Cedric Johnson examines and rejects the concept of exceptionalism, the underclass myth that has been essential to the defeat of welfare statism in the United States, and particularly influential in shaping the market-oriented reconstruction of New Orleans. Moynihan views that black poverty was rooted in culture rather than economic structures impacting the working class more generally has cast a long shadow over how many Americans think about inequality. Thus, Johnson examines how the prevalence of conservative ideology regarding the poor has impacted the working lives of New Orleanians. Additionally, he briefly re-examines the Cold War origins of the underclass myth, the belief that chronic urban poverty is caused by the distinctive, dysfunctional
