Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, the author decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job, any job, can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, she left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from...

"What does it mean to work in the forgotten America where millions toil in the shadow of prosperity? What is the daily reality of life for a factory worker or field hand? To find out, award-winning journalist Gabriel Thompson spent a year working alongside America's invisible poor--citizens and immigrants alike--all of whom endure backbreaking work, miniscule wages, and nonexistent benefits in their struggle to make ends meet"--Page 2 of cover.

When government imposes new taxes, rules, or regulations, it creates outcomes that often differ from the original intent. In some cases, these outcomes are so severe that they render the policy a failure. The law of unintended consequences has taken on an increasing importance during the era of ever-expanding government, and this book explores four important examples: cigarette taxes, alcohol prohibition, the minimum wage, and federal income tax....

"Pay the People! argues that when workers are paid fairly, everyone, including businesses, benefits"--