Middle Class | Inequality | Work Supports

Beth Shulman is the author of The Betrayal of Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 30 Million Americans (September 2003, The New Press), a revealing examination of low wage work in the United States. She is working on a new book, Building a Good Jobs Nation, about the imperative for creating good jobs in the United States and the choices we can make to fulfill that goal.

Shulman currently co-chairs the Fairness Initiative on Low-Wage Work, a project to increase public awareness about the problems of low-wage work and the need for policy change to respond to this issue, works with the Russell Sage Foundation's Social Inequality and Future of Work Projects. She speaks throughout the country and lectures at conferences and universities on the economy for everyday Americans, the need for a new social contract, the American Dream, low-wage work, inequality and opportunity in America, workplace issues, business-labor relations, work & family conflicts in the workplace, employment discrimination and the role of unions in our society.

Previously, she was a Vice President of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. She was an adjunct professor at the School of Business and Public Management at The George Washington University. She began her career as a civil rights lawyer in Memphis, Tennessee focusing on employment discrimination and school desegregation cases.

Shulman served on President Clinton's Advisory Council for School to Work Opportunities. She was a Trustee of the Board of the National Planning Association, a member of the Domestic Strategy Group of the Aspen Institute and an Executive Board member of the Industrial Relations Research Association. She currently serves as Chair of the Board of the National Employment Law Project. She also serves on the Board of American Rights at Work, Wider Opportunities for Women and the Financial Markets Center.

Shulman has appeared on numerous T.V. and radio programs including Oprah, The News Hour, PBS Now with Bill Moyers, CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, ABC World News Tonight and NPR's Talk of the Nation.

Beth's writing has appeared in the Washigton Post, Los Angeles Times, Orlando Sentinel, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Wilson Quarterly, The American Prospect, The Nation, TomPaine.com, Huffington Post, among many others.

A native of Los Angeles, Shulman received an undergraduate degree in philosophy from the University of California at Los Angeles and a law degree from Georgetown Law Center.

bshulman@demos.org
220 Fifth Avenue, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10001

Analysis & Opinion

In the News