In America, everybody has the same opportunity, we like to think. Our history tells another story, one of permanent underclasses whose members have little hope of escaping poverty.
Historian Nancy Isenberg focuses on one of those underclasses in her bestselling book White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America. Poor whites have been a frequent political focus as well as a frequent scapegoat. The author joined us in 2016 to talk about what she found.