The Working Poor: Invisible in America | David K. Shipler

The Working Poor: Invisible in America | David K. Shipler | Great Book

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The Working Poor: ...

	The Working Poor: Invisible in America David K. Shipler Vintage, 2005 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 76 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Who to blame?

The major strength of this book is that it goes right to the heart of the debate on social welfare policy. Who is to blame? Is it the person or is it their circumstances? Normally hysterics on both extremes of the political spectrum try to place all the blame either on society or on the person. This book makes a run at splitting the difference. Frankly, I found this book better informed than the famous Nickel and Dimed. The truth is that poverty is a tough problem to solve, and many of the best minds on the left and the right have failed us.

Great Book

In this book, David Shipler addressed many topics which are often undiscussed in American society. His non-judgmental assessment of the personal & institutional causes perpetuating working-class poverty was phenomenal. The narratives he used supplemented the usual facts and figures.

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A thoughtful and compassionate read

This is a pretty long book, but the storytelling and people we meet make it an enjoyable and engaging read. I especially appreciate the author's summary and his thoughtful exploration of ways to combat and alleviate poverty. No easy answers, but a lot of compassion. I still think about it daily.

hundreds and hundres of interviews with many follow-ups years later...

...is how Shipler wrote this book. He talked to working poor all over America, in cities and in rural areas. He talked to their teachers, counselors, doctors, lawyers, bosses and social workers.

He gives an even-handed portrait of what causes and maintains poverty (or near-poverty, which in some ways, may be more maddening).

It's not a quick read, but then, it probably shouldn't be. It's better to read the book, put it down and think and then return to it.

"An inconvenience to an affluent family -- minor car trouble, a brief illness, disrupted child care -- is a crisis to them, for it can threaten their ability to stay employed. They spend everything and save nothing. They are always behind on their bills. They have miniscule bank accounts or none at all, and so pay more fees and higher interest rates than more secure Americans."

"Each person's life is the mixed product of bad choices and bad fortune, of roads not taken and roads cut off by the accident of birth or circumstance."

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(Working) Poor - some questions still remain

The author seems to suggest in the book that a more robust version of Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty" will suffice to bring most, if not all, out of the drudgery of poverty, working poor or not. His message is not new, as sociologists have planned and plotted the new campaign against poverty even before the traditional welfare system was replaced be welfare-to-work programs. The undercurrent of the book and it's barely concealed critique of the Clintonesque attempt to triangulate a different way to approach poverty by adding the force of the marketplace and self-empowering training/ education programs, is not without merit. Welfare-to-work presupposes that those who have been living via welfare and food-stamps would prefer to have a job and the respect that comes with it. Author Shipler uses examples of those who have not risen much above the poverty line, though they work jobs to survive, so as to illustrate the failure of society to sufficiently address those hanging on the edge of the economic ladder. He gives us an interesting cohort to look at, as they are a mixture of down-on-their-luck downwardly-mobile persons and those who come from a history and culture of dependency on the welfare system. Some of these folks, not as many as some lawmakers would like to think, do go up two or three levels in the class structure, achieving a middle-class life and its rewards, albeit not exactly the celebrated rag-to-riches story. My main criticism of this book would be in the area of understanding (or lack thereof) of those poor people that have come from a history and culture of living dependent on societies good graces, and where their vision of themselves as potentially living the American Dream is stunted early-on, so that eventually that dream is disarmed by their inculcation of methods and discourse that come to aid them in working the system and surviving in the mind-numbing, ego-busting, grind of life at the very bottom of societies' caste system. Consider this (somewhat awkward) analogy. Inmates in a prison are often incarcerated for long periods, basically cared for and maintained by institutional mechanisms that mostly warehouse people, where they are forced to exist in a grey, dull, dangerous, isolated locality for many years. It is a well-known fact that inmates will become adept at working the system, know what guards, nurses, chaplains, will be useful in their existence, and many will eventually become institutionalized. Consider the poor, where they live in the margins of society, where they are silenced by bureaucracy, excluded from many ordinary social practices, and are often shamed by mainstream society. It seems, contrary to the overarching claims by Shipler, that a correct formulation of an anti-poverty program with all problems being addressed simultaneously and in concert with some grand design (social theory), will not solve the problem of poverty in America, especially if one fails to take into account the history and environment of those trapped for many years in the "system". His take on the poor, which seems to be, more or less, that they are just folks without money and education, should be called into question. As one's history creates opportunity for the middle-class and well-to-do, so does another history, the personal history of the long-suffering poor and its affect on one's psyche, health, and abilities. Individual history has a significant impact on the potential of a person trapped in poverty, where they often remain trapped along with one's kin for generations. This is a factor that must be understood and accounted for when society asks what harm has been done to those in need, and what potential exists for the truly downtrodden to achieve that thing we all believe human's possess to realize that quintessential self. No, I do not think the poor are criminals, but the poor function at times like one trapped in a prison of societies making, though obviously some responsibly exists for the individual to break free from their condition through zealous commitment to do the best possible whenever opportunity strikes. Poverty is functional, and the author of this otherwise insightful book does not seem to take that particular factor into account in his assessment of the constellation of factors that make-up what we call being (working) poor in America. I must add that Shipler's realization that many of this nation's poor work is right on, but for those who know the poor, who are poor, the fact that they must work whenever the opportunity presents itself, covertly when one receives SSI and/ or traditional ADC, and otherwise in today's welfare-to-work environment, is obvious.

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