Impoverishment, Underdevelopment and the Emergence of the Black Female Headed Family: Initial Considerations and Empirical Indicators Joseph J. Matvey Ph.D. Sociology, University of Pittsburgh 1987 Email: skeets@telerama.lm.com Abstract The paper examines current indicators of poverty, marital status, and family earner types in the black community. A second area of concentration centers on the systematic impoverishment of the black low wage class in the post-1970 era. In a final section, interactions between impoverishment and underdevelopment are suggested as influencing forces upon the emergence of the black female headed family as a central family type in the black community. Empirical Indicators I: Poverty and the Emergence of the Female Headed Family in the Black Population. If one takes the 1970s as a point of departure for a discussion of the black community in the modern era, the problem of poverty remains central despite the apparently rapid socioeconomic gains of the black middle class. Headway by the black middle class has been partially expressed and articulated throughout this era in a) upwardly mobile patterns within the mainstream corporate occupational structure; b) the suburbanization of middle class blacks in terms of both integration within white suburban communities as well as the creation and development of stable black suburban communities; and c) relatively high post-secondary education participation rates among the children of the black middle class in comparison with the broader middle class. In 1970, however, 33.5 percent of the black population lived below the poverty line. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s this rate remained fairly stabilized, dropping only slightly to its present 31.6 level in 1988 (UA, 1991: 211). The Black/White ratio of median incomes is another significant--although indirect--indicator of poverty. In 1969, for instance, black median income was only 61 percent of white median income, but by 1977 black median income had fallen to 57 percent of the white median (Shannon, 1983:105) In 1988, as indicated in Table One, the black median income again approximated only 57 percent of the white median. There was also a $13,000 disparity between the median income of blacks and the national median. Although there is divergence between the black and national medians across the board among specific earner types of families, the largest differences in medians are found among No Earner and Single Earner families. The median incomes for No Earner and Single Earner black families are 44 and 58 percent of the national medians of these categories, respectively. In contrast, among Two Earner families the median for black families climbs to 80 and 82 percent of the white and national medians of this category, respectively. Most distressing with reference to Table One, is the higher median income of No Earner white families than Single Earner black families. Further compounding the problem is the fact that a larger proportion of black families are clustered within the more disparate earner categories, as indicated in Table Two. While only 42 percent of all families and 40.5 percent of white families fall within No Earner and Single Earner types, over 53 percent of all black families are located in these categories. Probably the most central influence upon the sheer magnitude of Single and/or No Earner families in the recent era rests with the proliferation of female headed households among the black population. Wright points out that intact married families comprised 68.1 percent of all black families in 1970, while female headed families only accounted for 28.3 percent of black families in this same year (UA, 1990: 192). In Table Three however, we find by 1988 the number of female headed households skyrocketed to 43.5 percent of all black families, "while the percentage of black married-couple families declined to 50.2" percent (UA, 1990:192). Although there have been increases in female headed families across the racial spectrum during this period, increases in the black community appear the most explosive, as intact married couples accounted for over 70 percent of all hispanic families and over 80 percent of all white families in 1988. While it is necessary to note that black female headed households do not constitute the entirety of No Earner and Single Earner families, they do predominate within these earner types. Consider in Table Three, for instance, the exceptionally high percentage of black married couples (WH+WL) with wives in the labour force. 65 percent of black married couples witnessed wives in the workplace as opposed to 56 and 52 percent of white and hispanic married couples, respectively. Wright adds that among married couples with children under the age of six, while the national labour force participation rate of females was 57.1 percent, black women "had the highest LFPR in 1988" at 81.4 percent (UA, 1991:222). The flip side of these indicators, then, reveal that in both the hispanic and white populations, married couples with wives not in the labour force continues to be a more statistically numerous source of single earning families than female headed families. Among white family types, for instance, the number of married couple families with wives not in the labour force was more than double the number of female-headed families. In the black population, by contrast, there were more than twice as many female headed families than married couple families with wives at home. In fact, while married couples with wives in the labour force comprised the largest percent of families in both the hispanic and the white populations, in the black population, the female headed household is now the most numerous type. The high percentage of female headed families in the black population, in turn, strongly influences the overall structure of poverty in the black community. In Table Four we find that among family/racial types the median income of the black female headed family held the widest divergence with the overall national median. The $10,657 median for black female headed families represents only 33.1 percent of the national median income for all families, 55.1 percent of the national median for black families, 31.4 percent of the white median, and only 29 percent of the median income of black married couples with wives in the labour force. Furthermore, half of the black families which are female headed have incomes which fall below $10,000. Since we speak of family, we presuppose more than one individual in the household. The poverty level cutoff line for a family of two in 1988 was 7,704 dollars, 9,435 for a family of three, and 12,092 for a family of four. The extremely low median income places at least half of black female headed families either at or below the poverty level. For instance, in 1987, while 31.8 percent of the heads of black families existed below the poverty line, according to Census reports (WA, 1990:561) over 51.8 percent of all females lived below the poverty line. The poverty group of female headed families, in turn, accounts for over 20% of all black families. The decline of the married-couple family type shows little signs of reversal. In 1988, while 21.9 percent of all women giving birth were unmarried, in the black population the rate ascends to 56.3 percent. Although black percentages are consistently higher across all age categories, among 18-24 year old females giving birth, the rate climbs to 73.8 percent of all black women. More staggering is the fact that the percentage of black children reported to live in female headed families climbed from 31.8 percent in 1970 to 51.1 percent in 1988. (UA, 1991:200). Empirical Indicators II: Impoverishment Among the Black Low Wage Class In examining the empirical indicators presented above, we find ourselves confronting a number of interrelated questions regarding the poverty and near-poverty class of blacks. First, what forces condition the emergence of the female headed family as the central family type within the black population in the modern era? The underlying source of this trend must be understood in the context of social forces influencing both the female and counterpart black male populations throughout the modern era. A second, equally important question deals with more specifically with the consequences of the female headed family outcome in the modern era. Poverty in the black female headed family begs the question of why the black female headed family median income is so divergent from not only the overall national median, but even the more specific median for all women. One significant influence upon both the emergence of the black female headed family and the persistence of poverty as its consequence, is what I will term the systematic impoverishment of the existing black low wage class throughout the modern era. Impoverishment here refers any sustained and continuing drop of low income families or individuals to or below 125% of the poverty level. There are, undoubtedly, many types and causes of impoverishment ranging from the negative effects of periodic economic downswings in single industry regions to a long term collective downward pressure on wages created through structural unemployment. In this section, however we are concerned with impoverishment created through the stagnation of minimum wage rates--particularly during the $3.35 era--and correlative increases in consumer prices over time. The poverty level, unlike the minimum wage, is updated each year in conjunction with consumer prices and the inflation rate. Hence, over time, as the minimum wage remains static, inflation increases consumer prices, real income drops, the poverty level is increased and the net effect is the minimum and near minimum wage earning family falling even further below the official cutoff level. Minimum wage stagnation also affects a broader class of labour beyond the scope the minimum wage segment. Employers in low income sectors often coordinate near minimum wage rates in accord with the federal minimum wage, causing the static trend to encompass scores of workers labouring above the minimum wage. In Table Five, data is provided for yearly income based on the $3.35 an hour minimum wage standard and 125 percent of that standard. Data on the poverty cutoff levels for families of four, three, and two are also provided. In Table Six various impoverishment indexes are given based on family type and wages earned. The impoverishment index views annual before-tax money income as a percent of the poverty level, and records increases or decreases over time. While we are focused primarily upon 1981- 1991, the post-1950 minimum wage policy can be characterized as nothing less than systematized impoverishment. Impoverishment "appears" on first sight to be cyclical due to the fact that some minimum wage increases have either temporarily halted and/or slightly reversed the process. However, over the long term, inflation has been consistently allowed to overwhelm incremental increases, resulting in an overall downward trend. In 1960, for instance, a five year old minimum wage rate placed a family of four with a single earner at 66 percent of the poverty level. By 1971, three increases in the rate elevated the same family type to 81% of the poverty level. 1971 data in Tables Five and Six also reveal that five of six minimum or near minimum wage types existed at or above the poverty level, and three of the six types existed at or above 125 percent of the poverty level. Despite updates throughout the 1970s inflation outstripped these increases and a minimum wage earning family of four dropped to 76 percent of the poverty level in 1975. In January of 1981 the federal minimum wage rate was increased from $3.10 to $3.35 an hour. Not until the latter half of 1990, however, was another update--from $3.35 to $3.80--instituted. A subsequent increase to $4.25 an hour ensued in April of 1991. Although the minimum wage has been periodically updated since its inception, the nine year span of the $3.35 rate represents the longest stabilization of the minimum wage without revision since 1950. Stabilization, however, is far too misleading a term. Throughout the prolonged tenure of $3.35 per hour, inflation increased over 33 percent, conditioning a state of escalating impoverishment for minimum and near-minimum wage single earner families. In the 1981-89 period, there are a number of considerations which merit further attention. First among a minimum wage earning family of four, impoverishment deepened from 74 percent of the poverty level in 1981 to 52 percent in 1989. In fact, real income had dropped so far for a family of four by 1989, even two full time minimum wage workers would barely have enabled this family to float slightly above the poverty level--let alone 125 percent of the poverty line. Secondly, across the board of minimum and near minimum wage families, only a family of two earning 125 percent of the minimum wage existed above 125 percent of the poverty level in 1981. This group however, fell below 125 percent of the poverty level in 1985 and further declined to the official poverty cutoff point by 1989. Finally, in Tables 5 and 6, despite a 24 percent increase in the minimum wage in 1991, impoverishment was only temporarily suppressed due to the overwhelming cumulative inflation from 1981- 1989. Even with current increases, all family types were less in the grip of poverty in 1981 than in 1991. Furthermore, the impoverishment process continues once the current rate is maintained for any length of time. Underdevelopment: The Foundational Context The purpose of comparing and interrelating data in Tables 1-4 with impoverishment indexes among the wage earning class is not to suggest minimum wage stagnation as the sole causal factor in either black poverty or the rise of the black female family headed population of families, but rather to identify this process as an intensifier of these conditions when operating in conjunction with a number of other crucial variables and foundational contexts in the black community. A key foundational context through which the impoverishment process operates, is the underdeveloped inner city black community. Underdevelopment for the black community is the product of the historical accumulation of socioeconomic deprivation and the large scale historical confinement of a high percentage of the black labouring class to a low wage orientation. Primarily, this overarching condition was created through the "racial-caste" system in the pre-1870 era and further modified and institutionalized in occupational segregation and racial oppression in the political, economic and community spheres throughout the 1870-1950 era (Wilson: 1978: 306). These two stages of race relations of which Wilson speaks, heavily structured the emergence of large underdeveloped black sectors in numerous metropolitan inner cities generally marked by the following conditions a) high absentee ownership of capital and land; b) a large reserve army of labour-- the unemployed; c) a relatively large class of unskilled labour prepared primarily for low wage work; d) a predominance in the territory of low wage occupations and positions. These zones, throughout the 1950s and 1960s faced the additional and well documented problem of the White Flight to suburbia, which in turn, deteriorated the overall tax base of inner cities and subsequently fostered an erosion in both the quality and quantity of community support mechanisms, primarily in the spheres of education and public institutional services. Moreover, throughout the Twentieth century and continuing during the 1950-70 period was a constant interregional migration of blacks from the rural and urban South to northern urban centers such as Newark, New York, Detroit, Cleveland, and Philadelphia. While interregional migration was partially siphoned within bottom layers of a growth oriented industrial complex, a sizeable reserve army of labour was also created in northern urban centers during this period. Since underdevelopment in the black population was historically a product of institutionalized race relations, blacks as a community were largely confined for an extensive period of time to the same geographic territory of particular inner cities despite emergent intraracial class differences during the industrial expansion of the Twentieth Century. Class differentiation was primarily a dual-pronged process in the black population. First, as Wilson (1978: 316-17) suggests, a middle class developed in spite of segregation policies in the first half of the twentieth century through numerous blacks taking on typical middle class positions to serve the needs and commercial market of the black community. A second avenue to class differentiation resided in the occupational differentiation of the black working class from unskilled, low skilled, and a reserve army of labour before the 1930s to an unskilled, low skilled, reserve army, and the upward occupational mobility among the skilled working class during the 1950-1970 era. In as much as segregation policies confined the spatial expression of class differentiation within the boundaries of the black inner city community, however, a protective buffer was maintained for the commercial sector and the corresponding occupational positions directly born and maintained from the prosperity of these zones. The gains witnessed in the civil legislation of the 1960s, however, gave rise to the Black Flight--the suburbanization of the black middle class. Spatially expressed class differentiation thus broke out of the racially- enforced traditional urban center pattern and accelerated throughout the 1970s and 1980s. This phenomenon had the latent dysfunction of aiding inner city underdevelopment through weakening the existing tax base of black urban centers and further deteriorating the commercial sectors of these zones--heavily supported by the black working and middle class before the flight to suburbia. Hence the black poverty class--men, women, and teens- -already plagued by high unemployment and low wage incomes, had to face a deepening problem of the shutdown of low wage commercial, retail and service work within their respective urban centers The full face of urban underdevelopment was, in other words, partially masked between the 1950-1970 era due to the weighted presence of the upper layer black working and middle classes. As these segments continue to relocate in the 1990s and through the early decades of 21st century, we can expect the black inner city sector to become an increasingly homogeneous zone of underdevelopment. Another significant--though highly regionally based--problem further sets the context for a discussion of the impoverishment process. In the post-1970 northeast, a massive industrial shift created an escalation in black inner city unemployment, not only among blacks laid off and dislocated by the shift, but for scores of teens which would eventually fulfill these positions. Although the industrial shift hardly affected the South with the same magnitude felt in the North, a number of older Southern urban centers with a concentration in traditional industry sectors also experienced similar effects of the industrial shift. Impoverishment, Underdevelopment, and the Female Headed Family The process of systematic impoverishment due to federal policies of minimum wage stagnation operates with a devastating effect in the larger context of the underdeveloped black community. While poverty is significantly structured through high unemployment rates affecting both the young male population and female headed family, the interaction of impoverishment and underdevelopment intensifies the deterioration of not only the community, but the family structure as well. Based on the data presented in the previous tables, I suggest the black low wage class--for whom minimum and near minimum wage opportunities have been a principal source of income--is continuing to undergo systematic impoverishment so radically far below the official poverty cutoff level, there is a correlative rapid deterioration of support mechanisms encouraging intact married couple families. While it is fairly easy to contemplate the impossibility of the intact family among unemployed and part-time employees, the intact family type has increasingly become a less viable, possible, and even rational option for typical low wage earning males and females in underdeveloped urban centers. Furthermore, sustained decreases in real income due to minimum wage stabilization have directly increased the low wage class's connectedness upon the State for cash and food income assistance. Welfare subsistence has become increasingly utilized as a subsistence-like form of economy to close the gap between real income and needs in an increasingly underdeveloped inner city landscape. Even among teens growing up within welfare-connected families, discouraging job prospects and dropping real incomes in low wage opportunities are the prime movers governing intergenerational welfare reliance rather than a cultural transmission of an orientation to or dependence upon welfare. Consider for instance, the prospects for an unmarried inner city couple in their late teens in 1990. Let us assume they are both from families who have received some form of cash or food assistance, and have completed high school yet do not attend college due to the serious financial constraints of their respective backgrounds. They emerge from high school seeking steady paying work in the context of their community--where a majority of all youth first make contact with the full time labour force--only to find more than half of their peers unemployed and the number of minimum and near minimum wage opportunities steadily decreasing. Let us assume the young male lands a minimum wage position outside the black community. The male will quickly realize his yearly wage places him, as a single earner, slightly above the poverty line yet below 125 percent of this level. Were he to marry and have a child within one year, the status of his family income would fall to 81 percent of the poverty level in the first year, and with the addition of a single child, decline to 75 percent of the poverty level in the second year of his marriage. Hence, the couple may not so much make a "choice" for non-marriage, but rather a non-decision over the course of their relationship leading ultimately to the divergence of their paths and the possible creation of either an unemployed or single earning female headed household. Had the couple married, they would have most probably joined the ranks the welfare-connected population. Although in this hypothetical case I have spoke of a non- decision with clearly an emphasis upon the male and the course of his action in this instance, consider also, the 60+ percent unemployment rates of black teens in particular urban centers. Females, due to the ongoingness of these conditions, may also increasingly intuitively gravitate toward decisions and non- decisions favoring non-marriage due to the financial constraint placed upon an emerging intact family with an unemployed or only- sporadically employed male. The interaction of high unemployment (for various reasons in various regions), fewer wage opportunities, and the impoverishment of low wage positions may significantly influence the prospect of marriage to be a dismal one. Females as well as males, may feel, given these structural constraints, a greater degree of conceivable subsistence, self coordination and, indeed, control over the paths of their lives can be exercised in non-marriage rather than marriage at the present time. While neither decision (or arrived-at non decision) elevates the low wage class from poverty, the former may be subjectively perceived as a more logical path. At a broader level of interpretation, notions of "non- decision" or "choice" obviously invoke deeper cultural ideas and orientations toward marriage and the meaning of marriage. While a culture of poverty approach has repeatedly expressed either a differentiation, distortion and/or regression of the values of the poor with the wider mainstream orientation, there is no reason, nor has it been empirically proven that either the black low wage class--or the low wage class in general--values the institution of marriage any less than their counterparts in upper income strata. Indeed, it is possible, although further investigation would highly substantiate this thesis, that current "non-decisions" or "choices" resulting in non-marriage may actually re-affirm and re-confirm a highly internalized value ideal toward marriage and the intact- family, but one that can not presently be actualized due to existing structural constraints. TABLE ONE Median Income and Number (000) of Families, by Race and Family Earner Type 1988 | Earning Composition | Race | 1E 2E 3E 4E NE Overall -----------+-------------------------------------------------------+---------- B | 14006 31875 42002 53635 6108 | 19329.000 | 2573 2654 639 179 1364 | 7409 -----------+-------------------------------------------------------+---------- H | 15841 28406 36897 49138 6545 | 21769.000 | 1568 1891 530 213 622 | 4824 -----------+-------------------------------------------------------+---------- W | 25993 39413 49927 65853 15552 | 33915.000 | 15107 25513 5798 2255 7820 | 56493 -----------+-------------------------------------------------------+---------- Overall | 23872.000 38702.000 48977.000 64920.000 13729.000 | 32191.000 | 19248 30058 6967 2647 9806 | 68726 TABLE TWO Number (000) and Percent of Earner Family Types, by Race 1988 | Earning Composition | Race| 1E 2E 3E 4E NE Total -----------+-------------------------------------------------------+---------- B | 2573 2654 639 179 1364 | 7409 | 34.73 35.82 8.62 2.42 18.41 | 100.00 -----------+-------------------------------------------------------+---------- H | 1568 1891 530 213 622 | 4824 | 32.50 39.20 10.99 4.42 12.89 | 100.00 -----------+-------------------------------------------------------+---------- W | 15107 25513 5798 2255 7820 | 56493 | 26.74 45.16 10.26 3.99 13.84 | 100.00 -----------+-------------------------------------------------------+---------- Total| 19248 30058 6967 2647 9806 | 68726 | 28.01 43.74 10.14 3.85 14.27 | 100.00 Earner Composition refers to the distribution of family earning types. NE represents No Earners within the Family, 1E referes to families with a single earner, and so on. 4E represents a family type with four or more earners. Source: Compiled from US Bureau of Census, Current Population Reports in Universal Almanac, 1991:212. TABLE THREE Number (000) and Percent of Family Types, by Race 1988 | Family Type | Race| FH MH WH WL Total -----------+--------------------------------------------+---------- B | 3223 464 1308 2414 | 7409 | 43.50 6.26 17.65 32.58 | 100.00 -----------+--------------------------------------------+---------- H | 1112 314 1632 1766 | 4824 | 23.05 6.51 33.83 36.61 | 100.00 -----------+--------------------------------------------+---------- W | 7342 2274 20475 26402 | 56493 | 13.00 4.03 36.24 46.73 | 100.00 -----------+--------------------------------------------+---------- Total| 11677 3052 23415 30582 | 68726 | 16.99 4.44 34.07 44.50 | 100.00 TABLE FOUR Median Income and Number of Families (000), by Race and Family Type 1988 | Family Type | Race| FH MH WH WL Overall -----------+--------------------------------------------+---------- B | 10657 17853 18515 36709 | 19329.000 | 3223 464 1308 2414 | 7409 -----------+--------------------------------------------+---------- H | 10687 21937 19117 31864 | 21769.000 | 1112 314 1632 1766 | 4824 -----------+--------------------------------------------+---------- W | 17672 28935 27958 43182 | 33915.000 | 7342 2274 20475 26402 | 56493 -----------+--------------------------------------------+---------- Overall | 15346.00 26827.00 27220.00 42709.00 | 32191.00 | 11677 3052 23415 30582 | 68726 Family Type refers to the distribution of family types within a give population of families. [FH] refers to Female Headed Families with no Husband Present; [MH] depicts Husband Headed Households with no wife Present. Married Couples assume two potential family types: [WH] indicates Married Couples with wives not in the labour force; while [WL] refers to Maried Couples with wives in the labour force. Source: Compiled from US Bureau of Census, Current Population Reports in Universal Almanac, 1991:212. TABLE FIVE YEARLY INCOME AT MINIMUM WAGE, 125% OF MINIMUM WAGE AND POVERTY CUTOFF LEVELS 1971, 1981-1991 Year [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] 1971 1.60 3,200 4,000 3,944 3,080 2,569 1981 3.35 6,700 8,375 9,050 7,348 6,166 1982 3.35 6,700 8,375 9,501 7,735 6,490 1983 3.35 6,700 8,375 10,178 7,983 6,697 1984 3.35 6,700 8,375 10,609 8,277 6,983 1985 3.35 6,700 8,375 10,989 8,573 7,231 1986 3.35 6,700 8,375 11,203 8,737 7,372 1987 3.35 6,700 8,375 11,611 9,056 7,641 1988 3.35 6,700 8,375 12,092 9,435 7,958 1989 3.35 6,700 8,375 12,781 9,973 8,412 1990 3.35-3.80 7,150 8,938 13,381 10,381 8,807 1991 3.80-4.25 8,275 10,344 14,050 10,050 9,247 [A]=Minimu Wage. MW. US Department of Labour, in Universal Almanac, 1991: 224. [B]=Yearly Income. Yearly Income is calculated as follows: YI = (MW*40hrs/wk)*50wks/year). It includes before-tax money income derived from the minimum wage standard. See Froman, 1984: 53-55. [C]=YI 125% of Minimum Wage. 125% percent of the Mininum Wage (as in the case of 125% of the Poverty Level) sets a standard for exceptionally low income wage work. Often this work is filled by those with low skills and without education or skills training beyond high school. These jobs tend to be clustered in the rural South as well as poverty tracts of the inner cities across the nation. They also increasingly predominate the service sector of the corporate franchise system. [D]=Poverty Level Family of Four. Source: US Burea of the Census, Current Population Reports in Universal Almanac 1991:214; World Almanac 1990: 561; World Almanac 1989: 542; World Almanac 1987: 227; World Almanac 1973: 149. [E]=Poverty Level Family of Three. [F]=Poverty Level Family of Two. TABLE SIX Impoverishment Impoverishment Indexes for Minimum Wage Workers and Workers at 125% of the Minimum Wage By Family Type 1971, 1981-1991 Year [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] 1971 0.81 1.04 1.25 1.01 1.30 1.56 1981 0.74 0.91 1.09 0.93 1.14 1.36 1982 0.71 0.87 1.03 0.88 1.08 1.29 1983 0.66 0.84 1.00 0.82 1.05 1.25 1984 0.63 0.81 0.96 0.79 1.01 1.20 1985 0.61 0.78 0.93 0.76 0.98 1.16 1986 0.60 0.77 0.91 0.75 0.96 1.14 1987 0.58 0.74 0.88 0.72 0.92 1.10 1988 0.55 0.71 0.84 0.69 0.89 1.05 1989 0.52 0.67 0.80 0.66 0.84 1.00 1990 0.53 0.68 0.81 0.67 0.86 1.01 1991 0.59 0.75 0.89 0.74 0.94 1.12 [A]=Impoverishment Index Family of Four. The Poverty Level is adjusted yearly to take inflation into account. The Improvishment Index reveals the [Yearly Income at MW/Poverty Level] Ratio. Hence a result of 1.00 places a respective family of 4, 3, or 2 right at the poverty level, while 1.25 places a family at 125% of the Poverty Level. [B]=Impoverishment Index Family of Three. [C]=Impoverishment Index Family of Two. [D]=Impoverishment Index Family of Four at 125% of Minimum Wage. Represents [Yearly Income at 125% of the Minimum Wage/Poverty Level] Ratio. Hence a result of 1.00 places a respective family of 4, 3, or 2 right at the poverty level, while 1.25 places a family at 125% of the Poverty Level. [E]=Impoverishment Index Family of Three at 125% of Minumun Wage. [F]=Impoverishment Index Family of Two at 125% of Minumum Wage. BIBLIOGRAPHY Froman, C. 1984. The Two American Political Systems: Society Economics and Politics. Englewood Cliffs: New Jersey. Shannon, T. 1983. Urban Problems. New York: Random House. WA (World Almanac). New York: World Almanac/Scripps Howard. 1973. 1987. 1989. 1990. US Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports. Wilson, W.J. "The Declining Significance of Race: From Racial Oppression to Class Subordination" (1978), in Structured Social Inequality. 1987. ed. by Celia S. Heller. New York: MacMillan Publishing Co. Wright, J.W. ed. 1990. UA 1991 (Universal Almanac) Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel. US Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports. US Department of Labour, Statistical Reports.