Many working families continue to struggle in the aftermath of the Great Recession, the deepest and longest economic downturn since the Great Depression. In Children of the Great Recession, a group of leading scholars draw from a unique study of nearly 5,000 economically and ethnically diverse families in twenty cities to analyze the effects of the Great Recession on parents and young children. By exploring the discrepancies in outcomes between these families—particularly between those headed by parents with college degrees and those without—this timely book shows how the most disadvantaged families have continued to suffer as a result of the Great Recession.

Several contributors examine the recession’s impact on the economic well-being of families, including changes to income, poverty levels, and economic insecurity. Irwin Garfinkel and Natasha Pilkauskas find that in cities with high unemployment rates during the recession, incomes for families with a college-educated mother fell by only about 5 percent, whereas families without college degrees experienced income losses three to four times greater. Garfinkel and Pilkauskas also show that the number of non-college-educated families enrolled in federal safety net programs—including Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (or food stamps)—grew rapidly in response to the Great Recession.

Other researchers examine how parents’ physical and emotional health, relationship stability, and parenting behavior changed over the course of the recession. Janet Currie and Valentina Duque find that while mothers and fathers across all education groups experienced more health problems as a result of the downturn, health disparities by education widened. Daniel Schneider, Sara McLanahan and Kristin Harknett find decreases in marriage and cohabitation rates among less-educated families, and Ronald Mincy and Elia de la Cruz-Toledo show that as unemployment rates increased, nonresident fathers’ child support payments decreased. William Schneider, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, and Jane Waldfogel show that fluctuations in unemployment rates negatively affected parenting quality and child well-being, particularly for families where the mother did not have a four-year college degree.

Although the recession affected most Americans, Children of the Great Recession reveals how vulnerable parents and children paid a higher price. The research in this volume suggests that policies that boost college access and reinforce the safety net could help protect disadvantaged families in times of economic crisis.

IRWIN GARFINKEL is the Mitchell I. Ginsberg Professor of Contemporary Urban Problems and co-founding director of the Columbia Population Research Center (CPRC) at Columbia University.

SARA MCLANAHAN is the William S. Tod Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University.

CHRISTOPHER WIMER is Research Scientist at the Columbia Population Research Center (CPRC) at Columbia University.

Honorable Mention 2018 Society for Social Work and Research Outstanding Social Work Book Award

Watch Kristin Seefeldt discuss her book Abandoned Families: Social Isolation in the 21st Century. March, 2017.

“This is a remarkable narrative of how institutions that traditionally promote social mobility and inclusion have abandoned striving families in Detroit, a city that has also been forsaken. Based mainly on intensive interviews of low- and moderate-income mothers from 2006 to 2011, Kristin S. Seefeldt’s riveting account of their struggles and her thoughtful policy suggestions to address their plight make Abandoned Families a must-read for scholars, policymakers, and lay readers. I strongly recommend this book as one of the most powerful studies of urban inequality in the last half century.”

—William Julius Wilson, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University

“The study of poverty has advanced, like all good science, through increasingly specialized studies of declining employment, growing segregation, sky-high incarceration, increasing debt, and much more. In Abandoned Families, Kristin S. Seefeldt reassembles the big picture of U.S. poverty, demonstrating that the poor have been abandoned by each and every institution with which they engage. It’s a tale of wholesale systemic failure that makes it clear that, when it comes to poverty policy, no one’s minding the store.”

—David B. Grusky, Barbara Kimball Browning Professor and director, Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality

Education, employment, and home ownership have long been considered stepping stones to the middle class. But in Abandoned Families, social policy expert Kristin Seefeldt shows how many working families have access only to a separate but unequal set of poor-quality jobs, low-performing schools, and declining housing markets which offer few chances for upward mobility. Through in-depth interviews over a six-year period with women in Detroit, Seefeldt charts the increasing social isolation of many low-income workers, particularly African Americans, and analyzes how economic and residential segregation keep them from achieving the American Dream of upward mobility.

Seefeldt explores the economic and political obstacles that have altered the pathways for opportunity. She finds that while many low-income individuals work, enroll in higher education, and attempt to use social safety net benefits in times of crisis, they primarily have access to subpar institutions, which often hamper their efforts to get ahead. Many of these workers hold unstable, low-paying service sector jobs that provide few paths for advancement and exacerbate their social isolation. Those who pursue higher education to gain qualifications for better paying jobs often enroll in for-profit schools and online programs that push them into debt but rarely lead to secure employment or even a degree. And while home ownership was once the best way to establish wealth, Seefeldt finds that in declining cities like Detroit, it can saddle low-income owners with underwater mortgages in depopulated neighborhoods. Finally, she shows that the 1996 federal welfare reform and other retrenchments in the social safety net have made it more difficult for struggling families to access public benefits that could alleviate their economic hardships. When benefits are difficult to access, families often take on debt as a way of managing. Taken together, these factors contribute to what Seefeldt calls the “social abandonment” of vulnerable families.

Abandoned Families is a timely, on-the-ground assessment of hardship in contemporary America. Seefeldt exposes the shortcomings of the institutions that once fostered upward mobility and shows how sweeping policy measures—including new labor protections, expansion of the social safety net, increased regulation of for-profit colleges, and reparations—could help lift up those who have fallen behind.

KRISTIN S. SEEFELDT is assistant professor of social work at the University of Michigan.

Winner of the 2017 William T. Goode Distinguished Book Award from the Family Section of the American Sociological Association

2017 Choice Outstanding Academic Title 

“Tracing the journeys to adulthood of 150 impoverished kids from inner-city Baltimore, this powerful book illuminates the importance of both neighborhood and personal identity. These kids are our kids too, and this book helps us understand their lives more fully.”

—ROBERT D. PUTNAM, Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy, Harvard University

“Stefanie DeLuca, Susan Clampet-Lundquist, and Kathryn Edin have written a deeply empathetic and insightful book providing a nuanced portrait of the tremendous resilience and untapped potential of low-income minority youth attempting to pursue the American Dream in the face of profound neighborhood and educational disadvantages in the other America. Their analysis suggests large gains from housing mobility and community development policies to improve the neighborhood environments experienced by disadvantaged children and youth.”

—LAWRENCE F. KATZ, Elisabeth Allison Professor of Economics, Harvard University

“Coming of Age in the Other America tells the complex story of becoming an adult today in cities like Baltimore, where opportunities for youth are extremely limited. In contrast to stereotypes about minority inner-city adolescents, many of these resilient youth escaped the pull of the streets andachieved far more than their own parents. Yet, given the myriad of barriers that they face, too many others fall short of their potential. The account is heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. Anyone who wishes to understand how and why the path to adulthood is constrained for youth in our cities today must read this remarkable book. Coming of Age in the Other America is riveting, distressing, and uplifting all at once.”

—JEANNE BROOKS-GUNN, Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Child Development, Teachers College and College of Physicians and Surgeons

Recent research on inequality and poverty has shown that those born into low-income families, especially African Americans, still have difficulty entering the middle class, in part because of the disadvantages they experience living in more dangerous neighborhoods, going to inferior public schools, and persistent racial inequality. Coming of Age in the Other America shows that despite overwhelming odds, some disadvantaged urban youth do achieve upward mobility. Drawing from ten years of fieldwork with parents and children who resided in Baltimore public housing, sociologists Stefanie DeLuca, Susan Clampet-Lundquist, and Kathryn Edin highlight the remarkable resiliency of some of the youth who hailed from the nation’s poorest neighborhoods and show how the right public policies might help break the cycle of disadvantage.

Coming of Age in the Other America illuminates the profound effects of neighborhoods on impoverished families. The authors conducted in-depth interviews and fieldwork with 150 young adults, and found that those who had been able to move to better neighborhoods—either as part of the Moving to Opportunity program or by other means—achieved much higher rates of high school completion and college enrollment than their parents. About half the youth surveyed reported being motivated by an “identity project”—or a strong passion such as music, art, or a dream job—to finish school and build a career.

Yet the authors also found troubling evidence that some of the most promising young adults often fell short of their goals and remained mired in poverty. Factors such as neighborhood violence and family trauma put these youth on expedited paths to adulthood, forcing them to shorten or end their schooling and find jobs much earlier than their middle-class counterparts. Weak labor markets and subpar postsecondary educational institutions, including exploitative for-profit trade schools and under-funded community colleges, saddle some young adults with debt and trap them in low-wage jobs. A third of the youth surveyed—particularly those who had not developed identity projects—were neither employed nor in school. To address these barriers to success, the authors recommend initiatives that help transform poor neighborhoods and provide institutional support for the identity projects that motivate youth to stay in school. They propose increased regulation of for-profit schools and increased college resources for low-income high school students.

Coming of Age in the Other America presents a sensitive, nuanced account of how a generation of ambitious but underprivileged young Baltimoreans has struggled to succeed. It both challenges long-held myths about inner-city youth and shows how the process of “social reproduction”—where children end up stuck in the same place as their parents—is far from inevitable.

STEFANIE DELUCA is associate professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University.

SUSAN CLAMPET-LUNDQUIST is associate professor of sociology at Saint Joseph’s University.

KATHRYN EDIN is Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University.

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

“A Pound of Flesh is a critical and timely book on a great contemporary American injustice: the imposition of legal fines and fees through the criminal courts. Alexes Harris’ pioneering research documents the widespread practice of charging fines and fees to people who have contact with the criminal justice system—including some who are never convicted of a crime. The imposition of fines and fees creates a two-tiered legal system that separates those who have the ability to pay from those who don’t. Through careful fieldwork and revealing interviews, Harris shows how judges and court clerks use fines and fees to punish poor people in unequal and enduring ways. Even small amounts of legal debt can be insurmountable obstacles for people living on the margins. A Pound of Flesh is a revolutionary book that has already made an impact on the national policy conversation. It provides an eye-opening account of how the American legal system shapes inequality and how inequality impacts access to justice.”

—Becky Pettit, professor of sociology, The University of Texas at Austin

“A Pound of Flesh is a rich and disturbing account of the new administrative penology that has seeped into every corner of contemporary criminal justice. Alexes Harris uses a full analytic toolkit to show the structure of legal financial obligations that have eclipsed the traditional adjudication role of the courts. Everyone pays, both the guilty and the innocent. Her chilling account reveals the strong embrace of these fines and fees—a regime of defendant taxation—in the everyday culture of criminal justice. Harris sounds an alarm for those who place the principles of due process above the power of the administrative state.”

—Jeffrey Fagan, Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, Columbia Law School

“Until recently, monetary sanctions remained a largely hidden element of the criminal justice system. Alexes Harris exposes the costs and consequences of these sanctions through a detailed and far-reaching examination. Drawing on legal precedent, state practices, and in-depth interviews, Harris uncovers the unique penalties faced by the poor in encounters with the criminal justice system, as unpayable legal debt becomes a source of permanent punishment. A Pound of Flesh is a must read for those interested in punishment and inequality in America.”

—Devah Pager, professor of sociology and public policy,John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Over seven million Americans are either incarcerated, on probation, or on parole, with their criminal records often following them for life and affecting access to higher education, jobs, and housing. Court-ordered monetary sanctions that compel criminal defendants to pay fines, fees, surcharges, and restitution further inhibit their ability to reenter society. In A Pound of Flesh, sociologist Alexes Harris analyzes the rise of monetary sanctions in the criminal justice system and shows how they permanently penalize and marginalize the poor. She exposes the damaging effects of a little-understood component of criminal sentencing and shows how it further perpetuates racial and economic inequality.

Harris draws from extensive sentencing data, legal documents, observations of court hearings, and interviews with defendants, judges, prosecutors, and other court officials. She documents how low-income defendants are affected by monetary sanctions, which include fees for public defenders and a variety of processing charges. Until these debts are paid in full, individuals remain under judicial supervision, subject to court summons, warrants, and jail stays. As a result of interest and surcharges that accumulate on unpaid financial penalties, these monetary sanctions often become insurmountable legal debts which many offenders carry for the remainder of their lives. Harris finds that such fiscal sentences, which are imposed disproportionately on low-income minorities, help create a permanent economic underclass and deepen social stratification.

A Pound of Flesh delves into the court practices of five counties in Washington State to illustrate the ways in which subjective sentencing shapes the practice of monetary sanctions. Judges and court clerks hold a considerable degree of discretion in the sentencing and monitoring of monetary sanctions and rely on individual values—such as personal responsibility, meritocracy, and paternalism—to determine how much and when offenders should pay. Harris shows that monetary sanctions are imposed at different rates across jurisdictions, with little or no state government oversight. Local officials’ reliance on their own values and beliefs can also push offenders further into debt—for example, when judges charge defendants who lack the means to pay their fines with contempt of court and penalize them with additional fines or jail time.

A Pound of Flesh provides a timely examination of how monetary sanctions permanently bind poor offenders to the judicial system. Harris concludes that in letting monetary sanctions go unchecked, we have created a two-tiered legal system that imposes additional burdens on already-marginalized groups.

ALEXES HARRIS is associate professor of sociology at the University of Washington.