000			02206nam a2200253Ia 4500
001			178130
003			0000000000
005			20211104034512.0
008			830409s1982 nyum b a00110 eng
020			_a0394523431 :
035			_a(AEA)9E0E9BDE02B24C4AB594C028584A8FF9
050			_aHV 4045 _b.Au51 1982
100			_aAuletta, Ken. _982921
245		4	_aThe underclass / _cKen Auletta.
260			_aNew York : _bRandom House, _cc1982.
300			_axviii, 348 p. _c24 cm.
500			_aIncludes index.
504			_aBibliography: p. [320]-336.
520			_aKen Auletta's The Underclass , first published in 1982, proposes to uncover who constitutes the poorest of Americans, and how they might best be aided by government and industry. While updated and revised to consider changes in both poverty and policy over the past 20 years, the book remains centered on Auletta's research of the late 1970s. Auletta, a staff writer at The New Yorker , focuses primarily on the very poor students attending basic skills classes through the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC), a Manhattan-based antipoverty nonprofit that had been having good results helping members of the "underclass" become working members of society. For contrasting examples, he also briefly explores the extreme poverty of whites living in Appalachia and rural blacks in Mississippi. The problems he finds are complex, but not necessarily intractable. Positioning himself as neither a liberal or a conservative, Auletta calls himself "too optimistic to accept the laissez-faire theory, and too pessimistic to embrace wholesale government solutions." Instead, he encourages programs such as the MDRC, which use what he calls a "tough love" approach to helping the very poor. How many people constitute "the underclass"? What role does race play? Who is responsible for the problem of poverty in America? Readers who ask these questions will find answers, and much to debate, in this well-researched study. --Maria Dolan
650			_aPeople with social disabilities _zUnited States. _9110608
650			_aPoor _zUnited States. _971004
942			_cALR
999			_c76875 _d76875