The Truly Disadvantaged

The problems of the truly disadvantaged may require nonracial solutions such as full employment, balanced economic growth, and manpower training and education. Since national opinion polls consistently reveal strong public support for efforts to enhance work in America, political support for a program of economic reform could be considerably stronger than many people presently assume. Racial discrimination is the most frequently invoked explanation, and it is undeniable that discrimination continues to aggravate the social and economic problems of poor blacks. The point to be emphasized is that historic discrimination is more important than contemporary discrimination in understanding the plight of the ghetto underclass—that in any event there is more to the story than discrimination. From the early 1970s through the first half of the 1980s, their writings on the culture of poverty and the deleterious effects of Great Society liberal welfare policies on ghetto underclass behavior dominated the public policy debate on alleviating inner-city social dislocations.