Exploring Income Inequality

Our Sophomore English students currently read The Other Wes Moore and use that non-fiction narrative as a springboard to research projects.  Several teachers have asked for ideas of more recent titles dealing with diversity which could eventually replace or perhaps supplement that text.  We developed a list with a few dozen names falling into rough categories dealing with economics (and social class), race, gender, immigration, disability, and military experience.  Here are two very new titles which, while not narratives or memoirs, would definitely inform the current discussions about class divisions and inequality.

WHITE WORKING CLASS by Joan C. Williams expands upon her essay in The Harvard Business Review which appeared shortly after last November’s election.  Williams, an award-winning author and Distinguished Professor of Law and Hastings Foundation Chair at University of California, describes what she calls “class cluelessness.” She argues that “among Americans progressives, there has been a very, very insistent focus on the poor, on gender, on race, but there has not been a focus on the white working class.” In addition to incorporating results from formal research studies, I especially like how she draws on personal examples - although those do make for uncomfortable reading at times. WHITE WORKING CLASS is very accessible for our students and seemingly offers a conversation amongst scholars, referring multiple time to J. D. Vance’s comments in Hillbilly Elegy (another text in the curriculum).  The first half of this book is particularly insightful; both content and Williams’ writing style deserve exploration and class discussion.  I would further supplement readings with selections from Robert Putnam’s OUR KIDS and links in that post, including Pew Research Center findings and Anand Giridharadas’ 2015 Ted Talk.

“How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live and Die” is the subtitle for THE BROKEN LADDER by Keith Payne, a professor at the University of North Carolina.  He, too, intermingles personal stories (e.g., experience with subsidized school lunches) with statistics or quotes based on research, often from the fields of neuroscience and psychology.  The book’s sections are varied, such as one on the corporate world, one on race, including a discussion of implicit bias, and one on emotions and political ideologies. Payne aptly uses numerous graphs and other visualizations (a human sized income distribution figure or a status ladder) to illustrate his arguments.  His new book explores inequality in the US and around the world. Payne notes, for example, “the striking global consensus about how much pay inequality people would accept was exceeded only by the astonishing global ignorance about how much inequality actually exists.”

Published by Viking (Penguin Random House), Payne’s book is extremely well-researched and contains over 200 footnotes. In its review, Kirkus says that the author “provides valuable psychological insights into our daily behaviors.”  Our new copy of THE BROKEN LADDER will certainly be used by AP Psych and other classes.