In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, home appliances, motor vehicles, air travel, air conditioning, and television transformed households and workplaces. With medical advances, life expectancy between 1870 and 1970 grew from forty-five to seventy-two years. Weaving together a narrative, historical anecdotes, and economic...

"This bulletin documents the planning, operation, and evaluation of the Survey of Consumer Expenditures, 1960-61, and lays the foundation for planning surveys in the 1970's. It contains information on sampling and other errors, and presents extensive comparisons of the survey findings with data from other sources, principally the Bureau of the Census and Office of Business Economics of the Department of Commerce. Also, it includes facsimiles of all...

"David Shipler ... journeys deeply into the lives of individual store clerks and factory workers, farm laborers and sweatshop seamstresses, illegal immigrants in menial jobs and Americans saddled with immense student loans and paltry wages. They are known as the working poor ... Braced by hard fact and personal testimony, he unravels the forces that confine people in the quagmire of low wages. And unlike most works on poverty, this book also offers...

Is Social Security really going bust, and what does that mean to me? If I hire an immigrant, am I hurting a native-born worker? Why does the stock market go up when employment declines? Should I give that homeless guy a buck? What's a "living wage"? How much can presidents really affect economic outcomes? What does the Federal Reserve Bank really do? And even when some pundits say the economy's sound, why do I still feel so squeezed? If you'd like...

Climate change, peak oil, and economic instability aren't just future social problems--they jeopardize our homes and families right now. Our once-abundant food supply is being threatened by toxic chemical agriculture, rising food prices and crop shortages brought on by climate change. Funding for education and health care is strained to the limit, and safe and affordable housing is disappearing. Depletion and Abundance explains how we are living beyond...