more on the article from yesterday:

claxton6 on the MeFi thread added two great links:

A review of the book on Salon

She wanted, in particular, to find out how "the 12 million women about to be booted into the labor market by welfare reform [were] going to make it on $6 or $7 an hour"; the answer, to judge by Ehrenreich's experience, is just barely, if at all.

Chatting with customers and co-workers is rechristened as "time theft" by Wal-Mart authorities, who expect every 15-minute break to be punched out on the time clock.

in the interest of showing the other side (that is, not my general economic leaning) a little:

However inadequate (especially for single mothers) welfare-to-work programs may be, it's not clear that staying on welfare wasn't just as demoralizing in its way as working at Wal-Mart.

[I]t's not humanly possible to pursue the education and training required to improve your lot while you're supporting yourself (let alone children) with minimum-wage jobs.

NPR's reports last week on poverty in America, including an interesting poll.

60 of 88 Republicans responding said: Poor people today have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return.

That is psychotic.