This document summarizes and compares two theories on the causes of poverty: Oscar Lewis's "culture of poverty" theory from 1966 and Karen Seccombe's 2000 structural theory. Lewis argued that a subculture forms among the poor, characterized by things like dependency, lack of paternal authority, and hostility towards authorities, that perpetuates poverty. However, Seccombe contends that structural factors in the US economy and government are more to blame, such as declining manufacturing jobs and welfare cuts. While Lewis only studied a small sample, Seccombe analyzed large-scale national data. Ultimately, the document concludes that poverty has multiple interconnected causes, both cultural aspects within poor communities and deficiencies in societal institutions.

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The Culture of Poverty Myth:
Misconceptions of Poverty
Kenya A. McIndoe
Rutgers University – Newark

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The Culture of Poverty Myth:
“Culture of Poverty,” the subculture of Western social order (Lewis, 1966, p. 21), is
inherent individual characteristics which collectively perpetuate a cycle of poverty.
Anthropologist, Oscar Lewis (1966) in “The Culture of Poverty,” fashioned this anthropological
phenomenon of poverty being a direct result of specific factors within families of low
socioeconomic status. Rather than highlighting the structural characteristics of American
government, Lewis, as well as many other intellectual thinkers who favor individual
responsibility, deems families’ culture of dependency and lack of paternal authority as the sole
perpetuators of poverty. However, Seccombe (2000) contradicts the individualistic view of
poverty, attributing this phenomenon to structural deficiencies within the US government,
disregarding completely the culture of poverty myth.
In “The Culture of Poverty,” Lewis (1965) elaborates on several key characteristics that
counter cherished ideals of the larger society” (p. 19), and illustrate marginalized families in
poverty. Families in poverty do not engage in American political affairs or labor unions, but are
rather inundated in specialties of low wages – military, jails, and the public welfare system
(Lewis, 1966, p. 21). These very professions offer families in poverty no remedy to their
segregated and disadvantaged environments, seeing as the wages are often low, and unstable in
regards to employment. Since these families work within these unrewarding professions, they as
result, are unable to meet the expectations of the dominant class, who “asserts a set of values that
prizes thrift and the accumulation of wealth and property…and explains low economic status as
the result of individual personal inadequacy and inferiority” (Lewis, 1966, p. 21). As a result of
not having the financial and educational means to gain wealth, families in poverty develop
alternate ways of life – a subculture in which to cope with such stresses of economic shortfall.

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This subculture engages in isolation from mainstream institutions, during which hostility towards
law enforcement personnel are developed and maintained. “Hatred of the police, mistrust of the
government, and those in high positions” (Lewis, 1966, p. 23), are prominent feelings inundated
in the culture of poverty. Without trust in the government, marginalized families prohibit law
enforcement to combat crimes that plague impoverished communities, thus preserving poverty
and allowing the emergence of criminal organizations – gangs. Gangs, Lewis (1965) claims,
“represent a considerable advance beyond the zero point…it is the low level organization that
gives the culture of poverty its marginal and anomalous quality in our highly organized society”
(p. 23). These gangs with memberships of those within the surrounding impoverished
neighborhoods offer youth and its families the highest form of organization that can be achieved
in such impoverished environments; they reject social order as result of their marginalization,
and develop goals which attempt to combat this social order that does not favor their very
existence. According to Lewis (1965), all of these behaviors and ways of life are deemed
customary because of willful alienation from mainstream society. Seeking employment in low
wage professions, hostility towards law enforcement, and alternate organizations which reject
social norms, all perpetuate a culture and deadly cycle of poverty in which marginalization is not
necessarily accepted, but adapted to and revolutionized.
Following the 20th emerged a new, less individualistic method contrary to that of Lewis’
to conceptualize the poverty phenomenon – primarily analyzing the diverse structural problems
within the American government. Karen Seccombe (2000) in “Families in Poverty in the 1990s,”
traces several factors that impact poverty in the United States, all of which being the ever-
changing labor market conditions, the erosion of a safety net for poor families, and the increase
in number of single parent families (p. 1099). Factories, Seccombe (2000) states, which decades

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prior were the primary source of employment for impoverished families, are closing. The closing
of these factories not only further limits the avenues through which impoverished families once
earned income, but polarizes the distribution of wealth to those of higher socioeconomic status.
Seccombe (2000) notes that in upcoming years the limiting labor markets will require
higher/specialized education, and perpetuate unemployment in impoverished communities (p.
1099). An additional factor which Seccombe (2000) attributes to poverty is the declination of
government benefits (p. 1100). The American government has decreased funding substantially in
welfare programs, causing a significant amount of families worldwide being removed from
welfare programs. These programs are a safety net for impoverished families which help mitigate
financial pressures. Decreasing funding in welfare essentially removes the poor’s last avenue of
financial assistance, thus perpetuating poverty. Lastly, Seccombe (2000) attributes single-mother
households to poverty as well, “due to the limited receipt of child support” (p. 1101). Seeing as
women in poverty are employed in low-wage professions, their income alone without a male
partner is not enough to neither sustain a family nor exit poverty.
Problems exist within both theories of poverty, the first being that neither considers
multiple variables of poverty. The Lewis argument, presumably written for political figures of
the Reconstruction Era, attributes poverty to a culture in which families are comfortable with
norms that reject mainstream society and perpetuate poverty. The Seccombe argument,
presumably written for modern, more liberal researchers of the 21st century, declares structural
factors within American government that stunt the growth of families in poverty, and take away
already-limited avenues of stable and profitable employment. However, the argument which
holds much more weight is Sercombe’s argument primarily because of its pertinent data.
Seccombe (2000) conducted a meta-analysis of sufficient numerical data from reputable, national

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data sources (US Bureau of the Census, Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Congressional Digest,
etc.), which illustrates poverty rates across the nation, and not only a specific populace. Lewis
(1966), however, conducted surveys/interviews of impoverished families within a Latin
American slum of Manhattan; findings within such a culturally divergent populace cannot
accurately infer conclusions regarding all impoverished communities in the US. If Lewis’ sample
of interviewees included several cultures in impoverished communities of the US, his research
would have yielded substantially different and more valid results.
Prior to comparing both arguments of the poverty phenomenon, the structural theory of
poverty seemed much more credible. Those who deemed poverty a mere result of “slothfulness”
and lack of motivation among impoverished communities appeared to be developing a method to
simply justify the discriminatory aspects of the American government. However, after
conducting this research of both theories, as well as some reading on aspects of effective critical
thinking, poverty is merely multivariate – it is a collective product of social norms within
impoverished communities, as well as institutional deficiencies that both perpetuate poverty. It is
not only a culture of poverty, but a poverty of culture as well.

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References
Lewis, O. (1966). The Culture of Poverty. Scientific American, 215(4), 19-25.
Seccombe, K. (2000). Families in Poverty in The 1990s: Trends, Causes, Consequences, and
Lessons Learned. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62(4), 1094-1113.