Word: underclasses
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This goal is particularly important when viewed from a historical perspective. The proportion of poor people in this country, by government definition, has grown steadily since the Second World War. Meanwhile, national productivity has doubled several times over. Must a growing economy also have a growing underclass...
...than pencils. The current trend our government is taking, however, is going to make the gap between those with the chance to attain "the pursuit of happiness" and those without it even larger. If welfare, Medicare, and other programs that favor the poor are cut, then the already large underclass will become even larger, and soon the only people who will have the opportunities that our forefathers wished for everyone will be members of a very exclusive club...
...both sides of the ideological spectrum, observers warn against taking Okun's point too far. Those on the right say battling inequality myopically can create inefficiency and more inequality in the long run; welfare, with its disincentives to work, can foster an underclass that steadily recedes from mainstream prosperity. Those on the left say battling inequality farsightedly--via investments in the schooling and health of citizens--can lead to greater equality and greater economic efficiency...
...point is that, '70s or '90s, nothing changes for the black underclass. And in Michael Henry Brown's screenplay, nothing much is added to earlier work in these fields by Francis Coppola and Oliver Stone. Yet Dead Presidents is well worth watching for the Hugheses' prodigal camera finesse. In some of their elaborate tracking shots (at a prom-night party, over a series of backyard fences), you get a hint that their art could mature quickly. Cinema needs the Hugheses at their best--which is yet to come...
...same years have seen a disappearance of the well-paid manufacturing jobs that pulled blue-collar workers, black and white alike, into prosperity. Good jobs now require skills that schools in poor neighborhoods do an ever more dismal job of teaching. And the white fear of a black underclass fosters the kind of racism that constantly puts even the black middle class on the defensive...