The Working Poor

In this summary you will learn

• Why hard work doesn’t guarantee an escape from poverty
• Why conventional thinking about poverty is overly simplistic
• What obstacles some impoverished workers face

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Why you should read The Working Poor

In spite of grueling hours and brutal conditions, hard work is no guarantee of prosperity in the American economy. So writes journalist David Shipler in this exhaustive study of the folks left behind by the American economic boom. Shipler talks to factory workers in New Hampshire, farm workers in North Carolina and garment workers in California. He paints a picture of a predatory economy with little room for the unsophisticated and unskilled. This work, which was nominated for a prestigious National Book Critics’ Circle Award, is ambitious in its scope and compelling in its detail. Some readers, however, might chafe at Shipler’s refusal to accept either liberal or conservative formulas: after presenting ample evidence of the poor’s own culpability for their plight, however partial, he blames both an indifferent society and family dysfunction for poverty. getAbstract.com strongly recommends this sweeping study to employers and to anyone interested in the seemingly intractable gap between rich and poor.

About the Author

David K. Shipler reported for The New York Times from 1966 to 1988, working in Saigon, Moscow, Jerusalem and Washington, D.C. He is the author of four books, including Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Shipler has been a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution and has taught at Princeton University, American University and Dartmouth College.