Product Description

“Nobody who works hard should be poor in America,” writes Pulitzer Prize winner David Shipler. Clear-headed, rigorous, and compassionate, he journeys deeply into the lives of individual store clerks and factory workers, farm laborers and sweat-shop seamstresses, illegal immigrants in menial jobs and Americans saddled with immense student loans and paltry wages. They are known as the working poor.

They perform labor essential to America’s comfort. They are white and black, Latino and Asian--men and women in small towns and city slums trapped near the poverty line, where the margins are so tight that even minor setbacks can cause devastating chain reactions. Shipler shows how liberals and conservatives are both partly right–that practically every life story contains failure by both the society and the individual. Braced by hard fact and personal testimony, he unravels the forces that confine people in the quagmire of low wages. And unlike most works on poverty, this book also offers compelling portraits of employers struggling against razor-thin profits and competition from abroad. With pointed recommendations for change that challenge Republicans and Democrats alike, The Working Poor stands to make a difference.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #340325 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-04
• Released on: 2005-01-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
This guided and very personal tour through the lives of the working poor shatters the myth that America is a country in which prosperity and security are the inevitable rewards of gainful employment. Armed with an encyclopedic collection of artfully deployed statistics and individual stories, Shipler, former New York Times reporter and Pulitzer winner for Arab and Jew, identifies and describes the interconnecting obstacles that keep poor workers and those trying to enter the work force after a lifetime on welfare from achieving economic stability. This America is populated by people of all races and ethnicities, whose lives, Shipler effectively shows, are Sisyphean, and that includes the teachers and other professionals who deal with the realities facing the working poor. Dr. Barry Zuckerman, a Boston pediatrician, discovers that landlords do nothing when he calls to tell them that unsafe housing is a factor in his young patients' illnesses; he adds lawyers to his staff, and they get a better response. In seeking out those who employ subsistence wage earners, such as garment-industry shop owners and farmers, Shipler identifies the holes in the social safety net. "The system needs to be straightened out," says one worker who, in 1999, was making $6.80 an hour80 cents more than when she started factory work in 1970. "They need more resources to be able to help these people who are trying to help themselves." Attention needs to be paid, because Shipler's subjects are too busy working for substandard wages to call attention to themselves. They do not, he writes, "have the luxury of rage."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Shipler, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Arab and Jew (1986), examines the complex issues behind poverty and changes in policy and ideology regarding the poor. Shipler fleshes out statistics and social policy with compelling portraits of people who struggle to maintain lives for themselves and their families with low-paying jobs and little social support. Looking at workers from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds, from illegal immigrants working on farms in California to factory workers in New Hampshire, Shipler vividly portrays the plight of people living on the very brink of economic disaster, some of whom are only one paycheck away from homelessness. He examines schools, job-training programs, and health-care services aimed at low-income people that often fall woefully short of actually helping their clients. Finally, Shipler ties together the micro and macro factors that condemn the working poor to a marginalized existence. This is a compelling, insightful book for those interested in issues of poverty and social justice. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"This is clearly one of those seminal books that every American should read and read now." --The New York Times Book Review

" An essential book. . . . It should be required reading not just for every member of Congress, but for every eligible voter." --The Washington Post Book World

“Sensitive, sometimes heart-rending . . . . A vivid portrait of the struggle of the working poor to acquire steady, decently paid employment.” –Commentary

"Insightful and moving. . . . Shipler writes with enormous grace [and] he captures the immense frustration endured by the working poor as few others have." --The Nation

"Welcome and important. . . . Shipler manages to see all aspects of poverty--psychological, personal, societal--and examine how they're related. . . . There is much here to ponder for conservatives and liberals alike." —The Seattle Times

Customer Reviews

Trapped by the American Dream
Shipler does an excellent job of describing how many of the working poor are doing "everything right" according to the American Dream, but still failing to make even a living wage.

I know, because I am caught in that trap. I went to school, and educated myself, because the public school was a waste. I earned excellent grades, and then went to the university, working my way through but still ending up with thousands of dollars in debt. I am handicapped by student loans that ammount to over twice my yearly income. If I declared bankruptcy, and paid the price of ten years of worse than no credit (which I would happily do), I would STILL owe all of these student loans - which are the vast majority of my debt.

My Bachelor's degree hasn't helped me get a single job. Instead, I have relied upon the skills I learned while working as a secretary and a tutor in college. I can't get into graduate school because I have too many college loans already (and one private loan, held by my university, which is also holding my official transcripts until I pay them off - despite the fact that with that transcript, I could get a better paying, untaxed job in Saudi Arabia...)

I work two jobs, for a total of 51 hours a week. I take classes at the local community college (the university costs too much) to keep myself from getting too depressed, and to improve my qualifications if I am ever able to afford to go on for a graduate degree. I do not have health insurance, I do not have dental insurance, I do not have eye insurance. I do not watch television, since I simply do not have the time.

I have a 5-year old vehicle that is in desperate need of maintenance. I live in a friend's house, renting a room. My idea of a luxury is to take myself out to dinner once a month (especially since I am saving up to get my divorce).

I am not precisely living in the lap of luxury, as the neo-con types repeatedly portray the working poor. In fact, I cannot remember the last time I went to buy "new" clothing (as oppossed to Goodwill), or the last time I bought an alcoholic beverage (probably back in college).

THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN. That goes for the educational system, the social welfare system, and the political system (since politicians never listen to anyone without sufficient money to get an appointment). And I (among many others) am tired of treading water, with no hope for "rescue" or any chance to help myself in sight.

Makes you think twice
I requested this book from the library after seeing an episode of Nightline with Ted Koppel.

This book really does make you stop and think about how different our lives really are in America. I hate to admit this, but I usually don't pay too much attention to the people who are on the edge of poverty, working the jobs that most of us will never have to work. Now, when I go to the fast food window or to a Kmart or Walmart, I realize that many of these workers are not getting paid well, and probably cannot even afford to shop at the stores they work in, or buy food at the fast food place either.

I'm not the best writer, but please take a look at this book if you get the chance. Maybe it will help you to understand what these people are going through.

The un heard
The Working Poor: Invisible in America gives you a personal outlook on how many Americans live there lives in the lower class. It opens your eyes and shows that every little person counts. This gives you a whole new respect of the people who scan your groceries or the people that let you have it your way at Burger King. David Shipler gives you a real life story and breaks down the struggles and hardships that the lower working class must go through day in and day out just to get by in society where the most important people are over looked. This book deserves to be read not just to here about poor people struggling but to understand how many Americans have to survive in the life of poverty.