Look Out, Are You About to Join the White Underclass?

we have good social standards in Europe but also a capitalistic society;

i.e. an unmarried mother receives in Holland about $ 1600, and can take care of the baby till it is about 5years old.
Of course she receives housing and health care.


she will be asked to study for a living. ( sadly some girls have new babies every 2, 3 years.

Maybe alternet.org can publish something about President Johnson (great society) and Mr. Jimmy Carter ( environment)

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I wasnt always "underclass"--but I will be for the rest of my life, thanks to Democratic crappy "health care reform", and the need to stay on Medicaid for a pre-existing contion (hit by a rich drunk driver). This new "reform' wil help me and my family, not at all. And the credit card bill--WHY didnt they set a rate limit?? (Sanders proposed it) WHY can they not figure out what banks will do?? (mine is 90% medical bills)

I lost my govt pension, too, to qualify for health care....The stupid part is, I have a graduate degree, but, cant return to work....

I hate to see the middle class suffer too but if that is what it takes to get them to see how the underclass lives...so be it.

Pelosi's "announcement" that the Dems had once again abandoned blue collar workers, was the banker behind her "Health Care Reform for the middle Class"...what abou the poor? If the MC is hurting, think what is happening to the poor! I know youd rather not, but, remember, when you step on peoples' heads to climb the ladder, you have to pass everyone of us on the way back down!! (maybe that will work, if you seem to have a conscience deficit...

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Joe Bageant, your passion cuts through all the bullshit and equivocating. Anecdotes, not academic studies and statistics, tell the stories of the countless, nameless millions who are falling by the wayside. Statistics cushion and separate the comfortable from the suffering. It allows the politicians and privileged to compromise on doing justice for the afflicted and to sell out to the oppressors and exploiters.

In coming years the underclass will grow as the middle class descends into serfdom under the neo-feudalistic NWO.

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How ironic that it took the Republicans to prove that Marx was right. ;)

If it's any consolation, income rose at all levels under President Clinton, the tax burden was less, we spent less on welfare, we saw the biggest increase in college opportunity since the GI Bill, and the teen birthrate reached an all-time low. But he was a real Democrat.


Rush Limbaugh's Kidneys Are on Fire

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The author makes a few good points , but basically this piece seems rather poorly written and researched.

I take a huge issue with this quote:

"for all practical purposes and to most Americans, regardless of race, the term "middle class" means "white." Plain and simple. We all know that, even members of the "black middle class."

Maybe where you came from cracker. (You're the one that brought up the South.....)

Basically, this gentleman needs to study some sociology before he continues using and defining class terms that he doesn't understand. Or maybe you could go back and finish your high-school degree first, then go to university.

Here's another jewel:

"People who cannot talk, think, or act like middle class professional and managerial workers, people who cannot even be posers. There is absolutely no excuse for these people."

For the record, my black blue-collar electrician brother makes twice what I do as a managerial worker.

By the way, and for the record, all these people you mention in your article, who supposedly have middle class mojo---Ellen Dejeneres, Obama, Franks, Michael Jackson, and Al Sharpton---they're all RICH!!!

You can keep your little edge (and your balls) to yourself.

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is to ignore individual human tragedies as "special pleading". Anecdotal evidence is valid insofar as it reveals how far the people running things feel they can go. What happened to my son, no doubt had happened to others and would happen in the future, thanks to the cowardice of the press.

"Special pleading" the editor of the local newspaper said when presented with the evidence that my son's constitutional rights had been violated in the US Army's phony war on drugs. (And what's wrong with "special pleading" anyway? Even one victim represents unnecessary human suffering.)

My son spent 8 months in prison because his Army "defense" lawyer greeted him by saying, "We can give you 47 years for this". In the military a single joint carries the same penalty as a truckload of crack.

My son's conviction was quashed 18 months later by the US Court of Military Review on the grounds that the trial judge turned a blind eye to evidence of his genuine innocence, but he had been kept on the roster with no pay and would be denied the educational benefits he had worked and paid for. (The only possible way to get the benefits would be to be tried again by the same people who broke all the rules to convict you.)

Maybe the editor didn't want to reveal the fact that the Army, by getting false convictions, actually makes money. Set somebody up (my son was repeatedly pestered by his former platoon sergeant), force them to plea bargain, lock them up and when you let them out don't pay them but keep them on the roster--plus dismiss a request for educational benefits on the basis that the charges were serious.

That top 1% should be very afraid of those with nothing left to lose. Howard Hughes was probably smart rather than crazy.

Excellent heartfelt article, Joe!

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The rich banker predators will hold the mortgage.

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Back in the seventies, when many folks were "dropping out"of the middle class, I used to think that we were, in fact, getting squeezed out........
The middle class had already begun to shrink. Those who were eliminated were often the least ambitious, or the most idealistic, or the romantics etc.
What became clear after some time, was that they couldn't find ways to "drop in".
There was no room for them. (Us)

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Ellen DeGeneres aside, (she's a token) U.S. dykes are poor and FAT DYKES are the poorest, a prominent member of the white underclass. By our sheer existence on the earth we provoke scorn and ridicule. Trans folks get the same treatment.

I am a broke, fat dyke with two degrees. My forays in the middle class require me to pass by losing weight and emulating a straight white middle class female.

If you don't believe me, check out the L-word.

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Now the white middle class gets to wash grease out of fast food uniforms, sweet-talk contemptuous receptionists for an application, and listen to the snide comments of their former peers over the declining quality of the all-important wardrobe and the now-imprecise haircut.

I will have a smile on my face when the real underclass pulls out the nunchuks and baseball bats and teaches you to have some real manners. Stop disrespecting the folks who did your real dirty work for all of these years and who were the sacrificial goats of your social system.

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With the exception of blacks who were brought here for slavery, our ancestors came here to flee the lack of opportunity and rigid class structure that existed in Europe and other parts of the world. Guess what? We have become the old Europe where the rich had all the money and everyone else is poor. Europe, on the other hand, has figured out how to have the most people enjoy a good quality of life.
I'm afraid we had our century - the 20th century. Our decline started with Reagan and I doubt the elites will allow us to change course - they have worked 30 years to get us to where we are today.

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the lessons of life and how to survive growing up as a member of the 'underclass' has many advantages...

when you learn how to operate below middle class standards (working poor to absolute poor, and these classifications are flexible, one week one and another week another, you get used to the range) growing up so that if you do manage to somehow make it into the middle class, you store those lessons away, knowing they are still there... what we are talking about are called role sets and role conflict...

you realize early on that making it into the middle class eventually, it was a fluke and don't get so cocky... if you are sitting on a high stool for a while, you know that the floor is a few inches away from your feet... all it takes is shifting forces and your feet hit the floor...

our feet are on the floor around here and my upper middle class born and bred hubby is the one feeling unsteady on the aforementioned stool... he relies on me more and more to navigate our new social class because to me, it's reality, to him an unknown life...

hated the fact that I had to learn an entirely new role set for my occupation status, but never forgot how to go back if needed...

when the economic crap hit the fan and he was really concerned about loosing class 'face' and how to learn to live at a lower socio-economic level, told him we would be fine because I was born broke and always expected to die broke... the in-between is where I was uncomfortable...

with all this academic b.s. said, can we have a working economy starting with single payor health care, no more banking and investment schemes that don't work for ordinary people, getting kids out of high school able to read and write with simple math skills... the heck with the middle class norms and expectations... it's the basics of simple food, water, shelter and warmth... everything else is a want...

to throw more gas on the fire this morning, yes globalization is designed to level the playing field between rich and poor non-elite worldwide with the actual power crossing national borders with multinational corporations, the IMF, WTO and World Bank... we are disintegrating right on schedule...

back to coffee...

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I guess I always look at things as they relate to the moral collapse of society. People in the US have no shame anymore. For all the claims of being a "Ghristian" nation we forget the obligation to help our neighbors; instead it's all about "me" and not necessary "mine" anymore. People willingly lie cheat and steal their way to the top of the heap (actual skills are optional). There is plenty of wealth it is just unfairly distributed and the middle class gets screwed repeatedly. Truthfully I'm not even sure what "middle class" even means other than "working class" that basically lives paycheck to paycheck. The poor get government handouts (public assistance) and so do the wealthy (corporate welfare and tax shelters) while everyone else pays for both out of their earnings. I work for a living and am a single parent but I can't get help to pay my bills or make repairs to my house. I'm told I earn too much even when that "too much" is a mere dollar or two. I can't give my kids all the latest whatevers yet the poor kids get them and of course the rich kids too. I can't shop at the overpriced stores; instead I'm hunting for bargains at the "Marts" (Wal-Mart and K-Mart) and I cried when Steve & Barry's closed since I found decent stuff there for cheap. I can't afford a new car yet I see folks who have never worked a day in their lives driving the latest models repeatedly. If I don't have enough money to buy groceries I can't go get food stamps or go to a food pantry because I will be told I have enough (tell that to my kids when they want something and I don't have it and can't get it).

This is still a racist country where whites no matter their educational level still get ahead and those people of color who can find a niche in white society or even marry into white society are treated at least a bit better but the are called sell-outs by other people of color. Obama is a good president but come on his mother was White and his White grandmother helped raise him so he was a White boy/man with a permanent tan that made others jealous.

The middle class however it is defined shouldn't get a taste of underclass life; rather the upper/priviledged class should get a taste of both middle class and underclass life; I guarantee they will be crying if not dying. I remember the big issue in New York about raising the amount of public assistance grants. A few elected officials attempted to live on the allotment for a week; most barely made it a day and yet still fought against increases to real families that live this way every day. I guess the officials' philosphy was "let 'em eat cake" if they don't have bread (like hello cake costs even more).

Oh well; guess I'll go get the paper and start clipping more coupons and then get creative on how much I can pay on each bill this payday and hold tight until the next one and put a bucket under that roof leak until I can scrap up the money to have it repaired. Welcome to America - home of the elite few and the government supported poor.... and oh yeah the working fools that will never get anywhere.

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From my own observations on what is presented by MSM to the masses, any mention of any specific "underclass," that is, Af. Ams, some Latino groups, etc., are meant to scare Anglos into distrusting anyone that are not "like" themselves. A very effective tactic in the divide and conquer strategy of maintaining the elite's status quo.

Coming, as I do, from the Anglo underclass (I am, BTW, not entirely Anglo in my racial makeup, though you wouldn't be able to see that from my looks), I can say that this underclass is huge, and always has been. It's simply not spoken of on the airwaves.

This only becomes an issue for the press when Anglos from the middle class are pushed down into the underclass by the economic manipulators.

I'm a true product of the changes that happened in the 60's. First to be bussed ('68)...all over the damn place. 2 kindergartens, 6 elementary schools, and 4 High Schools by the time I dropped out. Why? I was the poor white kid easily pushed around for the purposes of integration. The rich kids stayed in their nice suburban schools, untroubled by all that societal unrest. They just saw it on TV. I remember watching race riots in my neighborhood when I was a little kid. Scared the hell out of me.

The problem was that my generation of lower class whites, while generally (at least where I came from) being for equality in all things (still am), were villified by minorities for being perceived as being advantaged, which we were not. I had a big, fat target on my back the whole way through. Ass kicked on a regular basis for being too light skinned. Where did my family shop? Thrift shops, that's where.

As a result, there are a number of people who experienced what I did who have long harbored anger over what was forced on us by the rich folk trying to stave off social upheaval.

I don't blame any minorities. They have been very, very poorly treated by our society - since day one. So their dissatisfaction is totally understandable. But there has been zero discussion of the white underclass, which is far larger than any other group. We also were treated badly, but not as badly as minorities. Easily characterized as NASCAR Nazis - yet another scare tactic.

Where I come from, some of those "priviledged" whites have long been raising rabbits in their back yards just to survive, for crying out loud. Priviledged? I don't think so.

I dug my way out through military service and going into debt up to my eyeballs to get, eventually, a graduate degree. But I still don't make middle class wages. I'm "this" close to being dragged back down. No economic security to be had.

Luckily, the new generation doesn't look at race in the same way, except in thinking that most, if not all, Anglos have an advantage over them. It just isn't true. Only rich people, of many races, have any advantage. The only color rich people care about is "green." The sooner we all realize this, the sooner we can put the past behind us and work to take the elite to task for their bad actions.

Solidarity for all of us - of every racial stripe!

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I have a layoff-proof job, that pays me $62,000 a year. I am a partner in real estate business that shelters over 110 tenants. The rental business has never been stronger (95% paid occupancy right now) and, if I can keep my costs under control, I should turn a good profit this year.
Recession? What recession?
I am SO happy (and healthy, too)!!

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There is no need to even crash the party. Billionaire Mort Zuckerman's recent lament,"Nine Reasons the Economy is Not Getting Better" is all about the so called underclass. No jobs, jobs, jobs. Unemployment totals are way off[no kidding], consumer spending the economy driver is absent, consumers that do have extra cash are hesitant to spend, we are hording the $$$. NOW MORT says the stimulus money went wrong, 'they' need more$$$ but this time let a little trickle DOWN.

All of a sudden it is about the lower echelon of society. We are faulted for not spending $$$. Oh, and how about the credit crunch??? Hello... Bankers have raised interest rates on just about everyone in the underclass.

Too bad Mort conveniently forgets to insert the word... GREED...greedy, greediest, greedier in his analysis. There is no remorse in the high society.

Meanwhile back in the real world put some extra canned tomatoes on the pantry shelf because it is going to be a long hard winter. Thanks for nothing Mort!!!

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"Millions of American women are in poverty because they are paid poverty wages."

People get paid what they can earn based on what they contribute to the market. If ever there was a lesson I learned from working it is this.

I'm surrounded by waitress "welfare sluts" in my community and they all pretty much live it up, go to the bar, get new boyfriends every couple months and generally appear to be having a good time. 90% of them are in school for some sort of medical profession (nurses, technicians).

Relax man, they are going to be fine. My mom was single (her choice), although she didn't go to the bar (or even smoke) or have boyfriends she went to school, became a nurse (med assistant first, then a lab tech, then a nurse) and now makes $40+ an hour.

I never graduated high school, never went to college but somehow manage to secure any profession I choose (network engineer, software developer, mechanic, home builder, etc...), but O MY GOD, I'm white!!! Someone handed all of that to me. NOT!! I had to fucking pick up a book or two and get off my lazy ass.

This diatribe of whining BS is getting really old. Through all the crap, like Obama reiterates over and over, America is awesome!

If you want something, you can have it.

We can't all be middle class and most aren't, by choice. The advantage I did have was a loving family that although not educated, valued education. My grandma, no high school diploma and no college, has run a book keeping and tax service in her community for over 30 years now that she started while mothering 5 children from NOTHING.

My father now runs a business we founded 10 years ago from NOTHING (OK...$4000.00 on a CC)

My cousin, no high school, no college chose to get up and fucking go to work and actually do something once he got there now makes $40,000.00 a year. I can go on and on. If you are stupid and lazy you aren't going to earn much, sorry.

Like Obama told the black "underclass" the other day. Quit trying to be basketball players and rappers and get a real job. I'm no Obama fan but that was freakin' awesome! Holy shit a call to personal responsibility, I wonder if this guy wants reelected.

Signed: "Underclass" Cook and defacto kitchen manager, by choice, for now. :)

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1. Joe, Jencks is dead. A great social writer. Everyone should read his work. But he's gone. Wnat to get that clear.

2. A lot of people are "busted up" as Joe says. White and black. Good people. People who have worked hard. And it still didn't work. They don't get the bonuses and retirement plans of the professionals-executives, doctors and lawyer/financial analysts. They are the "underclass". Because they are under the FOO. Friends of Obama. Trilliions shoveled to Goldman, AIG, GM etc. Not a penny to the underclass. Otherwise known as the working man. Apologies to you hardworking ladies.

My dad, who barely survived the Depression and WWII (Normandy, the Bulge), knew he was a working man. Even would accept term white underclass.

And he knew he was under the thumb of people like FOO, as they existed then (FOR-Friends of Roosevelt, with their fey bowties and Harvard degrees. Familiar, Larry Summers?)

3. So how's union card check going, Barry and Michelle? Might help the "underclass"? Been too busy making health insurance companies and drug companies even richer to worry about the one way to smash the underclass apart-STRONG UNIONS ?

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Anybody want to take bets on her ethnicity?

yeah... me too.

My membership is at stake if I say anymore.

She was a member of the mini majority - who opine, legislate and pontificate without fear of rebuttal - because every last one of these 'news' sites is moderated by her tribe.

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That has always been code for "Woah, white folks aren't supposed to live that way."

The White Underclass as a phrase is code for: "In normal economic times, it's normal that a certain percentage of people live in poverty. (detached shrug of apathy.) That's just part of life. But this - this isn't right, because now it's starting to affect me, and dudes – I'm White."

It's not seen as an economic crisis that needs fixing if it's only the black or latino populations living in poverty.

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Joe, you forgot to mention the crank addicted, whisky guzzling 'po white trash' who are somewhere beneath the so-called white under-class in your piece. Good writing.

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Back in Grandpa's day, when you reached the age of majority, they (the workers who brought home a pay check) used to slap you on the back and declare" "Well, son, you are now free white and 21." I wonder if in this age of progressive dymamism (code for Black Power) if that old addage has any real meaning?

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Seems alternet is all for it, so long as it is skewed toward their liking.

White Underclass?

What does underclass even mean?
It seems to imply one who is less than someone who is middleclass.

What does being a certain race have to do with being a certain class?

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From the dawn of civilization, the mob, er, good citizens were ruled by the carrot and stick. On one hand we have the carrot, which we now call the "American Dream" of making money by shuffling other's people money or being a billionaire rapper with no grammar skills. On the other hand we have FEAR.

If you look at events such as the Great Irish Potato Famine or the never-ending cycle of famines that struck pre-communist China, Fear of Want would be the historical fear afflicting humanity. Along with, of course, the most fundamental fear of all, Fear of Death.

Since enjoying unprecedented prosperity in the 20th century, we are now innundated with all other kinds of fear (seeing as our mortality rate is shrinking and shrinking to the point where many of us have no experience with actual death whatsoever - or babies, which is another story). Fear of Hell. Fear of Ridicule. Fear of Loneliness. Fear of Failure. Fear of Nazis and Nips. Fear of Communists. Fear of Pushers on the Playground. Fear of Terrorists. Do you see a recurring theme here?

Since sales in commodified Fear have dropped (the novelty factor wore off once the economy slowed through its own unsustainable and improbable bulk and the fear-mongerers started to run out of money), we have returned to that most basic fear of all, Fear of Want. The best part about this particular kind of Fear is that when conditions are right, there is no need for an expensive ad campaign - simply let things run their course.

Who is willing to ask questions when their job is on the line? Who is willing to travel to a protest when their unemployment benefits might be suspended? The whistleblowers and activists are few and far between; most people, atheist or believer, remain in the grip of a Fear so primal that it is never acknowledged in our "civilized" society. Aparigraha or "hoarding" is a vice by Hindu standards, in a country which has had its own share of famine; in contrast to western scriptural teaching , we have glorified the accumulation of wealth.

Indeed, the ideal yogic life is lived fully in stages, with the final stage being renuciation, where you leave behind all earthly attachment and make your way as a simple mendicant, trusting to the karmic cycle of giving and receiving. Would that some of our over-the-hill lizard people do humanity a service by doing the same!

Whether atheist or believer, we have a great moral burden to lift away our own Fears. This is a life-long work. Whether we believe Jesus said that the children of God do not need to be afraid or whether we decide that our capacity for rational thought should prevail over knee-jerking emotion, we still owe it to ourselves. Every day, as Scarlett once said and as often repeated by every 12 Stepper across the land, is another day.

That said, my full sympathies for your cruel and inhumane social systems (which our own conservative government is doing its best to emulate), including your for-profit healthcare. The one thing that will get their attention is mass protest and Fear is designed to achieve the exact opposite - force people to remain where they are, in their homes, clinging to their last vestige of security. My thought is that if you're going to be reduced to living in your car, may as well drive it to Washington first.

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The soylent majority.

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Rather than discussing what the middle class is, how to establish and keep a place in it, I expected to hear stories about what it's like to fall down and out of it.

Especially for those of us who had made all the right moves educationally or other qualifications.

If any AlterNet readers have ever worked a lower-class gig, you probably knew abusive, pompus asses with the authority over you. For those of us who have, we would just love to see these managers lose their places in the middle class. The sooner the better!

I wonder if people in this category ever learn any humility, especially if their jobs are gone for good! (And their numbers will be growing for a long, long time).

Hard-assed middle-class types really need lessons to get the feeling of what life is life for the rest or us. Otherwise they'd never have been reptillian-hearted in the first place.

We need to leave the rigid military social organization with the educated officer-like classes strutting around believeing they duty is to command the rest of us.

Personally I've never manifested the authoritarian personality traits, and even at age 67 I find the advantaged class individuals dislike it when I practice my freedom of speech, like if I don't agree with them, I had better be seen but not heard (like a Victorian child).

If the American empire really is nearing the curtains, if there is going to be a worthwhile future, we must uplevel ourselves to a level of egalitarian collaboration, and I'm not talking about any sort of "isms".

Working for someone, or for a living is rediculously outdated. We must treat oneanother as equals, and like volunteers whose cooperation must earned all the time. I'm ready, are you?

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Most of the self described "redneck" morons in this country have been in an economic underclass since the 1980s.

I think SMU economics professor Ravi Batra has written that a two-income family with a combined, gross income of $80,000 or less already is in poverty. They just don't know it because cheap Chinese-made crap bought at Walmart leads'em to think they got the world by the balls. Throw in a tract house built on the cheap by illegal, non-union labor, an SUV and a Harley and voila! the illusion of wealth and economic stability.

Harley-Davidson is a good one for helping Wall Street maintain the illusion that the US of A is a classless meritocracy, with the extra added benefit of being one of the last all American-made luxury products a unionized Joe Six-Pack can buy.

Hell, those stupid dealership-sponsored mass Harley rides is a damned good method of killing class consciousness. A couple of real rich guys show up for every ride and soon you got the $10 an hour crowd thinking that Messrs Moneybags and Trustfund are just like them. What a bunch of dumbfucks. But it works every time. Moneybags and Trustfund throw down a few Bud Lights with the rest of the boys while crying about how hard the IRS is fuckin' 'em and within a week the $10 an hour boys are voting Republican.

Course, the jokes on Harley, this shitty economy is kicking their sales in the butt, 91-percent profit loss in this year's second quarter alone. The company's laying off 600 supervisory personnel besides a couple of thousand union workers this year.

Moneybags and Trustfund will be skipping those rides if Harley's stock gets any lower.

As for Moneybags and Trustfund's $10 an hour brothers..."Well, fuck, pal, sorry to hear you're laidoff, your wife's jobs ain't looking too good and your kid's sick but times are tough for everybody...say, whadduya think about the paint job on my tank?"

Face it, the white middle class is screwed. and a good deal of the screwing was self-inflicted.

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Lots of great points in the artical. He is a living example of how a under educate white guy can get a job over educated minority with college debt.
Also most socialist don't understand the so called under class. Young or old if you just want to do your job in the field or in a factory and not worry about the social anxiety of fitting the white American or middle class American image or whatever, that should be fine.
More often then none those jobs pay alot more then some crappy intern job that you went into college debt to get. And so to appear to be middle class you have 15 credit cards, a tank that is half full, and sat and sunday college gameday to brag about how middle class we are.
The fact is most middle class people are compiled of old network of friends looking out for friend. They have their job because their parents knew someone or survived RUSH. The rest are a bunch of thank God I made it my salary is middle class but I'm broke as hell.
Purple Collar

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WITH ALL THIS BREAST BEATING ABOUT"SINGLE MOMS" , WHY, IS THERE NEVER, NEVER ANY MENTION OF THE OTHER HALF-MALE/FATHER?
THE TV MEDIA, THAT IS TODAYS BIBLE,PROMOTES PROMISCUITY AND THEN CONDEMNS THE FEMALE AND GLORIFIES THE STUD. NOWHERE IS THERE ANY PROMOTION OF "SELF ESTEEM"-ONLY SEX.
WITH DNA TESTING, THERE SHOULD BE PROGRAMS TO IDENTIFY THE MALE COMPONENT AND HOLD HIM EQUALLY, FINANCIALLY RESPONSIBLE.
WOW, THE YOWLS ARE DEAFENING!

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I've read and heard this guy before and, as someone who grew up in similar circumstances, my "heart" resonates with him as someone who speaks "the truth." The "truth" of being white and poor.

My head, on the other hand, better trained in graduate school, also recognizes that that supposed "truth" is a bounded (as in time and space) class experience, one that is easily "located" by its disdain for "book learnin'." That disdain undoes his own argument.

Consider his celebration of anecdotes and his blanket dismissal of both sociology and social science.

That may be emotionally comforting, but here's its danger, its folly:

This excerpt is from an above message board post, a true gem: "I never graduated high school, never went to college but somehow manage to secure any profession I choose...but O MY GOD, I'm white!!! Someone handed all of that to me. NOT!! I had to fucking pick up a book or two and get off my lazy ass. This diatribe of whining BS is getting really old. Through all the crap, like Obama reiterates over and over, America is awesome!"

So, the author offers anecdotes of poor people who can't get ahead, and the message board poster counters with anecdotes of his having gotten ahead. Since he got ahead, others' suffering must just be their own fault.

If you prize anecdotes about your personal experience as the sole measure of knowledge you BEG for this kind of response: my experience was different, so yours doesn't count. It's no different than the author's gripe about black people not seeing his suffering--they're imposing their experiental lens onto him and, as a result, dismissing his anecdotes in the process.

If you only see the world through your own lens, your analysis and insight will always be limited. Statistics aren't used to "replace" experience--they're used to give it a context. To give people a sense of representativeness. To try to understand structures and institutions---things far bigger than our day-to-day interactions can get at.

Without study, discussions like these--about race, gender, sexuality, class, religion, etc.--will always devolve to a stalemate:

"This is my experience."
"That's not my experience."
"Well, then I don't have to try to understand yours since it is not mine."
"Well, since you didn't have this experience you shouldn't participate in this conversation."

Consider the economic crisis. How can people truly process this with only their suffering to go on? You cannot understand this mess unless you have some pretty deep knowledge: Reaganism, free market ideology, NAFTA, The Great Depression, the collapse of labor unions, the Glass-Steagal Act (spl?) and so on. For one, the stats of the number of resumes being received per job opening would pretty soundly undo the message board poster's claim that the jobless are to blame for not having jobs.

If all you have to go in is your sense of being screwed, you only have emotions--fear, resentment, paranoia--to muster in reaction.

I used to see this unfold in graduate school and in "progressive" classrooms that prized personal experience over all other forms of inquiry, and I never understood why folks were surprised when such classrooms either 1. degenerated into shouting matches or 2. turned into 3 people going on about their suffering while the rest sat in bullied silence. The gift of education is that it lets you see the limits of your experience. It helps you understand how your experience fits in a larger and much more complex picture. This seemingly comforting "the white poor know they're getting screwed so that's all they need to know" offers nothing beyond its own obviousness. Worse, it is a victim of its own limits.

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Notice how every well-paying blue-collar job both you and the guy you replied to listed are in construction? You would be hard-pressed to find a sector of the economy more completely fucked right now than construction. I have a lot of friends who built houses for a living, precisely because they are the sorts of people who just don't have it in them to work in the service economy and lack the social background and capital to get into the managerial economy. Every one of them is facing a choice between welfare, abject poverty, or growing pot.

Fortunately they're mostly choosing that last one.

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first of all, I do agree that there is too much greed in the current system with too few people taking rewards for work that doesn't benefit the economy as a whole. Still, this isn't the only problem. I'm tired of this author's faux-populist whiny rants that seem to decry anyone who advocates a modicum of personal responsiblity. If a person has several degrees but is unable to find work, it could be the economy but it could also be the degrees are in something unmarketable. I've known many people with masters in english literature or philosophy working in low wage jobs and I don't feel particularily sorry for them. If you get a degree with very little market demand and can't find a job, it could be bad planning.

Our current system is, however, generally designed to reward education and study after study show that overall higher education leads to much higher income. I've travelled over the developing world and our education system, while expensive, is highly preferable to many others because people can get student loans. yes, they will have to be repaid unlike in Europe but you can still afford to go to school. If you get into 100k in debt and can't pay it off because you insist on going to an ivy league school for an art history degree and don't have a trust fund to pay tuition, then it goes back to bad planning. In most countries if you cannot pay for tuition in cash, then you cannot attend. Again, it can be difficult for many to get a degree but even an associates from a community college can greatly improve prospects and subsidizing a persons lack of interest in education by paying high wages for very low skilled labor will do nothing to make our economy more innovative or increase standards of living.

Finally, for single mothers, I don't see how it is the responsiblity of everyone else to subsidize single mothers. I agree that we should do what is necessary to take care of the child but there must be limits or else, as the poster from Holland said, there are women that will continually have children to take advantage of the social welfare system. Yes, in the Netherlands the birth rate is too low which is why these systems may be in place, but that is not the case in the US and we do not need a higher rate of birth, especially by parents, single or otherwise, who cannot take care of them by themselves.

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the wannabe elites who stomp on their neighbors' toes for the chance at that Miss Amerikan Pie in the Sky! Who vote against universal health care, against gay rights, against racial equality, against a living wage, against quality public education, against legalizing marijuana, against ending middle-east wars, and against most everything else that could offer a decent life for even the poorest.

All because they value playing snobs over true democracy and human integrity.

I dropped out in the early 70's, in hopes of making a change for the better, by not becoming part of the status quo. As the years passed, my life has deteriorated into one resembling that of a third world peon. Barely keeping a roof over my head (just a room), no dental care, etc....while suffering the ignorance of those around me who persist in mimicking the rich while swiftly sinking down to the level of poverty...and must soon mingle with the very people they've been looking down upon for many years in order to make themselves feel superior.

So I say: "F*ck the middle class!" Most care nothing for those less fortunate, and scapegoate them for all the world's ills. It is their own arrogance that pulls them down into the abyss of hopelessness, poverty, ignorance and an early grave. Welcome to a reality you so well deserve!

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Hit the freaking nail right on the head. Why is something this obvious so freaking hard for the idiot voters in this country to understand? I understand filthy rich conservatives, but what the hell is everyone else's excuse? Rather be a poor overworked dumbass with no health insurance than risk being called a socialist?

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Has anyone else noticed how the discussion on class has for many posters turned into misogynistic rants and how many times they have used the word "slut" to refer to single mothers?

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I read through the article, mostly thinking, "This guy's no social scientist (as he reminds us throughout), so how's he qualified to hold forth on this topic?" Then in those final words made the case in the most powerful way possible -- it's not the numbers, it's the people. People's lives are in ruins because we have a society geared to reward the top 10%, to exploit the middle 60%, and to ignore the bottom 30%. We are not a civilized society, we're not even very humane.

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Thanks to the political and economic talent that is guiding our president the nation is returning to its former greatness. Those that had faith in his staff of geniuses have invested in the stock market and have made trillions in profits. It is true that there are many slow learners that have missed the boat and they deserve our sympathy.

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The writer uses the term "underclass" and then gives a variety of defintions some of which are mutually exclusive.
You bet that Joe is not a social scientist, he isn't a political scientist either - just a sloppy journalist trying to make money. So let's start with him. What class is he? To start with the obvious answer he appears to be a journalist trying to sell his work (his labour) though whether he is elf-employed or not I do not know.
As for the middle class and professionals he mentions there are two types - those who work for themselves ( as in self-employed) and those who sell their labour for a wage. Your colour is less than important than your class position and where you fit into the labour market.
The "blue-collar" worker is a distinctly American and rather quaint way of describing those whe sell their manual labour (aka working class) but the majprity of working class people who sell their labour in the developed world work in offices, transport, service industries and so on these days.
Otherwise people are unemployed and part of the vast pool of labour that businessmen ( aka as capitalists ) can buy at lower rates when there is a surplus.
That about sums it up. We can do wirthout sloppy thinking about the "underclass" when we are up against a crisis of the sort ordinary working people face all over the world.
Dai

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I think the article is missing the most important point...WHAT is really happening, WHY this is happening, and WHAT those of us with nothing left to lose can DO about it. I think we are beginning to feel the first winds of revolution. Goldman Sachs is making billions of dollars a month from automated trading (with OUR money), and the rest of us are getting stuck with the bill (in the form of the rising taxes that are surely coming). Bush's legacy will be that he engineered the beginning of the end of America as it was, and Obama's job is an attempt to gently fly us into the Hudson (a controlled crash).

The US Govt is now devising ways to make sure we cannot stash our retirement savings safely overseas. Why would that be a concern at all unless there was a good reason for moving wealth out? This is not a recession, this is a collapse. And we are only at the early stages. Spinning this as "joining the white underclass" completely misses the story.

dboy

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Nuff said.

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humorous article.
when will we see writings about the habits and definitions of the ruling elite.? THEY Like to sit on gold plated toilet seats. They own everything in their towns. They love their expensive cars and YACHTS, THEY ENJOY THEIR MANSIONS BUILT ON UNDERCLASS LABOR. THEY LOVE TO SLEEP WITH MEMBERS OF CONGRESS, THEY ENJOY THE BEST OF EVERYTHING,; they just love to steal all the money they can at the expensive of the country , eg Goldman. Most OF ALL THE RULING ELITE THINK THAT THEY WILL CONTINUE TO CONTROL THE NATION,from their GRAVES, where hopefully the other 290 million Americans, real workers will put them.

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about to join the underclass? brother, i was born, raised and will almost assuredly die in the underclass.

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I had an ambitious mother, who married a smart man not ambitious enough to suit her. So I suited up with anxiety and strove to be ambitious.

Along the way I decided that ambition is no more than learning to be lonely and, at its worst, taking advantage of not only opportunities but of competitors. (Much later I learned Aristotle writes that ambition has no virtue, as it has no golden mean; either always too much or too little.)

"Planet of Slums" has the message that increasing population density means less free space for retreats. Places that outsiders could find in the past to survive or decide what to do next are now already crammed with folks.

I have met and know enough homeless folks to have an idea of what the difference is between standing in line with everyone else (and the underclass competes with those, not with the rich) and drawing my own line in the sand.

I confess, my willingness to try the latter has always been short-lived. I have scurried back quickly (longest was two years) to the weekly paycheck and the nine-to-five. I now have the luxury of a modest retirement. I do not allow a single experience (think: failure) for a moments' regret. But I had a lot of advantages.

Yeah, I sold out for some comforts. I also paid my dues. I have no confidence that we, American voters, have learned a lesson yet. So I wonder, how much harder does it have to get for us.

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It is curious how politicians
and the media use The Appalacian
Mountains as a go-to when they want
to depict the white underclass.

Applachian Mountains residents are not so
much governed by poverty and despair
as they are a deep mistrust of outsiders.

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As a longtime member of the White Underclass, I can only say, "F@#k the 'middle class,' and their bourgeois mentors!" These days, anyone "middle class" or above is just a parasite. Excuse me if my "populism" is showing.

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don't got nuthin' to do with money; some of 'em got a lot of it. It is about meanness and envy.

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Set the powerless underclass fighting the practically
powerless middleclass.

Sheep, look up!

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even though you're in Winchester, VA and it's not too far from Washington, DC as I found out after visiting Northern VA, on one end of the 80 miles I-66 highway are the people you describe but on the other end of I-66 are the out of touch Beltway bullshit elitists who don't give a flying fuck. The middle class has already been smashed for 29 years. What we have is just a name only "middle class" and no politician dare come clean about it lest they lose their big doggy biscuit money.

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Prior to WW1 the vast majority were working poor and starving poor. Prior to WW2 half of all Americans were dirt poor farmers living hand to mouth.

Our large middle class was produced by freak economic and social post WW2 conditions. The WW2 effect is over and we are regressing to the norm.

Accelerating the process is our new self-segregating social system. Before WW2 marriages - thus the gene pool - were regulated by social customs of race, religion, politics, national origin . . . . The result was that every social class contained a range of IQ and ambition. For example, if the Catholic community of a city was small, a girl was expected to marry and have children, and all the smart and ambitious males were taken she must take what's left.

I predict and observe that the young people are marrying in the basis of intelligence and ambition at both sides of the bell curve.

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before you decide who he is.

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The best way for the ruling elite to continue ruling
is to set the underclass and the middle class against
each other.

From these comments, looks like it's working. Sad.

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I've been in it for years. Maximum I ever earned was $20,000 but was earning only $16,000 before my disability. A lousy state of affairs then in 2006 and it is many times worse now.

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Why not just say underclass. It don't matter if you're white, black, brown, or whatever. If you're in the underclass, then you're in the underclass and that's that ! Nice article otherwise.

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is a class of Pentecostals that are required to remain teetotalers. They are not even allowed to drink beer. So we may conclude that that is under the beer drinking class. Now that is "underclass".

Regrettably the Arabs, being Muslim, are also not allowed to drink beer. So they qualify as "underclass". They can drink alcohol free beer though. That places them, classwise, above the pentecostals. The pentecostals aren't allowed to drink nonalcoholic beer. One must avoid the appearance of evil.

I used to sit and drink coffee with an old PhD friend. I would sit and espouse my belief that the ideal society was the classless society. I could always see it coming. He would say, "You already live in a classless society. They have no class." He was merely trying to tell me that he believed that my "classless society" was hopeless idealism. But its not.

Go to U. K. Amazon and get yourself a copy of "The Spirit Level" by Wilkinson and Pritchett. U. S. Amazon doesn't keep it. Go read a couple of book reviews first. I loaned it to my little brother, age 60. He read it. I asked him what he thought. He said, "It proves that the republicans aren't right about anything."

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I loved this. But as others have mentioned, we are quick to attack each other over semantics. They've used that against us for centuries. When will we learn?

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A number of posters including some sociologists have criticized Bageant's essay because of his use of anecdotes. It appears that the notion of the invalidity of anecdotes might have been borrowed from the hard sciences, where in order to ascertain the existence of a natural phenomena it has to be true 100%. For instance, if someone holds your head under water, you'll stop breathing and die, every time. In contrast, social scientists are usually happy with a portion of 100%, whether it be 30% or 99%. So therein lies the difference between the social and hard sciences, but that is not something that invalidates social sciences but simply shows the complexity and variability of human societies and individuals.

Anecdotes are clues. You collect enough of similar kind, and you have the possibility of formulating hypotheses suitable for further qualitative and quantitative research.

I don't think it is scientific to underestimate the value of anecdotes, that is of qualitative research, though the qualitative v. quantitative controversy is big in academia. Unfortunately, it seems to be more rooted in inter-departmental competition than in the pursuit of knowledge.

As for Bageant's excellent essay, the genre is of course not the same as a scholarly sociological paper (though many of these have lost their formalistic stiffness these past decades. It's a piece of literature and journalism and fits perfectly in an ironic/tragic genre. The test is, does it unearth some reality that had previously been masked?

The existence of class in the US is usually denied so there are not many studies on the topic. However, there have been some works (including some sociological classics filled with anecdotes as well as stats, i.e. C.Wright Mills' pioneering work, and a handful of later scholars and authors). Bageant's essay does a beautiful job of continuing their work, bringing their insights up to date and stimulating further studies on this key structure of our society.

Sometimes you gain a greater access to reality by using other means or exploration and exposition instead of, or in addition to quantitative ones. Why not live with it and learn for it? (Remember, any time a social scientist, or any scientist/scholar has come up with new insights, it has been by thinking interdisciplinarily.)

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yes it is a good ideal this let me remind china pictures, china photos

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Seriously. That read like a description of going to the pot.

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Two days ago, I cut into the walnut-sized cyst on my neck, excised the pilonidal mass that has been growing there for years, and sutured the wound - all, of course, very sterilely. Things are looking good. I'm getting pretty good at treating my own wounds.

For thirty years now, you see, I have been doing my own medicine - simply unable to pay "health care's" staggering fees.

Oh, yes, I now have the medical insurance that for twenty-rive years I couldn't afford. The amounts, however, that insurance never pays are usually more than I make in a month; voila! - do it yourself, alternative die.

Abscessed teeth, broken bones, even bullet wounds (especially when the "dissent" is tax protest, the government shoots at certain political dissenters, you know) I've treated myself. I've gotten pretty good at it: like I said, my latest surgery seems to have gone well.

In the single month of April, 1974, I made $1,764,239.17. I had it all - houses, cars, airplanes - a trophy wife, even. That all ended in 1978, when IRS launched its totally (not a scintilla of "due process") illegal war of attrition, and by 1986, I was driven to the living in the streets, the parks, and the wilderness - off the "fruit of the land." Until only recently, I lived like that.

It's time now, for the customary chorus of "unbelievables" like those that will festoon the comments concerning this essay. It's how "Americans" deal with anything beyond the virtual reality world in which they live. Priorities in the U.S. are so FUBAR we couldn't find our way to the toilet if it depended on them. The death of somebody named Michael Jackson, instance, is fifty, a hundred, a thousand times more important than the deaths of five or six throwaway lives like those of the soldiers who died the same day in Iraq or Afghanistan (or any of the dozen or so wars the nation is currently fighting secretly - that's on account of the same media that sets the nation's priorities - elsewhere.

My story is "unbelievable" primarily because no one heard about it. Oh, I wrote a book - self-published like everything else I must do - but hundreds of news sources and publishers were somehow dis-interested in a shooting (three bullet wounds - count 'em) war between a man and his government. This was a macho-minimalist movie in real life, with car chases and wrecks, assassination attempts by the dozen, shooting, street fights - the works, but it wasn't that interesting. Somehow (the reason, no doubt, that a movie producer and studio interested in making a movie about it all were threatened with ruin by the IRS).

In 2002, when a double hernia resulted from my having been hit by a van during one assassination attempt by the government threatened to strangulate and kill me, I risked surgery in a hospital. I dared go under anaesthesia from which I would otherwise have feared never waking up because a brave woman stood by in the hospital until I was able to leave. Otherwise, I do my own.

I sleep, as I always have to in the Nation of Laws, Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, with a loaded, cocked, and locked .45 beside me. I also do my own surgery; I do both because I "fell out of the middle class" in the Nation of Laws, Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. I do these things in order to "celebrate diversity" and all the rest, but the next time the government comes to take all everything from me in order that it can buy the votes of the nation's tabloid-reading, scum-sucking, Michael Jackson worshipping booberie, or "bail out" the filthy rich who tyrannize the Nation of Laws, the Land of the Free and the Home of the brave, there will be a fight.

If I'd done that in the first place, I'd still be in that "middle class" we're always hearing about.

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Mr Bagaent is a regular writer for Alexander Cockburn's inimitable website, "Counterpunch". Most who appreciate Alternate would, I dare say, be substantialy rewarded by adding Mr. Cockburn's invaluable work to their reading list.

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.... to most Americans, regardless of race, the term "middle class" means "white." Plain and simple.

Where is the proof that "most Americans" define middle class as "white"?

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Eee gads! I thought Joe was writing about "White underpants" Gees, my glasses need glasses!

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iPod Touch To PC//Blue Ray DVD Copy //iPod Touch Converter///Blue Ray DVD Copy

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I enjoyed the article and the new term, "underclass" is basically what middle-class is ending up as. I wrote about the shrinking middle-class and you hit it right on the button. The rich keep getting richer and the poor can't get any poorer. You have the working-class such as families headed by a single parent or mother. Class destinctions are more evident in this country with this economy the way it is. There are the haves and the have nots and there a hell of a lot more have nots than haves. Foreclosures are through the roof and people are getting laid off from their jobs.

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The Muddle Through Economy From investor John Mauldin
This is going to be a long, jobless recovery. Hours worked per week are at an all-time low. As noted above, part-time work is very high. Employers, when things actually start to turn around, and they will, will first give current employees more hours and then expand the hours of part-time workers. There will be few new jobs for a long time.

Because our population is growing, between 130-150,000 new jobs are required each month to keep unemployment from rising. Initial and continuing claims suggest we are currently losing at least 300,000 a month.

(As an aside, the media talks about initial unemployment claims falling. That is actually not true. Unemployment claims are in fact quite high and rising, but the seasonal adjustments make them look smaller. Normally, this would not be a big deal. But the summer seasonal adjustment assumes a normal automobile manufacturing market, with layoffs in July. The layoffs came much earlier this year, distorting seasonal adjustments.)

Higher and persistent unemployment, lower incomes and wages, higher savings rates, capacity utilization at 50-year lows and still falling, rising home foreclosures, a deleveraging financial system, etc. are not the stuff of "V-shaped" recoveries. Throw in that Moody's estimates that US banks will have to write off $400 billion in 2010, and it's a very weak recovery indeed that shapes up for next year.

It's the return of The Muddle Through Economy*, which is better than what we have had, to be sure. But that asterisk is there for a reason. Congress and the Obama administration are seemingly hell bent on a massive tax increase. If that happens, it will push a fragile recovery back into recession. It will look like the twin recessions of 1980-82.

It will be a difficult investing environment, to say the least. If buy-and-hold is not your favorite style, there are alternatives. Quick commercial: my friends at CMG have a platform of alternative managers that can be tailored to your specific needs. These are traders who have weathered the storms of this last decade. These are individually managed accounts, with daily liquidity. You really owe it to yourself to see the managers on their platform. The link to their form is http://www.cmgfunds.net/public/mauldin_questionnaire.asp.

I am encouraged by the fact that the radical health reforms look like they might not pass. The health-care system clearly needs a major overhaul. Let's hope that we get it right.

In a future letter, I am going to talk about taxes. I am concerned that we are going to raise taxes now to very high levels, and not leave any room for the tax increases we are going to desperately need in the middle of the next decade to pay for entitlement programs. That will mean a VAT tax and tax increases on the middle class. Again, not good for the economy.

The billions given to Goldman Sachs could have funded health care for the next 11 years. We are being screwed and Obama has let them.

The baby boomers are the biggest population in our nation and we have been paying into Social Security, Medicare and Medicade all our working lives. So what happened to all the money? We were robbed nd the funds looted. We must get this representatives out - We can't stop with Bush.

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health care happens. They need to know how out numbered they are.

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the writer hit the nail on the head so many times, I just had to say something.

It is a reality, unfortunately for many poor of us pathetic Americans trying to live the dream. Some make it, others don't.

the degrading of the American worker has to stop though. It should be labeled as a crime. If the boss isn't thanking you, and kissing your BUTT (because in turn, you are doing something for them that THEY now don't have to do)then the measly 7$ an hour he is paying you should hence be shoved up his backside. (take this pathetic job and shove it!)

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"I live an anecdotal life, " I like that statement, because
that is what it really is; chuck the science, and those who wear ethnographic definitions, demographic statistics and their overall punditry as if they were campaign ribbons on their chests.

I am "Anecdotal Man" who was first assigned the title of "underachiever" when as a young person, I supposedly belonged to the "upper middle class," but did not get into Hahvahd (Harvard)! Now, the social scientists and that Democratic consultant lady promulgate that I must now be assigned to the "White Underclass." Hah!!!

I, along with my white, black, red, brown, yellow and purple brothers and sisters are nothing of the sort, this is a meaningless assignment - to begin with, "class" is camp and passe - we are, in fact serfs, who can only look up to our master barons and feudal lords, for the next handout of crumbs and new fascistic order(s) of the day!

Bah to the social scientists, and to this muddled piece
of text I am responding to.

This culture is going backwards at warp speed, into oblivion. And one thing most social scientists should agree on, is that no culture has ever "successfully" gone backwards without becoming extinct, or completely assimilated by another.

There have been, there are no and there will be NO survivors.

In the long run and accepting as is and will forever be the current socio-economic ethos, the near future of homo-sapiens is not only a dubious notion, but could in fact, be rather and significantly moot!!


Wil Tibby

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Am I ABOUT to join the white underclass??? Nope - I already did . . . I used to be one of those "just get a job already" folks, until I had to quit working because of my health. I did all the right things - filed a claim for the long term disability insurance I'd been paying for 9 years (thanks ERISA, for giving them so much protection against having to actually PAY a claim,) filed for Social Security Disability (what a joke - even if you get accepted, it's like $700 a month, and I got turned down.) My husband lost his job, we lost the house and nearly starved to death before some friends agreed to let us live in their converted garage and I managed to get a minimum wage job at a fast food joint.

Even with the discount, I couldn't afford to eat their food for my lunches, the physical stress made my back problems, rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia worse, and the mental stress caused my bipolar disorder to cycle into a suicidal depression that has lasted for more than a year now. We haven't had health insurance for 19 months now, and in that time, neither of us has seen a doctor.

My husband finally found an $8 an hour job a couple of months before I got fired, and now that the child support folks have garnisheed his wages, we have a whole $150 a week to support 2 people on, but we STILL don't qualify for public assistance because he's working and I don't have government (SS) confirmation of disability.

Honestly, death would be way better than this miserable life, but I don't have that option, unless someone else does it for me. I now understand why so many lose themselves in addiction (personally, I'd LOVE to spend all my time so drunk or high I didn't know how awful my life really is,) or turn to stealing or begging to be able to eat.

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