CARRIED BY THE POOR

THE WORKING POOR:
INVISIBLE IN AMERICA
By David K. Shipler
319 pp. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf. $25.

Reviewed by Laurie Meunier Graves

[I]f you now beheld them, your affections would become tender….Mine would, sir, were I human.
Ariel, The Tempest

In this country, we have all sorts of notions about the working poor, whose status is only slightly higher than the non working poor (America’s untouchables). For the most part, we think it’s their own fault that the working poor are poor. If only they were more motivated. If only they were smarter with their money. If only they had better social skills. If only they valued education more. If only they took better care of their children. If, if, if. Our list of criticisms goes on and on, and it’s hardly surprising that the rich and the middle class begrudge whatever aid is given—food stamps, rent subsidies, fuel assistance. It all comes out of our taxes. Why should we support the working poor? Why should they be such a burden on us? This is the United States, for God’s sake, the land of milk and honey. The land of opportunity where rugged individuals get ahead by the sweat of their own labor and their own bootstraps.

As it turns out, some of these notions are wrong, and the one that is especially false is the idea that we support the working poor. In fact, as David Shipler’s The Working Poor: Invisible in America makes painfully clear, the exact opposite is true. The middle and upper class in America are a burden on the working poor. They depend on the working poor for nearly every aspect of their lives. Clothes, food, childcare, yard work, and housecleaning are all provided by the working poor. Then there are the bank tellers, the store clerks, the servers in restaurants. The workers who “package lights for your kids’ bikes [and] assemble books of wallpaper samples to help you redecorate.” The list goes on and on. Shipler concludes, “The country’s prosperity relies on badly paid workers.”

I must admit I was caught short by Shipler’s illuminating and heartbreaking book on poverty in America. Somehow, I had exempted myself from those whom I consider to be the “contemptible exploiting class.” I took care of my own children. I clean my own house, wash my own clothes, mow my own lawn, and, for the most part, do my own cooking. When I do eat in a restaurant, I always leave a generous tip. However, after reading The Working Poor, I have been forced to face the unpleasant fact that I am as much of a burden on the working poor as more affluent people are, and no amount of volunteering in the local food pantry is going to change the balance of that burden.

What is especially ironic about my situation is that for much of my adult life, I have been poor. I have taken care of other people’s children, cleaned houses, worked in a store, and washed dishes. I have had to choose between buying medicine and paying the mortgage. Therefore, I should have been more aware. It’s no wonder, then, that those who are more affluent are even less aware. And besides, it is uncomfortable to look too closely at the underpaid people who provide so many of life’s necessities and comforts.

Shipler, on the other hand, has taken a close look and has seen that “the man who washes cars does not own one. The clerk who files canceled checks at the bank has $2.02 in her own account. The woman who copy-edits medical textbooks has not been to a dentist in a decade.” He then goes on to recount the stories of real people and how they have dealt with poverty. The stories are neither nice nor heartwarming, but they are important to know. Unless we, as a society, acknowledge the reality of our dependence on poor people and the depth of their hardship, then the situation will never improve.

To his credit, Shipler does not make saints of the people he writes about. He does not hesitate to describe the destructive behavior and the bad choices that many of them made and continue to make. Caroline, who earns $7.50 an hour, owes $12,000 on her credit cards. Christie and Kevin never have enough money to pay their rent on the first of the month and are therefore charged a late fee. However, they have cable television and buy TV dinners along with other high-priced snacks. When she was a sophomore, Marquita got pregnant, dropped out of high school, and went on welfare.

But Shipler also writes with great compassion as he describes their daily struggles, their triumphs, their resilience, and their fortitude. With story after story, The Working Poor gains an unforgettable, almost haunting momentum as the weight of the hardships is revealed.

In the closing chapter “Skill and Will,” Shipler is quite clear about what needs to be done to help alleviate poverty in the richest country in the world. “The entire society needs governmental tools to help those working at the bottom of the economic hierarchy—both to lend them a hand in what they cannot do alone and to assist them in developing the capacity to do what they can ultimately do themselves….It cannot fail to maintain a safety net…But it also has to blend its power in creative interaction with the profit and nonprofit world, with private industry and private charity.”

This book could not have come at a better time. In the past, with programs initiated by Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, we seemed to be making some progress toward financial security for the poor. Granted, we still had a long way to go before we would catch up with countries such as Sweden and Canada, but at least we were heading in the right direction. Right now, we are at a sort of crossroads, and we seem to be wavering. Just recently, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan made a speech outlining how the United States was going to be in big trouble when the baby boomers started retiring and how we should cut benefits rather than raise taxes. Fiscally, this sounds quite sensible, but what exactly will this mean for people who have no  retirement benefits other than Social Security? Will they go hungry? Will they go without medicine? Will they be homeless? What will our society be like if the poverty level continues to increase and there are no adequate safety nets?

It’s not a pretty picture. But then again, our willingness to make the working poor bear the weight of the middle and upper class is not pretty either. I can only hope The Working Poor will gather momentum of its own and open people’s eyes and hearts. 

 

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