Lecture on White Working Class as ‘New Minority’ Set for Monday

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — Justin Gest, a public policy scholar who spent months here studying the Mahoning Valley as a microcosm of the loss of political power of white working class America, will discuss his findings at 6:30 p.m. next Monday night at the Steel Museum.

He will also discuss his book, The New Minority: White Working Class Voters in an Age of Immigration and Inequality, which includes a chapter on Youngstown.

Gest, assistant professor of public policy at George Mason University, researched the book as a visiting scholar at the Center for Working Class Studies at Youngstown State University and has written at length for Politico and Reuters about the role of the white working class in this year’s election.

The book combines social science research with his interviews of residents, current and former political operatives, officeholders and labor leaders. The chapter on Youngstown has a section “Crony Capitalism, Social Insecurity and Balkanization,” where Gest makes the case that white working class Americans perceive themselves as a minority.

Doors open at 6 p.m,

The lecture, co-sponsored by the Center for Working Class Studies and The City Club of the Mahoning Valley, is free and open to the public. For more information contact Tim Francisco, director of center and a professor of English, at 330 402 1769 or tfrancisco@ysu.edu.

Pictured: Justin Gest

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.