Rating: 
Summary: Needs Policy Summary, But Provides Full Details
Review:
This book complements Barbara Ehrenreich's book "Nickel and Dimed." Ehrenreich's is much easier to read and makes the same broader points. Where this book excels is in the details that in turn lead to policy solutions. I will go so far as to say that if John Kerry and John Edwards do not get hold of an executive summary of this book, and integrate its findings into their campaign as a means of mobilizing the working poor in the forthcoming election, then they will have failed to both excite and serve what the author, David Shipler, calls the "invisible."
Invisible indeed. How America treats its working poor--people working *very* hard and being kept in conditions that border on genocidal labor camps, is our greatest shame. The most important point made in this book, a point made over and over in relation to a wide variety of "case studies", is that one cannot break out of poverty unless the **entire** system works flawlessly. To hard work one must add public transportation, safe public housing, adequate schooling and child care, effective parenting, effective job training, fundamental budgeting and arithmetic skills, and honest banks, credit card companies and tax preparation brokers, as well as sympathetic or at least observant employers. The author is coherent and compelling in making the point that a break or flaw in any one of these key links in the chain can break a family. I am personally appalled at the manner in which H&R Block, to name the largest within an industry, and Western Union, to name another, are ripping off the working poor with a wide variety of "surcharges" such that they end up paying 25% of their tax return or their funds transfer back to Mexico. This is both usury and treason if you want to look at it in the largest sense. They are sabotaging the American economy in a time of war. It surprised me to learn that while hospitals are forced to treat the poor in an emergency, they are also allowed to bill them, and these bills, for an ambulance ride or emergency treatment, often are the straw that breaks a family into destitution. This is outrageous and should not be permitted. Then the author tells us that it costs as much as $900 for a working poor family to declare bankruptcy and obtain the protection of the law from creditors, many of whom are cheats in the larger sense of the world. How can this be?!?! It did not surprise me, but continues to distress me, to learn that the laws are not enforced. Although laws exist about minimum wage, humane working conditions (and humane living conditions for migrant workers), they are not enforced. The working poor are treated as less than slaves, for they are "used up and thrown out" with no defense against unfair firing. They are forced to work "off the books", to do piece rate work at below minimum wage, this list goes on. In essence, our politicians have passed laws that make us feel good, and then failed to enforce them so as to achieve the desired effects. The author documents both the jobs leaving the US, and the fact that new jobs pay less. As Paul O'Neil, former Secretary of the Treasury has noted, we have two economies in America: one embraces automation (and kills jobs), the other requires expert labor (not the working poor). We have a double-whammy here that is totally against the lower half of the economic spectrum, and it is being aggravated by an incoherent immigration policy that feeds the beast. On page 139 the author just blew me away with documentation to the effect that 37 percent of American adults cannot figure a 10% discount on a price, even with a calculator, nor can this same percentage read a bus schedule or write a letter about a credit card error. He goes on, citing the National Adult Literacy Survey from the Department of Education, to note that 14% of adult Americans cannot total a deposit slip, locate an intersection on a map, understand an appliance warranty, or determine the correct dosage of a medicine. I had no idea!!! This reality comprises a "sucking chest wound" in the economic body of America, and it is not a chest wound that can be healed as things now stand. There are many other daunting "facts of life" in this book about the working poor, and they all add up to a complete failure of both the national and state leaderships to be serious about long-term sustainable economic prosperity. The author concludes with some suggestions for reform, and here I wish he had actually gone to the trouble of creating a one-page policy paper summing it all up. His most obvious suggestion is wage reform, not just at the bottom, but also at the top. As I read and hear about executives making $5 million to $80 million a year, the norm seeming to be around $20 million, I have to ask myself, have we gone nuts? Are stockholders so stupid as to overlook the fact that capping executive compensation at 100X the pay of the lowest employee ($20,000 low end, $2,000,000 high end) would do *huge* good at the bottom and in the lower middle ranks? The extreme wealthy in America are playing a short-term game that must be brought to an abrupt halt because it is killing the people, the seed corn of the future. The Earned Income Tax Credit *works* but most of the working poor are afraid to file income tax returns. The author ends, quite correctly, by pointing out that the ideological debate, removed from the facts, will not alleviate nor eliminate the suffering of the working poor. Right on. It's time for the facts, for a public debate about the facts, and for public policy (and enforcement) based on the facts. This author, already a Pulitzer Prize winner, has rendered a great national service.
Rating:
Summary: Needs Policy Summary, But Provides Full Details
Review:
This book complements Barbara Ehrenreich's book "Nickel and Dimed." Ehrenreich's is much easier to read and makes the same broader points. Where this book excels is in the details that in turn lead to policy solutions. I will go so far as to say that if John Kerry and John Edwards do not get hold of an executive summary of this book, and integrate its findings into their campaign as a means of mobilizing the working poor in the forthcoming election, then they will have failed to both excite and serve what the author, David Shipler, calls the "invisible."
Invisible indeed. How America treats its working poor--people working *very* hard and being kept in conditions that border on genocidal labor camps, is our greatest shame. The most important point made in this book, a point made over and over in relation to a wide variety of "case studies", is that one cannot break out of poverty unless the **entire** system works flawlessly. To hard work one must add public transportation, safe public housing, adequate schooling and child care, effective parenting, effective job training, fundamental budgeting and arithmetic skills, and honest banks, credit card companies and tax preparation brokers, as well as sympathetic or at least observant employers. The author is coherent and compelling in making the point that a break or flaw in any one of these key links in the chain can break a family. I am personally appalled at the manner in which H&R Block, to name the largest within an industry, and Western Union, to name another, are ripping off the working poor with a wide variety of "surcharges" such that they end up paying 25% of their tax return or their funds transfer back to Mexico. This is both usury and treason if you want to look at it in the largest sense. They are sabotaging the American economy in a time of war. It surprised me to learn that while hospitals are forced to treat the poor in an emergency, they are also allowed to bill them, and these bills, for an ambulance ride or emergency treatment, often are the straw that breaks a family into destitution. This is outrageous and should not be permitted. Then the author tells us that it costs as much as $900 for a working poor family to declare bankruptcy and obtain the protection of the law from creditors, many of whom are cheats in the larger sense of the world. How can this be?!?! It did not surprise me, but continues to distress me, to learn that the laws are not enforced. Although laws exist about minimum wage, humane working conditions (and humane living conditions for migrant workers), they are not enforced. The working poor are treated as less than slaves, for they are "used up and thrown out" with no defense against unfair firing. They are forced to work "off the books", to do piece rate work at below minimum wage, this list goes on. In essence, our politicians have passed laws that make us feel good, and then failed to enforce them so as to achieve the desired effects. The author documents both the jobs leaving the US, and the fact that new jobs pay less. As Paul O'Neil, former Secretary of the Treasury has noted, we have two economies in America: one embraces automation (and kills jobs), the other requires expert labor (not the working poor). We have a double-whammy here that is totally against the lower half of the economic spectrum, and it is being aggravated by an incoherent immigration policy that feeds the beast. On page 139 the author just blew me away with documentation to the effect that 37 percent of American adults cannot figure a 10% discount on a price, even with a calculator, nor can this same percentage read a bus schedule or write a letter about a credit card error. He goes on, citing the National Adult Literacy Survey from the Department of Education, to note that 14% of adult Americans cannot total a deposit slip, locate an intersection on a map, understand an appliance warranty, or determine the correct dosage of a medicine. I had no idea!!! This reality comprises a "sucking chest wound" in the economic body of America, and it is not a chest wound that can be healed as things now stand. There are many other daunting "facts of life" in this book about the working poor, and they all add up to a complete failure of both the national and state leaderships to be serious about long-term sustainable economic prosperity. The author concludes with some suggestions for reform, and here I wish he had actually gone to the trouble of creating a one-page policy paper summing it all up. His most obvious suggestion is wage reform, not just at the bottom, but also at the top. As I read and hear about executives making $5 million to $80 million a year, the norm seeming to be around $20 million, I have to ask myself, have we gone nuts? Are stockholders so stupid as to overlook the fact that capping executive compensation at 100X the pay of the lowest employee ($20,000 low end, $2,000,000 high end) would do *huge* good at the bottom and in the lower middle ranks? The extreme wealthy in America are playing a short-term game that must be brought to an abrupt halt because it is killing the people, the seed corn of the future. The Earned Income Tax Credit *works* but most of the working poor are afraid to file income tax returns. The author ends, quite correctly, by pointing out that the ideological debate, removed from the facts, will not alleviate nor eliminate the suffering of the working poor. Right on. It's time for the facts, for a public debate about the facts, and for public policy (and enforcement) based on the facts. This author, already a Pulitzer Prize winner, has rendered a great national service.
Rating: 
Summary: Working poorly
Review: A glance at the back dust cover is not promising. Yet Shipler's book deserves a read. The profiles are well written, informative, varied, exhaustive, complex and illustrative. Compassion for the subjects is elicited and deserved. Some subjects struggle and do get by, if barely, due more to informal charity and kinship than by government (anti-)poverty programs. Their stories are especially noteworthy. Shipler's meticulous candor supplants Ehrenreich's solipsistic book, "Nickled and dimed in America." Praised for its vicarious, first-hand account of other people's poverty, "Dimed" had no basis for useful insight. The life of poverty is no game, no short-term social experiment. Not pretending to be poor, Shipler is much more thorough; his first-hand journalistic research covers years, not months. He is objective and not judgmental yet his compassion shines through his words. Shipler uses Churchill's description of democracy as the worst form of government to explain why capitalism is the worst form of economic policy - except when compared to all others that have been tried from time to time. A wise analogy. Yet the final analysis and public policy recommendations are difficult to make or to decipher. Shipler acknowledges that the major cause of poverty can be attributed to a single source: bad personal choices. Of course, no one chooses to be poor (some journalists excepted), but people repeatedly make independent, self-serving or selfish, short-sighted, unfortunate choices, including walking away from the mother or father of their children, from their families, from educational opportunities, from their religious values, and from disciplined work habits. And they walk all too easily into a trap: teenage pregnancy, drug and domestic abuse, and endless hours in front of the television. As Shipler notes, what most poor Americans seem to have in common is high tv cable bills. Too often, government fails in its efforts to help. Despite the excessively complicated-to-claim earned income tax credit, Uncle Sam still takes too much of poor people's income in regressive, work-discouraging social security taxes and from employers by raising the cost to find, train, retain, and motivate ill-educated workers. And then the government tempts the poor with slickly marketed Ponzi schemes in the form of state lotteries, realizing the addictive nature of these rip offs that prey upon the poor. And state schools expend $10,000, even $12,000, per pupil and produce illiterates with no job skills. Even health care is a form of governmental plague. Prevention earns little or no attention or funding from bureaucrats while cures and caring for the horrible consequences of poor nutritional and lifestyle habits are prohibitively expensive when it is available (more often than critics suggest), and leaving health care providers with exhorbitant malpractice insurance whose elimination alone could pay for health care for the poor. There are too many social and governmental barriers to and disincentives for making good choices and taking personal responsibility. In Shipler's rich "Working poor," you learn a lot about the poor. You just don't learn how to help reduce poverty.
Rating:
Summary: When work doesn't work
Review: Admirable class analysis of the state of the working poor, beyond the slogans of the market miracle: the facts of the case two centuries after the Industrial Revolution. It seems that the American system will burn a hole in the Ozone before it solves its basic problem, one deteriorating in the 'years gone by' of the neo-liberal degeneration generation. One problem is that the Captains of Industry just don't get it, and after a while I get suspicious: they want it that way. I told you so, saith the Big M.
Rating:
Summary: Shows the irony of the educational industrial complex
Review: Compelling work hits its highest marks in telling the story of the persons duped into lifetime student loan debt for useless college paperwork. This is something the mainstream media will not cover. Instead of wealth redistribution solutions, though, simple equity under the law as to bankruptcy access would be better. Why do the Donald Trumps of the world, large corporations, and the ruling elite get access to ancient bankruptcy traditions while the lower classes with student loan debt get compunded interest, collection and attorney fees, social security attachments, wage attachments, license revocation, debtor exams, and fines on top of fines for the rest of their miserable lives? Early in our nation's history, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story said bankruptcy was to "to relieve unfortunate and honest debtors from perpetual bondage to their creditors... One of the first duties of legislation, while it provides amply for the sacred obligation of contracts, and the remedies to enforce them, certainly is, pari passu, to relieve the unfortunate and meritorious debtor from a slavery of mind and body, which cuts him off from a fair enjoyment of the common benefits of society, and robs his family of the fruits of his labour, and the benefits of his paternal superintendence."
Rating:
Summary: A Beacon of Hope for the Voiceless Masses. 10 Stars!
Review: David K. Shipler did an outstanding job bringing the harsh and saddening reality of what the lives are like for the 'working poor' in America. Shipler makes wonderful recommendations for higher wages so people can actually survive, redistribution of funds for schools so all children have the chance for receiving the education they deserve, as well as stating the position of responsibility on society as a whole to work together for the common good of all.
This book brings a brutal awakening for anyone who believes in the 'American Dream' as it so clearly shows that this land is all too filled with people turning the other way when someone is in need.
I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone who is in a position to make positive and lasting change in society, as well as for those who are in a better position, so you can see if there is a difference you can make.
This book brings out the truth with vital recommendations for direly needed changes, which is why I recommend it as a must read for all.
Barbara Rose, author of 'If God Was Like Man' and 'Individual Power'
Rating:
Summary: The American Nightmare
Review: David Shipler takes up where Barbara Ehrenreich left off in Nickel and Dimed. Where Ehrenreich examined the working poor with a microscope, Shipler uses a wide-angle lens. Shipler interviews the working poor, poor people who are out of work, employers, case workers, and teachers of poor children. So the title is a little misleading, in that this book takes on American poverty, not just those who are working. While Ehrenreich got involved personally by becoming one of the working poor, Shipler observes and sympathizes. His sympathy is understandable, but at times I wondered just how much it was affecting his journalistic objectivity. Many times he relates events, apparently told to him by the people he interviewed. He doesn't qualify these stories in any way and they are told as if he was telling them first hand. His chapter on Leary Brock, an inner city woman who eventually became successful, overcoming great odds, tells her story from the time she was in high school to her fiftieth birthday. Shipler narrates, complete with quotations, as if he were there, without notes or sources. Was he there? In any case, these are compelling stories, about migrant fruit pickers living in squalor, about malnourished infants whose parents don't know how to care for them, about teachers who keep a supply of granola bars on hand to feed hungry children so they will be able to concentrate on the lesson, about a maze-like system that keeps people in poverty from getting the tools they need to break out. The Working Poor is a passionate book that sees democracy as the solution to poverty. Those who want the system to change to meet their needs will have to vote, he says, and vote in large enough numbers so that legislators will have to listen to them. Maybe that will work, but even Shipler expresses doubts, as he acknowledges that people tend to vote their aspirations rather than their complaints.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Look at Poverty in America
Review: David Shipler's Working Poor is an excellent companion read to Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickle and Dimed and offers a searing look at poverty in America.
Shipler's key contribution is to point out that overcoming poverty requires both luck and discipline. Bad breaks or poor luck managed by middle-class families with relative ease pose far greater obstacles for the poor. Take a mundane example-- a broken car. The middle-income family would get a tow to a repair shop and lease a new vehicle until the first was fixed. Inconvenient, but hardly disastrous. The same episode could force a poor family over the edge-- an inability to fix the car combined with the possibility of inadequate alternative transportation, public or otherwise, could lead to job loss and additional economic hardship.
The addition of family instability and hard-to-access or inadequate public services compound the difficulties faced daily by poor Americans.
Does individual responsibility affect the ability to defeat poverty? Shipler answers with a resounding yes, but reminds us that poverty imposes challenges of which wealthier Americans are unaware. Read this excellent book to gain additional insight and compassion.
Rating: 
Summary: hidden right wing agenda
Review: First half of the book:
Don't let the description of this book fool you by telling you that both right and left wing readers won't like this book. That is a ploy to get you to think that you must be more open minded of, and accepting of, this book. It was immediately clear to me after having read only a few pages that this book was written with a serious right wing slant utilizing typical right wing stereotypes. Before I even started the first chapter of this book I noticed that there wasn't one person in the list of those consulted in the writing of this book that was poor! They were all people of privilege. It was also apparent that every editorial review listed in the book was either a newpaper or a person of affluence. Do you see any editorial reviews from anti-poverty groups, womens groups, immigrant groups, or any other group that represents the poor? NO, you don't. Who controls the newspapers? Well, let's see, umm how about the affluent and the heads of corporations. All people who have much to gain from giving the average American the impression that the poor are poor due to their own defects! How typical it is that people write books about poor people without poor people being consulted as to the real causes of poverty and what their needs are! I would remind readers that people who *think* that they know what poor people need, and are not poor themselves, have no actual personal experience to judge by but rather judge based on stereotypes of the poor. I would throw this book into the fire except that I feel that you must know your enemy to fight them. Reading this book is infuriating. The author makes it appear that every poor person has a combination of drug problems, alcohol problems, childhood abuse issues, poor parenting skills, poor budgeting skills, and an incomplete education. He doesn't seem to have been able to find poor people anywhere in the entire United States that don't fit this desciption! Please! The interviews with poor people were written *in their own words* and I found it extremely difficult to understand these people as their grammar was so poor. According to this author nearly all poor people are illiterate, or if not, still sound as though they are! None of them could pronounce a simple sentence without using improper grammar or slang! Are there NO poor people in America that can speak properly? Come on! In the chapter on child abuse which of course leads to those same people abusing their own children there isn't a poor parent in America that hasn't been abused by their parents and all are at risk, if not already abusing, their own kids! They all need to take parenting classes! My God, talk about stereotypes! When the author discusses illegal immigrants, particularily farm and factory workers, and describes their terrible living conditions I suppose he wants to make the reader aware of this sad fact and that it needn't exist but instead gives the impression that poor immigrants must be terrible slobs that can't see anything wrong with their living conditions and are satisfied with them as long as they have work. He wasn't able to find a single illegal immigrant farmer or factory worker in the entire United States that had anything negative to say about these conditions! Does this author really expect people to buy this? I must do some research and find out who financed this writing. I'm sure I will find out that it has been financed by the spin doctors.
Though there are problems amongst poor people and often more than there are amongst the affluent, these problems are almost always caused by poverty itself and could be significantly reduced by providing universal health care, access to decent and affordable housing, livable wages, reliable and efficient transportation, affordable food and nutritional suppliments, affordable and reliable child care, and a comprehensive education for all members of our society. Don't BUY the SPIN!
Part 2:
In this section the author has finally found one poor person in the entire US that has an education and doesn't sound illiterate when they speak. This person, however, is the token *middle class* white woman who has been unfortunate enough to have divorced and fallen from her higher position in society. Of course there are no poor people in America that haven't fallen from this higher rung on the economic ladder that are literate so he must use this example. Here he portrays her as making the correct choice of working part time to spend more time with her kids and to send them to private school by making sacrifices in other areas while she lives off of the generous support payments that her husband provides. Now we know he can't use a welfare mother as an example of making the right choice to stay home because that would not sit well with the affluent readers. Did I mention that nearly every poor persons home is dirty, dishes everywhere, clothes on the floor, filthy conditions generally? Oh yes, they all live like pigs. Oh we mustn't forget that none of them have *soft skills*, a spin word used by the welfare reform spin doctors to denote cases that must be forced into training programs which consist of resume writing, interviewing skills, basic computer usage, getting to work on time, etc. Yes it's true, according to this author, all poor people have low self esteem and can't even speak to or look at an employer when in an interview never mind arrive on time or call in when they can't show up!. They are all so terribly damaged that they can't even communicate on a normal human level with another human. Sub-human poor people they are really you know, they need help in this area. I'm sure forced participation in a *program* that will address these soft skills and then direct the poor into *entry level* positions will be the cure for this!
After all, do you really expect employers to pay decent wages to people when they are so damaged and so useless that they are nearly animals? They are costing companies money by putting up with them you know. Come on!
Have I mentioned that there aren't any employers in America to blame? Yes, the author mentions a few employers who say they can't cut into their profit margins or it will put the business at risk. These are all small operations he mentions. Does the risk to employees mean anything? NO! Have corporations that have billions a year in profits been mentioned? NO! We can't upset the corporate guys or they won't buy the book!
Really is just amazes me that so many readers are taken in by this book. I wonder how it is that having lived in poverty for many years and knowing literally hundreds of others in the same position that I can't recall a single one that sounds illiterate. Nearly every poor person I have ever met has astounding skills at time management, budgeting, problem solving, and most are computer literate today as well. They all keep relatively clean houses and none of them beat their kids, in fact they are usually the first ones to point out minor flaws in each other parenting and offer helpful suggestions. They have developed a fine network of bartering and support amongst each other. They are skilled at resume writing and communication skills. So how come they aren't working or working and still poor? Well, lets see, how about.. there are no jobs that pay enough money to support a single person, never mind a family. How about the lack of economically feasible and decent childcare. How about tuition costs so high that only a fool would go into that kind of debt for a higher education with little means to pay it off upon graduation. How about the fact that jobs once performed by unskilled labour now require a masters degree to get hired. Does a thousand applicants for every one position say anything to you? Let's not forget that if you are working at a low paying job, your chances of promotion are nil. Low paying jobs don't have promotion opportunites. Neither do they provide raises for skills, experience, and time on the job. Oh you say, I know a poor person who got a 10 cent raise last week! Lets see, a 2% raise a year when inflation is say 5% leaves you how far into the hole?. You call this a raise? Employees wages are decreasing every year to the benefit of the employers. How about preventative health care including dental care so that it doesn't cost more in the long run? Oh yes, then there is the cost of public transportation or a car if your rural, clothes for work, quicker, more costly, meals to cook and you end up without enough left for food to sustain you to go to work. I guess poor people are supposed to work hungry and like it. This will really increase self esteem people! Does this author actually expect us to buy the idea that a lower income job that is usually something that no one wants to do, doesn't lead anywhere, and doesn't pay enough to fill their stomach or pay their bills is going to increase people's self esteem!? Let the author work at one of these low wage jobs for a few weeks and see how his self esteem is.
While I don't dispute that the people mentioned in this book are actual people with the problems cited, the author has conveniently selected a group of experiences which very carefully fit into the spin doctors stereotypical view of the poor in order to justify their welfare reform, low wages, and forced back to work *programs*. Very clever and hardly noticable by the general population who are not acutely aware of the real issues and elaborately planned, corporate funded, political brainwashing attempt to divert your attention from the problems of the free market system to the defects of the poor.
Absolutely no mention was given to the responsibility of corporations in paying livable wages and his end remarks regarding government responsibilty were diluted at best. Mr. Shipler, nice try but you haven't fooled all of us.
Rating:
Summary: student loans crushing the working poor
Review: I especially liked the part about the college graduate struggling with student loan debt and never getting any better job from the education. That's a story the mainstream press, as well as politicians are ignoring. Think about that--- having all that debt, believing what they tell you about education getting you ahead, and it doesn't. Then you can't even file bankruptcy on it anymore even though the top 15 bankruptcy filers are in the 100s of millions of dollars. It's a real Dickens scenario.
|
