Editing Underclass (section)

===Economic characteristics===
The economic dimension is the most basic and least contested theme of the underclass – the underclass is overwhelmingly poor. The underclass experiences high levels of joblessness, and what little employment its members hold in the formal economy is best described as precarious labor.<ref name="Jenks growing">{{cite book|last=Jenks|first=Christopher|title="Is the American Underclass Growing?" in The Urban Underclass|year=1990|publisher=The Brookings Institution|location=Washington, D.C.|isbn=0-8157-4605-9|pages=[https://archive.org/details/urbanunderclass0000unse/page/28 28–100]|editor=Christopher Jenks and Paul E. Peterson|url=https://archive.org/details/urbanunderclass0000unse/page/28}}</ref> However, it is important to note that simply being poor is not synonymous with being part of the underclass. The underclass is ''persistently poor'' and, for most definitions, the underclass live in areas of [[concentrated poverty]].<ref name="TDA" /><ref>{{cite book|last=Cottingham|first=Clement|title="Introduction" in Race, Poverty, and the Urban Underclass|year=1982|publisher=Lexington Book|location=Washington, D.C.|isbn=0-669-04730-9|pages=1–13|editor=Clement Cottingham}}</ref><ref name="Ricketts and Sawhill">{{cite journal|last=Ricketts|first=Erol|author2=Isabel Sawhill |title=Defining and Measuring the Underclass|journal=Journal of Policy Analysis and Management|year=1988|volume=7|series=2|issue=2|pages=316–325|jstor=3323831|doi=10.2307/3323831}}</ref> Some scholars, such as Ricketts and Sawhill, argue that being poor is not a requirement for underclass membership, and thus there are individuals who are non-poor members of the underclass because they live in "underclass areas" and embody other characteristics of the underclass, such as being violent, criminal, and anti-social (e.g., gang leaders).<ref name="Ricketts and Sawhill" />