Word: underclass
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...TIME has done a cover story on blacks [June 17] that gives an underclass black reader the enlightening facts about our brothers and sisters who are together, educated and successful. Your reporters should be congratulated...
Measured by the Government's official classification of poverty, the size of the underclass shrank fairly steadily since the Depression but reached a hard-to-penetrate floor several years ago. In the early 1960s, for example, just over half of all blacks were below the poverty line; the figure declined to about one-third of all blacks in 1969 and has hovered there ever since. In 1972, 33% of America's black families fell below the poverty line. (The current poverty line, recently revised upward from $4,275 due to a rise in the consumer price index...
...semiskilled, and need for them is declining as technology advances. Less than 40% of the U.S. labor force holds such jobs today; more than 25% of all jobs are professional and managerial. This means there are great opportunities for educated, middle-class blacks, but severely narrow options for the underclass...
...train unskilled blacks and other hard-core unemployed had mixed results, and these efforts have been cut back. Six years ago, almost half of the people enrolled in the programs were black; today only one-third of the trainees are black. One reason is that many in the underclass have become discouraged with the programs. The Labor Department reports that 160,000 blacks are no longer even bothering to look for work because of what it calls "discouragement over job prospects." Says Robert S. Browne, director of the Black Economic Research Center based in Harlem: "I look out my window...
...black underclass has scored some surprising gains in housing. The Department of Housing and Urban Development reports sharp declines since 1960 in both overcrowding in black ghetto housing and in the number of houses and apartments without complete plumbing...