Coming Apart: The New Lower Class

Just as America now has a new upper class "who are more and more removed from the lives of everybody else" we now have a new lower class.

In 1900, 90 percent of American workers were employed in low-level white collar or technical jobs, manual and service jobs, or worked on farms... [By] 1960, 81 percent of workers were still employed in those jobs... In the years after 1960 America developed something new: a white lower class that did not consist of a fringe, but of a substantial part of what was formerly the working-class population.

Murray asserts that the pre-1960 America was notable for the practice of four "Founding Virtues." Industriousness: even "the penniless and homeless Scotch or Irish immigrant was consumed by it." Honesty: "the extraordinary respect which people pay to the law." Marriage: Feminist Harriet Martineau thought that "marriage is in America more nearly universal, more safe, more tranquil, more fortunate than in England." Religiosity: Although many Founders were Deists, they all agreed that "Religion was essential to the health of the new nation."

Murray proposes to track what happened to the founding virtues between 1960 and 2010 in two representative neighborhoods: Boston's upscale Belmont and Philadelphia's downscale Fishtown. In real life the two places are not purely upper class or lower class, but Murray will assume they are.

In 1960 64 percent of prime-age white Americans qualified for Fishtown and only 6 percent of prime-age white Americans qualified for Belmont. By 2010, only 30 percent qualified for Fishtown and 21 percent qualified for Belmont.

Marriage: In Belmont in 1960 95 percent of white people were married; in 2010 83 percent were married. In Fishtown in 1960 84 percent of whites were married; in 2010 only 48 percent were married. In Belmont in 1960 about 75 percent of white reported "very happy" marriage. In went down in the 1980s but in 2010 was back up to 73 percent. In Fishtown, 67 percent of marriages were "very happy" in 1960. In 2010 only 52 percent. OK, how about this. In Belmont, the percent of children living with both biological parents dipped from 97 percent in 1960 to 87 percent in 2010. In Fishtown this percentage dipped from 94 percent in 1960 to 35 percent in 2010.

Industriousness: Prime-age males not in the workforce went from 5 percent to 15 percent for men with "high school diploma or less." That went from 1.5 percent to 3 percent for males with "BA or higher." Whatabout women? In 1960 40 percent of Belmont women were in the labor force and 33 percent of Fishtown women. By 2010 nearly 80 percent of Belmont women were in the labor force and 72 percent of Fishtown women. Heads of household? In Belmont in 1960 about 90 percent worked 40 or more hours per week and in Fishtown 81 percent worked 40 hours or more. In 2010, Belmont about 88 percent of heads of household worked 40 or more hours a week but in Fishtown a little over 60 percent worked 40 or more hours a week.

Honesty: Using violent crime arrests as an index, In Fishtown it went from about 120 arrests per 100,000 population in 1960 to about 750 per 100,000 in 1995 and descended to about 600 per 100,000 in 2010. In Belmont violent crime arrests are almost non-existent, less than 20 per 100,000 in 1960 and lower still in 2010.

Religiosity: In Fishtown "de-facto seculars" went from about 40 percent in 1960 to 57 percent in 2010. In Belmont it went from about 30 percent in 1960 to about 40 percent in 2010.

In the real Fishtown, these days, they talk about "family people" and "lower class." The family people are slowly moving out. Still, Fishtown appears to be gentrifying, with factories "turned into chic loft apartments." And so houses "that were worth $30,000 in the 1990s are selling for $200,000 and up." So pretty soon the family people will cash in on their houses and move to the suburbs, and the lower class will be unable to afford the rent.

Murray ends up with "three problematic categories" in the new lower class: 

1. Men who aren't making a living -- from 13 percent to 30 percent in Fishtown
2. Single women with children -- up from 5 percent to 18 percent in Fishtown
3. Isolates -- people with no involvement in community organizations

Or, as I like to say: the men don't work much and the women don't marry much.

Up next: What to do now.