The Missing Class

There is an increase in national attention being paid to inequality in America. While U.S. government programs help the poor and politicians on both sides raise funds from the fortunate, the “Missing Class,” those making between $20,000 to $40,000 dollars a year for a family of four, is largely ignored.

Through their experiences with nine families, Princeton professor Katherine Newman and Inthefray magazine editor Victor Tan Chen trace the unique challenges faced by this growing demographic in their new book, The Missing Class. Newman and Chen explain where these families come from, how they’ve struggled and why they are stuck in the fraying safety net.

The New America Foundation’s Next Social Contract Initiative and Workforce and Family Program hosted this discussion with Katherine Newman, Victor Tan Chen and David Gray on the lives, stories and policies that impact the 54 million Americans — including 21 percent of the nation’s children — who might be considered the “missing class,” and what this says about inequality and the American dream. Video of the event is available at right, while an MP3 audio recording is available below.

The Next Social Contract Initiative aims to reinvent American social policy for the twenty-first century. Through a program of research and public education, the initiative will explore the origins of our modern social contract, articulate the guiding principles for constructing a new contract, and advance a set of promising policy reforms.

Participants

• Katherine Newman
  Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs
  Princeton University
• Victor Tan Chen
  Founding Editor and President
  Inthefray Magazine
• David Gray
  Director, Workforce and Family Program
  New America Foundation