Policymakers Need to Consider Working Poor

The recent publication of William Julius Wilson’s latest book, “When Work Disappears,” is a major event for both policymakers and social scientists. Wilson, formerly based at the University of Chicago and now teaching at Harvard University, is past president of the American Sociological Assn. and one of President Clinton’s favorite thinkers on social policy. His previous works on inner-city poverty have revolutionized thinking on these issues. Thus, it was no surprise when a prominent colleague handed me a copy hot off the press and proclaimed it “the new bible” for urban sociology and policy. Indeed, if the past reception of Wilson’s work is any indication, “When Work Disappears” will set the analytical framework for years to come.

But the question is: Should it? Wilson’s main contribution in this new volume is the notion that poverty has been fundamentally transformed by joblessness. In previous eras, he suggests, inner-city neighborhoods suffered from poverty but many residents continued to work, providing a regularity and order to family and community life. With the economic transformations of past decades, particularly the disappearance of traditional entry points into industrial employment, work has largely disappeared in ghetto neighborhoods.

This, in turn, erodes the social structures that proscribe behavior and prevent community breakdown. Eroded too are the visions of future prosperity that persuade inner-city residents to accept their current economic position in the hopes of a better future for themselves or their children, although Wilson is careful to note from original survey evidence that the inner-city jobless often continue to share the general societal norms regarding the importance of work and individual initiative. The persistent downward cycle can, in Wilson’s view, only be reversed by a massive federal investment in jobs programs as well as improvements in schools and skill acquisition.

Wilson acknowledges that such a policy thrust may not be “realistic” in the current harsh political climate. But the more interesting question concerns the accuracy of his portrayal, particularly when we move beyond the Eastern and Midwestern cities that have served as the paradigm for thinking about inner-city poverty and focus on “newer” metro regions such as Los Angeles.

Certainly, work opportunities have shrunk in the high-poverty communities that occupy broad swaths of Los Angeles County. The decline of traditional mass manufacturing over the last decade has had especially sharp impacts on inner-city residents, who were often the last hired in a previous epoch of expansion. But accompanying this “deindustrialization” has been a “re-industrialization” in both high-tech, high-wage sectors and in industries, such as garment assembly, that rely on low-wage, often immigrant labor.

As a result, poverty is not merely confined to the jobless but also is endemic to many who eagerly seek and retain employment. Of the poor households headed by someone of working age in Los Angeles, 51% have at least one household member working at least part time, with the majority of these households including individuals engaged in full-time or significant work. (Full-time work is defined as working more than 50 weeks a year and more than 35 hours a week, and significant work includes those working at least 35 weeks a year and more than 25 hours a week).

*

If we focus on those households with annual income hovering within 20% above or below the federally defined poverty line of $15,500 for a family of four, the pattern is even more dramatic: Over half of these households have at least one full-time or significant worker.

Of course, those living above the poverty line are far more likely to work: For households whose income is more than 20% above the poverty line, fully two-thirds are headed by individuals with full-time employment. But the striking presence of the working poor in Los Angeles suggests two key implications for policymakers.

The first is simply that a political consensus is possible. As indicated by the popularity of the California initiative to raise the state minimum wage, most Americans believe that those who work should not see poverty-level living conditions as the fruits of their labor. The second is that policy to improve the lot of the working poor can be both more modest and realistic: Expansions in the earned income tax credit, legal reforms to make unionization more feasible and the increase in the minimum wage can go a long way toward helping this distressed population.

Why does Wilson focus on the jobless poor? Part of the answer is simply his desire to understand a very particular problem, one which is undeniably important to the future of our society. But his focus also reflects the typical emphasis of analysts and policymakers on inner-city African Americans and their experience in the East and Midwest.

The working poor in Los Angeles represent a different population. In Los Angeles County, for example, Latino households make up nearly 47% of all poor households but account for 74% of those households where at least one member has full-time work. African Americans make up nearly 18% of all poor households but account for only 5% of those poor households with at least one full-time worker. And, of course, immigrants, with their usual propensity to both work hard and tolerate inequities, are well overrepresented in those engaged in either full-time or significant work.

These differential experiences by ethnicity may help explain the relative lack of policy attention to the working poor: Given the low rates of Latino representation in the worlds of university research and government policymaking, it is unsurprising that this half of the inner-city poverty problem occupies a lesser place in the analytical hierarchy. But attention must be paid: The children of today’s working poor, if frustrated by the lack of progress by their parents and themselves, will soon become the alienated jobless. And a truly inclusive anti-poverty strategy can only be forged if we combine Wilson’s sharp insights and clear strategies to alleviate joblessness with policies that build on the evident economic energies of the working poor.