The Way We Never Were Chapter Summary

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Recommended: Poverty as a development problem

Chapter ten of The Way We Never Were by Stephanie Coontz focuses on the differentiation between caucasian and african americans. In this chapter, Coontz claims that the root cause of poverty is associated with “dramatic social and familial changes” (pg 311). Having a family that supports each other is very important. Not having a family that supports each other makes it very challenging financially.
In this part, Coontz claims that the root cause of pay discrepancy is what race you are which is affecting a wide variety of Americans. The statistics are very surprising, “it takes three black men, making the median income for blacks, to clear the median U.S family income, which is $26,433. If our hypothetical Black family is to enter the the middle-class mainstream, which means home ownership, it will need …show more content…

In addition with the poor pay that african american male face, they also are discriminated in jobs. As mentioned in chapter ten, “young black men applying for entry-level jobs were rejected three times more often than were their white peers” (pg 310). This statement supports the previous quote through a wide variety of ways. By not being accepted into entry level jobs, it makes their lives very challenging by the lack of jobs that pay much a significant amount. As a result, black males who can’t get the jobs they would like turn to jobs where they know they can work. Typically, young black men turn to where they can get jobs. Some places that were they are accepted into are the minimum wage jobs. Although they can get jobs, the jobs they can get don’t get paid as much as the entry level jobs where they get declined at. With the jobs near minimum wage, it makes it very challenging for african americans to escape poverty. Our society needs to focus on viewing everyone with equality and not to be racist towards different ethnic

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