working poor
The working poor are working people whose incomes fall below a given poverty line. Depending on how one defines "working" and "poverty," someone may or may not be counted as part of the working poor.
While poverty is often associated with joblessness, a significant proportion of the poor are actually employed.[1][2] The working poor are adversely affected in terms of many organizational outcomes such as job attachment, career attainment, and job attainment because of mediating factors that are cognitive, affective, and relational.[3] Largely because they are earning such low wages, the working poor face numerous obstacles that make it difficult for many of them to find and keep a job, save up money, and maintain a sense of self-worth.[4]
The official working poverty rate in the US has remained somewhat stable over the past four decades, but many social scientists argue that the official rate is set too low, and that the proportion of workers facing significant financial hardship has instead increased over the years. Changes in the economy, especially the shift from a manufacturing-based to a service-based economy, have resulted in the polarization of the labor market. This means that there are more jobs at the top and the bottom of the income spectrum, but fewer jobs in the middle.[5]
There are a wide range of anti-poverty policies that have been shown to improve the situation of the working poor. Research suggests that increasing welfare state generosity is the most effective way to reduce poverty and working poverty.[6][7] Other tools available to governments are increasing minimum wages across a nation, and absorbing educational and health care costs for children of the working poor.
Conceptualizing working poverty
In the United States, the issue of working poverty was initially brought to the public's attention during the Progressive Era (1890s–1920s). Progressive Era thinkers like Robert Hunter, Jane Addams, and W.E.B. Du Bois saw society's unequal opportunity structure as the root cause of poverty and working poverty, but they also saw a link between moral factors and poverty. In his study of Philadelphia's African American neighborhoods, W.E.B. Du Bois draws a distinction between "hardworking" poor people who fail to escape poverty due to racial discrimination and those who are poor due to moral deficiencies such as laziness or lack of perseverance.[8]
After the Great Depression, the New Deal, and World War II, the United States experienced an era of prosperity during which most workers experienced significant gains in wages and working conditions. During this period (1930s–1950s), scholars shifted their attention away from poverty and working poverty. However, in the late 1950s and early 1960s American scholars and policymakers began to revisit the problem. Influential books like John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society (1958)[9] and Michael Harrington's The Other America (1962)[10] reinvigorated the discussions on poverty and working poverty in the United States.
Since the start of the War on Poverty in the 1960s, scholars and policymakers on both ends of the political spectrum have paid an increasing amount of attention to working poverty. One of the key ongoing debates concerns the distinction between the working and the nonworking (unemployed) poor. Conservative scholars tend to see nonworking poverty as a more urgent problem than working poverty because they believe that non-work is a moral hazard that leads to welfare dependency and laziness, whereas work, even poorly paid work, is morally beneficial. In order to solve the problem of nonworking poverty, some conservative scholars argue that the government must stop "coddling" the poor with welfare benefits like AFDC/TANF.[11]
On the other hand, liberal scholars and policymakers often argue that most working and nonworking poor people are quite similar. Studies comparing single mothers on and off welfare show that receiving welfare payments does not de
