It’s a central premise of the American dream: if you’re willing to work hard, you can make a living and build a better life for your children.
But what if hard work is enough to get by, or even to ensure your family’s fundamental financial stability?
Two American Families: 1991-2024, a two-hour special documentary filmed over more than 30 years, is a portrait of FRONTLINE and Bill Moyers’ perseverance that raises troubling questions about the transformative nature of the American economy and its effect on others in difficulty. to make a living.
Premiering on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, it is the saga of two families from Milwaukee, Wisconsin – one black, the Stanleys, and one white, the Neumanns – who have spent the last 34 years suffering into poverty and who refuse to give despite the difficult economic situations that their stories reveal.
“There are a lot of other people who struggle in the same way with controlling everything and don’t have enough cash in their paycheck to cover their monthly expenses,” said Terry Neumann, who was a young mother when Bill Moyers and his producers, Tom Casciato and Kathleen Hughes, they started traveling with her and now she is a great-grandmother. “It’s like we haven’t come very far. “
“There’s something I always say: ‘What a man thinks, so he goes,'” said Jackie Stanley, the matriarch of the Stanley family. “If I think about poverty all the time, I will act this way. I can not communicate negatively and then allow my children to see me like this, depressed or depressed.
When the team began documenting the lives of the Stanleys and the Neumanns in 1991, the breadwinners of both families had lost well-paying jobs in the productive sector. Families were struggling to adapt to a new global economy and the trend toward part-time, low-wage work. -Salaried work.
“When I left my job, they looked for me for social benefits, but I couldn’t stand in line,” Claude Stanley said at the time. “I just said, it’s not me. . . I have my strength, my health; I’m going to look for a job.
“It bothers us that we have to rely on others,” said Terry Neumann. “You just have to get up and. . . get in the car, stop shopping and go back to normal life. ”
With deep intimacy, Two American Families: 1991-2024 tells the stories of the Neumanns and the Stanleys across six presidential administrations, providing a clear view of how they and their now-adult children fared as they sought to stay afloat in a economy that presented them with a challenge. after challenge. For the full story of the Stanleys and Neumanns’ current situation, see Two American Families: 1991-2024.
The film is the fifth installment in a series of widely acclaimed PBS documentaries about the two families that began in 1992 with Minimum Wages: The New Economy and continued with three more films: a 1995 collaboration with FRONTLINE titled Living on the Edge, a 2000 film. PBS special titled Surviving the Good Times and the 2013 FRONTLINE documentary Two American Families. The New Yorker wrote that the latter film would “take its stand among the central documents of our time,” and Variety said, “It begs to be noticed and discussed. “”.
Two American Families: 1991-2024 will be available in full on pbs. org/frontline and on the PBS app beginning July 23, 2024 at 7/6c. It will premiere on PBS stations (check local listings) and on FRONTLINE. YouTube channel at 10/9c and will also be available on PBS Documentaries’ Prime Video channel. The documentary is distributed worldwide through PBS International. Subscribe to the FRONTLINE newsletter to receive updates on events, podcast episodes, and more similar to Two. American Families: 1991-2024.