Collected from a series of articles published in the New York Times in the spring of 2005.

Includes bibliographical references.

Shadowy lines that still divide / Janny Scott, David Leonhardt -- Life at the top in America isn't just better, it's longer / Janny Scott -- A marriage of unequals / Tamar Lewin -- Up from the holler : living in two worlds, at home in neither / Tamar Lewin -- On a Christian mission to the top / Laurie Goodstein, David D. Kirkpatrick -- The college dropout boom / David Leonhardt -- No degree, and no way back to the middle / Timothy Egan -- Fifteen years on the bottom rung / Anthony DePalma -- When the Joneses wear jeans / Jennifer Steinhauer -- The five-bedroom, six-figure rootless life / Peter T. Kilborn -- Old Nantucket warily meets the new / Geraldine Fabrikant -- Richest are leaving even the rich far behind / David Cay Johnston -- In fiction, a long history of fixation on the social gap / Charles McGrath -- Angela Whitiker's climb / Isabel Wilkerson -- Encounters with class. My nanny was a dreadful snob / Christopher Buckley ; Downwardly mobile in Birmingham / Diane McWhorter ; From the Bronx to Cornell / Richard Price ; At the top of the bottom in the segregated South / David Levering Lewis ; We were poor, but I didn't know it / Linda Chavez -- Appendix: The New York Times poll on class.

Explores class inequities in American society, describing how factors such as education, occupation, and income all contribute to creating real differences in social mobility and opportunity, with real life examples.