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Ehrenreich's book is missing one point about what working those low-wage jobs creates in people that being on welfare never does: It makes you want a better life and a better job. It makes you want your kids to have a better life, and it makes parents do the things necessary for their kids to move up to the next level. There are a lot of kids out there today who were the first generation of their family to go to college because their parents worked those hard low-wage jobs. It makes people change their behavior. If you are working those jobs, you are less likely to have four kids because you can't afford them. You are less likely to have a baby at an early age. That's what welfare reform did -- it dropped the teen pregnancy rate by 20 percent. In other words, working a crappy job forces you to pursue the American dream.

-- Slover

You're right, it is almost impossible to pursue an education and work a full-time job. As a high school teacher, I shake my head at all my students who seem to think that they will just be given a "good-paying job" when they don't do shit in the classroom.

I'm tired of hearing about how hard it is for the poor when most of them have the chance to learn to read, do math and think creatively, but they simply piss away their time in the classroom and then throw lots of attitude at the teacher when he or she tries to get them to do their work (for their own good!). I don't feel sorry for them when I see them asking if I want fries with my burger. I worked hard for my education. Neither of my parents had even a high school degree, but they learned their lesson and did not let me piss my time away in high school. I worked all though college, and now I have a good-paying job and a nice home. I don't feel bad for the poor. Most of them have brought it upon themselves. Oh: I graduated with a degree in art. If I had it to do again, I would have gotten my degree in business.

-- Paul Gaddis

I don't know who wrote the headline for this piece ("Barbara Ehrenreich spent two years as a waitress, maid and Wal-Mart clerk, trying to find out how America's working poor make it. Her answer: A lot of them don't") but when I read the article I didn't see a single person mentioned who "didn't make it," i.e., died. Typical leftish hyperbole.

Are there a lot of people working jobs of pure drudgery? Yes. Compare that to, say, the 12th century, when some small fraction of the population sat in castles and monasteries and the rest toiled in drudgery in the fields, often dying of starvation and disease. How many of the unskilled workers mentioned in the book were dying of starvation and disease? How many of them actually suffered disease mainly because they ate too much of foods once considered luxury items for the rich only? Things are immeasurably better now for even the poorest people in this country, all thanks to capitalism and the free market, which Ehrenreich seems to be blaming somehow for the fact that some people do not have skills that create enough value to warrant high wages.

The fact is that most people working in unskilled, low-paying jobs move on later to higher-paying jobs. Most people work in unskilled jobs when they start out; that's what you do when you are in high school. The people who get stuck there for the longer term are largely people who made poor choices about starting families when they couldn't afford to, or made poor choices of mates who later abandoned them.

This sort of misfortune is hard, but blaming the people who take the risks to create companies and provide jobs is not the answer. If people like Ehrenreich think that workers are being paid unfairly low wages that gouge workers, they can start their own firms and lure away all of these workers with a promise of better pay. The fact that this doesn't happen suggests that the problem is not greedy, wicked corporations, but that the skills these people have do not warrant higher wages in the private sector.

The simple answer is that there will always be people who make unwise choices or who were brought into the world by parents unprepared to teach them how to make their way. This is not social injustice, because no one was behaving unjustly to cause this. It just is. There will always be differences between the levels of prosperity different people create. Meanwhile, the best solution to the problem of want and drudgery is a few more centuries of unfettered capitalism and individual liberty.

We've already essentially eliminated starvation; if liberals stop limiting the housing stock through rent controls and anti-development, environmentalist regulation, everyone will be able to afford housing.

Bottom line: There is no problem here that hasn't been a problem since time immemorial and will always be a problem. The best solution we have is freedom and capitalism.

-- Mark Jankus

Barbara Ehrenreich's experience as a working poor person is the equivalent of putting on shoe polish and being black for a day. Her experience was temporary and unreal in that she could go back to her "real" life at any time. The working poor have the same pride and commitment to their jobs that anyone else has, and in some cases more. Waitresses, hotel maids, McDonald's workers and others paid below the poverty line all deserve respect for their hard work, true, but they do not feel sorry for themselves for the most part. Many have aspirations to go back to school or move up the ladder to management and many do. As a part-time college instructor, I see many people going back to school to increase skills or get their degree while working at low-paid, menial jobs to get by.

I have yet to find one that feels sorry for him or herself. Our capitalist system that pays low wages is also the system that provides the opportunity for these people to move ahead in life. I agree with the judgment in the article that drug and alcohol abuse is the root of most of the problems for the poor, not bad schools or other social problems. These people go to the same schools that we all do.

This book should be used to hold a door open, because it sure can't be worth much more!

-- Lance Mertz

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