WORKING POOR PAPER
With popularity of Shipler’s book
many reviews of his work have come of it mostly positive two of which I will
compare and contrast as they both show insight and accurately detail on what
Shipler’s main goal Is.
David Shipler notes on the back of his book
“No one that works hard in America should be poor” and the Pulitzer Prize
winning writer does set the tone chapter by chapter, and case by case in his
work from 2003 “The working poor, Invisible in America.” In this book, Shipler
goes around the country to the unfortunate individuals that are caught in a
never ending cycle of struggling to make ends meet having to rely on paycheck
to paycheck on the lowest of wages in order to keep their head above the water
of bankruptcy, keeping a roof over their heads and bad credit that would surely
doom them later down the road. A young girl said to her mother in the 1st
chapter “You know, Mom, being poor is very expensive.” (Sandy Brash, at age
twelve) (p.13) quotes like these are a common theme in the
moving book, of just how bad some people have it on the low end of
America.
Both reviews I’m analyzing were created in
the year 2004 just briefly after the book itself was published, one of the
reviewers Alfred Knopf was more or a less of synopsis of the book itself, Knopf
writes, “it would seem preposterous that those who have full-time jobs could
be impoverished, yet The Working Poor provides numerous examples of many such
instance” referring to a case study done by Shipler on page 40 as an
example, a woman name Debra Hall dropped out of college got pregnant and had to
find a decent job to keep her and her child off the streets and whenever there
was a chance and finding something better she was never taken up the offer
because she didn’t have enough experience or even because she was a minority as
well (African-American woman) she never found a decent job and for 19 years was
getting help from the government any little bit that she could from food stamps
and more,, nevertheless she made the minimum wage standards at 6.25 an hour and
even a little more than that in some jobs she was able to make 7.50 an hr. but
that still was way below what she needed to make a living even remotely
comfortably.
In the 2nd review of the working
poor the author’s name is Stacy Lewis, who unlike Knopf’s review was much more
detailed with how she conducted her book review, she goes into far more
throughout commenting on Shipler’s opinion on the situation, with the main
theme somewhat being low wages and not making ends meet one of the main points
in Lewis’ review was the education the children receive along with an
educational program for adult as she wrote “ The government should
boost the minimum wage, expand Head Start and the Earned Income Tax Credit,
fund job-training programs and apprenticeships for low-skilled workers, and do
more to get all who are eligible for food stamps and the State Children's
Health Insurance Program to use them. He also recommends dumping employer-based
health insurance in favor of a federal single-payer system.”
Lewis then in her review shifts to how
Shipler states that the poor should take advantage and make their voice be
heard and vote in elections, especially those of which in the city and state
area, the people have dictation if they want to really use. Too many of the
poor stay too idle in these situations and if they want to a way they will have
to take charge. Lewis ends her review reitarting the Shipler’s goal to show the
ugly and cold side of corporate America and in this quote he says “In the
house of the poor … the walls are thin and fragile, and troubles seep into one
another.” (p.76) As cold an
unyielding is that sounds its very true and very much a reality that must be
changed.
Overall I feel both reviews did a great
job of capturing Shipler’s main goal and that was awareness, awareness of
what’s really going behind the big corporations, the low wages the government
issues out for the people and a viewpoint the middle and high class American
families are unable to see, or even think amidst the lifestyle and career they
have. Shipler made indeed get more attention of the years as more people look
into the Pulitzer prize winner’s work, poverty for the employed is more than
just a crime, it’s a tragedy that we are placing on our own people, the
Americans of the United States.
