Unmasking the Poor

The poor are pretty well hidden from everyone except each other in the United States. You won't find them in the same neighborhoods or the same schools as the well-to-do. They're not on television, except for the local crime-casts. And they've vanished from the nation's political discussion.

Hiding the poor has been quite a trick, because there are still millions upon millions of them out here. And despite all the rosy scenarios we've been fed — the end of welfare as we know it, rising tides lifting everybody's yachts — they're not doing very well at all.

This has been made clear in a new report from the Economic Policy Institute in Washington and in Barbara Ehrenreich's latest book, "Nickel and Dimed."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/30/opinion/30HERB.html