The contemporary concept of the underclass is a sanitized term for what was known in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as the undeserving poor, and may have been coined by American sociologist and anthropologist Oscar Lewis in 1961. Oscar Lewis (born Lefkowitz, December 25, 1914, New York City - died December 16, 1970) was an American The underclass, according to Lewis, has "a strong present-time orientation, with little ability to delay gratification and plan for the future" (p. xxvi). The term was also used by Gunnar Myrdal in 1962, before the usage came into wide circulation in the early 1980s, following Ken Auletta`s (1982) use of the term in three articles published in The New Yorker in 1981, and in book form a year later. Karl Gunnar Myrdal (6 December 1898 – 17 May 1987 was a Swedish economist politician and Nobel laureate Ken Auletta (born April 23 1942) is an American writer journalist and media critic for The New Yorker from Brooklyn New York The New Yorker is an American Magazine that publishes reportage commentary criticism essays fiction satire cartoons and poetry Auletta refers to the underclass as a group who do not "assimilate" (1982: xvi quoted in Morris, 1994: 81), identifying four main groups:

• the passive poor, usually long term welfare recipients;
• the hostile street criminal, drop-outs, low-class prostitutes, and drug addicts;
• the hustlers, dependent on the underground economy, but rarely involved in violent crime;
• the traumatised drunks, drifters, homeless bag ladies, and released mental patients. Welfare economics is a branch of Economics that uses microeconomic techniques to simultaneously determine Allocative efficiency within an economy and the The term " addiction " is used in many contexts to describe an obsession compulsion or excessive Physical dependence or psychological dependence such as Hustler is a monthly pornographic Magazine aimed at heterosexual men and published in the United States. In the sociological field, crime is the breach of a rule or Law for which some governing authority or force may ultimately prescribe a Punishment Homelessness is the condition and social category of people who lack housing because they cannot afford or are otherwise unable to maintain regular safe and adequate shelter Mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern that occurs in an individual and is thought to cause distress or disability that is not expected as

Karl Marx referred to a group he called the lumpenproletariat. Lumpenproletariat (a German word meaning "raggedy proletariat" is a term first defined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in He described this group as:

This scum of the depraved elements of all classes . . . decayed roués, vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, brothel keepers, tinkers, beggars, the dangerous class, the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society. A charlatan (also called swindler) is a person practicing Quackery or some similar Confidence trick in order to obtain money or advantage via some form TINKER is a Computer software application for Molecular dynamics simulation with a complete and general package for Molecular mechanics and Molecular " ^[1]

Many other terms have been used to "describe a section of society which is seen to exist within and yet at the base of the working class. Working class is a term used in academic Sociology and in ordinary conversation to describe depending on context and speaker those employed in specific fields or types "^[2]

United States

The socio-economic stratification of American society as outlined by Dennis Gilbert. ^[3]

Main article: American lower class

In the United States the term is used by certain sociologists such as Dennis Gilbert to described the most disenfranchised socio-economic demographic with the least access to scarce resources. The concept of a lower class in the United States is used to describe those at or near the lower end of the socio-economic hierarchy. Dennis Gilbert is Professor and chair of Sociology at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. There is considerable controversy regarding social class in the United States, and it remains a concept with many competing definitions The American underclass is estimated to constitute roughly 12% of households. Incomes are far below the median and often fall below the poverty line. Income in the United States is measured by the United States Department of Commerce either by household or individual. The most common measure of Poverty in the United States is the " poverty line " set by the U The vast majority of persons in this class are, for a variety of reasons, not active participants in the labor force. In Economics the people in the labor force are the suppliers of labor The underclass is, therefore, distinguished from other social classes by its reliance on government transfers. Only a few members of this class have graduated from high school. The educational attainment of the US population is similar to that of many other industrialized countries with the vast majority of the population having completed secondary education ^[3][4] Further discussion of the social implications of labeling the underclass can be found in Herbert J. Gans' book The War Against the Poor.

See also

• Social class
• Social exclusion
• Social hierarchy
• Social inequality
• Social mobility
• Reserve army of labour
• Overclass
• Subculture

References