Introduction to Sociology

Poverty as a structural failing

Another explanation for poverty is that it results from structural inequality. For example, the job market fails to provide a proper number of jobs which pay enough to keep families out of poverty. Even if unemployment is low, the labor market may be saturated with low paying, part-time work that lacks benefits such as health insurance coverage or employee retirement contributions (thus limiting the number of full-time, good paying jobs). Low minimum wages and the increasing prevalence of part-time jobs that offer no benefits have contributed to the labor market’s inability to produce enough jobs sufficient for keeping a family out of poverty. This is an example of an economic structural failure. It exists independently of any one individual’s actions or priorities, and as such it is an apt object of analysis for sociologists.
Poverty is not equally distributed among racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Although whites make up the largest total number of people in poverty, Blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans are disproportionately likely to be poor by comparison.
The 1965 Moynihan Report began with the following rationale for why Blacks were not experiencing equality as a group: “There are two reasons. First, the racist virus in the American bloodstream still afflicts us: Negroes will encounter serious personal prejudice for at least another generation. Second, three centuries of sometimes unimaginable mistreatment have taken their toll on the Negro people” (as reprinted in Geary 2015).
Sociologist William Julius Wilson has written extensively about the institutional barriers Black Americans face, and has examined structural causes of poverty. His books The Declining Significance of Race (1972), The Truly Disadvantaged (1987) and When Work Disappears (1996) examine what he calls the “underclass.” In one case study, Wilson documents the economic and social changes in the North Lawndale area of West Chicago over several years. He notes that North Lawndale lost 75 percent of its businesses from 1960-1970, resulting in unprecedented levels of unemployment. While 70 percent of Black men nationwide worked full-time, year-round in the 1970s, by the 1980s, only half did (1996). Although Wilson’s books have won numerous awards and have been widely read, he has been heavily criticized for prioritizing the role of social class over that of race and institutional racism.