A new book argues that the vision of the United States as a ‘majority-minority’ society is a statistical illusion.
Christopher Jencks
Christopher Jencks is Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy, Emeritus, at Harvard University and the author of such books as The Academic Revolution (with David Riesman), Inequality: Who Gets Ahead?, Rethinking Social Policy, and The Homeless. A longtime member of the board of The American Prospect, he has played a major role in the development of the magazine.
Posted inSpecial Report
The Graduation Gap
America needs to do a much better job of increasing its college enrollment and graduation rates, especially for less advantaged students.
Posted inArticle
Welfare Redux
When welfare reform passed in 1996, critics (including all of us) feared a substantial increase in material hardship among single mothers and their children. We were wrong. Six years ago, after reviewing dozens of government surveys, two of us wrote in these pages that the record was neither as grim as critics had feared nor […]
Posted inFeatures
Welfare Redux
When welfare reform passed in 1996, critics (including all of us) feared a substantial increase in material hardship among single mothers and their children. We were wrong. Six years ago, after reviewing dozens of government surveys, two of us wrote in these pages that the record was neither as grim as critics had feared nor […]
Posted in15th Anniversary
1990: Welfare Then and Now
Well before Bill Clinton pledged to “end welfare as we know it,” the first issue of The American Prospect included a long article by Kathryn Edin and myself [see “The Real Welfare Problem,” Spring 1990] urging liberals to rethink welfare. Our argument rested on two facts. First, both Edin’s research and national surveys showed that […]
Posted inSpecial Report
Our Unequal Democracy
When the constitutional convention was held in 1787, one of the participants’ major worries was that a democratic government based on majority rule could pose a threat to minorities. They were especially worried that majority rule could encourage a largely landless electorate to expropriate the property of people like themselves. They thus adopted a system […]
Posted inSpecial Report
The Low-Wage Puzzle
When America’s most recent economic boom ended in 2001, the economy was turning out $7 trillion worth of consumer goods and services a year — enough to provide every man, woman and child with almost $25,000 worth of food, housing, transportation, medical care and other things every year. If all that stuff had been divided […]
Posted inFeatures
Liberal Lessons from Welfare Reform
When Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996, the liberal community was almost unanimous in urging President Clinton to veto it. Even people like myself, who had supported Clinton’s earlier efforts to “end welfare as we know it,” thought that PRWORA went too far. Fortunately for the poor, the […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
The Hidden Paradox of Welfare Reform
If former welfare beneficiaries can get jobs, they’ll be better off, right? Not necessarily. Because their costs will be higher, particularly for child care and health care, they may earn more yet do worse.
Posted inEducation in America
America’s Next Achievement Test
Despite significant improvement in recent decades, blacks still score consistently lower than whites on tests of academic performance. But recent studies show that the gap is not genetic in origin and suggest how it can be closed.