The working poor: is their gap with the middle class narrowing? A reporter looks for ways to merge coverage of the middle class and the poor.

Nieman Reports, March, 2006 by Nyhan, Paul

There is a distinctly American view of poverty. The poor are not like you and me. They are homeless men huddled outside shelters, single mothers lingering on welfare in the projects or, most recently, dirt-poor families ripped apart by freak hurricanes on the Gulf Coast. The poor are separated from the rest of us, this view holds, perhaps by natural disasters, addictions or long stints on welfare, and they rarely join us at work.

In reality, there are no clear boundaries. These days the poor might serve coffee, greet patients at the doctor's office, guard commuter trains, or handle legal papers. A team of Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporters spent the past year with these workers, watching them lose their homes, declare bankruptcy, enroll in college, get...

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