The Working Poor: Invisible in America

Shipler makes it clear that the precarious nature of the working poor’s employment is due to its low-skilled nature. This makes the worker infinitely disposable when the company hits on hard times or one's particular skill is no longer required. The way to counter low-skilled, low-waged work, Shipler emphasizes, is through education, both at school-level and later in life. The U.S. Department of Education funds a few programs for the children of farm workers who migrate across the country according to crop rotations so that they can access education via a laptop or traveling mentors. It is hoped that these new U.S. citizens will be able to obtain more secure and better paid employment than their parents. Certainly, as in his chapter on education, Shipler shows that the youngest children have brave career options, which in many cases subside as they grow older and adopt a survivalist attitude.

The rigors of studying—which require a quiet place to work, resilience, and patience—are often incompatible with the survivalist attitude engendered through hardship. Many high school students prefer the notion of a job now, however paltry-waged, to an education and the promise of a better-paid job later. The class and often racial differences between teachers and students can make the latter see their educators as a more privileged species. The students then act out by being defensive and disrespectful. The teachers themselves, although educated, feel that due to their own low-wage, they also have an inferior status in American society. Shipler argues that the low status of teachers, coupled with their perceived separateness from their students, contributes to poor performance.

Shipler also notes a middle-class predilection in education, which prepares students for college but not for skilled trades as in other developed nations. Such gaps in skills and aptitude have to be plugged by interested employers or the Center for Employment Training in Washington. In drawing upon such examples throughout his study, Shipler highlights the fundamental problems in America’s education system, which works to exacerbate divisions between rich and poor and perpetuate a low quality of skills amongst the latter.

Shipler takes care to humanize his subjects, describing their physical appearance, patterns of speech, and mannerisms so that the reader can fully picture and empathize with each of them. This is particularly important with an American readership, given that the failure to find or thrive through work is often regarded as immoral. This in turn perpetuates unfair judgment of the low-waged: “While the United States has enjoyed unprecedented affluence, low-wage employees have been testing the American doctrine that hard work cures poverty” (4). Throughout, Shipler’s text is peppered with examples of people who go into work and end up worse off, both financially and sometimes in terms of status. Christie, a daycare worker and single-mother of two, found that her salary could not cover basic childcare costs. Caroline Payne was not only the victim of extreme wage-stagnation, but her lack of promotion also contributed to her depression, which in turn affected her confidence and assessment of abilities. In using such examples, Shipler shows that the American doctrine of hard work curing poverty is far too simplistic. As is the case of Peaches, Leary Brock, and Zach King, who is trained in aircraft maintenance by the Air Force, work improves a person’s confidence and financial situation as a result of employment schemes, which take a holistic view of a person’s circumstances. Given the precarious nature of poverty, where one difficulty directly impinges on and magnifies others, Shipler argues that employment initiatives need to cater towards improving all aspects of a person’s life.