The Working Poor : Invisible in America

[midwayer]

New Book

By David K Shipler

Review excerpt:

Now poverty seems once again to have been forgotten. For the past 20 years the mainstream media have been obsessed with the lifestyles of the rich and famous -- not those of the poor and dispossessed. In The Working Poor, David K. Shipler directs our gaze to the people we encounter every day, yet hardly seem to notice, the low-wage workers who flip burgers at McDonald's, stock the shelves at Wal-Mart and sew the hems of designer clothes. Their misery hides in plain sight. Like Harrington's work of a generation ago, The Working Poor delivers an unsettling message for the comfortably well-off and complacent: "It is time to be ashamed."

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/0375408908/reviews/104-5663222-1737560#03754089087299

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1. there are no TV shows about the working poor or those just above

the poverty line -- no Archie Bunker and no Jeffersons.

The waiters and hairdressers shown on TV are all incredibly dolled up... gotta believe that they are living at home with Mom.

[Warpy]

2. Archie didn't live in poverty

Oh, he was far from rich, but his paycheck was enough to put food on the table and pay the mortgage on a duplex in Queens. Plus, he had healthcare.

Poverty has been defined downward to mean destitution. That means the new poor don't own anything, not even a stable roof over their heads or a vehicle made in the same decade they bought it in. They have no healthcare and no way to save for retirement.

Part of the problem is the ancient formula the BLS uses to define poverty, which assumes 1/3 of the budget is used for food. Since we've been hammered by other costs, most notably housing, that has shrunk to 1/6. A lot of folks out there we're labeling as lower middle class or simply working class are in POVERTY.

What has happened to people in this "richest country in the world" is simply unconscionable. If that gang of soft pink men in Washington don't address it soon, bad things will start to happen.

[midwayer]

3. U.S. Census on Poverty

Here are some statistics...not sure I'm smart enough to break them down to discuss, but just throwing them out there in case anyone else has any thoughts.
Also at this site is the median income levels state by state which look not to have been updated since 2000 or so? Why? Could it be the formula they are using doesn't work any more?

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty.html

http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/threshld/thresh03.ht ...

According to my calculation the minimum wage level in this country needs to be increased to at least 6.75 just for a family of four to break even after their monthly bills.

This based on two parents working and includes rent or mortgage, 2 car payments, utilities, groceries, clothes, etc.

With the Government allowed influx of Mexicans living two families per household (illegal but rampant, I see it first hand) father working landscaping and mother at burger king I think our Congressmen and women living in there luxury condo's could afford to buck it up a little instead of continuing to practice their hypocrisy voteing themselves their fat pay raises, pensions and health care plans. They owe this to our service industry.

God forbid these families experience a disaster. One paycheck away from being on the streets.