Poverty & Society Rank: Chapter 6 Will Not Discuss Pretty straightforward…will integrate where appropriate Have not finished grading these RQ Reflection.

Poverty & Society

Rank: Chapter 6 Will Not Discuss Pretty straightforward…will integrate where appropriate Have not finished grading these RQ

Reflection Return and Exam Can’t give back…come up for grade Will go over the whole exam when all have taken it

Fundraising/Campus Visit

William Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears

The Great Migration

Deindustrialization Suburbanization of Work

Social Organization

Exam 1

Median Score was between an A-/B

A 5 A- 2 B+ 0 B 2 B- 1 C+ 1 C 1 C- 0 D+ 1 D 1 F 3

What to say…

Most of you did very well…a few are struggling

Exam was worth 20% of your grade…

40% of your grade is determined by the questions…

If you’re not doing them, or not taking them seriously…you’re making a mistake

Fundraising and a Trip to Campus

For each task you volunteer for and complete, I’ll give ¼ point on your assignment grade

A moderator to facilitate discussion

Fundraising Ideas Things to gets: Crayons/markers, puzzles, backpacks,

supplies, jump ropes Ways to get them: Back pack drive (Gerald), donation

boxes, bake sale (Lisa), candy sale (Selena); Spare change; dorm storming

Outreach: SGA (Bernard); ROTC (John)

Trip to Campus Spring Carnival (Snow); Field trip, Basketball game; movie

Rank: Understanding Poverty Structural forces ensure that there will be

losers in the first place (unemployment, bad jobs, weak safety net)…individual characteristics help explain who loses…

Concentrated Poverty… A question for people living and working in Chester,: “Why do

places like Chester (Philly, Camden, Cleveland, Chicago, etc.) generate/possess so many “losers” of the economic game”?

Big question…with a complicated answer…“Concentrated Poverty results from several factors, including past government policies, racial and ethnic discrimination, residential segregation, economic changes and employment dislocations, the movement of prosperous residents to the suburbs, and finally other, less definable social and cultural forces.” (Iceland, p.57)

There is a lot in that sentence…I want to unpack it and teach you about it

William Julius Wilson

Major Scholar in area of urban poverty

The Declining Significance of Race The Truly Disadvantaged When Work Disappears More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor

in the Inner City (2008)

Understanding Urban Black Poverty

1890, approximately 4 million Blacks in America: 90% in South…anyone know anything about what they’re doing? How this map changes?

Integration of Blacks into US Economy

Approximately 4 Million Landless Freed Blacks

Land still controlled by White Despite promises of 40 acres and a mule 1880 GA:

Blacks were 40% of population Blacks owned 1.6% of the land

Plantation Owners Still Require Labor? Blacks need access to make a living?

How might these needs be met?

Sharecropping? Blacks rented a plot of land and paid

the plantation owner a certain proportion of the cotton crop

Plantation owners advance seed, mule, tools, credit

Blacks repaid these debts with a share of their cotton production Share the crop…

Sharecropping

So…as European Americans (Irish, Italians, Jews, Russians, Poles, etc) are entering the industrial economy and beginning the inter-generational journey from poverty to middle class…

Blacks are bound to the land as “virtual” slaves

Debt Peonage insolvent blacks, unable to repay debt from one year to

another, were required by law to work indefinitely for the plantation owner to pay off debt

1890, Blacks in America

Then Things Changes…The Great Migration North: Why the jump in the teens & 20s?

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400000

600000

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1000000

1200000

1400000

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1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s

The Great Migration

aaa

The Great Migration North: Why the 1940’s jump?

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1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s

The Great Migration: PA

1930: 70% of Pennsylvania’s Black Population was born somewhere else

19% Virginia 13% South Carolina 11% Georgia

Philly: The Great Migration 

Growth in Black Population, Philadelphia 

  Black Population

% of Philly Pop.

1910 

84,000 5.5%

1920  

134,000 7.4%

1930 

220,000 11.3% 

Great Migration…Blacks Become an Urban Population

US North

Rural% Urban% Rural% Urban%

1890 80 20 38 62

1920 66 34 16 84

1950 38 62 7 93

1970 19 81 3 97

Poverty & Society

Fundraising/Campus Visit

William Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears

The Great Migration

Deindustrialization Suburbanization of Work

Social Organization

Fundraising and a Trip to Campus

For each task you volunteer for and complete, I’ll give ¼ point on your assignment grade

Fundraising new information or loose ends

Trip to Campus Spring Carnival (Snow)…the date?

Great Migration…Blacks Become an Urban Population

US North

Rural% Urban% Rural% Urban%

1890 80 20 38 62

1920 66 34 16 84

1950 38 62 7 93

1970 19 81 3 97

The Urban Ghetto

Wilson refers to “Institutional ghettoes” that are segregated…but day to day activities more or less mirror larger society

Note Video from the Promised Land

2) At the beginning of the video, the Black Ghetto in Chicago is described as the Capitol of Black America. Briefly describe the world that is depicted?

Great Migration and American Culture…A digression…

Soundtrack of video full of Blues Black acoustic music migrates up Mississippi

with Migration Mississippi Delta Blues Travel on “Highway 61”…Famous Dylan album

Early Rolling Stones album had many credited blues covers

Early Led Zeppelin albums had many non credited blues covers

Willie Dixon sued Led Zeppelin because “Whole lotta love was so similar to “You need love”….settled out of court

The Great Migration North: The main pull factor?

Early this semester we noted: “In a capitalist society, a person’s well being/standard of living will primarily be determined by their participation in the labor market.”

So why do I bother to review the Great Migration? How do you think it impacted the rate of black poverty?

The Great Migration…Blacks Enter Urban Labor Markets

By 1940, the occupational distribution of transformed

Similar to the peasants who had left Italy or Poland in 1900 to become wage workers in America, Blacks left the land in the south & become modern wage workers

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Farm

Service

BlueCollarOther

Occupational Changes Reduce Poverty Increased Occupational

The Great Migration…Blacks join the industrial working class

By 1940, the occupational distribution of transformed

Blacks had joined the industrial working class

Four things to consider: 1) Blacks get manufacturing

jobs a generation after other groups… intergenerational mobility delayed

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

1900 1940

Farm

Service

BlueCollarOther

The Great Migration…Blacks join the industrial working class

By 1940, the occupational distribution of transformed

Blacks had joined the industrial working class

Four things to consider: 1) Blacks get manufacturing

jobs a generation after other groups… intergenerational mobility delayed

2) Blacks get manufacturing jobs, but as 2nd class workers (lowest skilled, lowest paid)… intragenerational mobility institutionally limited

The Great Migration…Blacks join the industrial working class

By 1940, the occupational distribution of transformed

Blacks had joined the industrial working class

Four things to consider: 1) Blacks get manufacturing jobs a

generation after other groups… intergenerational mobility delayed

2) Blacks get manufacturing jobs, but as 2nd class workers (lowest skilled, lowest paid)… intra generational mobility institutionally limited

3) They will not get access to the better jobs until the Civil Rights Act of 1965 intra and inter generational

mobility impacted My Dad has already been working for years in

a job that openly discriminated…

The Great Migration…Blacks join the industrial working class

By 1940, the occupational distribution of transformed

Blacks had joined the industrial working class

Four things to consider: 1) Blacks get manufacturing jobs a

generation after other groups…intergenerational mobility delayed

2) Blacks get manufacturing jobs, but as 2nd class workers (lowest skilled, lowest paid)…mobility institutionally limited

3) They will not get access to the better jobs until the Civil Rights Act of 1965… intra and inter generational mobility impacted

4) What happens to America’s manufacturing jobs starting in the 1970s? Wilson’s focus…

Occupational Changes Reduce Poverty…but then “work disappears”

Great Migration into Northern Ghettoes…

Institutional ghettoes are segregated…but day to day activities more or less mirror larger society

“You could walk out of the house and get a job. Maybe not what you want but a you could get a job. Now you can’t find anything. A lot of people in this neighborhood, they want to work but they can’t get work” (Wilson 1996: 36).

From Institutional Ghetto to Jobless Ghetto…

Economic Restructuring Hits Urban Black Communities Very Hard

“As late as 1968-1970 period, more than 70% of Blacks working metropolitan areas held blue collar jobs at the same time that 50 percent of all metropolitan workers held white collar jobs” (Wilson 1996: 31).

More than ½ of these workers were in goods producing industries

Common saying: “When America gets a cold, Black America gets pneumonia.”

De-industrialization…Jobless Ghettoes“The manufacturing losses in some northern cities have been staggering”(Wilson 1996: 29)

North Lawndale Neighborhood in Chicago loses 57,000 manufacturing jobs

Manufacturing Jobs Lost Between 1967-1987Pct. Change Total Lost

Philadelphia 64% 160,000 Chicago 60% 500,000 New York 58% >500,000 Detroit 51% 108,000

Note video clip on Chester & on Blacks in the Steel Industry

Economic Restructuring…Jobless Ghettoes

Occupational Shift within urban black community

Chicago “57 percent of Chicago’s employed inner city black fathers…who

were born between 1950 and 1955 worked in manufacturing and construction industries in 1974”(Wilson 1996: 30)

By 1987 this was down to 31 percent…

“As a result, young black males have turned increasingly to the low wage service sector and unskilled laboring jobs for employment, or have gone jobless”(Wilson 1996: 30)

Philadelphia's Richard Allen Housing Project 1945 54% of household breadwinners in manufacturing

1960s 25% of household breadwinners in manufacturing

By the 1960s, more than 60% of breadwinners were working as maids in department stores, laundry workers, orderlies and other service trades

What of the remaining urban jobs…

Occupations Adding the Most Jobs Projected increase Weekly Pay

  1) Systems Analysts 577,000 $1,008

  2) Retail Salespersons 563,000 $329

  3) Cashiers 556,000 $280

  4) General Managers 551,000 $797

  5) Truck Drivers 493,000 $299

  6) Office Clerks 463,000 $419

  7) Registered Nurses 451,000 $750

  8) Computer Support Specialists 439,000 $983

  9) Personal Care and Home Health Aides 333,000 $321

10) Teaching Assistants 375,000 $315

11) Janitors, Cleaners and Maids 365,000 $324

12) Nursing Aides and Orderlies 325,000 $322

Source: 1999 BLS data; the 1999 poverty line for a family of four is $327/week. 7

$406

$701

$862

$473

$1 ,901

$338

$257

$278

$321

$261

$0 $500 $1,000 $1,500 $2,000

Week ly P ay for the T en Oc c upations T hat Will A dd the M os t J obs T hrough 2010

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Based on hourly earnings and a 40-hour week.

U.S. Median Weekly Wages in 2000

$336 = 4-person family poverty line$336 = 4-person family poverty line1. Food preparation &

serving (includes fast food).2. Customer service

representatives.

3. Registered nurses.

4. Retail salespersons.5. Computer support

specialists.

6. Cashiers (except gaming).

7. Office clerks, general.

8. Security guards.9. Computer software

engineers, applications.

10. Waiters and waitresses.

What of the remaining urban jobs…

Consider Chester…Largest Employers are Widener and Crozier Medical

What kinds of occupations do these institutions offer?

What are the human capital requirements for these occupations?

Where do you think that most graduates of Chester’s school system will plug in?

Sociologists Refer to this as the “Skills Mismatch”

Skills mismatch & Urban Poverty mismatch between the skills of many urban residents

and the skills required by higher wage parts of the new urban economy

Wilson, p. 32 NYC lost 135,000 jobs requiring less than 12 years

education while gaining 300,000 in industries requiring 13 years or more

Philly lost 55,000 in low education industries and gained 40,000 requiring HS plus some college

William Julius Wilson

Not just a skills mismatch…Wilson argues that there is a growing mismatch between urban blacks and the suburban location of employment. In your own words, explain this problem. Be sure to a quote or statistic from the text to support your explanation.

Wilson argues that there is a growing mismatch between urban blacks and the suburban location of employment. In your own words, explain this problem. Be sure to incorporate a quote or statistic from the text to support your explanation.

In your own words, briefly describe what the article “4-Hour Trek Across New York for 4 Hours of Work, and $28 was about.”

Urban population faced with suburban job growth… Spatial Mismatch

The demand for labor has shifted away from neighborhoods where blacks are concentrated in favor of suburban areas

Chicago as an Example

1970-1990, 60% of new jobs in Chicago area were created in the Northern Suburbs Blacks are less than 2% of that population…you should be

wondering why?

By 1990, Chicago Accounted for just 37% of the jobs in metro-region

Another problem…Suburbanization of Employment

Donut Shaped DevelopmentShare of Jobs within 3, 10, > 10 mile Radius of central city, 1996

Another problem…Suburbanization of Employment

Share of Metropolitan Employment, 1999

Spatial Mismatch: Transit

You read about a woman who commutes more than 2 hrs each way from Philly to the Suburbs for a $7.25 job

Reverse Commute…City to suburb commute is often tough

In some cases, not even possible

Presence in suburbs can bring problems… “racial harassment”

Gautreaux Program

5. Briefly describe the Gautreaux program. Why was it initiated? What did it do? What did the research generated from this program find?

Poverty due to a “culture of poverty” or structural factors like lack of jobs…This program provides a nice test…

Anyone remember what it was?

Gautreaux Program

Court ordered relocation of 4,000 people from Chicago Public Housing to other areas of Greater Chicago

Provided a Natural Experiment: Two groups to compare

Researchers could “contrast systematically the experiences of low income blacks who had been assigned private apartments in the suburbs with the experience of a control group with similar characteristics and histories who had been assigned private apartments in the city” (Wilson 1996: 38)

A Simple Experiment

Poor Urban Blacks Moved to Suburbs Measure Employment Status

Poor Urban Black Stay in city Measure Employment Status

The only thing that differed was the location Culture was the same; level of human, social and

cultural capital is initially the same

What did they find?

Study Findings

“After taking into account the personal characteristics of the respondents (family background, family circumstances, levels of human capital, motivation, length of time since the respondent first enrolled in the Gautreaux program)…found that those who moved to apartments in the suburbs were significantly more likely to have a job after the move than those placed in the city”(Wison 1996: 38)

When asked why…respondents said there were more jobs.

Findings support spatial mismatch theory…yet another challenge to the idea that poverty is primarily about culture

Raises interesting questions about housing policy

Joblessness Snowballs into other problems in the Ghetto…

“Changes in the industrial and occupational mix, including the removal of jobs from urban centers to suburban corridors, represents external factors that helped elevate joblessness among inner city blacks. But important social and demographic changes within the inner city are also associated with the escalating rates of neighborhood joblessness…” (Wilson 1996: 42).

Joblessness creates other problems… Wilson notes that after 1960, certain

types of African Americans began to leave inner cities. Please describe who left the cities. Why do you think the departure of these people would have a negative effect on a community?

Exodus…Movement of the People Woodlawn on the South Side of Chicago

White Flight: From 66 percent white in 1950 to 10 percent white in 1960

After 1960, “as sizable exodus of black residents followed, including a significant number of working- and middle class families” (Wilson 1996: 6). “outmigration of non-poor black families”(Wilson 1996: 42)

Population falls from 80,000 in 1960 to 24,473 in 1990

How would the movement of working and middle class families transform a neighborhood?

Middle Class Exodus

Loss of Black middle class impacts on social capital Job networks erode

Reduces role models who stress importance of school, career aspirations, etc.

Teachers and social workers move out…drug dealers move in

Middle Class Exodus…Small Business Decline & Neighborhoods Crumble

Woodlawn on the South Side of Chicago Business base erode from over 800

establishments in 1950 to about a hundred today (Wilson 1996: 5)

“Neighborhoods disintegrate”

Excess housing stock leads land lords to abandon houses

Tax base erodes leading to cuts in services Garbage collection; Park maintenance; Schools…

Joblessness & Middle Class Exodus Results in Lack of Social Organization

Joblessness Decrease in income Change in structure and rhythm of everyday life Impact on commercial businesses in neighborhood

Working and Middle Class Flight Further erosion of commercial sector Erosion of social capital (job networks) Lack of role models Population decline leads to abandoned housing

All Contributes to weakening of Social Organization/Social Capital...and weakened Social Organization/Social Capital further feeds disintegration of neighborhood…

Now…

Fundraising and plans…

Next…Segregation and opportunity