"It may surprise you that, on average, an individual with a bachelor's degree earns approximately $72,020 per year, compared to the $39,936 average yearly salary of a worker with a high school diploma. Use this calculator to see the value of a college education." --

As David K. Shipler makes clear in this powerful, humane study, the invisible poor are engaged in the activity most respected in American ideology--hard, honest work. But their version of the American Dream is a nightmare: low-paying, dead-end jobs; the profound failure of government to improve upon decaying housing, health care, and education; the failure of families to break the patterns of child abuse and substance abuse. Shipler exposes the interlocking...