“Most of the people I write about in this book do not have the luxury of rage. They are caught in exhausting struggles. Their wages do not lift them far enough from poverty to improve their lives, and their lives, in turn, hold them back. The term by which they are usually described, ‘working poor,’ should be an oxymoron. Nobody who works hard should be poor in America.” —from ...
“Most of the people I write about in this book do not have the luxury of rage. They are caught in exhausting struggles. Their wages do not lift them far enough from poverty to improve their lives, and their lives, in turn, hold them back. The term by which they are usually described, ‘working poor,’ should be an oxymoron. Nobody who works hard should be poor in America.” —from the Introduction
From the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Arab and Jew, a new book that presents a searing, intimate portrait of working American families struggling against insurmountable odds to escape poverty.
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.
We meet drifting farmworkers in North Carolina, exploited garment workers in New Hampshire, illegal immigrants trapped in the steaming kitchens of Los Angeles restaurants, addicts who struggle into productive work from the cruel streets of the nation’s capital—each life another aspect of a confounding, far-reaching urgent national crisis. And unlike most works on poverty, this one delves into the calculations of some employers as well—their razor-thin profits, their anxieties about competition from abroad, their frustrations in finding qualified workers.
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.
作者简介
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戴维•希普勒(David K. Shipler)，1966年至1988年任职于《纽约时报》。他曾在纽约、西贡、莫斯科和耶路撒冷从事新闻报道，后担任华盛顿哥伦比亚特区首席外交记者。此外，他也为《纽约客》《华盛顿邮报》和《洛杉矶时报》撰写文章。他还创作了另外三本书——《俄罗斯：破碎的偶像, 庄严的梦想》（ Russia: Broken Idols, Solemn Dreams）；《阿拉伯人和犹太人:应许之地的受创精神》（Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land），此书曾获普利策奖；《陌生人的国度：黑白美国》（A Country of Strangers:Blacks and Whites in America）。作为布鲁金斯学会客座学者和卡内基国际和平基金会高级研究员，希普勒执教于普林斯顿大学、位于...
戴维•希普勒(David K. Shipler)，1966年至1988年任职于《纽约时报》。他曾在纽约、西贡、莫斯科和耶路撒冷从事新闻报道，后担任华盛顿哥伦比亚特区首席外交记者。此外，他也为《纽约客》《华盛顿邮报》和《洛杉矶时报》撰写文章。他还创作了另外三本书——《俄罗斯：破碎的偶像, 庄严的梦想》（ Russia: Broken Idols, Solemn Dreams）；《阿拉伯人和犹太人:应许之地的受创精神》（Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land），此书曾获普利策奖；《陌生人的国度：黑白美国》（A Country of Strangers:Blacks and Whites in America）。作为布鲁金斯学会客座学者和卡内基国际和平基金会高级研究员，希普勒执教于普林斯顿大学、位于华盛顿哥伦比亚特区的美国大学，以及达特茅斯学院。
2004年，曾获得过普利策奖的作家David K. Shipler出版了《The Working Poor》一书。《旧金山纪事报》评论称本书为那些认真参与、并且希望能够消除国家贫困的政策制定者提供了佐证。《纽约时报》认为David K. Shipler揭露了那些被忽视的穷人的不幸的处境，为还沉浸在繁荣...
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还没人写过短评呢
还没人写过短评呢