Thirty-five million Americans are living in poverty, yet they’re not necessarily idle. Many of them are like Caroline, who earns $7.50 an hour in a New Hampshire factory, or Candalaria, who earns three-quarters of a cent for each zipper she sews on jeans at a Los Angeles sweatshop. David K. Shipler, a former New York […]
Kathryn Lewis
Posted inArticle
Good Signs
Living in Washington, I’ve come to expect poorly attended marches — but this weekend proved to be a pleasant surprise. A consortium of antiwar groups, spearheaded by International A.N.S.W.E.R., brought thousands to town on Saturday to protest George W. Bush’s Iraq policies. While the streets were peppered with the usual suspects — black-clad anarchists, radical […]
Posted inFeatures
Hard Luck and Welfare
Hands to Work: The Stories of Three Families Racing the Welfare Clock By LynNell Hancock. William Morrow, 320 pages, $25.95 After fleeing abuse at home, Brenda Fields and her children, Ty, 3, and Loreal, 17, found themselves on the doorstep of the Emergency Assistance Unit on East 151st Street in the Bronx on a brisk […]
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Devil in the Details:
It took all of seven days to shut down the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Influence — roughly the same amount of time that anyone actually knew it existed. Controversy over OSI originally heated up following a New York Times story suggesting the office might spread false reports to the foreign press or run “black” propaganda […]
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Devil in the Details
According to U.S. Department of Labor statistics, Enron workers lost between 70 and 90 percent of their retirement plans as the company’s stock collapsed. Cumulatively, workers lost more than a billion dollars in retirement assets. The ensuing outrage has thrust pension reform onto the political agenda. President Bush has advanced a plan that would expand […]