The Bottom Line

Abstract

in the view of poverty is that peo ple are poor because they do not work. Edin and Lein (1997) summarize this view say ing, Lazy women had babies to get money from the welfare system, the story went, and then let lazy boyfriends share their beds and live off their benefits. These lazy and immoral adults then raised lazy and im moral children, creating a vicious cycle of dependency (p. 21). What their study shows, however, is that this highly agentic view ignores important structural limita tions, and that most of the poor work. The following exercise helps dispel students' misconceptions about the working poor. Through extensive primary-data collection and assembling a budget for low-skilled workers, the exercise 1) challenges stu dents' current thinking about concepts they hear every day such as the American dream and equal opportunity, 2) pro vides insight into the everyday challenges of the working poor, and 3) helps students gain a better understanding of government programs targeted to the poor. We have used this exercise in a variety of courses, including the freshman-level intro ductory course when discussing stratifica tion, in freshman-level courses on urban sociology when discussing inner-city pov erty, and as a capstone project in an upper level stratification course. We used this