The Working Poor: Invisible in America

"As a culture, the United States is not quite sure about the causes of poverty, and is therefore uncertain about the solutions," he writes. Though he details many ways in which current assistance programs could be more effective and rational, he does not believe that government alone, nor any other single variable, can solve the problem. Instead, a combination of things are required, beginning with the political will needed to create a relief system "that recognizes both the society's obligation through government and business, and the individual's obligation through labor and family." He does propose some specific steps in the right direction such as altering the current wage structure, creating more vocational programs (in both the public and private sectors), developing a fairer way to distribute school funding, and implementing basic national health care.

Prepare to have any preconceived notions about those living in poverty in America challenged by this affecting book. --Shawn Carkonen

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.

I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone who seeks to understand the class system of the United States.


Sobering and disturbing   February 23, 2004
Marisa James (Portland, OR United States)
63 out of 72 found this review helpful

Like Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, this book will make you think twice and notice the cashier who rings up your purchase at Walmart, the worker who bags your Whopper at the local Burger King, the laborer who picks your vegetables, and all sorts of other people who make our lives more comfortable and convenient, but live every day on the edge of hunger and homelessness. While conservatives are eager to feed us soundbites about the laziness and dishonesty of those on welfare, this book puts a face on a problem that impacts all of us through stories of real people and families, and delves deeply into the social causes and real costs of poverty. Highly recommended to anyone who has ever taken a full stomach and a warm, safe home for granted.


It was Time for this book   March 3, 2004
71 out of 82 found this review helpful

It was Time for this book
Absolutely time for this book to come out and show the world what the real life human beings/people of this USA have to live with and through. It is an honest look at todays society and well worth the purchase.
Ever since the Bush administration has taken over we have less and less value as citizens in this great country. We can not afford our homes nor afford a decent car...life is not good for us that puts in 60 hour weeks and still not have enough left over for a trip to McDonald's with our kids.

Several other books I would like to mention: Nightmares Echo, Tuesdays with Morrie, Lost Boy


A superb investigation of the problem of American poverty   March 30, 2004
Roger Levy (Menlo Park, CA United States)
35 out of 39 found this review helpful

There have been a number of important books recently on the American working poor, notably Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed," Shulman's "Betrayal of Work," and now Shipler's "The working poor". In many ways, Shipler's is the most comprehensive of the three. He does a superb job blending ethnographic and interview material with legal and sociological research, and paints a compelling picture of poverty as a web of interlocking causes and effects that is deceptively easy to fall into and difficult to struggle free from. In many ways, the most remarkable thing about the book is Shipler's ability to see and portray the same situation from a variety of perspectives: welfare-to-work employment incentive programs from the eyes of both employer and employee, or drug rehabilitation from the eyes of both addict and rehab center worker. And it's not a partisan book: Shipler shows how there's never just one direction to point the finger of blame, and how the web has to be attacked from more than one direction to truly be cut and free those who are ensnared.