In The Myth of the Working Poor, Steven Malanga attacks modern writers following in Michael Harrington’s footsteps:
Forty years ago a young, radical journalist helped ignite the War on Poverty with his pioneering book The Other America. In its pages, Michael Harrington warned that the recently proclaimed age of affluence was a mirage, that beneath the surface of U.S. prosperity lay tens of millions of people stuck in hopeless poverty that only massive government intervention could help.Today, a new generation of journalists is straining to duplicate Harrington’s feat — to convince contemporary America that its economic system doesn’t work for millions and that only government can lift them out of poverty. These new journalists face a tougher task than Harrington’s, though, because all levels of government have spent about $10 trillion on poverty programs since his book appeared, with disappointing, even counterproductive, results. And over the last four decades, millions of poor people, immigrants and native-born alike, have risen from poverty, without recourse to the government programs that Harrington inspired.
[...]
Harrington had seen the poor as victims because they could find no work; his more radical allies, especially a group associated with Columbia University’s social-work school, argued that compelling the demoralized inner-city poor to work or take part in training that would fit them for work, instead of giving them unconditional welfare, was itself victimization. Richard A. Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, for example, argued that America’s poverty programs — “self-righteously oriented toward getting people off welfare” and making them independent — were violating the civil rights of the poor. Journalist Richard Elman claimed that “vindictive” America was “humiliating” welfare recipients by forcing them to seek entry-level work as taxi drivers, restaurant employees, and factory laborers, instead of giving them a guaranteed minimum income.