Spring Break
The Working Poor Works
Jeanette Beebe
Issue date: 4/23/07 Section: Opinion
"The first problem is failure to see the people," David K. Shipler announces early in his book The Working Poor: Invisible in America (published by Alfred A. Knopf, 2004). In a move unusual for liberal tomes of its ilk, it actually proposes solutions to the problem of poverty. Shipler fearlessly calls for us to look at what the "working poor" are, give some thought to it, and choose a term that's more appropriate. On his title, Shipler claims: "Working poor should be an oxymoron. Nobody who works hard should be poor in America."
Shipler's message bends backward even before it gets to us: indeed, it is the way it travels that makes our impression hazy. I purchased his packet of pages sold at the Princeton University bookstore for around $13, half a week's worth of lunches at McDonald's. This budget is contingent upon the assumption that "the [working] poor" are frugal and use the Dollar Menu, a move that Shipler wouldn't necessarily make himself. "They don't have milk, but they do have cable," sighs Brenda St. Lawrence, a caseworker featured a few times in Shipler's text. Evidently the poor don't follow Malthusian Theory: instead of scaling up the pyramid, they take the elevator a few floors and complain about their aching legs - or their backs, as Willie, the construction worker husband of Sarah, legitimately discovered. Misplaced priorities plague the young couple: they own a stack of CDs but no clothes for the baby. "We'd put ourselves poor," Willie echoed, "but I know if we were smart people, we could be really well off…I guess it's easier to make life easier by doing something that costs money…It's our own fault. I'm not blaming it on anyone else."
But Shipler does blame it on someone else - everyone else. He takes to task employers, big businesses, banks, the government, schools, and eventually "society" in general. Shipler criticizes bad business behavior, common-sense stuff we roll our eyes at: "Many restaurateurs cook the books by faking time cards to show employees working shorter shifts…and file W-2s that exaggerate the amount of tips paid to workers." It is through investigating the personal stories of the workers themselves, though, that Shipler strikes gold…or at least silver. Michael Summers, of the Summers Rubber Company in Cleveland, asserts that "only with dramatic steps" will employer/worker relations improve: "An employee who didn't come to work would get a call. If his car had broken down, [he] sent someone to pick him up…One, it calls their bluff, tells them, 'We expect you here. If we didn't expect you here every day, you wouldn't be [working] here…But we rely on you, depend on you, and when you're not here it creates hardship and cost. You've got to be here. And if you can't be here you got to tell us what's going on."
Shipler's message bends backward even before it gets to us: indeed, it is the way it travels that makes our impression hazy. I purchased his packet of pages sold at the Princeton University bookstore for around $13, half a week's worth of lunches at McDonald's. This budget is contingent upon the assumption that "the [working] poor" are frugal and use the Dollar Menu, a move that Shipler wouldn't necessarily make himself. "They don't have milk, but they do have cable," sighs Brenda St. Lawrence, a caseworker featured a few times in Shipler's text. Evidently the poor don't follow Malthusian Theory: instead of scaling up the pyramid, they take the elevator a few floors and complain about their aching legs - or their backs, as Willie, the construction worker husband of Sarah, legitimately discovered. Misplaced priorities plague the young couple: they own a stack of CDs but no clothes for the baby. "We'd put ourselves poor," Willie echoed, "but I know if we were smart people, we could be really well off…I guess it's easier to make life easier by doing something that costs money…It's our own fault. I'm not blaming it on anyone else."
But Shipler does blame it on someone else - everyone else. He takes to task employers, big businesses, banks, the government, schools, and eventually "society" in general. Shipler criticizes bad business behavior, common-sense stuff we roll our eyes at: "Many restaurateurs cook the books by faking time cards to show employees working shorter shifts…and file W-2s that exaggerate the amount of tips paid to workers." It is through investigating the personal stories of the workers themselves, though, that Shipler strikes gold…or at least silver. Michael Summers, of the Summers Rubber Company in Cleveland, asserts that "only with dramatic steps" will employer/worker relations improve: "An employee who didn't come to work would get a call. If his car had broken down, [he] sent someone to pick him up…One, it calls their bluff, tells them, 'We expect you here. If we didn't expect you here every day, you wouldn't be [working] here…But we rely on you, depend on you, and when you're not here it creates hardship and cost. You've got to be here. And if you can't be here you got to tell us what's going on."
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