concrete economic consequences. In the community Sherman studied, only those in good
moral standing were considered for the few cherished job openings. Those without good
moral standing also jeopardized their access to community-level charity.^45
I spoke with Lisa McCorkell, who worked as a financial counselor, who told me, “When
I spoke with working-class people across the country about their financial issues, whether
it be crippling debt, impending foreclosure, unemployment, or all three, I found that they
were much more likely than the poor to reject the government benefits they were eligible
for, at least until it was absolutely necessary to survive. They saw it as an affront to their
dignity. I heard so often things like, ‘I don’t want a government handout; I can do this on
my own.’ So even when they were aware of the government benefits they were entitled
to, they did not accept them.”
When it comes to attitudes toward government programs, working-class African-
Americans differ from whites in an important way: African-Americans understand the
structural nature of inequality. Working-class African-Americans are more like the
French (and unlike white working-class Americans) in their nonjudgmental “there but for
the grace of God go I” attitude toward the poor, and their felt need for solidarity.^46
All this explains why Bill Clinton, the last Democratic president to truly understand the
white working class, ended “welfare as we know it.” He understood it was political
poison to allow poor women to remain stay-at-home moms while Mike’s family tag-
teamed its way to exhaustion. What went deeply wrong was that the replacement TANF
program failed to provide the kind of support necessary for working families. By 2006, in
poor familes, 7.5% of children aged 5–8 were home alone; nearly 14% of kids 9–11
were.^47
If America’s policymakers better understood white working-class anger against the social
safety net, they might have a shot at creating programs that don’t get gutted in this way.
Far from abandoning the poor, we’d be doing a better job of helping them.
†Lamont’s study gives percentages of the white (and black) working class who embrace
the dominant values. To make the text more readable throughout this book, I have made
blanket statements that actually reflect tendencies, not absolutes.
- Why Does the Working Class Resent the Poor?