Product Description: Our sharpest and most original social critic goes "undercover" as an unskilled worker to reveal the dark side of American prosperity.Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them...read more

Product Description: “Prioleau Alexander’s comic tales of quitting the rat race to find meaning have a deep lesson for all of us—get back in that race and run like hell!”—Stephen ColbertEver fantasized about quitting your job and starting over? Prioleau Alexander did just that...read more

Product Description: Minimum wages exist in more than one hundred countries, both industrialized and developing. The United States passed a federal minimum wage law in 1938 and has increased the minimum wage and its coverage at irregular intervals ever since; in addition, as of the beginning of 2008, thirty-two states and the District of Columbia had established a minimum wage higher than the federal level, and numerous other local jurisdictions had in place "living wage" laws...read more

Product Description: Most managers assume that surviving, especially in recessions, requires slashing wages, benefits, and other workforce expenses. And lowest-skilled workers are often viewed as the most expendable.In Profit at the Bottom of the Ladder, Jody Heymann overturns these assumptions...read more

Boosting Paychecks illuminates a commonly neglected part of the American safety net—policies designed to support low-wage workers and their families—at a time when they are needed more than ever. In this clear-eyed account, Daniel Gitterman focuses on two policy tools that have been used to aid the working poor since the early twentieth century: the federal tax code and the minimum wage. The tax code can be fine-tuned in many ways—through changes to exemptions, deductions, credits, tax brackets, and rates—to alter the amount of income workers are left with at the end of the day. In combination with the minimum wage, it helps determine the economic well-being of many lower-income households. Gitterman analyzes the partisan politics that have shaped tax and wage policies since the New Deal while paying particular attention to the past three decades. He also examines the degree to which politics and the resulting policies have succeeded in lifting low-wage workers and their families out of poverty. Forging a new political bargain that balances labor-market flexibility with security for poor working families is one of the most critical challenges facing government today. Boosting Paychecks sheds new light on the scope of this challenge, the political constraints and opportunities policymakers face, and their prospects for success in this critical endeavor.

Product Description: Praise for Hire the American Dream"I learned early on that Dave Melton had cracked the code(about hiring and retaining great people) in his Manhattan franchise.His employees, who are all immigrants to the United States, areextremely loyal and are committed to customer service...read more

Product Description: In early 2007, there were approximately 140 living wage ordinances in place throughout the United States. Communities around the country frequently debate new proposals of this sort. Additionally, as a result of ballot initiatives, twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia, representing nearly 70 percent of the total U...read more

Product Description: This research investigates the impact of three equal cost alternative labor market policies on the economic well-being of low-income families and society in general at the turn of the 21st century. The principal focus is on how changes in the minimum wage, Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and payroll taxes influence the well-being of low-income American families...read more

Product Description: For over a decade, policy makers have emphasized work as the best means to escape poverty. However, millions of working Americans still fall below the poverty line. Though many of these "working poor" remain mired in poverty for long periods, some eventually climb their way up the earnings ladder...read more

Product Description: The living wage movement is considered by many to be the most interesting grassroots enterprise to emerge since the civil rights movement. Ten years after the first ordinance was passed in Baltimore, there are more than one hundred living wage ordinances on the books across the United States, and the movement continues to thrive and grow, despite increasing opposition...read more

Product Description: This well-documented brief demonstrates that both poverty and excessive economic inequality are inimical to the maintenance of a healthy republic, and notes that providing a living wage is not only fair, but is superior to any other public policy such as cash transfers (or the Earned Income Tax Credit) in the effort to fight poverty...read more

Product Description: Since 1994, nearly 40 cities in the United States have passed living wage ordinances. These ordinances mandate that businesses under contract with the city, and in some cases businesses receiving assistance from the city, pay employees a wage sufficient to lift their families out of poverty...read more

Product Description: Examines the historical evolution of the minimum wage, emphsizing that the nature of minimum wage arguments has shifted over time with the decline of organized labor. (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: An accessible and provocative argument for a national "living wage." "The living wage campaign is the most interesting (and under-reported) grassroots enterprise to emerge since the civil rights movement."--Robert Kuttner, editor of The American Prospect...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: The minimum wage appears to be a standard economic regulatory measure, yet a politics of symbolism more than anything else defines the political contests that periodically erupt over it. Detractors abhor its corruption of market principles, while supporters see it as a measure of society's symbolic commitment to the poor...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: In its proposal to increase the minimum wage, the Clinton administration has claimed that employment would not be adversely affected. Other research supports the view that a higher minimum wage means fewer jobs. This study discusses the strengths and weaknesses of both arguments...read more

Product Description: The Clinton administration has claimed its proposal to increase the minimum wage would not affect employment; other research supports that a higher minimum wage means fewer jobs.

Shows that improvement in the economic status of women, teenagers, nonwhites, and other low-productivity workers might be achieved by subsidizing wages, changing hiring standards, and improving vocational education. Bibliogs