The quantitative concerns of economic analysis frequently distract our attention from the social and cultural impacts of macroeconomic change. As the American economy has suffered through two decades of slow and painful adjustment to altogether new historical, structural, and institutional conditions, the consequences for individuals and groups of individuals have been profound. Recognizing those impacts and pondering their significance must also be part of understanding and surmounting American economic decline.

Structural economic change has dramatically affected the distribution of wealth and income, and thereby the relative welfare of Americans. Refracted along the lines of race and gender, these welfare changes are particularly vivid. M. V. Lee Badgett and Rhonda M. Williams report striking new data concerning the social contours of structural economic change. In a society that for generations has grown used to unhindered economic growth and expansion, recent decline has been a shock. Utilizing the perspective of cultural anthropology, Katherine S. Newman deploys field research findings that speak, in human terms, of the troubled times in which we live.