"From the beet fields of North Dakota to the National Forest campgrounds of California to Amazon's CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older Americans. Finding that social security comes up short, often underwater on mortgages, these invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in late-model RVs, travel trailers, and vans, forming...

What can you get with twenty-five dollars and a dream?Adam Shepard graduated from college feeling disillusioned by the apathy around him and was then incensed after reading Barbara Ehrenreich's famous work Nickel and Dimed-a book that gave him a feeling of hopelessness about the working class in America. He set out to disprove Ehrenreich's theory-the notion that those who start at the bottom stay at the bottom-by making something out of nothing to...

"Many Americans take comfort and convenience for granted. We eat at nice restaurants, order groceries online, and hire nannies to care for kids. Getting Me Cheap is a portrait of the lives of the low-wage workers-primarily women-who make this lifestyle possible. Sociologists Lisa Dodson and Amanda Freeman follow women in the food, health care, home care, and other low-wage industries as they struggle to balance mothering with bad jobs and without...

"This book chronicles the impact of the sweeping transformation of the social safety net that occurred in the mid-1990s. With the dramatic expansion of tax credits--a combination of the Earned Income Tax Credit and other refunds--the economic fortunes of the working poor have been bolstered as never before. 'It's Not Like I'm Poor' looks at how working families plan to use their annual windfall to build up savings, go back to school, and send their...