The Urban Underclass Challenging THe Myths ABout Americas Urban Poor

The Urban Underclass: Challenging THe Myths ABout America's Urban Poor Paul Peterson and Christopher Jencks, co editors of "The Urban Underclass," and William Julius Wilson, a contributor to the book, will conduct a public symposium from 2 to 4 p.m. Tuesday, April 16, in the Brookings auditorium. Discussants will include James Johnson of UCLA, Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute and Isabel Sawhill of the Urban Institute. The conference is open to press and other interested parties. If you plan to attend, please call 202/797 6105. ____________________________________________________________________________ FOR RELEASE: April 16, 1991 CONTACT: Paul Peterson, 617/495 8312 or Christopher Jencks, 708/491 8724 or Lisa Pullen, Assistant Public Affairs Director, 202/797 6105 Palatino Conventional wisdom asserts that the United States is witnessing a significant expansion of its urban underclass, that chronically poor percentage of the population inhabiting Americas central cities. Among the trends cited: An inevitable rise in the percentage of teen agers who are unmarried mothers, exploding welfare rolls, and legions of high school dropouts consigned forever to joblessness. Yet none of these perceptions is true, according to a new Brookings book, The Urban Underclass. Edited by Christopher Jencks of Northwestern University and Paul E. Peterson of Harvard, this set of essays attempts to separate the truth about poverty, social dislocation and changes in American family life from the myths that have become part of contemporary folklore. According to a number of indicators the underclass is shrinking, writes Peterson in his introductory essay. A higher percentage of the minority population is receiving high school diplomas, a smaller percentage of teenagers is having babies out of wedlock, both blacks and whites are experiencing fewer crimes committed against them, and the use of drugs is declining. Perhaps it is not so much that the situation is deteriorating as that Americans' social expectations are rising. The editors find that the most troublesome aspect of poverty, the rise in the percentage of children living in poverty, is due to the rise in female headed households and the decline in the earnings of young men. The United States has more children living in poverty than seven other industrialized nations used for comparison. In 1987, University of Chicago sociologist William Julius Wilson book, The Truly Disadvantaged presented systematic evidence of a growing concentration of the minority poor in large cities, economically and socially isolated from mainstream society. The Urban Underclass brings together 19 essays by sociologists, economists, political scientists, and policy analysts in a test of Wilson's theories, as well as those in other recent works, including Charles Murray 1984 book entitled Losing Ground. In his essay, editor Jencks shows that poverty rates declined from 1959 to 1974, but then progress stopped. Poverty has not become increasingly confined to blacks blacks constituted 31% of the poor in 1988, the same percentage as in 1967. Black poverty has, however, become more urban, making it more visible to opinion leaders, Jencks writes. A Different Kind of Underclass Jencks finds that poverty has not increased, but has simply changed. The proportion of individuals with family incomes below the poverty line, which had fallen steadily from 1940 to 1970, has not changed much since 1970, Jencks writes. Only the character of poverty has changed. It has become less common among the elderly and more common among children. Poverty has also become more concentrated among families in which the head does not work regularly. He argues that while some problems plaguing the poor male joblessness and increasing numbers of single parent families have gotten worse, others such as welfare dependency and teen age pregnancy have gotten better. Jencks finds that blacks, often seen as making up the underclass, constituted 45% of all welfare recipients in 1969. By 1987, the percentage had fallen to 40%. What has changed, Jencks writes, are the reasons for being poor. In 1968, 74% of the poor had what Americans consider socially acceptable reasons old age, physical disability, school enrollment and low hourly wages for being impoverished. This figure dropped to 54% in 1987, thus diminishing public sympathy for the poor, he argues. The essays acknowledge the impact of recent changes in American society, particularly the increase in female headed households during the past 20 years. The trend leaves too many children with impaired financial support, inadequate adult supervision and instruction, compromised security, fewer alternatives for establishing intergenerational relationships and fewer adult role models, writes Peterson. Additional essays in The Urban Underclass examine a wide range of issues concerning the poor, including the impact of economic change, the importance of labor market conditions and patterns of