Review
"
Shifting Fortunes is a political Power Bar. Everything you need to know about the human shape of the American economy in one tasty, conveniently condensed package. Read it, and be nourished." --
Barbara Ehrenreich, author"A scary little book of plain, hard numbers." --
David Nyhan, syndicated columnist, Boston Globe"Perhaps the most alarming finding in [
Shifting Fortunes] is not that financial security has become more elusive for most families--it is the further finding that a specific segment of workers, the 30 percent who earn poverty or near-poverty wages, have been getting the rawest deal." --
Molly Ivins, syndicated columnist, Fort Worth Star-Telegram"This is democracy's wake-up call, chronicling how economic disparities have gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. Shifting Fortunes shows why we must move quickly to restore sanity to a system gone mad." --
Jeff Gates, author of The Ownership Solution"You have to go deeper into the [bull market] stories to see that someone's fuel is someone else's fumes...The wealth gap is so huge that [
Shifting Fortunes] concludes that serious measures have to be taken to address it." --
Derrick Z. Jackson, syndicated columnist, Boston Globe"Your opinion of a cattle feedlot has a lot to do with where you're standing and what direction the wind is blowing. It's the same with our economy.
Shifting Fortunes shows that for the last 25 years or so, more and more of us Americans seem to have gotten stuck on the downwind side." -- Jim Hightower, radio host
Shifting Fortunes completes the picture. It reveals that financial security has become more elusive for most families and that the economic boom has been built on the sweat of the 30 percent of American workers who earn poverty or near-poverty wages. Underlying these trends is an inescapable fact: our economy has been getting increasingly unequal. Whether measured by wages, income or wealth, for 25 years the share of the privileged has increased, and everyone else (a roughly 80 percent majority) has become relatively worse off. We are truly in a second Gilded Age. -- Juliet Schor Author of The Overspent American
Shifting Fortunes is not just a discussion about what is happening to the rich and what is happening to the poor. It is also a discussion about what is happening to middle Americans...As you are about to see, they are big losers over the last 25 years. -- Lester Thurow MIT Sloan School of Management
About the Author
Chuck Collins is the Co-Director of United for a Fair Economy. He is a contributor to the forthcoming edition of The Field Guide to the U.S. Economy (The New Press, 1999). He was previously director of the Massachusetts H.O.M.E. Coalition and Director of Technical Assistance for the Institute for Community Economics. He has an MBA in Community Economic Development from New Hampshire College.
Betsy Leondar-Wright is the Communications Director of United for a Fair Economy. She was previously Executive Director of the Massachusetts Human Services Coalition, Executive Director of the Anti-Displacement Project and Program Coordinator of Women for Economic Justice. She has an MA in Social Economy from Boston College.
Holly Sklar is the author of Chaos or Community? Seeking Solutions, Not Scapegoats for Bad Economics and co-author of Streets of Hope: The Fall and Rise of an Urban Neighborhood. Her op-eds have appeared in newspapers nationwide including the Philadelphia Inquirer, Houston Chronicle, Miami Herald, Cleveland Plain Dealer, San Jose Mercury News, Kansas City Star and USA Today. She is a member of the board of United for a Fair Economy and has an MA in Political Science from Columbia University.
Lester Thurow is professor of management and economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the author of numerous books including The Future of Capitalism.
Juliet Schor is an economist and senior lecturer on womens studies at Harvard University and the author of The Overspent American.
