The State of Working America

by Jared Bernstein, Lawrence Mishel, Heidi Shierholz

The State of Working America, prepared biennially since 1988 by the Economic Policy Institute, includes a wide variety of data on family incomes, wages, taxes, unemployment, wealth, and poverty-data that enable the authors to closely examine the effect of the economy on the living standards of the American people. This edition, like the previous ones, exposes and analyzes the most recent and critical trends in the country.

Praise...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801474779
• ISBN13: 9780801474774
• Release Date: April 2009
• Publisher: ILR Press
• Length: 472 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Great perspective on how Americans are doing economically

The State of Working America is a fact based overview of income, wealth and job benefit trends in our economy. It provides excellent perspective to any discussion of what we need to do if we are intend to rebuild our middle class standard of living. The data come from various US government sources and are intelligently presented and reviewed. The facts about trends in income and availability of employer provided health insurance puts our current health care debate into clearer perspective. Sadly, both political parties are doing their best to avoid confronting the real situation, which is not pretty. If you want to understand how we're doing as a people, read this book. An excellent companion book on why our middle class is eroding and why income and wealth in this county are continuing to skew to a very small group of Americas is James K. Galbraith's "The Predator State". Galbraith, an economist and son of the great John Kenneth Galbraith, tackles these issues: "what the rise in inequality is all about", "the inadequacy of making markets work", "the need for planning" and "there is no such thing as free trade". The "State of Working America" provides a detailed description of how Americans are doing economically and "The Predator State" describes how political and corporate power elites are driving increasing inequalities in income, wealth and job benefits. Together, these books are an excellent antidote to the ideological screeds and political smokescreens that dominate our mainstream media.