Lost in the storm: The sociology of the black working class, 1850 to 1990

Contemporary sociologists implicitly have assumed that the raw-class debate has been resolved: Blacks tend to fall in one of two categories-"the black middle class" or the "trully disadvantaged." However; lost amid the contro versies over the supposed privileges of the former Md the problems of the f atter is the plight of the "forgotten" category of blacks: the black workin g class. Accordingly, ute present a sociological analysis of the black work ing class and ask: How has the black working class changed compared it, its white counterpart from 1850 to 1990? Employing the Integrated Public Use M icrodata Series (IPUMS) for our analysis, we find that for the last five de cades blacks are mom likely to be working class than middle class or bottom class, In addition, blacks currently am more likely to be working class th an are whites. In fact, in recent decades the percentage of blacks who are working class exceeds those for whites and indeed, are higher than ever rec orded for whites.