In a book that Robert B. Reich, former United States Secretary of Labour, called "provocative and insightful...combining revealing details about specific people with thoughtful analysis of the trends that have shaped their lives," Katherine S. Newman, former of Dean of Social Science's at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and award-winning author of "No Shame in My Game" exposes a growing but largely invisible group of Americans: the aging urban underclass. While an increasing population of the United States population is about to retire - the number of Americans over age sixty-five is expected to double to seventy million in the next thirty years - the experience of middle and old age, as Newman shows, differs dramatically for whites and minorities, for the middle class and the poor, and for those living in the suburbs versus the city. Focusing on the lives of the elderly African Americans and Latinos in pockets of New York City where wages are low, crime is often high, and the elderly have few support systems they can rely on, "A Different Shade of Gray" provides "a well-documented portrait of a little-examined group." (Kirkus Reviews).