Sleeping Giant

Praise

“An urgent call for the restoration of the working class’s political and economic power as the most sound investment the country could make in its future.” —The New Yorker

“Read Sleeping Giant. It is raw. It is honest. And it is powerful. It is about the conversation we need to have in this country.” —Senator Elizabeth Warren

“Books about the state of the American working class do not usually fill me with optimism, but Tamara Draut’s thorough and lively report on the ‘new working class’ that inhabits our ‘bargain basement economy’ is a big exception!” —Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed, Founder of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project

“Sleeping Giant sets the record straight about what most American workers face every day—and what it’s going to take to win a future where everyone who works hard in our country can thrive. Tamara Draut is telling the stories of today’s working families, especially the growing and diverse group of service and care workers, whose stories politicians and other policymakers need to hear. These workers are demanding a better future for themselves and their children, through movements like the Fight for 15.” —Mary Kay Henry, President, Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
 
“On the eve of the financial crisis, Tamara Draut provided a stirring picture with Strapped of the stagnating wages and rising personal debt that was creating a more unequal—and unstable—economy. Now, a decade later, she’s issuing an equally important and hopefully equally prescient message: America’s diverse new working class is ready to be mobilized behind a bold agenda for economic and political reform. In our populist time, her call could not be more relevant or vital.” —Jacob S. Hacker, co-author of American Amnesia and Winner-Take-All Politics
 
 “This is quite simply the best analysis yet of the difficult challenges and dynamic potential of today’s working class. It’s also a wonderful read that will leave you both moved and hopeful.” —Bob Herbert, Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos and former Op-Ed Columnist for the New York Times 

“Tamara Draut’s new book is a wonderful tribute to working people. By offering a fresh and insightful new look at work in America—who’s doing it, how it’s changed, and why we should care, she helps us understand where everyone from the caregiver to the sanitation worker is situated, and offers a blueprint for a better life for all of us. “ —Ai-jen Poo, Director of National Domestic Workers Alliance, Co-Director of Caring Across Generations and author of Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America

“A close examination of the plight of the working class, the decline of organized labor’s political power, and the stirrings of activism that indicate change may be on the way. Draut pulls no punches in her analysis…. Readers who concur that we have a ‘neoliberal economic system that is systematically rotten to the core’ will welcome Draut’s impassioned report.” —Kirkus Reviews