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Katherine S. Newman
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Chutes and Ladders: Navigating the Low-Wage Labor Market Paperback – April 30, 2008

by Katherine S. Newman (Author)
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 3 ratings
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Now that the welfare system has been largely dismantled, the fate of America's poor depends on what happens to them in the low-wage labor market. In this timely volume, Katherine S. Newman explores whether the poorest workers and families benefited from the tight labor markets and good economic times of the late 1990s. Following black and Latino workers in Harlem, who began their work lives flipping burgers, she finds more good news than we might have expected coming out of a high-poverty neighborhood. Many adult workers returned to school and obtained trade certificates, high school diplomas, and college degrees. Their persistence paid off in the form of better jobs, higher pay, and greater self-respect. Others found union jobs and, as a result, brought home bigger paychecks, health insurance, and a pension. More than 20 percent of those profiled in Chutes and Ladders are no longer poor.

A very different story emerges among those who floundered even in a good economy. Weighed down by family obligations or troubled partners and hindered by poor training and prejudice, these "low riders" moved in and out of the labor market, on and off public assistance, and continued to depend upon the kindness of family and friends.

Supplementing finely drawn ethnographic portraits, Newman examines the national picture to show that patterns around the country paralleled the findings from some of New York's most depressed neighborhoods. More than a story of the shifting fortunes of the labor market, Chutes and Ladders asks probing questions about the motivations of low-wage workers, the dreams they have for the future, and their understanding of the rules of the game.

Previous page
  1. Print length
    426 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Harvard University Press
  4. Publication date
    April 30, 2008
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 1.07 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0674027531
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0674027534
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“This engaging book chronicles the divergent trajectories of a group of low-wage workers during a brief period of economic prosperity. Katherine Newman has once again demonstrated the value of careful ethnographic research in revealing the many challenges confronting the working poor. Chutes and Ladders is a unique and important study that should be widely read and discussed.”―William Julius Wilson, Harvard University

“Chutes and Ladders makes an important contribution to our knowledge of low-wage workers. There are many studies of the plight of young, low-income workers, but few if any follow them closely to see what happens to them over time. The conventional wisdom says that they are stuck in undesirable jobs forever, but Katherine Newman shows that about 20 per cent move up the job ladder and greatly improve their lives. Because of her detailed knowledge of these workers' life stores, Newman shows us how they do it.”―Andrew Cherlin, Johns Hopkins University

“Drawing on an eight-year study, Newman effectively uses ethnographic portraits to examine why some low-wage earners in New York's ghettos and beyond--particularly African American and Latino service-sector employees--have been experiencing a real-life version of the game. Some were able to capitalize on the economic prosperity of the late 1990s, often thanks to family, friends, and public subsidies; they went up the ladder, returning to school and obtaining trade certificates, high school diplomas, and even college degrees. Meanwhile, others, faced with family obligations, little or no training, and sheer prejudice, were not able to take advantage of these opportunities and moved downward. (starred review)”―Ellen D. Gilbert, Library Journal

“Newman is a patient and sympathetic reporter, and she asked her subjects deep questions about their work histories, their love lives, their politics and their dreams. A lot of what she heard from them will come as a surprise to anyone who has read much recent scholarship on the inner-city poor...Newman is not blind to the many disadvantages these former burger-flippers face in the marketplace, from outright racism to a lack of the casual social connections that middle-class Americans often use to find and land a job. The system really is sometimes rigged against these workers, and they know it. But despite all this, they speak persuasively and passionately about the way work, even rotten work, gives meaning to their lives. Stories like Adam's and Ebony's only confirm to them what they already believe: that anyone can succeed if they work hard enough.”―Paul Tough, New York Times Book Review

“Newman‘s important contribution to the literature on the impact of the low-wage job market and the dismantling of the welfare system follows a group of workers from the fast food industry in Harlem over a ten year span of time. Her ethnographic approach reveals the barriers faced by this group of workers and the different pathways utilized to attain upward mobility in the labor and wage structure. Newman...compares this sample and conclusions with a national representative sample from the Survey of Income and Program Participation during the same time period. The data analysis indicates that workers from poor and near-poor households experienced substantial upward mobility. This finding is confirmed for households that found employment in what are considered dead-end jobs. The increase in household income does not lift them from poverty, but the ethnographic analysis indicates the changes in households that occurred during this period. The combination of qualitative and quantitative data opens a discussion of mechanisms for policymakers to deal with the issue of work and the poverty population.”―D.S. Pierson, Choice

About the Author

Katherine S. Newman is Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor, and Torrey Little Professor of Sociology, at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard University Press (April 30, 2008)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 426 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0674027531
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0674027534
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.29 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.07 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 3 ratings

About the author

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Katherine S. Newman

Katherine S. Newman

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Katherine Newman is the author of "The Accordion Family: Boomerang Kids, Anxious Parents, and the Private Toll of Global Competition" (Beacon Press, 2012). She is a professor of sociology and James Knapp Dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. Author of ten books on middle-class economic instability, urban poverty, and the sociology of inequality, Newman has taught at the University of California-Berkeley, Columbia, Harvard, and Princeton.

Photographer Copyright Credit Name: Will Kirk, 2012.

Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
3 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

DAVID M ROSHAK
3.0 out of 5 stars Eye opening, yet slightly bias
Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2015
Chutes and Ladders is an in depth observational study of low/minimum wage workers at "burger barns". Newman and her team of grad students, interviewed upwards of 300 fast-food applicants and employees, following their lives for some two years after. Eight years later, Newman followed up on her "subjects", discovering that although many remained in a low wage lifestyle, for some, their minimum wage McJobs provided as a good enough foundation to boost them to well paid employment, far above the poverty line.

An ethnography is the interpretation of a culture, or a group of people. Similar to Morgan Spurlock's TV series "30 Days" in which he and his girlfriend live off only minimum wage jobs for 30 days, Newman, in her study, interprets the lifestyle and the struggles of these minimum wage employees.

Although Newman's Chutes and Ladders was exceptionally in depth and fascinating, there are unfortunately many times in the book in which the writer allow her upper-class value system to paint poor people in an unflattering and even stereotypical light. Newman suggests that a new job at the Gap in which the subject is "folding clothes rather than flipping burgers" (Newman 36), automatically gave the subject a better shot at being happy, despite the numerous drawbacks of working in retail (strict schedules, commute). But Newman did do a good job showing the reader the many struggles of these minimum wage workers, along with the occasional opportunities and successes they stumbled upon. "Carmen was unsure if she would ever find another job like the one she lost. Just as our fieldwork ended she heard of an opportunity from Karina's friend at an Old Navy store." (Newman 134). Newmans written ethnography of minimum wage workers adequately shows the struggles they endured and overcame, although often portraying them as stereotypical.
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Paula L. Craig
4.0 out of 5 stars Great if you're interested in questions about poverty
Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2007
"Chutes and Ladders" is a fascinating longitudinal study of low-wage workers in the U.S. labor market. I would like to see it become better known, especially among poor people and those who work with them. The main message of Newman's book is that it's not easy to climb out of poverty, but a surprising number of people do manage it.

I felt that Newman shied away from some of the easiest conclusions to draw from her own work. She notes frequently that problems with kids are a major reason why many people fail to escape poverty. Child care is at best expensive and at worst unavailable. Kids get sick and have to be taken care of, often leading to job loss among the poor. Yet Newman says almost nothing about the use of birth control and/or abortion to prevent poverty or increase the chance of a family escaping it. As far as I'm concerned, kids are a luxury item. My husband and I have a son, age ten. Although we both have good jobs, we have found even one child to be incredibly expensive in both money and time. I can't imagine how we could manage with two. Yet many subjects of Newman's study, already poor, go on to have two or five or even seven kids! No wonder so many of them stayed poor!

Newman mentions recent economic growth as one of the factors benefitting the poor in the U.S. This is misleading. Economic growth is generally measured by GDP, which is a measure so inaccurate so as to be almost laughable. GDP is not corrected for increasing population, pollution, exhaustion of natural resources, or declining quality of life. More accurate measures of economic growth, such as the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare or Genuine Progress Indicator, tend to show that there has been almost no genuine economic growth in the U.S. since the 1970s. For more on this, see McKibben's book "Deep Economy," Daly's "Beyond Growth," or Brian Czech's "Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train."

I also thought that Newman overlooked important questions on why it is that the quality of life for poor people in the U.S. is so low. After all, the average wage of a burger-flipping worker in the U.S. would put a family well into the middle class in most countries. Why is the cost of living so high here when the prices of most basic commodities do not differ all that much between countries? This is a complex question, but some surprising answers have already been found, which Newman would do well to consider. For example, one of the main reasons it costs so much to live in the U.S. is that our transportation system is organized around the automobile. Cars not only cost money for those who own them, they require high taxes to pay for all those highways. Everybody pays these taxes, including those who don't own a car. Cars also increase housing costs, because parking has to be provided for all those cars, which spreads out cities. For more on this, see Donald Shoup's book "The High Cost of Free Parking."

Overall, though, Newman's book is interesting and well worth reading.
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