David K. Shipler's The Working Poor: Invisible In America

Poverty is defined as lacking a socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions according to the Merriam – Webster dictionary. Some would ask what exactly is socially accepted? Is having five hundred dollars in a bank account, make someone above the poverty line? This question cannot actually be answered by the definition of poverty. A quick look at the United States census shows that in 2014, the poverty rate was 14.8 percent, but the amount of people is actually 46.7 million people. That amount of people is such an astronomical number, and really shows poverty is a problematic issue in the United States. In fact, there are many reasons why people are living in poverty. Reasons being that these individuals might have an illness and are living on disability checks. That they grew up poor and can not get out of the vicious cycle of poverty. Divorce, teen pregnancy, criminal records, and countless other explanations. An excellent example of someone who knows the struggles of poverty is David K. Shipler, who wrote The Working Poor: Invisible in America. After reading his book and two critic reviews, I agree with the critics that Shipler’s commitment to research is well planned and executed; while I grapple with that Shipler uses heart felt storytelling in order to sell his book. …show more content…
by Kathleen Courrier explains how committed Shipler is to his research of the book. “These and a dozen others in The Working Poor are life stories—not just drive by journalism. Shipler tails his protagonists for many years, interviewing some 20 times or more.” This just shows how devoted Shipler is to his project if he is wanting to conduct interviews with the same people 20 or more times. Checking in on these people constantly wanting to see how their story changes. Equally important, the second critic review by Kathy A. Zawicki explains also how time consuming and important Shipler’s research is. Zawicki