The Working Poor

Shipler, David K. The Working Poor. Random House: New York, 2004.

What is the nature and extent of the social problems (and/or policy issues) dealt with in the book?
Retired New York Times reporter and Professor David K. Shipler’s 2004 book might have been titled something like “stories from the future silent majority” because his qualitative research was gathered from a segment of the U.S. population that he and others have called “The Working Poor,” a demographic that has grown to more than fifty percent of the working population in 17 states (Fong, 2005). Shipler collected his data by asking people who “were willing to talk” to talk about themselves and tell the stories of their lives, the only qualification being that they were poor and that they were working (An Interview with David K. Shipler, 2004). This led him to various places in the United States where he interviewed people working in the garment industry, in factories, the service industry and in migrant farming. What he discovered was that among America’s working poor, work often doesn’t “work” for a variety of cultural and sociological reasons.

In fact, some might see chapter two, entitled “Work Doesn’t Work,” as the foundation of the book where Shipler is able to summarize the main social problem that he is attempting to illustrate. It is in this chapter that Shipler describes the working poor as often not able make ends meet despite the fact that they work long hours. As Ron Suskind notes in his review of the book, “There are 35 million people in the country living in poverty. Most of the adults of the adults in that group work nowadays; many of them work full time. And while there are heavy concentrations of African-American and white single mothers in the mix, the group is every bit as diverse, and diffuse, as the nation itself” (Suskind, 2004).

It is also in this chapter that he introduces the reader to the reality that there are disparate reasons for the plight of the working poor, including financial, but not limited to strictly the fact that low wages don’t provide working people with the basic necessities required to have a somewhat comfortable and secure life in the United States (Acs, Phillips, and McKenzie, 2000). Other reasons Shipler points out are the ravages of lack of quality education, abuse, poor housing situations and malnutrition coupled with the gross indifference of the state.

To illustrate the complexities of his message regarding the working poor, Shipler uses the story of Christie, a day care worker making $330 every two weeks watching children—a work function that “fuels America’s prosperity” and the two parent work-a-day world that the U.S. has become (Shipler, 2004, p. 39). Christie’s story casts light on the social problem well because in her case the reader is introduced to the limited job prospects that a “mere” high school graduate can reasonably achieve, the weaknesses of the welfare reform era system, and what “Congress and the White House… [see]… as poverty’s cause and solution,” namely the poor and “work,” respectively (Shipler, 40). What goals did the author try to achieve by writing the book?

Clearly, Shipler’s goal was to point out the indifference of contemporary state policies regarding the plight of the working poor. Policy since the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 has centered on getting people off of welfare caseloads and into the workforce while mainly ignoring the fact that entry level jobs, by and large, do not pay enough to keep people out of the welfare system they are being excluded from (Fong, 2005). As E. Willard Miller, professor of Economic Geography at Penn State said, “America has become a nation of people where all able person who can work, do, but many cannot make ends meet” (Fong, 2005).

How effectively does the book cover the subject of poverty, social policy, etc?
Shipler’s effectiveness in achieving his goal in writing The Working Poor stems from years as a professional reporter. He deals with social policy in the “trenches” via the stories of the poor people who are working and willing to talk to him. For instance, when dealing with the issues around malnutrition— which is only an economic policy issue in the United States, not a food issue— he retells the stories that pediatricians at Boston Medical Center’s ambulatory care center told him regarding the cases they treat. He gives their honest assessments of the reasons why they see so many malnourished babies “failing to thrive” while pointing out the economic disparities that give a context for malnourished babies in a country overflowing with food (Shipler, 2004, pp. 201-205).

Using the same style, Shipler effectively takes up the issue of public education policy in the United States in Chapter nine: “Dreams.” He retells the “dreams” expressed by the mainly African American children, students of the poverty-ridden middle school where he did his interviews, who stated that they had “dreams” of becoming doctors, lawyers, professional sports player, etc., but the reality was that many of the students Shipler talked to would not even graduate from high school (Shipler, 2004, p. 232). By interviewing the children about their dreams and then interviewing teachers, Shipler is able to effectively give reader the grim picture concerning what most consider the disaster of the public education system in low income communities.

What are the primary strengths and weaknesses?
A weakness of the book is likely the partisanism that Shipler displays at various places in the text. While it is likely that most persons reading this particular book will be sympathetic to his arguments, a wide brush stroke against the “other half” of the political system is unwise when seeking real social and political change as wide sweeping as Shipler is calling for. Still, one might find see the same kind of partisanism to be strength if the purpose is to energize the left towards more vocal political action against the unjust policies of the right.

The major strength of the book is the way Shipler, an expert writer with many years of experience, uses the anecdotal evidence to make his point regarding the sometimes abysmal state of America’s working poor. The stories are poignant and are written in a way that seems to connect readers emotionally to the persons who are telling their stories. For instance, in his almost counterintuitive chapter entitled “Work Works” he gives the reader hope that there is something that can be done about the disparate problems facing the working poor in America. The story of “Peaches,” a person who faced most of the issues that Shipler describes in the book (i.e. financial issues, physical abuse, homelessness, mental health, etc.) , who was being trained by a non-profit organization dedicated to the amelioration of many social justice issues in the Washington DC community is good example of this strength of Shipler’s to give the reader hope and motivation towards action (Shipler, 2004, p. 255).

How well does the book relate to the information that has been discussed in class?
Because The Working Poor does give the reader hope towards action against injustice it serves as a good compliment to the readings we have had in class. Most of the anecdotes in the book can be substantiated with the quantitative research and peer reviewed articles that have been read for the class. This is the case with poverty numbers, as in the CPPP articles, the Social Security SSI program, food stamps, TANF—almost every public policy issue we have discussed in class are discussed and put into context in the book. This context gives a new dimension to the impersonal numbers and policy regulations which we have looked at in the classroom.
What are the most important social policy lessons that you took from this book?

The principle message of the book concerning policy is found in the last chapter of the book where Shipler outlines his conclusions concerning both the state of the working poor in America and what actions need to be taken in order to ameliorate the problems. His argument is that we have the “skill” in America but not the “will.” Considering that the subject of the “working poor” addresses an interconnectedness of many, many disparate social policy problems he makes an excellent point, which has been brought to mind many discussions around just why the state does not do more toward eliminating poverty in the United States compared to say, the defense budget.

Shipler’s answer to the question is a bipartisan one: he suggests that with the many, many disparate problems come the need for many, many difference governmental programs and non-profit community action in comprehensive collaboration, or as he suggests, “holistic remedies” that will force activists into policy discussions with people with both conservative and liberal values. This is the main policy topic that Shipler intends to make and is a challenge to those willing to go out and leverage whatever social capital is available towards creating the political will to further the cause of progress for the working poor (Shipler, 2004, p. 2004).

Any policy and program ideas you may have for the book?
In my own professional life I have been working with people who used to be called workforce intermediaries. Private workforce intermediaries do the same work that the Texas Workforce commission attempts to do under the auspices of “work first.” Organizations like Capital IDEA in Austin and other workforce intermediary organizations serve the working poor by providing a host of wrap around services that Shipler promotes in the last couple of chapters in his book. In the case of Capital IDEA, whom I am most familiar with; work is done both along policy development lines and program lines and corresponds, roughly, to the work done by the faith based organization So Others Might Eat (SOME) described in Chapter 10 of the book.

With regard to the many social policy issues described in the book, the holistic approach of a job training program within the context of intensive, wrap around case management has been shown to help motivated adults move from low income dead end job into high skill careers Capital IDEA directly addresses the problem low wages, soft skill development for job training, high skills education from the GED level to the Associates Degree with a high degree of success (http://www.capitalidea.org). Because of the success of the program, Capital IDEA was able to effect change in Travis county policy with regard to the budget. Because the County values the work of Capital IDEA and because of its effectiveness in putting people into the workforce, Travis has agreed for the last 10 years to fund the program in increasing amounts each year to over six hundred thousand dollars in 2005 (Jackobs, 2005).

A rural model should be developed to compliment the work done by urban workforce intermediary organizations like Capital IDEA. The rural model would target low income adults living in rural communities like the one described in Chapter 7 of the book: “Kinship.” It would also be a comprehensive program focusing on the development people through high skills education for occupations needed immediately in the workforce. Low income participants would be recruited from the various rural communities and sponsored to attend a central community college in a “county seat.” While going to college, participants would meet with case managers and receive training in job development and soft skills training for the workplace weekly.

For example, a workforce organization might establish its offices in Victoria, Texas where there are the campuses of Victoria College and the University of Houston VC, which has a robust RN program. From the county seat of Victoria case workers might be able to recruit from the surrounding small towns of Ganado, Sea Drift, Port Lavaca, etc. where there are more “working poor” than there is work. Part of the mission in recruiting the rural poor in these communities would be to help the rural poor to think about the possibilities of leaving or staying in their largely jobless communities in search of a better life— this is where the intensive case management comes into play.

The rural model would have to have a much larger area of focus in order to serve many different communities and people in and around the county seat college but would ameliorate some of the issues surrounding being poor, having a poverty mentality, and being cut off from the many of the resources available in large urban areas—essentially many of the issues addressed in Shipler’s The Working Poor.

References
Acs, Gregory, Katherin Ross Phillips, and Daniel McKenzie. (2000). Playing By the Rules But Losing the Game. Urban Institute. Retrieved March 18, 2008, from http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=410404&renderforprint=1

An Interview With David K. Shipler. (2004). The New York Times (Audio). Retrieved March 17, 2008, from http://www.nytimes.com/audiopages/2004/02/15/books/20040215_SHIPLER.html

Fong, Vicki. (2005). Number of working poor families growing in America. Pen State Live. Retrieved March 17, 2008, from http://live.psu.edu/story/12714

Jackobs, Steve. (2005). Capital IDEA Annual Report (Report). Retrieved March 18, 2008, from http://www.capitalidea.org/downloads/pdfs/2005%20Report.pdf

Suskind, Ron. (2004). The Working Poor: Can’t Win for Losing. The New York Times.