''When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor'' (1996) is a book by

William Julius Wilson William Julius Wilson (born December 20, 1935) is an American sociologist, a professor at Harvard University, and an author of works on urban sociology, race, and class issues. Laureate of the National Medal of Science, he served as the 80th Pre ...

, Professor of Social Policy at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

. Wilson's argument is that the disappearance of work and the consequences of that disappearance for both social and cultural life are the central problems in the

inner-city The term inner city (also called the hood) has been used, especially in the United States, as a euphemism for majority-minority lower-income residential districts that often refer to rundown neighborhoods, in a downtown or city centre area. Soc ...

ghetto A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group are concentrated, especially as a result of political, social, legal, religious, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other ...

. He sought to discuss social disorganization without stigmatizing the poor.
When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor. - book reviews
' by Daryl Michael Scott Wilson writes that chronic joblessness has deprived those in the inner city of skills necessary to obtain and keep jobs. Wilson's book uses evidence from large-scale scientific surveys in the ghetto and information culled from ethnographic interviews of ghetto residents in order to create a complete picture of the problems that face the residents.When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor. - book reviews
Washington Monthly, Nov, 1996 by David Whitman Wilson writes that people who inhabit the disorganized, jobless ghettos face dim prospects. Poor public transportation often fails to provide access to job locations, stereotypes about poor blacks, especially black men also make jobs harder to find. Wilson rejects the idea that inner-city residents have a "

culture of poverty Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, attitudes, and habits of the individuals in these gro ...

" or damaged personalities. He holds that addressing the problem of joblessness is the solution to urban inner-city problems. Wilson supports work programs modeled after Depression-era projects. Wilson ties the disappearance of inner-city jobs to industrial restructuring,

suburbanization Suburbanization (American English), also spelled suburbanisation (British English), is a population shift from historic core cities or rural areas into suburbs. Most suburbs are built in a formation of (sub)urban sprawl. As a consequence ...

, foreign competition, and racism.

Influence

''When Work Disappears'' has been cited as an inspiration for the second season of the

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

show ''

The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime fiction, crime Drama (film and television), drama television series created and primarily written by the American author and former police reporter David Simon for the cable network HBO. The series premiered o ...

''.This Will Be on the Midterm. You Feel Me?
''

Slate.com ''Slate'' is an online magazine that covers current affairs, politics, and culture in the United States. It was created in 1996 by former '' New Republic'' editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. In ...

References

External links

When Work Disappears The World of the New Urban Poor
Information from the publisher,

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

1996 non-fiction books Alfred A. Knopf books Books about cultural geography Books by William Julius Wilson

Influence

See also

References

External links