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Are the unemployed more likely to commit crimes? Does having a job make one less likely to commit a crime? Criminologists have found that individuals who are marginalized from the labor market are more likely to commit crimes, and communities with more members who are marginal to the labor market have higher rates of crime. Yet, as this book explains, contrary to popular expectations, unemployment has been found to be an inconsistent predictor of either individual criminality or collective crime rates. The book offers a carefully nuanced understanding of the links among work, unemployment, and crime, and explains how people's positioning in the labor market affects their participation in all kinds of crimes, from violent acts to profit-motivated offenses such as theft and drug trafficking. The author draws on his first-hand knowledge of growing up in a poor, black neighborhood in Pittsburgh and later working on the streets as a parole officer, enabling him to develop a more complete understanding of how work and crime are related and both contribute to, and are a result of, social inequalities and disadvantage. The book tells a powerful story of one of the most troubling side effects of economic disparities in America.

On an average morning in Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Town housing development, birds chirp as early risers dash off to work, elderly residents enjoy a peaceful morning stroll, and flocks of parents usher their children to school. It seems an unlikely location for conflict and strife, yet this eighteen-block area, initially planned as middle-class affordable housing, is the site of an ongoing struggle between long-term, rent-regulated residents and newer, market-rate tenants instigated by new owners seeking to turn the middle-class community into a luxury commodity. Priced Out takes readers into this heated battle as a transitioning neighborhood wrestles with contemporary capitalist strategies and the struggle to preserve renters’ rights. Attempting to replace longtime residents with younger, more affluent tenants, Stuyvesant Town’s owners have disrupted native residents’ sense of place and community, and their perceived quality of life. Through resident interviews, the authors offer an intimate view into the lives of different groups of tenants, neighbors all, involved in this struggle for prime real estate in New York, from students experiencing the city for the first time to baby boomers hanging on to the vestiges of middle-class urban life to older residents who have resided in Stuyvesant Town since it opened in 1947. A compelling account of changing urban landscapes and the struggle for security, Priced Out offers a comprehensive perspective on a community that, to some, is becoming unrecognizable as it is upgraded and altered.

Social Poverty draws on 192 interviews with young, low-income, unmarried parents to investigate the concept of social poverty, using the setting of a government-funded relationship education program. While commentators and academics have excoriated such programs for the value system they imply and their intervention results, participants are huge fans of them. Although critics view participants’ financial needs as dominating their social concerns, participants themselves are acutely aware of their relational needs. These needs drive their participation in and enthusiasm for the program. This study illustrates the fundamental importance to policy and poverty studies of properly understanding social poverty. Social poverty means not having adequate high-quality, trusting social relationships to meet core socioemotional needs. Poverty scholars typically focus on the economic use value of social ties—how relationships enable access to job leads, informal loans, or a spare bedroom. While such resources can be essential, this focus ignores the fundamental place of socioemotional needs in our lives and the extent to which avoiding or alleviating social poverty is a central motivation for many. As one young mother says, without her boyfriend she would “probably be the loneliest person on Earth.” Therefore, to accurately assess policy impacts and comprehend individuals’ behaviors, we must pay attention to both material and social hardships.