The Working Poor: Invisible in America

David K. Shipler, a distinguished journalist and author of non-fiction books on civil liberties, writes The Working Poor: Invisible in America in the first person and makes a point of recording the conversational nature of his interactions. Through his personal research and interviews, Shipler casts the spotlight on his interviewees, allowing their patterns of speech and personality to emerge. However, he also maintains his own largely neutral and objective persona throughout the non-fiction narrative. Muting his own personality in favor of his subjects' gives the impression that Shipler is kind, humble, and non-judgmental. Nevertheless, his own views and wry sense of humor occasionally emerge. For example, when he visits the home of Ricky Drake, a Cleveland mechanic at, and watches him hand a dime to a young woman for cigarettes, Shipler notes “the sign of a man who was pretending to have quit smoking” (267). A reciprocal grin from Drake, implies that they share the same duplicity around the habit.

Caroline Payne, who in 2000 works on the cash register in a New Hampshire branch of Wal-Mart, earns just 80 cents more an hour than she did working at a Vermont factory in 1970. Hard-working and enthusiastic at the age of 50, Caroline had failed to gain promotion.