The Working Poor : Invisible in America
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Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Arab and Jew, an intimate portrait unfolds of working American families struggling against insurmountable odds to escape poverty.
"This is clearly one of those seminal books that every American should read and read now." --The New York Times Book Review
As David K. Shipler makes clear in this powerful, humane study, the invisible poor are engaged in the activity most respected in American ideology--hard, honest work. But their version of the American Dream is a nightmare: low-paying, dead-end jobs; the profound failure of government to improve upon decaying housing, health care, and education; the failure of families to break the patterns of child abuse and substance abuse. Shipler exposes the interlocking problems by taking us into the sorrowful, infuriating, courageous lives of the poor--white and black, Asian and Latino, citizens and immigrants. We encounter them every day, for they do jobs essential to the American economy.
This impassioned book not only dissects the problems, but makes pointed, informed recommendations for change. It is a book that stands to make a difference.
show more
"This is clearly one of those seminal books that every American should read and read now." --The New York Times Book Review
As David K. Shipler makes clear in this powerful, humane study, the invisible poor are engaged in the activity most respected in American ideology--hard, honest work. But their version of the American Dream is a nightmare: low-paying, dead-end jobs; the profound failure of government to improve upon decaying housing, health care, and education; the failure of families to break the patterns of child abuse and substance abuse. Shipler exposes the interlocking problems by taking us into the sorrowful, infuriating, courageous lives of the poor--white and black, Asian and Latino, citizens and immigrants. We encounter them every day, for they do jobs essential to the American economy.
This impassioned book not only dissects the problems, but makes pointed, informed recommendations for change. It is a book that stands to make a difference.
show more
Product details
- Paperback | 352 pages
- 132 x 203 x 18mm | 261g
- 04 Jan 2005
- Random House USA Inc
- New York, United States
- English
- Reprint
- Illustrations, unspecified
- 0375708219
- 9780375708213
- 303,973
Flap copy
"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.
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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.
show more
Table of contents
Preface
Introduction
At the Edge of Poverty
Chapter One
Money and Its Opposite
Chapter Two
Work Doesn’t Work
Chapter Three
Importing the Third World
Chapter Four
Harvest of Shame
Chapter Five
The Daunting Workplace
Chapter Six
Sins of the Fathers
Chapter Seven
Kinship
Chapter Eight
Body and Mind
Chapter Nine
Dreams
Chapter Ten
Work Works
Chapter Eleven
Skill and Will
Epilogue
Notes
Index
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Introduction
At the Edge of Poverty
Chapter One
Money and Its Opposite
Chapter Two
Work Doesn’t Work
Chapter Three
Importing the Third World
Chapter Four
Harvest of Shame
Chapter Five
The Daunting Workplace
Chapter Six
Sins of the Fathers
Chapter Seven
Kinship
Chapter Eight
Body and Mind
Chapter Nine
Dreams
Chapter Ten
Work Works
Chapter Eleven
Skill and Will
Epilogue
Notes
Index
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Review Text
"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
show more
" 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
show more
Review quote
"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
show more
" 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
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About David K. Shipler
DAVID K. SHIPLER reported for The New York Times from 1966 to 1988 in New York, Saigon, Moscow, Jerusalem, and Washington, D.C. He is the author of six previous books, including the best sellers Russia and The Working Poor, as well as Arab and Jew, which won the Pulitzer Prize. He has been a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution and a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and has taught at Princeton, American University, and Dartmouth. He writes online at The Shipler Report.
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