The Betrayal of Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 35 Million Americans

From Publishers Weekly
One out of four U.S. workers earns less than $8.70 an hour. So begins Shulman's fact-filled look at the lives of America's working poor, and their struggles to survive without adequate health benefits, child care and job security. A former v-p of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in Washington, D.C., Shulman doesn't hide the fact that she is addressing the same issues as Barbara Ehrenreich did in Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, the bestselling 2001 book based on the author's own experiences in the low-wage workforce. But Shulman's book lacks the verve and wow factor of Nickel and Dimed, despite her efforts to include personal stories of poultry processors, janitors, child-care workers and others who earn poverty-level wages. The anecdotes often come across as overly broad and pandering. ("It can get very busy at the pharmacy counter, especially during flu season," she writes about the life of a pharmacy technical assistant.) Even the more compelling stories lose impact because of their failure to present more than a superficial point of view of the employers. The book is at its strongest when citing labor statistics and challenging long-held beliefs that low-wage work is synonymous with a lack of skills or that most low-wage employees will graduate into better positions. Still, many of the examples (working conditions are unsafe; employers of immigrants exploit wage laws) will come as no surprise to anyone who regularly picks up a newspaper. The book is useful as a reference tool for policy wonks and conscientious employers, but anyone looking for further insight into the reality and pervasiveness of the working poor will probably be disappointed. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

E. J. Dionne, Jr.
An impassioned and well-documented book.

Book Description
How the United States turns its back on the working poor. An astonishing 35 million Americans work full time but do not make a living wage. They are nursing home staff, poultry processors, pharmacy assistants, ambulance drivers, child care workers, data entry keyers, janitors. Indeed, one in four American workers lives in or near poverty. Despite the great wealth of the United States, these low-wage employees have lower living standards than comparable workers in other industrial nations. Beth Shulman spent several years traveling across the country talking to those living on low wages. In writing The Betrayal of Work, she provides the fullest portrait of America's working poor, dispelling a number of myths along the way: that lower unemployment has meant better living conditions for the poor; that making bad jobs into good jobs requires insurmountably difficult reforms; that low-wage work is always low-skilled. Following in the footsteps of Barbara Ehrenreich's bestselling Nickel and Dimed, The Betrayal of Work is sure to be one of the most talked about public policy books of the year.

Book Info
Pocket size text provides a portrait of America's working poor, dispelling a number of myths along the way. Offers an argument about what we must do to restore fairness to the American economic order. For those interested in public policy. DLC: Wages--United States.

About the Author
Beth Shulman is a labor consultant and former vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in Washington, DC. She lives in the Washington DC. area.


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One out of four U.S. workers earns less than $8.70 an hour. So begins Shulman's fact-filled look at the lives of America's working poor, and their struggles to survive without adequate health benefits, child care and job security. A former v-p of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in Washington, D.C., Shulman doesn't hide the fact that she is addressing the same issues as Barbara Ehrenreich did in Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, the bestselling 2001 book based on the author's own experiences in the low-wage workforce. But Shulman's book lacks the verve and wow factor of Nickel and Dimed, despite her efforts to include personal stories of poultry processors, janitors, child-care workers and others who earn poverty-level wages. The anecdotes often come across as overly broad and pandering. ("It can get very busy at the pharmacy counter, especially during flu season," she writes about the life of a pharmacy technical assistant.) Even the more compelling stories lose impact because of their failure to present more than a superficial point of view of the employers. The book is at its strongest when citing labor statistics and challenging long-held beliefs that low-wage work is synonymous with a lack of skills or that most low-wage employees will graduate into better positions. Still, many of the examples (working conditions are unsafe; employers of immigrants exploit wage laws) will come as no surprise to anyone who regularly picks up a newspaper. The book is useful as a reference tool for policy wonks and conscientious employers, but anyone looking for further insight into the reality and pervasiveness of the working poor will probably be disappointed. (Sept. 1) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.


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