Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty level wages. Journalist Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them in order to find out how anyone survives on six dollars an hour. So began a gruelling, hair-raising and darkly funny odyssey though the underworld of working America.

Living on an estate in Clapham, Polly Toynbee started from scratch and found that if she were truly unemployed, she would not even be able to afford a new job, and that faced with starvation, it's impossible not to sink into debt. This book provides an account of her courageous intention to live and work on the minimum wage.

Explores the links between Hollywood and the fast food trade, and the tactics used to target ever younger consumers. This title is a meticulously researched account.

Ben Cheever's - former editor at Reader's Digest , husband of a New York Times book critic, son of Pulitzer-prize-winning author - found himself out of a job. He skimmed the want-ads, and before he knew it he had been a security guard, a salesman, and even a volunteer Santa Claus. Here, he chronicles life on the other side of the counter.