Portland Press Herald - Americans today say they are generally optimistic about their futures, according to Gallup polling. But one group in particular – poor white Americans – holds a dismal view of what the future holds for them. And this pessimism among poor whites goes a long way toward explaining the strange political moment we find ourselves in, one in which Donald Trump surged to the top of the Republican primary ticket by tapping into a deep vein of racial anxiety among America’s working class.
Carol Graham, a happiness researcher at the Brookings Institution,
recently analyzed Gallup’s data on life satisfaction and found that when
it comes to their outlook on the future, the most desperate groups are
poor and near-poor whites.
Gallup asks people to rate their current lives on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is the worst possible life they could be living and 10 is the best. Crucially, they also ask people to imagine what their lives will look like five years in the future.
Among the poor, whites are the demographic group least likely to imagine a better future for themselves, Graham found. Poor Hispanics were about 30 percent more likely to imagine a better future than poor whites. The difference for poor blacks was even larger: They were nearly three times more likely to imagine a better future than poor whites.
The difference in optimism between poor blacks and poor whites is nearly as big as the difference between the poor and middle class overall.
In short, poor whites aren’t just poor: They’re also in a state of despair.
Poor whites’ despair may partly be a response to certain social and economic trends. Johns Hopkins sociologist Andrew Cherlin has found that while working-class blacks are generally better-off economically today than their parents were, working-class whites are generally worse off.
Gallup asks people to rate their current lives on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is the worst possible life they could be living and 10 is the best. Crucially, they also ask people to imagine what their lives will look like five years in the future.
Among the poor, whites are the demographic group least likely to imagine a better future for themselves, Graham found. Poor Hispanics were about 30 percent more likely to imagine a better future than poor whites. The difference for poor blacks was even larger: They were nearly three times more likely to imagine a better future than poor whites.
The difference in optimism between poor blacks and poor whites is nearly as big as the difference between the poor and middle class overall.
In short, poor whites aren’t just poor: They’re also in a state of despair.
Poor whites’ despair may partly be a response to certain social and economic trends. Johns Hopkins sociologist Andrew Cherlin has found that while working-class blacks are generally better-off economically today than their parents were, working-class whites are generally worse off.
2 comments:
It would be a huge mistake to break this down to colors, that continues to be a strategy of atomization, whereas addressing the issues on socioeconomic terms becomes more unifying and inclusive. The concerns are those of a social class, not merely segments of that class.
The comment above is correct. Working class people are victims of a divide and conquer strategy that prevents them from organizing effectively to serve their economic needs. Although Democrats acknowledge that racism is a big factor in poverty among minorities, it could be that their view of white poverty is the same as republicans.
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