The Moral Underground: How Ordinary Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy

About this book

A fascinating look at the disconnect between corporate policies and workers real livesand the everyday heroes who try to help (Publishers Weekly). For the poor there are challenges every day that they dont have extra money to solve: a sick kid car trouble an unexpected dentist bill. The obstacles can make it harder to hold on to a jobbut a job loss would be catastrophic. However there are countless unsung heroes who bend or break the rules to help those millions of Americans with impossible schedules paychecks and lives make it from paycheck to paycheck. This book tells their stories. Whether its a nurse choosing to treat an uninsured child a supervisor deciding to overlook infractions or a restaurant manager sneaking food to a workers children middle-class Americans are secretly refusing to be complicit in a fundamentally unfair system that puts a decent life beyond the reach of the working poor. In this tale of a kind of economic disobediencetold in whispers to Lisa Dodson over the course of eight years of research across the countryhundreds of supervisors teachers and health care professionals describe intentional acts of defiance that together tell the story of a quiet revolt of a moral underground that has grown in response to an immoral economy. It documents a whole new phenomenonpeople reaching across Americas economic fault lineand provides an account of the human consequences and lives behind the business-page headlines. If only this book had been published in 2007. Then the hundreds of people interviewed by Lisa Dodson would have been able to pass along an important piece of advice: Whats good for business is not necessarily good for America. Time