| The Working Poor: Invisible in America | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 74 reviews)
Sales Rank: 32345
Category: Book
Author: David K. Shipler
Publisher: Vintage
Studio: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Label: Vintage
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0375708219
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.5690973
EAN: 9780375708213
ASIN: 0375708219
Publication Date: January 4, 2005
Release Date: January 4, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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.
Amazon.com Review
The Working Poor examines the "forgotten America" where "millions live in the shadow of prosperity, in the twilight between poverty and well-being." These are citizens for whom the American Dream is out of reach despite their willingness to work hard. Struggling to simply survive, they live so close to the edge of poverty that a minor obstacle, such as a car breakdown or a temporary illness, can lead to a downward financial spiral that can prove impossible to reverse. David Shipler interviewed many such working people for this book and his profiles offer an intimate look at what it is like to be trapped in a cycle of dead-end jobs without benefits or opportunities for advancement. He shows how some negotiate a broken welfare system that is designed to help yet often does not, while others proudly refuse any sort of government assistance, even to their detriment. Still others have no idea that help is available at all. "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
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| Customer Reviews: Read 69 more reviews...
 Goes too much into the boring details October 27, 2008
In this book you should not expect to find any outlines of how unjust the economical system in America is, nor any suggestions what should be done about it. There is only numerous short stories about the lives of the working poor. Expect to read how certain individuals spent $10 on this, and $4 on that, and how they couldn't pay their medical bills, etc... I think the author goes too much into the boring details.
 A Valuable and Affecting Learning Experience August 26, 2008
The poor are very visible in our society. What's far less visible is "The Working Poor", people who have jobs, but who face consistent problems of lower health,low income,no benefits,little education and training, single parenthood,and so on. Pulitzer Prize winning author David Shipler has done a marvelous research job giving flesh to problems many of us may think we have some handle on. After reading his outstanding book, I found that I hardly had a clue. Dozens of interviews have produced a truly heartrending, and sometimes hopeful tableau, of what it means to live on the edge.
This is an important book. I read segments of it to my college students --the parts that emphasize how easy it is to fall into the crevasses of the working poor by either not obtaining a college degree or by not getting training in a field with demand. I recommend this book highly to anyone and as a must read for anyone thinking about dropping out of school or a training program.
 What happened? June 18, 2008
0 out of 11 found this review helpful
I never received the book, so I don't know how I can review it. Do you have any logical suggestions?
The Working Poor April 22, 2008
The book was excellent. It gave me an intelligent insight of the struggles of so many Americans who can't deal with the American Dream.
The Working Poor: Invisible in America March 2, 2008
I THINK THIS BOOK WAS A REFRESHING LOOK AT THE PEOPLE WHO FALL BETWEEN THE CRACKS CREATED BY THE VARYING LEVELS OF SOCIAL STRATA. IT WAS AN EASY READ AND CONVEYED THE AUTHOR'S POINT VERY DEFINITELY WITHOUT BEING STUFFY.
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