Underclass

In Murray’s account, a group at the bottom of society characterised by dependency and behaviour he regarded as outside mainstream values. This definition is contested.

In Losing Ground (1984), Charles Murray argued that American society had a growing underclass. His explanation is closely associated with the New Right, which emphasises self-reliance and traditional values, and argues that generous welfare can weaken incentives to work.

A contested term for a group at the bottom of society, defined either by exclusion from prosperity or, in accounts such as Murray’s, by supposedly distinctive behaviour and values.

Do not treat receiving benefits as evidence of fraud, unwillingness to work or membership of an underclass.

Distinguish poverty, which concerns a lack of resources, from Murray’s underclass, which he identified through behaviour and values.

In Murray’s theory, a group at the bottom of society distinguished by welfare dependency and behaviour and values that he believed differed from mainstream expectations. This is a contested description, not simply another name for everyone in poverty.

A disputed category describing a group supposedly outside mainstream society. Murray associated it with long-term worklessness, welfare dependency, births outside marriage and crime, rather than simply low income.

Charles Murray is an American political scientist associated with the New Right, a perspective emphasising individual responsibility and questioning extensive welfare provision. He applied his underclass argument to Britain in a 1989 essay, expanded into The Emerging British Underclass in 1990.

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AQA GCSE Sociology · 8192

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Eduqas GCSE Sociology · C200