From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishunderclassun‧der‧class /ˈʌndəklɑːs $ -dərklæs/ noun [singular] SSCLASS IN SOCIETYthe lowest social class, consisting of people who are very poor and who are not likely to be able to improve their situation an urban underclass, who have limited access to health care → social exclusion
Examples from the Corpus
underclass• The government has created an underclass who do not feel they have any rights in society.• The definition of underclass has been disputed over the past two decades.• Such exclusion from citizenship is again the mark of the underclass.• This does not mean that the younger members of the underclass pose no threat to public order.• People are worried about crime, about the tremors of the underclass.• The underclass in Dahrendorf's account is not simply the product of unemployment.• The work of Tennyson coexisted with the devastation of an urban underclass described by Dickens.• an urban underclass• From this perspective, the rioters are not a unique group but rather are comparable to others in the urban underclass. 