The Underclass

The Underclass by Auletta, Ken. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780394523439.

First published as a three-part series in The New Yorker. The Underclass is one of a handful of studies of class and society in America that are destined to endure. Updated by the author to reflect current realities. Ken Aulettas masterful reportage remains as relevant as ever to an American society increasingly divided into the extremely rich and the desperately poor. Auletta began with a seemingly simple goal--to find out who, exactly, make up the poorest of the poor, and to trace the many paths that took them there. As he follows 250 hardened members of the underclass, Auletta focuses on efforts to help them reconstruct their lives and find a functional place in mainstream society. Through the lives of the men and women he encounters, Auletta discovers the complex truths that have made hard-core poverty in America such an intractable problem. In a nation where poverty and welfare rolls are declining but the underclass persists, the United States is as conflicted as ever about its responsibilities toward all its people. Thus, The Underclass is as incredibly lucid and pertinent as ever.