This sociological study reveals the ways in which the Love Jones Cohort live their lives. The Love Jones Cohort exposes community members, researchers, policy makers, and businesspeople to the Love Jones Cohort, in the hope that they substantively incorporate this demographic group into their conversations, researches, policies, and business plans. The Love Jones Cohort pushes people into considering how structural racism plays a role in individual dating and marriage outcomes, and challenges people into thinking twice before asking the Love Jones Cohort why they are not married and instead consider asking people why they are married. The Love Jones Cohort highlights the distinctiveness of the Love Jones Cohort relative to other Black middle-class families. The Love Jones Cohort improves our understanding of singlehood in general and Black middle-class SALAs in particular; provides a more nuanced picture of the Black middle class that includes the large and growing demographic of never-married individuals; and offers insight on how these experiences can influence social policy and future narratives about the Black middle class and Black America more broadly.

Chapter 8 examines in detail the Love Jones Cohort’s attitudes to wealth accumulation and homebuying, as well as highlights that those in the Cohort operate in an environment of considerable structural racism when it comes to acquiring assets. Chapter 8 further addresses persistent myths surrounding racial wealth inequality, including conventional ideas that promote greater educational attainment, harder work, better financial decisions, and other changes in habits and practices on the part of Black Americans. In Chapter 8, the Love Jones Cohort are cognizant of how their SALA status, in conjunction with family background, gender, age, a desire (or otherwise) for marriage, and responsibility to both family (friends) and the larger Black community, can shape thinking about potential wealth-building opportunities. It is also clear that when it comes to wealth accumulation, while the freedom that comes with SALA status can be an advantage in some cases, buying a home on a single income can impose a significant structural economic obstacle.

Chapter 4 argues that marriage as a social institution is changing in the United States. One consequence of this is the rise of Black never-married singles as a demographic and those who are also middle class : the Love Jones Cohort. Through the narratives of the Love Jones Cohort and discussion of the various theoretical assumptions that have been put forward to explain declining marriage rates among Black Americans – especially women – Chapter 4 introduces a framework for understanding how and why the Cohort has begun stepping into the limelight, and what the implications of this might be. This chapter also sets out some of the quantitative and theoretical rationalizations that have been put forward or may be relevant in explaining the rise of Black middle-class SALAs in the U.S., backed up by relevant narratives from interviewed members of the Love Jones Cohort.

Chapter 9 examines how the lifestyles of the Love Jones Cohort shape their decision-making when it comes to choosing a neighborhood and how they interact with their neighbors. The choices the Cohort members make as partner- and child-free individuals are of great relevance in terms of understanding the present situation and future direction of the Black middle class. Aside from affordability, Chapter 9 discusses several factors the Love Jones Cohort consider when selecting a neighborhood, including racial composition, safety (physical and psychological), amenities, sense of community, and neighborhood demographics. Chapter 9 shows that even if they were not consciously making their neighborhood choices based on their membership in the Love Jones Cohort, it plays a key role in how they view their residential options. Generally, the Love Jones Cohort are largely unconcerned with how their neighbors regard them; yet they express how they are subject to psychological pressures related to race, class, gender, and their single status.

Chapter 1 engages the scholarly debates, discussions, and controversies surrounding how the Black middle class is defined. Chapter 1 paints the context for many of the key topics addressed by the Cohort in subsequent chapters related to how they view their middle-class status and how their class status interacts with their SALA lifestyle. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the distinction between class and status and discusses the range of scholarly and historical definitions and conceptualizations of the Black middle class over the past 120 years. Such debates raise pertinent questions on how class should be captured; if status is a more useful measure than class; whether Black middle classness should be defined separately from other middle classness; and, if so, why. Chapter 1 investigates issues surrounding gender and the role of marriage in perpetuating (or otherwise) the Black middle class and is highly relevant to the rise of the Love Jones Cohort where a substantial majority of its members are Black women.

Chapter 7 offers a pathway toward understanding how the Love Jones Cohort navigate wealth-related issues and outcomes, and what the implications of this might be both for themselves and for the Black middle class more generally. Chapter 7 explores previous, current, and future wealth experiences and decisions of the Cohort, and sheds light on the ways in which the members of this demographic group traverse the various stages of their life course without a partner or child. Scholars make compelling arguments for adding wealth as a fourth indicator of middle-class status, and Chapter 7 focuses on how those in the Cohort accumulate wealth, particularly in terms of decision-making related to homeownership and explores the crucial issue of intergenerational mobility and the dissemination of wealth. Chapter 7 interrogates these issues so that we can begin to fully understand the implications of the rise of the Love Jones Cohort for the future of the Black middle class.