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Wage Trajectories of Workers in Poor Households

The view that poverty is a trap with few avenues out has been used by both conservatives and liberals to advance their political agendas. For the cultural conservatives, the lack of upward mobility is a sign of a “culture of poverty” that can only be changed by instilling a work ethic among those who fail to take responsibility for their own plight. On the other side are the traditional liberals who point to the lack of mobility as a sign of the need for large-scale public interventions to compensate for the lack of opportunity. While the policy prescriptions differ, the premise is the same—mobility is rare. Katherine Newman’s No Shame in My Game and its follow-up, “In the Long Run: Career Patterns and Cultural Values in the Low Wage Labor Force” (hereafter referred to as the “Long Run” study), called this conventional wisdom into question. While broad statistical studies have previously shown that escape from poverty is possible, if not the norm, Newman’s longitudinal research showed that upward mobility was evident for a surprising number of workers who were previously thoughts to be hopelessly stuck “flipping burgers”. According to Newman, most of the low-skilled workers she studied in Harlem in 1993-94 were indeed treading water four years later. There were, however, a substantial number of “high flyers” who started on the shop floor