S. M. Miller is research professor of sociology at Boston College and director, Project on Income and Poverty at the Commonwealth Institute. He has been president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, the Eastern Sociological Society, the Research Committee on Poverty, Social Welfare and Social Policy of the International Sociological Association. Currently, he is on boards of ... Read moreCROP, the poverty research affiliate of the International Social Science Council, United for a Fair Economy, Poverty and Race Research Action Council and the Fourth World Movement. He is the author or co-author of more than 300 articles and is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of more than l0 books and monographs. He has been a Guggenheim, German Marshall Fund and Fullbright fellow. Anthony J. Savoie is a Ph.D. student in sociology at Boston College and a research associate at the Commonwealth Institute. His research interests are in social stratification and consumer culture, particularly the relevance of Thorstein Veblen's theories for understanding stratification today. He holds a Master's Degree in Social Work, and spent several years working in homeless programs with adults and adolescents in Boston. He now lives in Rome, Italy. Show Less