Defining and measuring the underclass

Research on the underclass has been hampered by the absence of a clear definition of the term. In this article we develop an operational definition of the underclass that is consistent with the emphasis of most of the underclass literature on behavior rather than poverty. Using this definition, we anlyze data for all census tracts in the United States in 1980. According to our definition, about one percent of the U.S. population lived in “underclass areas” in 1980, and this group was overwhelmingly concentrated in urban areas. It was also disproportionately made up of minorities living in the older industrial cities of the Northeast.