Word: underclass
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...these issues, the rhetoric of Michael Dukakis and George Bush is virtually interchangeable. Both candidates shun the word Underclass; neither accepts the word's implication that there are Americans who cannot even reach the first rung of the economic ladder. Such linguistic prissiness and ideological timidity make addressing the problem even more difficult. As for solutions, the candidates echo each other. Bush: "A job in the private sector is the best antipoverty program that has ever been invented." Dukakis: "Full employment is the most important human-services program we have...
...background and ideology, the two men differ in their approach to hard-core poverty. Whereas Reagan practiced a policy of malign neglect toward the Underclass (interspersed with jabs about "welfare queens" and "young bucks" using food stamps), Bush has tried to show a more caring side. He says he wants "a kinder, gentler nation," but he has yet to offer much more than Reaganomics with a human face...
...minimum wage, and the 52,000 represents about a quarter of all the people who have been eligible. As workfare, it is all carrot, no stick; no one is faced with a benefit cutoff if he or she refuses to work. As a result, much of the hard-core Underclass is beyond the reach of ET. Those who get jobs tend to be those who have been employed in the past. Still, it is a start...
...children who are eligible for it) begins at three and four -- but that is already too late. Cognitive abilities start forming as soon as the child perceives the buzzing confusion of the world. An earlier version of Head Start would allow the child to break out of the Underclass environment while permitting the mother a chance to find work...
...Underclass has less of everything -- and that includes the services others take for granted: police protection, clean streets and decent schools. Families struggling to escape the undertow of ghetto life cannot succeed if their children are unable to go outside and play, if their streets are war zones, and if the schools are relegated to being holding pens. The government cannot surrender; it must provide the same services to Underclass neighborhoods as to the rest of society...