentially and become the power for mobilizing citizen support
for our proposed remedies. If there is to be genuine public support for a
project, the public must be informed fully and honestly about the possible
pain and gain of a new proposal. Moreover, they must be given the time to
discuss matters with their friends and neighbors, with their elected officials,
and have the opportunity to provide their views on the proposed project. If
done properly, new public projects, of the sort that we will present in this
chapter, can generate the trust and support of the people (i.e., social capi-
tal) to make the project a success.
As we think about how to restore hope, trust, and caring into American
life, it is important to distinguish between “top down” solutions by gov-
ernment and “bottom up” solutions that require voluntary actions from
most, if not all, Americans. Solutions based on government actions often
serve to divide Americans because people often think about “who is pay-
ing” for a new program and “who is receiving benefits” from the program.
Moreover, the American people are well aware that since government
programs involve spending the taxpayer’s money, they have a right to
ask the cost-benefit question, even though it may be divisive. In contrast,
voluntary actions to solve societal problems require Americans to become
partners in a solution and to demonstrate how everyone has something
to gain from a new program. This means that although it is possible to
develop programs that can restore hope to Americans, such as creating
greater job security, the programs can be perceived as unfair if the costs
or benefits are not shared by all. If a proposed solution is not believed
to be fair, it will lead to an erosion of trust and a failure to restore hope.
The ideal solution to a societal problem is one that can restore both hope
and trust because the majority of Americans believe that it is good for the
country and for them.
We believe that the American people today are eager for new ideas that
will improve their lives and restore a sense of security for their future. We
believe this for two reasons. First, we sense the growth of a movement
134 Chapter 8

for economic populism, reflected in the growing disconnect between

national policies on trade and taxation and job security of the American
worker. Americans have become increasingly aware of the connection
between massive job losses and declining wages on the one hand and
national trade policies like NAFTA on the other hand. NAFTA was sold
to the American people as the best way to expand trade and expand jobs
and wages for American workers. The average American family knows
that the effect of NAFTA is the opposite of what was promised, and they
are not going to be fooled a second time. One observer of this develop-
ment has called this economic populism a resurgent nationalism, which
is neither totally conservative nor totally liberal.4 Both the political left
and the political right support this new nationalism-populism, with the
liberals criticizing global economic policies and the conservatives attack-
ing illegal immigrants who take jobs from Americans and depress wages.
If members of Congress who are willing to break with their party and
abandon the old orthodoxies can harness this wave of economic popu-
lism, then we have the potential to focus on job creation, wages, and job
security. It is this new focus that would, in our view, restore hope to the
American people.
The second reason for our optimism is that we think that the time is
ripe for the earthly equivalent of President John F. Kennedy’s May 25,
1961, call to Americans that it is “time for a great new American enter-
prise.” He asked Americans to join with him in a pledge to put a man on
the moon by the end of the decade. He asked Americans to join in the
heavy burden of this new project (spending tax dollars) and he linked it
to our cold war struggle with the Soviet Union (which had already beaten
the United States into space). And what would this great new earthly en-
terprise be? We think that it can be the rebuilding of America’s deteriorat-
ing infrastructure. Almost daily, Americans are told about the congestion
of the interstate highways and the deterioration of their state roads; about
the number of structurally deficient and obsolete bridges; about the in-
ability to clean up toxic waste sites; about the deteriorating public parks,
beaches, and recreational harbors across the nation; about the absence
of a modern transit infrastructure; and about the declining condition of
America’s schools. The list goes on and on, and the frailty of our infra-
structure is dramatized by high-profile disasters such as the failure of the
levees to protect New Orleans from Katrina and the collapse of a major
bridge in Minneapolis.
The American Society of Civil Engineers published an Infrastructure
Report Card in 2005, in which they assessed the conditions of public in-
frastructure in fifteen areas and assigned a grade to each (A=Exceptional,
B=Good, C=Mediocre, D=Poor, F= Failure, I=Incomplete).5 Here are the
grades assigned by the ASCE in the fifteen areas.
 Confronting the Crisis 135

Aviation D+
Bridges C
Dams D
Drinking Water D-
Energy (National Power Grid) D
Hazardous Waste D
Navigable Waterways D-
Public Parks C-
Rail C-
Roads D
Schools D
Security I
Solid Waste C+
Transit D+
Wastewater D-

The report is not good, and all Americans would be potential beneficia-
ries from bringing our aging and deteriorating public infrastructure into the
twenty-first century. This is the time for another “moon mission,” but this
time we should land in the United States.
As we present remedies designed to restore hope, trust, and caring, we
will try to identify the resources that will be needed for their acceptance
and implementation. Our general philosophy when proposing remedies is
to make it as feasible as possible to have many different groups involved in
sharing the pain and sharing the gain of any proposed remedy. That means
that the costs in terms of public money (taxes) and private money (indi-
vidual and business contributions) have to be widely shared. The problem
with many solutions offered by politicians today is that people often feel
that the government is spending their money to provide help to people
who are only a little worse off than they are. As we stated in chapter 1, the
deficiencies of hope, trust, and caring are interrelated. People without hope
are not likely to trust their government, and they are not likely to have the
emotional resources to be very caring of others who may be less fortunate.
The remedies that we propose will involve political struggle because
there are entrenched interests in the status quo. For example, there are a
great many beneficiaries of a robust defense budget including big defense
contractors, universities, engineers and scientists, and skilled blue-collar
defense industry workers. An entrenched privileged class can be expected
to defend their interests and to oppose efforts to increase taxes on corpora-
tions and on individual incomes on the top 1 to 5 percent of wealthiest
Americans.
Ideally, we hope to propose solutions that can mobilize widespread sup-
port among Americans because they will recognize that all will benefit. We
136 Chapter 8

believe that the proposal that we offer to rebuild America’s infrastructure

can be such a proposal. However, some proposals may require the en-
trenched privileged class to accept higher taxes or to support more spending
on social programs for Americans who have been left behind (chapter 7).
The privileged class will argue that such programs will discourage invest-
ment and will ultimately be bad for the economy, and they will mobilize all
their allies in the political, economic, and cultural sectors. In such cases, we
must be prepared for political struggle between groups with opposed inter-
ests. The privileged class dominates the American political system through
their control of the media, policy-making organizations, lobbying groups,
political action organizations, and elite universities. This power network is
formidable and can be expected to try to defeat any change in the “way we
do business.” But there is an alternative power network composed of public
interest groups, progressive policy groups, alternative media, and some pro-
gressive political leaders.6 We believe that this network can be mobilized to
work together to build public support for the kind of reforms we propose.

RESTORING HOPE

Hope is about people feeling confident that they will have a job today
and in the future. This kind of confidence gives people a greater sense of
control over their lives, making them willing to do things today that will
continue in the future. For example, they will be willing to plan for the
future of their children, such as saving for their college education. They
will also be willing to start a business or buy a home, because they are
confident they can be successful with these risk-taking projects. The key
to restoring hope requires a combination of creating jobs and making
existing jobs more secure. We propose a two-pronged national project to
restore jobs to American workers.

Create New Jobs

The first effort is to establish a project we call Jobs for America, and
it would be based on the voluntary contributions of citizens along with
matching contributions from federal and state governments and national
labor unions. We believe that this project should have the highest prior-
ity because it would create secure jobs, which is the best way to restore
hope, and it would build trust because of citizen involvement. The project
should be developed as a high-profile national movement headed by a
highly regarded public figure, with a board of advisers capable of mobiliz-
ing support for the project. The first stage of the project calls for a national
plan to rebuild America’s infrastructure of roads, bridges, highways, public
 Confronting the Crisis 137

buildings, and parks. In a second stage, the project would provide new sup-
port personnel for America’s schools, libraries, hospitals, nursing homes,
and prisons. This would employ millions of Americans in the years ahead,
and it would be expensive, because such public-sector jobs would require
enhanced pay and benefits. But we believe that it could be funded without
requiring new taxes, which is very important. Most Americans are in a “no
new taxes” way of thinking. We believe that the reason for this is that they
don’t trust their elected officials to use their money in ways that benefit the
average American. We further believe that Americans are a generous people
and they would help to fund an effort that benefits all Americans. Where
would the money come from? How would the project work?

• When Americans file their tax returns each April 15, they would be in-
vited to make a voluntary contribution to the Jobs for America project.
They could contribute between $100 and $500 to the project by add-
ing their contribution to the tax they owe, or deduct their contribution
from the rebate that they are due. A taxpayer who owes $800 in taxes
could contribute $200 to Jobs for Americans and thereby owe the IRS
$1,000. Similarly, if a taxpayer is due for a $200 return, s/he could
donate that amount to Jobs for America and not take a return. If 20
million taxpayers contributed an average of $100 to Jobs for America
when they filed their taxes, this would provide $2 billion. In 2006,
over 132 million Americans filed income tax returns. Of these, 43.4
million had zero or negative tax liability, leaving a pool of over almost
90 million taxpayers from which to get 20 million Americans to con-
tribute to the Jobs for America project.
• Congress would become a partner with the citizens’ voluntary contri-
butions by making their own contribution at tax time and by enacting
legislation that would provide a match, let’s say five to ten times what
taxpayers contribute; in this example, $10 to $20 billion. Where would
the matching money come from? Congress would shift the money
from the $519 billion defense budget, which is robust enough to be
able to accommodate such an annual reallocation. The 2009 defense
budget allocates $129 billion for personnel, $180 billion for mainte-
nance activities, $80 billion for research and development, $24 billion
for construction, $2 billion for management, and finally, $104 billion
for procurement. We propose that the Jobs for America money should
be shifted from the procurement budget, which is for the purchase of
new fighter planes and weapons systems, and is usually a very padded
budget. This practice would have the further advantage of gradually
shifting funds from wartime spending to peacetime spending.
• Another potential source of funds for reallocation is the National Aero-
nautics and Space Agency. Since the beginning of the space program
138 Chapter 8

in 1958, NASA’s annual budget has been an average of $16 billion,

or $810 billion over the past fifty years. We could delay further space
exploration in favor of greater Earth exploration and use NASA money
and defense money to fund Jobs for America.
• Infrastructure rebuilding projects would be located in each state, so
when state governments applied for infrastructure rebuilding funds
they would have to make a matching contribution, either financial or
in-kind.
• National labor unions would provide some of the skilled carpenters,
electricians, and masons who would be at the heart of the rebuilding
projects. They would be expected to make a buy-in contribution to give
them a partner status. Many unions lack the funds to make large-dollar
contributions, but they could make some wage and work rules conces-
sions that would help reduce the cost of the rebuilding projects.

We believe that this is the kind of project that Americans would sup-
port. It would cost all the partners something, but the gains would also
benefit everyone in the form of job creation, economic stimulus, and new
infrastructure in states and communities across the country. The key to this
project would be getting the support of Americans to become voluntary
contributors, and there would need to be a national public education ef-
fort about the Jobs for America project. The help of national advertising
firms would be needed to develop the public education message, and the
national media would be needed to deliver the message to America. All
Americans would have to buy into the Jobs for America project if it is to
have a chance for working, because this would be more than a one-time
commitment. It may take five to ten years of putting billions of dollars
into rebuilding America’s infrastructure. The costs are high, but the benefits
to working Americans are higher, and the benefits to the goal of restoring
hope are enormous.
If the Jobs for America project is successful in getting support from the
American people, it could be gradually shifted from voluntary annual
contributions of American taxpayers to a fully funded national public in-
frastructure project. Of course, this would mean using public tax dollars,
but we believe the public would support such an effort because of the
widespread benefits of rebuilding infrastructure in every state with Ameri-
can workers.
Compare this jobs-centered approach with the bipartisan congressional
stimulus package passed in early 2008. Congress and the president devel-
oped legislation to give Americans $150 billion in tax refunds in order to
stimulate a slowing economy and to avoid recession. Putting this much
new money into the hands of Americans is designed to stimulate aggregate
demand for goods and services and thereby stimulate a sluggish economy.
 Confronting the Crisis 139

What is less certain is whether this stimulus package will create jobs. Why?
Because some Americans will use their stimulus checks to pay down exist-
ing debt; others may buy consumer goods that are likely to be imported
from other countries; and some will just “squirrel it away” for a rainier day.
In our view, the $150 billion would be better spent on our Jobs for America
project because it would guarantee both job creation and infrastructure im-
provement, both of which would benefit most Americans.
Given the impact of the 2008 Wall Street crisis and recession on Ameri-
can jobs, an alternative to this grassroots Jobs for America program would
be a fully funded version of this proposal, requiring Congress and the
president to allocate at least $300 billion to begin rebuilding the crumbling
infrastructure across the United States.

Save Jobs
What is needed to save existing jobs is to have a national industrial policy
that identifies critical sectors of the economy for support in times of eco-
nomic difficulty. While it is too late now for some sectors, this would have
meant helping the steel industry, auto industry, and textile industry in the
1970s and 1980s when they were facing competition from firms in other
countries. Instead of protecting U.S. industry, our government had policies
that encouraged firms to ship their jobs and investment abroad. The Japa-
nese had an industrial policy in the 1980s that helped their auto industry
become competitive in the global auto industry. Such a policy would now
seek a balance between trade and protecting U.S. industries. Critical sectors
are those with the largest number of employees and with the greatest sec-
ondary effects on other sectors.
Current U.S. trade deficits involve importing to America consumer goods
that were once produced by U.S. companies. Foreign trade statistics for 2007
identify “the principal end-use commodity categories” of imported goods.
While the large dollar amount of end-use imports involved petroleum and
natural gas ($635 million), the other imports include computers, electrical
apparatus, and medicinal equipment ($444 million), and consumer goods
like clothing, household goods, toys, TVs, and sporting goods ($475 mil-
lion).7 Surely, with a projobs industrial policy to create jobs in vital sectors,
many of the now-imported goods could be produced in the United States
by American workers.

• What the government can do now is to develop policies that both dis-
courage companies from cutting jobs in the United States and sending
them to other countries and rewarding companies that expand employ-
ment in their U.S. firms. We already have a model for how this is done.
When the U.S. auto firms like General Motors and Ford decided that
140 Chapter 8

they must cut their workforce in order to survive in the competitive

auto market, they offered workers buyouts averaging about $40,000.
They also provided options to allow workers to receive $15,000 a year
for four years of tuition and a stipend amounting to 50 percent of their
wage. Using this experience as a model, we could require companies
that decide to cut their workforce and expand production abroad to
pay a tax that the government would use as part of a safety net and re-
training/education program. The tax should be based on the difference
between the wage paid to their laid-off domestic workers and the wage
paid to foreign workers. On the other side of the ledger, when com-
panies expand their workforce and when new companies are created,
they should receive tax breaks that would contribute to their chances
to be successful.
• Congress should pass legislation to prevent companies that have en-
gaged in large-scale layoffs of domestic workers from making requests
for H-1B visas to import foreign workers. Such requests for visas for
foreign workers should be denied if the company has engaged in mas-
sive layoffs of domestic workers.
• Congress should review all government subsidies and federal contracts
to firms that engage in massive layoffs of domestic workers at the same
time they are increasing their foreign workforce.

Expand Opportunity
Restoring hope depends on the availability of secure jobs for Americans,
but it also requires that each new generation of children has an equal chance
of making the most of their abilities. What this means is that students in
elementary schools and high schools should have access to the best teach-
ers, curricula, and facilities and thereby have the best education that can be
offered. The problem with this idealized goal is that the quality of educa-
tion requires comparable resources to provide that quality, whereas there
are big differences between resource-rich schools in the suburbs compared
with resource-poor schools in the inner city and in rural areas. Unless there
is comparability in the quality of school programs, students in the lesser-
quality programs will not be afforded the same opportunity to compete in
the labor market or in the education market. What can be done to provide
all students with a comparable educational experience?

• Federal and state governments along with their departments of edu-

cation must devise a national plan to provide comparable per-pupil
expenditures for all schools. At present (2006), wealthy suburban
schools spend nearly twice as much per pupil as inner city schools, and
they can thereby hire the best teachers, provide smaller classes, and
 Confronting the Crisis 141

provide better facilities.8 Equalizing resources could result in closing

the achievement gap between students from the privileged class and
those from moderate- and low-income areas and thereby increase the
motivation for going to college.
• As noted in chapter 5, affirmative action programs to improve admis-
sion and funding for students who have traditionally been excluded
from higher education should be modified to include economic crite-
ria as well as race, gender, or ethnicity. This would mean that students
of any color, ethnicity, or gender from families with limited income
would be eligible for preferential admission and financial support to
attend college.
• Break the pattern of residential segregation by providing a new public
low-income rental-housing program to locate low-income children
near good schools and their parents near entry-level jobs. Additionally,
there should be an expansion of vouchers to families already living
in public housing for their use to rent affordable apartments in other
neighborhoods.

RESTORING TRUST

Restoring the American people’s confidence in their social institutions, es-

pecially government and political leaders, will require, first and foremost, a
plan to get money out of politics. This means reducing the dependence of
politicians on contributions from wealthy donors, corporations, lobbyists,
political action committees, interest groups, and labor unions. It will also
require a dramatic change in business as usual, meaning we must change
tax laws that provide rich Americans and corporations with numerous
ways to delay, defer, and avoid taxes. We must also eliminate the dozens
of “sweet deals” given to multinational corporations that encourage them
to invest abroad and to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.9 What can be
done?

• The best way to get money out of politics is to enact a term limits law
limiting representatives to three two-year terms, and senators to two
four-year terms. With limited terms, members of Congress would no
longer spend most of their time raising money in order to get ready
for the next election. Mandated turnover in elected officials would
weaken the lobbyist-politician link because the politician would not
be around long enough to continue to provide favors. It would also
get rid of the “safe seat” Congress members who get reelected numer-
ous times, allowing them to become chairs of powerful committees,
thereby providing even more favors to big donors. There is widespread
142 Chapter 8

public support for term limits as reported by national poll data and by
the results of term limits referenda in twenty-three states in the 1990s;
all were approved by very large margins.
Term limits for Congress would restore the ideal of a “citizen politi-
cian,” the persons who leave a primary occupation to serve the country
for a brief time and returns to their community to resume their prior
life. Compare this ideal of diverse citizen participation to the 109th
Congress, which had 228 attorneys (43 percent), 275 former state
legislators (51 percent), 109 former congressional staffers, 35 former
mayors, and 19 state governors or lieutenant governors. This concen-
tration of career politicians who would, if they could, probably remain
in Congress for life, overwhelms the handful of medical doctors (13),
ministers (6), physical scientists (7), Peace Corp volunteers (6), and
former FBI/CIA agents (3). In short, the 109th Congress hardly looks
like a collection of citizen politicians, but a term limits law could
change these patterns.
However, despite our belief in the merits of term limits, there is a
valid opposing argument that views long-term tenure in Congress as
producing more knowledgeable and effective representatives who are
better able to serve constituents.
• Trust must also be restored among the identity politics groups that are
in competition for public support of their various agendas. In chapter
5, we presented an affirmative action plan that included economic cri-
teria for college admission and funding that would allow members of
all identity groups to benefit. No one would be excluded on the basis
of race, ethnicity, or gender; rather, exclusions would be on the basis of
family income. We would encourage identity groups to find other ways
to work together to advance common interests, rather than pursuing
programs that advance the members of one group at the expense of
members of another group.

RESTORE CARING

Caring is expressed in personal relationships with people who are impor-

tant to you, such as immediate family, other kin, and close friends. This
kind of caring is about providing help and support for people who are im-
portant to you, and it sometimes means putting their welfare on equal par
with your own well being. But in order to provide this kind of caring, the
caregiver has to have the resources to do so, namely the financial means,
the time, and the emotional capacity. In short, it takes a healthy caregiver
to be a dependable source of help to others. We will offer some examples
of how public policies of governments and employers can help caregivers
 Confronting the Crisis 143

and make them effective in their interpersonal relationships with people

who depend on them.
A second meaning of caring is being concerned about the well being
of people whom you don’t know. These are people who are members of
marginalized and stigmatized groups. They are often people for whom it
is difficult to express caring, for they are often responsible in part for their
own problems; they are sometimes their own worst enemies. Expressing
care for marginalized and stigmatized people like the poor, the aged, and
the imprisoned takes the form of supporting public initiatives to help these
less-fortunate Americans. People will be able to support these public initia-
tives only when they feel that they themselves are not living in conditions
of financial or emotional need. That is part of the interconnected cycle of
hope, trust, and caring. People will not express concern and caring for the
less fortunate until those who are called upon to be care-policy supporters
are themselves secure with their feelings of hope and trust.

• Parents are caregivers for their children and for other members of their
family, most often their aging parents. Caregiving requires time, and
in some cases money, to be able to help others. Caregivers who are
not in the labor force, most likely mothers, are not covered by Social
Security, unemployment, or workman’s compensation. Their work
patterns adapt to their caregiving responsibilities, making them eco-
nomically vulnerable. Social Security regulations should be changed to
recognize nonstandard work patterns and to take into account unpaid
home-based work.
• Parents who are in the labor force need to have paid personal days pro-
vided by their employer to care for sick children or an aging parent. If
an employer cannot afford the cost of paid family-care days, they could
consider creating a voluntary pool of family day credits. For example,
if one employee gets paid time off for four hours, another employee
could volunteer to cover for that lost work and thereby earn four hours
of family-time credit to be used when needed.
• Affordable child care should be provided by government and employ-
ers by providing a subsidy that will cover a percentage of the employ-
ees’ cost. Some companies already provide on-site child care, which
is the most desirable option, but this may not be feasible for many
companies.
• “Human capital” should be promoted by improving the education,
marketable skills, and self-discipline of school-age children. There
should be mandatory early childhood education programs for low-
income families.
• All states should create partnerships between public universities and
resource-poor schools in their area to develop programs to enhance
144 Chapter 8

the educational experience, reduce dropout rates, and provide students

with better preparation for college. Some of the resources of public
universities should be directed to assist elementary and secondary
schools in low-income areas.
• America’s most successful poverty reduction program, the Earned In-
come Tax Credit (EITC), should be expanded in terms of the credits and
to make childless workers eligible. At present, this program provides
a refundable tax credit to single parents and couples as a supplement
to their income for each qualifying child. A family receives a supple-
ment of $2,853 for one child and $ 4,716 for two or more qualifying
children. The supplement is phased out when family income increases
beyond $15,399.
• Federal and state funds should be directed to in-home care, including
assistance with daily living activities to needy elderly. States should use
their community college system to develop new programs for training
licensed elder-care providers who would play a key role in keeping
elder Americans at home.
• Medicare should be expanded to cover services now covered by Med-
icaid. While this falls short of proposals for universal health care, it
increases services until the former could be achieved.
• Public education campaigns should be developed about long-term
care insurance and should be directed to middle-aged persons so that
they can take out policies while they are affordable. The looming crisis
about paying for long-term care should be placed on the public agenda
to develop policies to assist elderly Americans.
• Sentencing guidelines for drug convictions should be reexamined with
the goal of reducing incarceration for nonviolent offenders. Such of-
fenders should be offered probation involving job training and work
opportunities that will get their lives moving in a positive direction.
The goal is to reduce the incarceration rates of young men and women
charged with nonviolent drug convictions.
• Congress should expand funding for two pieces of legislation designed
to assist released prisoners, the Prisoner Reentry Initiative of 2004
and the Second Chance Act of 2008. Both acts provide mentoring and
transitional services for persons reentering the community. Federal
funds should be provided to federal and state prisons to enable them
to select prisoners scheduled for reentry into the community, remove
them from the prison environment, and place them in a special facil-
ity for intensive transitional services related to substance abuse, anger
management, job training, job placement, and housing.

Although America is the richest and most powerful nation in the world,
nothing lasts forever, and for the last thirty years or so America has gone
 Confronting the Crisis 145

down a path that threatens its continued viability as the place where most
people want to live and raise their children. We believe that the triple crises
of hope, trust, and caring threaten to make America a very different country,
one different in ways that only the privileged class of Americans will not
recognize or understand. The privileged class will continue to enjoy high
levels of income, wealth, and security, and their gated-community lives will
protect them somewhat from seeing how the other 80 percent are living.
But this kind of polarized society is not sustainable. Eventually those who
are continuously excluded from the American Dream will submit a bill for
payment of their real grievances.
We believe that the intersection of the presidential election and the eco-
nomic crisis has provided President Obama with the political opportunity
to consider the type of proposals that we have presented and to take Amer-
ica in a new direction. The actions of the new administration will determine
whether America remains at the crossroads or embarks on a new path to
meet the needs of most of its citizens.
Notes

CHAPTER 1

1. “Let’s Take This Country Back,” Washington Spectator (New York: Public Con-
cern Foundation, 2006).
2. Robert Perrucci and Shelley MacDermid, “Time and Control in a 24/7 Environ-
ment: Clock Time, Work Time, Family Time,” in Workplace Temporalities: Research in
the Sociology of Work, ed. Beth Rubin (New York: JAI Press), 343–68.
3. Jill Andresky Fraser, White Collar Sweatshop: The Deterioration of Work and Its
Rewards in Corporate America (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001).
4. Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison, The Deindustrialization of America (New
York: Basic Books, 1982).
5. Arne Kalleberg, “Flexible Firms and Labor Market Segmentation: Effects of
Workplace Restructuring on Jobs and Workers,” Work and Occupations (May 2003):
154–75.
6. Robert Perrucci and Cynthia Stohl, “Economic Restructuring and Changing
Corporate-Worker-Community Relations: Searching for a New Social Contract,” in
Research in the Sociology of Work, volume 6, ed. Randy Hodson (Greenwich, CT: JAI
Press, 1997), 177–95.
7. Dan Clawson, The Next Upsurge: Labor and New Social Movements (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 2003).
8. Economic Policy Institute, “Family Income Limits by Quintile, 1974–2004:
Share of Aggregate Family Income by Quintile.” Available at http://www.epinet.
org.
9. David Wright, “Changes in Hourly Earnings and Weekly Earnings, 1947–2005,”
Work Series, Wichita State University, November 2006, A19–A20.

147
148 Notes

CHAPTER 2

1. Brink Lindsey, “Job Losses and Trade: A Reality Check,” Trade Briefing Paper
19, Cato Institute, March 17, 2004.
2. Gallup Poll, “Americans’ Economic Pessimism Reaches Record High.” Re-
ported in Paul Krugman, “Winter of Our Discontent,” New York Times (November
26, 2007); David Leonhardt and Marjorie Connelly, “81% in Poll Say Nation Is
Headed on Wrong Track,” New York Times (April 4, 2008).
3. Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and Sylvia Allegretto, The State of Working
America, 2004/2005 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005).
4. Mike Davis, Prisoners of the American Dream: Politics and Economy in the History
of the U.S. Working Class (London: Verso, 1986).
5. Robert B. Reich, The Next American Frontier (New York: Time Books, 1983).
6. Carolyn C. Perrucci, Robert Perrucci, Dena B. Targ, and Harry Targ, Plant
Closings: International Context and Social Costs (Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter,
1988).
7. “The Hundred Largest U.S. Multinationals,” Forbes (July 17, 1995): 274–76.
8. Robert Perrucci, Japanese Auto Transplants in the Heartland: Corporatism and
Community (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1994).
9. Roger Bybee, “NAFTA’s Hung Jury,” Extra! (May–June 2004): 14–15.
10. Carolyn Perrucci and Robert Perrucci, “Unemployment,” Encyclopedia of the
Life Course and Human Development (Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2008).
11. Steve Lohr, “Debate over Exporting Jobs Raises Questions on Policies,” New
York Times (February 23, 2004).
12. Steve Lohr, “Offshore Jobs in Technology: Opportunity or a Threat?” New
York Times (December 22, 2003).
13. Robert Perrucci and Earl Wysong, The New Class Society: Goodbye American
Dream? (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 57.
14. U.S. Census Bureau News, U.S. Department of Commerce, http://www.cen-
sus.gov/foreign-trade/PressRelease/.
15. Katherine S. Mangan, “A Shortage of Business Professors Leads to 6-Fig-
ure Salaries for New Ph.D.’s,” Chronicle of Higher Education 47 (May 4, 2001):
A12–13.
16. Robert Granfield and Thomas Koenig, “Pathways into Elite Law Firms: Pro-
fessional Stratification and Social Networks,” in Research in Politics and Society, vol.
4, The Political Consequences of Social Networks, eds. Gwen Moore and J. Alan Whitt
(Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1992), 325–51.
17. Perrucci and Wysong, The New Class Society: Goodbye American Dream?, 14.
18. Perrucci and Wysong, The New Class Society: Goodbye American Dream?, 14.
19. William Greider, “Riding into the Sunset,” Nation (June 9, 2005). See http://
www.thenation.com/doc/20050627/greider.
20. Carolyn Perrucci, et al., Plant Closings.
21. “The Downsizing of America,” New York Times (New York: Times Books,
1996), 80.
22. “The Downsizing of America,” New York Times, 84.
23. “The Downsizing of America,” New York Times, 59.
 Notes 149

CHAPTER 3

1. Jennifer L. Hochschild, Facing Up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the
Soul of the Nation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 72.
2. Robert Perrucci and Earl Wysong, The New Class Society: Goodbye American
Dream? (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 65.
3. Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and Sylvia Allegretto, The State of Working
America, 2004–2005 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), 137.
4. Ryan T. Helwig, “Worker Displacement in 1999–2000,” Monthly Labor Review
(June 2004): 54–68.
5. Seymour M. Lipset and Reinhard Bendix, Social Mobility in Industrial Society
(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1959).
6. Earl Wysong, Robert Perrucci, and David W. Wright, “A New Approach to
Class Analysis: The Distributional Model, Social Closure, and Class Polarization.”
Presented at the 2002 meetings of the American Sociological Association, Chicago,
IL; Earl Wysong and David W. Wright, “What’s Happening to the American Dream:
Sons, Daughters, and Intergenerational Mobility.” Presented at the 2007 meetings
of the Midwest Sociological Society, Chicago, IL; David Featherman and Robert M.
Hauser, Opportunity and Change (New York: Academic Press, 1978).
7. Tiffani Chin and Meredith Phillips, “Social Reproduction and Child-Rearing
Practices: Social Class, Children’s Agency, and the Summer Activity Gap,” Sociology
of Education 77 (July 2004): 185–210.
8. Robert Perrucci and Earl Wysong, The New Class Society (Lanham, MD: Row-
man & Littlefield, 1999), 182.
9. Annette Lareau, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 2003), 1–4.
10. U.S. Census Bureau, Public Education Finances 2006 (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Government Printing Office, April 2008).
11. U.S. Department of Education, Digest of Educational Statistics 2000 (Washing-
ton, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001).
12. “The Persisting Myth That Black and White Schools Are Equally Funded,”
Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 22 (Winter 1988–1999): 17–18, 20.
13. Jennifer L. Hochschild and Nathan Scovronick, The American Dream and the
Public Schools (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 59–60.
14. Douglas Harris, “Lost Learning, Forgotten Promises,” Center for American
Progress, November 29, 2006 (www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/11/lost
learning.html).
15. Maureen Hallinan, “Tracking: From Theory to Practice,” and Jennie Oakes,
“More Than Misapplied Technology: A Normative and Political Response to Hal-
linan on Tracking,” Sociology of Education 67 (1994): 79–91; Sally Kilgore, “The Or-
ganizational Context of Tracking in Schools,” American Sociological Review 56 (1991):
189–203; Karl Alexander, Martha Cook, and Edward McDill, “Curriculum Tracking
and Educational Stratification,” American Sociological Review 43 (1982): 47–66.
16. David Fasenfest and Robert Perrucci, “Changes in Occupation and Income,
1979–1989: An Analysis of the Impact of Place and Race,” International Journal of
Contemporary Sociology 31 (1994): 203–33.
150 Notes

17. William Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged (Chicago: University of Chi-
cago Press, 1987).
18. Carla O’Connor, “Race, Class, and Gender in America: Narratives of Op-
portunity among Low-Income African American Youths,” Sociology of Education 72
(1999): 137–57.
19. Anita Chandra, Steve Martino, Rebecca Collins, Marc Elliot, Sandra Berry,
David Kanouse, and Angela Miu, “Does Watching Sex on Television Predict Teen
Pregnancy? Findings from a National Longitudinal Study of Youth,” Pediatrics 122
(November 2008).
20. Jay P. Greene, “High School Graduation Rates in the United States,” Institute
for Policy Research, November 2001.
21. Randall Collins, The Credential Society (New York: Academic Press, 1979).
22. U.S. Department of Education, Digest of Educational Statistics, 2000; Na-
tional Center for Educational Statistics (http://nces.ed.gov//programs/digest/d03/
tables/dt249.asp).
23. Sara Rimer and Alan Finder, “Harvard to Aid Students High in the Middle
Class,” New York Times (December 11, 2007); Derek Thompson, “Financial Aid: How
Top Schools Compare,” http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/02/0204_financial_
aid/index_01.htm.
24. Alison Damast, “Tuition: Assistance for the Middle Class,” Business Week
(February 3, 2008); Mary Specht, “Financial Aid Can’t Keep Pace,” http://www.
usatoday.com/news/education/2006-08-30-financial-aid_x.htm.
25. Karen W. Arenson, “Cuts in Tuition Assistance Put College beyond Reach
of Poorest Students,” New York Times (January 27, 1997); Richard Kahlenberg, ed.,
America’s Untapped Resource: Low Income Students in Higher Education (New York:
Century Foundation, 2003).
26. United for a Fair Economy, Born on Third Base: The Sources of Wealth of the
1996 Forbes 400 (Boston, MA: United for a Fair Economy, February 1997).

CHAPTER 4

1. Gallup Poll. Available at http://www.pollingreport.com/institut.htm.

2. David Brooks, “Follow the Fundamentals,” New York Times (November 27,
2007).
3. Lynnley Browning, “Study Tallies Corporations Not Paying Income Tax,” New
York Times (August 13, 2008).
4. Peter S. Goodman, “When Foreigners Buy Factories: Two Towns, Two Out-
comes,” New York Times (April 7, 2008).
5. Reported in John Miller and Ramon Castellblanch, “Does Manufacturing
Matter?” Dollars and Sense (October 1988): 6–8.
6. Gabriel Thompson, “Meet the Wealth Gap,” Nation (June 30, 2008): 18–27.
7. Mark Dudzic, “Time to Abandon Illusions about Democrats,” Labor Party
Press (January–February, 2005): 8.
8. David Croteau, “Challenging the ‘Liberal Media’ Claim,” Extra! (July–August
1998): 9.
 Notes 151

9. Mark Cooper, “Reclaiming the First Amendment: Legal, Factual, and Ana-
lytic Support for Limits on Media Ownership,” in The Future of Media, ed. Robert
W. McChesney, Russell Newman, and Ben Scott (New York: Seven Stories Press,
2005).
10. Francis X. Clines, “Fueled by Success, Buchanan Revels in Rapid-Fire Ora-
tory,” New York Times (February 15, 1996).
11. Clines, “Fueled by Success, Buchanan Revels in Rapid-Fire Oratory.”
12. David Reinhard, “The Democratic Convention: In Search of Two Americas,”
Oregonian (July 29, 2004): B13.
13. Jean Hardisty, Mobilizing Resentment: Conservative Resurgence from the John
Birch Society to the Promise Keepers (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1999).
14. “A Time for American Leadership on Key Global Issues,” New York Times
(February 11, 1998).
15. Leon Trachtman and Robert Perrucci, Science Under Siege? (Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2000).
16. Polling Report. Available at http://www.pollingreport.com/institut.htm.
17. www.beyonddelay.org.
18. Ron Nixon, “Earmarks Persist in Spending Bills for 2009,” New York Times
(June 22, 2008).
19. Daniel W. Drezner and Henry Farrell, “Web of Influence,” Foreign Policy 145
(2004): 32–40; Ray Maratea, “The e-Rise and Fall of Social Problems: The Blogo-
sphere as a Public Arena,” Social Problems 55 (February 2008): 139–60.
20. Jessica Clark, “Power to the People: The Perils and Promise of Point-and-
Click Politics,” In These Times (December 2007): 20–23.
21. Eric Alterman, “Wall Street to Daily Papers: ‘Drop Dead,’” Nation (February
11, 2008): 13.
22. “From the Left: More Than a Figure of Speech,” Extra! Update (February
1996): 1.
23. Laura Washington, “Missing: Minorities in the Media,” In These Times (March
2008): 17.

CHAPTER 5

1. Stephen Cornell and Douglas Hartmann, Ethnicity and Race: Making Identities
in a Changing World (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 1998).
2. Robert Wuthnow, Sharing the Journey (New York: Free Press, 1994).
3. Robert Putnam, “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital,” Journal
of Democracy 6 (1995): 65–78.
4. Jane Hardisty, Mobilizing Resentment: Conservative Resurgence from the John
Birch Society to the Promise Keepers (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1999).
5. Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, “Supply, Demand, and Secularization,”
Secular Humanism (February–March 2007): 29–32.
6. Norris and Inglehart, “Supply, Demand, and Secularization,” 31.
7. Milton Gordon, Assimilation in American Life (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1964).
152 Notes

8. Daniel P. Moynihan, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (Washing-
ton, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, March 1965).
9. Lee Rainwater and William L. Yancey, The Moynihan Report and the Politics of
Controversy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1967).
10. Adalberto Aguirre, Jr., and Jonathan H. Turner, American Ethnicity: The
Dynamics and Consequences of Discrimination (New York: McGraw Hill, 1965),
23–24.
11. John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925
(New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1955).
12. U.S. Bureau of Census: www.census.gov/population/socdemo/education/
cps2003/tab10-12.xls.
13. U.S. Bureau of Census, 2006 American Community Survey (Washington D.C.:
U.S. Government Printing Office, 2006).
14. Amy K. Glasmeier, Poverty in America (New York: Routledge, 2006).
15. Aguirre, and Turner, American Ethnicity, 65.
16. U.S. Bureau of Census, 2006 American Community Survey.
17. U.S. Bureau of Census, 2006 American Community Survey.
18. U.S. Bureau of Census, 2006 American Community Survey.
19. Aguirre and Turner, American Ethnicity, 169.
20. U.S. Bureau of Census, 2006 American Community Survey.
21. Roger Cohen, “Race and American Memory,” New York Times (April 17, 2008).
22. Richard D. Kahlenberg, The Remedy: Class, Race, and Affirmative Action (New
York: Basic Books, 1997); Richard D. Kahlenberg, “Class-Based Affirmative Action,”
California Law Review 84 (July 1996): 1037–99; Walter Benn Michaels, The Trouble
with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality (New York: Met-
ropolitan, 2006).
23. Michael Omi and Dana Takagi, “Situating Asian Americans in the Political
Discussion of Affirmative Action,” in Race and Representation: Affirmative Action, eds.
Robert Post and Michael Rogin (New York: Zone Books, 1998).
24. Jane Hardisty, Mobilizing Resentment, 161.

CHAPTER 6

1. Arlie R. Hochschild, “The Culture of Politics: Traditional, Postmodern, Cold-

modern and Warm-modern Ideas of Care,” Social Politics 2 (1995): 331–46.
2. U.S. Census Bureau, 2005, “2004 American Community Survey,” Table 1101
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau); U.S. Census Bureau, 2006, “America’s
Families and Living Arrangements 2005,” Tables 53, 57 (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Census Bureau).
3. U.S. Census Bureau, 2007, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2007, Tables
584, 585 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau).
4. U.S. Census Bureau, 2007, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2007, Table
574.
5. Center for the Advancement of Women, Progress and Perils: New Agenda for
Women, 2003 (www.advancewomen.org).
 Notes 153

6. Thomas M. Vander Ven, Francis T. Cullen, Mark A. Carrozza, and John Paul
Wright, “Home Alone: The Impact of Maternal Employment on Delinquency,” So-
cial Problems 48 (2001): 236–57.
7. Elizabeth Harvey, “Short-Term and Long-Term Effects of Early Parental Em-
ployment on Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth,” Developmen-
tal Psychology 35 (1999): 445–59.
8. J. Stacey and T. J. Biblarz, “(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents
Matter?” American Sociological Review 66 (2001): 159–83.
9. U.S. Department of Labor, Current Population Survey, 2001, Employed Per-
sons by Detailed Occupation, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin (2002b) (http://www
.dol.gov).
10. B. R. Ragins and T.A. Scandura, “Antecedents and Work-Related Correlates
of Reported Sexual Harassment: An Empirical Investigation of Competing Hypoth-
eses,” Sex Roles 32 (1995): 429–55.
11. Ann Crittenden, The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the
World Is Still the Least Valued (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001).
12. U.S. Department of Labor, Current Population Survey, 2001: Employed Per-
sons by Detailed Occupation, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin (http://www.dol.gov).
13. A. S. Christensen, “Sex Discrimination and the Law,” in Women Working, eds.
A. H. Stromberg and S. Harkess (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 1988), 329–47.
14. Barbara F. Reskin and Irene Padevic, “Sex, Race, and Ethnic Inequality in the
United States Workplace,” in Handbook of Sociology of Gender, ed. Janet S. Chafetz
(New York: Kluwer, 1999), 343–74.
15. Paula England, Comparable Worth: Theories and Evidence (New York: Aldine
de Gruyter, 1992).
16. R. J. Steinberg and A. Cook, “Policies Affecting Women’s Employment in
Industrial Countries,” in Women Working, eds. A. H. Stromberg and S. Harkess
(Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 1988), 307–28.
17. Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, “U.S. Husbands Are Do-
ing More Housework While Wives Are Doing Less,” Press Release, March 12, 2002.
18. Arlie Hochschild, The Second Shift (New York: Viking, 1989).
19. Crittenden, The Price of Motherhood.
20. T. M. Beers, “Flexible Schedules and Shift Work: Replacing the ‘9-to-5’ Work
Day?” Monthly Labor Review 23 (2000): 33–40; Harriet Presser, “Nonstandard Work
Schedules and Marital Instability,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 62 (2000):
93–110.
21. Robert Perrucci and Shelley MacDermid, “Time and Control in a 24/7 Envi-
ronment: Clock Time, Work Time, Family Time,” in Workplace Temporalities: Research
in the Sociology of Work, ed. Beth Rubin (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2007), 343–68.
22. Lydia Saad, “No Time for R & R, Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing,” May 11, 2004
(www.gallup.com).
23. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Time Use Survey (Washington, D.C.: Bureau
of Labor Statistics, 2004), Tables 1, 6.
24. Min Zhan and Shanta Pandey, “Economic Well-Being of Single Mothers:
Work First or Postsecondary Education?” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare 31
(September, 2004): 87–112.
154 Notes

25. Children’s Defense Fund, The State of America’s Children, 2001 (Washington,
D.C.: Children’s Defense Fund, 2001).
26. The State of America’s Children, 2001.
27. Children’s Defense Fund, The State of America’s Children—Yearbook 1997
(Washington, D.C.: Children’s Defense Fund, 1997).
28. “Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2006,” 125th edition (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Bureau of the Census).
29. S. B. Kamerman, “Child and Family Policies: An International Overview,” in
Children, Families, and Government: Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, eds. E. F.
Zigler, S. L. Kagan, and N. W. Hall (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996),
31–48.
30. J. Overturf Johnson and B. Downs, “Maternity Leave and Employment Pat-
terns: 1961–2000,” Current Population Report (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Bureau of
Census): 70–103.
31. James T. Bond, Ellen Galinsky, Stacy S. Kim, and Erin Brownfield, National
Study of Employers. Families and Work Institute. Accessed 4/3/08 (http://families
andwork.org/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=137).
32. K. Smith, B. Downs, and M. O’Connell, “Maternity Leave and Employment
Patterns: 1961–1995,” U.S. Bureau of Census, Current Population Reports, 70–79.
Accessed 4/3/08 (http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p70-79.pdf).
33. American Academy of Pediatrics, Caring for Children: National Health and
Safety Performance Standards as Guidelines for Out-of-Home Child Care Programs (Elk
Grove Village, IL: American Public Health Association and American Academy of
Pediatrics, 1992).
34. Bond, et al., National Study of Employers.
35. Claire Renzetti and Daniel Curran, Women, Men and Society, 4th edition (Bos-
ton: Allyn and Bacon, 1999).
36. Robert Perrucci and Carolyn C. Perrucci, “Unemployment and Mental Health:
Research and Policy Implications,” in Research in Community and Mental Health:
Mental Disorder in Social Context, ed. James R. Greenley (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press,
1990), 237–64.

CHAPTER 7

1. Amy K. Glasmeier, An Atlas of Poverty in America: One Nation, Pulling Apart,

1960–2003 (New York: Routledge, 2006).
2. Geography Matters: Child Well-Being in the States (Washington D.C.: Every
Child Matters Education Fund, April 2008).
3. National Commission on Children, Beyond Rhetoric: A New American Agenda
for Children and Families (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,
1991).
4. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Women in the Labor Force: A Datebook. Re-
port 996 (Washington, D.C.: September 2006). Retrieved March 31, 2008 (http://
www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-databook2006.htm).
5. B. Miller, “Household Futures,” American Demographics 17 (March 1995): 4, 6.
 Notes 155

6. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Chil-

dren, Youth, and Families, Child Maltreatment 2005 (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 2007). Retrieved March 31, 2008 (http://www.acf.hhs.
gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm05/index.htm).
7. Olivia Golden, Pamela J. Loprest, and Shiela R. Zedlewski, Parents and Chil-
dren Facing a World of Risk: Next Steps toward a Working Families’ Agenda. Round-
table Report. The Urban Institute, March 10, 2006 (http://www.urban.org/url.
cfm?ID=311288).
8. Katherine S. Newman and Victor T. Chen, “The Crisis of the Near Poor,”
Chronicle of Higher Education 54 (October 5, 2007): B10.
9. Howard Karger, “America’s Growing Fringe Economy,” Dollars and Sense (No-
vember/December 2006): 16–21.
10. Robert Perrucci and Earl Wysong, The New Class Society: Goodbye American
Dream? (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 184.
11. Alison Leigh Cowan, “Counting the Homeless to Help End Their Plight,”
New York Times (February 26, 2008): 6.
12. “Striving to Keep Up Appearances,” Baltimore Sun (March 2, 2006): 11A.
13. Lizzy Ratner, “Homeless in New Orleans,” Nation (February 25, 2008): 13–18.
14. U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey 2005, U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, 2005 (http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/05/unin-
sured-cps/).
15. Mary Ann Schwartz and BarBara Marliene Scott, Marriages and Families: Diver-
sity and Change (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc., 2003).
16. A. D. Mancini, D. L. Pressman, and G. A. Bonanno, “Clinical Interventions
with the Bereaved: What Clinicians and Counselors Can Learn from the Changing
Lives of Older Couples Study,” in Spousal Bereavement in Late Life, eds. D. Carr, R.
M. Nesse, and C. B. Wortman (New York: Springer, 2006), 255–78.
17. Rich Hogan and Carolyn C. Perrucci, “Producing and Reproducing Class and
Status Differences: Racial and Gender Gaps in U.S. Employment and Retirement
Income,” Social Problems 45 (1998): 528–49; Rich Hogan and Carolyn C. Perrucci,
“Black Women: Truly Disadvantaged in the Transition from Employment to Retire-
ment Income,” Social Science Research 36 (2007): 1184–99.
18. Richard K. Caputo, “Grandparents and Coresident Grandchildren in a Youth
Cohort,” Journal of Family Issues 22 (2001): 541–56.
19. Administration on Aging, “A Profile of Older Americans: 2001,” (http://
www.aoa.gov/prof/Statistics/profile/2001/2001profile.pdf).
20. Gail Hunt, Carol Levine, and Linda Naiditch, Young Caregivers in the U.S.: Re-
port of Findings, September 2005 (Bethesda, MD: National Alliance for Caregiving).
21. “Elderly Abandoned at Hospitals: Granny Dumping Is a Variation of Baby-
on-Doorstep,” Chicago Tribune (November 29, 1991): sec. 1, 27.
22. U.S. Department of Justice, Prison Statistics. Bureau of Justice Statistics
(www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/).
23. U.S. Department of Justice, Prison Statistics.
24. U.S. Department of Justice, Prison Statistics.
25. Henry Fernandez, “Phoning Home: High Cost Calls Hinder Prisoner Re-
habilitation,” Center for American Progress. April 7, 2007 (http://www.american-
progress.org/issues/2007/04/phoning_home.html).
156 Notes

26. B. Owen, “Perspectives on Women in Prison,” in Women, Crime and Crimi-

nal Justice, eds. C. M. Renzetti and L. Goodstein (Los Angeles: Roxbury, 2001),
243–54.
27. Devah Pager, “Creating Second Chances,” Pathways: A Magazine on Poverty, In-
equality, and Social Policy (California: Stanford University, Summer 2008): 29–32.
28. Barry Krisberg and Susan Marchionna, “Attitudes of U.S. Voters toward Pris-
oner Rehabilitation and Reentry Policies,” Focus, National Council on Crime and
Delinquency, April 2006.

CHAPTER 8

1. Amy Glasmeier, An Atlas of Poverty in America: One Nation, Pulling Apart, 1960–
2003 (New York: Routledge, 2006); Alison Leigh Cowan, “Counting the Homeless
to Help End Their Plight,” New York Times (February 26, 2008): 6.
2. Paul Krugman, “Jobs/Wages Today,” New York Times (December 28, 2007).
3. “Is Trade the Problem?” New York Times (April 27, 2008).
4. David Sirota, “The Upside of Nationalism,” In These Times (April 28, 2008):
32–33, 47.
5. American Society of Civil Engineers, Report Card on America’s Infrastructure
(http://www.asce.org/reportcard/2005/index.cfm).
6. Robert Perrucci and Earl Wysong, The New Class Society: Goodbye American
Dream? (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008).
7. Noreen Connell, “Underfunded Schools: Why Money Matters,” Dollars and
Sense (April 1998): 14–17, 39.
8. Noreen Connell, “Underfunded Schools.”
9. Ralph Nader, “Testimony on Corporate Welfare.” U.S. House of Representa-
tives Committee on the Budget, June 30, 1999. On the Internet at www.nader.
org/releases/63099.html.
Index

Abramoff, Jack, 67 Committee in Solidarity with the

African Americans, 85–86 People of El Salvador (CISPES), 69
Aged Americans, 95, 99, 101–102 Computer Assisted Design and
Aid to Families with Dependent Manufacturing (CAD-CAM), 5, 19
Children (AFDC), 75 computerized production, 5, 19
American Dream, 33 confidence in institutions, 55; in
Asian Americans, 87 Congress, 58; in media, 59; in
assimilation theory, 77–78 organized labor, 58
auto transplants, 20–21 contingent workers, 22
corporate tax code, 56
Battle in Seattle, 70–71 critical sociology, x
Buchanan, Pat, 61–62 cultural lag, 2
budget earmarks, 67
Buffet, Warren, 62 Davis, Mike, 16
Bush, George W., 8, 53 declining wages, 25–26
deferred gratification, 46–47; influence
CAD-CAM. See Computer Assisted of mass media on, 46
Design and Manufacturing deindustrialization, 4
campaign contributions, 67–68 Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR),
capital flight, 18 69
caring, 10, 31; restoring, 142–145 Dole, Robert, 61
Center for Responsive Politics, 68 Downsizing of America, 60
child support, 109 dual-earner couples, 99, 103, 105–106
children, 95, 100–102; child care, 143 Duarte, José Napoleón, 69
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics Dudzic, Mark, 59
in Washington, 68
class politics, 77 early childhood education, 143
Clinton, William J., 53, 56, 59, 75 Earned Income Tax Credit, 144

157
158 Index

economic populism, 134 household type, 95, 103; divorcees,

Edison School, Inc., 6 107; single teen mothers, 106–107;
education and opportunity, 42–47; single women, 106–107; widows,
money, the role of, 42–44; race, the 107
role of, 44–46 househusbands, 100
Edwards, John, 61–62 husband/father provider, 95–96, 101
elderly Americans, 118–126; and
abuse, 123; and grandparent identity groups, 73
caregiving, 121; and identity politics, 74–75
homosexuality, 123; and in-home illness, Americans, 95
care, 144; and longevity, 119; and incarcerated Americans, 126–129; drug
retirement, 120; and widowhood, offenses, 126–127; number of, 126;
119–120 prisons, 127–128; recidivism, 128;
employer assistance, 109–110 rehabilitation, 127–129
Environmental Protection Agency, 17 income inequality, 8
environmentalists, 65–66 infotainment, 72
institutionalized Americans, 95
Family Medical Leave Act, 108 internment camps, WW II, 87
Fannie Mae, 8 investment capital, 132
Farabundo Marti Front for National
Liberation (FMLN), 69 job creation, 136–139
feminists, 65–66 Johnson, Lyndon B., 69
flexible work organization, 5
foreign investment in U.S., 18–19 Kennedy, John F., 68
Freddie Mac, 8 Kennedy, Robert F., 79
fundamentalists, 65–66 King, Martin Luther, 78–79

Glass-Steagall Act, 8 Labor Party, 59

global production, 4 Limbaugh, Rush, 60
government assistance to families, long-term care, 124–125; insurance,
107–109; in other countries, 107– 144
108; in U.S., 108–109
Granholm, Jennifer M., 56 Matthews, Chris, 72
McLaughlin Group, 72
Hardesty, Jean, 63 Medicaid, 124
health care, 123–124 Medicare, 144
hedge funds, 8, 58 meritocracy, 50
Hispanic Americans, 86–87 middle class, 28
higher education, 48–50; enrollments, mobility, 40; intergenerational, 40–41;
48; elite schools, 49 intragenerational, 39–40
Hilton, Paris, 71 mommy track, 106
homeless Americans, 117–118 Moynihan Report, 79
homework, 100; by husbands, 100–
101; by married women, 100–101 Nader, Ralph, 61–62
homosexual parents, 99 NAFTA. See North American Free Trade
hope, 9, 29–30; restoring, 136–141 Agreement
 Index 159

Native Americans, 84–85 Roosevelt, Franklin D., xi

neoliberal globalization, 6 Russert, Tim, 72
new economy, 3; computer-based
technology in, 3, 22; flexible Sandinista Front for National
organization in, 4, 23; global Liberation (FSLN), 69
production in, 3 Second Chance Act of 2008, 144
New York Times, 13, 59, 61 second shift, 101, 104–105
Nixon, Richard M., 69 secularization, 76–77; and religiosity,
North American Free Trade Agreement 76; in U.S. and developed nations,
(NAFTA), 23–24, 56, 59 76
sentencing guideline revisions, 144
Obama, Barack, 8 sex segregation, 97–99; by industry, 97;
Occupational Safety and Health by occupation, 97,99
Administration, 17 social capital, 133
Ogburn, William, 2 social contract, 14–16
opportunity, 140; by improving Social Security, 125, 143
education, 140–144 Stephanopoulos, George, 72
O’Reilly, Bill, 61,72
outsourcing, 24–25 term limits for politicians, 141–142
trust, 9, 30; restoring, 141–142
Perot, Ross, 23–24
Personal Responsibility and Work unemployment, 111
Opportunity Act, 75
plant closings, 18 Violence Against Women Act of 1994,
pluralism, 79 110–11
political capital, 132–133
political left, 65–66 Wall Street crisis, 7, 58
political right, 65–66 Wall Street Journal, 13
poverty, 113,–118, 120–121; and Washington Post, 61
children, 113–115, 121–123; and wealth inequality, 28
single mothers, 114–117; and white ethnics, 88
women, 114 women in labor force, 95–100;
Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, comparable worth, 99; effect on
108 children, 96, 102; gender wage
Prisoner Reentry Initiative of 2004, 144 gap, 98–99; sex discrimination, 98;
privatization, 6 sexual harassment, 98; Title VII,
privileged class, 27; income of, 27–28 1964 Civil Rights Act, 98–99
work-family spillover, 103–107;
commuter marriages, 106;
Reagan, Ronald, 57 shiftwork, 104–105; time conflicts,
right to die, 125 103–106
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 71 working at home, 109
About the Authors

Robert Perrucci is professor of sociology at Purdue University. He has

served as president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, associ-
ate editor of the American Sociological Review, and editor of the American
Sociologist, Social Problems, and Contemporary Sociology. In 2005 he received
the Lee Founders Career Achievement Award from the Society for the Study
of Social Problems.

Carolyn C. Perrucci is professor of sociology at Purdue University. She

has coauthored or coedited three books: Marriage and the Family: A Criti-
cal Analysis and Proposals for Change, Women in Scientific and Engineering
Professions, and Plant Closings: International Context and Social Costs. She has
contributed to numerous journals, including American Sociological Review,
International Journal of the Humanities, Journal of Marriage and the Family,
Social Problems, Sociology and Social Research, Sociology of Education, and The
Sociological Quarterly.

161