$2.00 a Day

Starred review from June 22, 2015
This slim, searing look at extreme poverty deftly mixes policy research and heartrending narratives from a swath of the 1.5 million American households eking out an existence on cash incomes of $2 per person per day. Edin and Shaefer, respectively professors at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Michigan, trace the history of welfare in the U.S. up to the cuts enacted by President Clinton. They also explore the worlds of the desperately impoverished, profiling people who are able to find, at best, low-wage jobs with no bargaining power. Their subjects’ wrenching stories demonstrate the huge obstacles created by unstable housing and prevalent racial discrimination. Edin and Shaefer examine the many survival strategies used by the very poor to generate cash, including selling plasma, trading food stamps for discounted cash payments, and even selling their children’s Social Security numbers to people with fixed addresses, which the poorest lack. The strain of “the work of survival” has not defeated every person depicted in this book, but when a Mississippi teen is quoted saying that constant hunger can make you “feel like you want to be dead,” it’s impossible to ignore the high costs of abject poverty. Mixing academic seriousness and deft journalistic storytelling, this work may well move readers to positive action. Agent: Lisa Adams, Garamond Agency.

August 1, 2015

In their research, coauthors Edin (sociology & public health, Johns Hopkins; Promises I Can't Keep) and Shaefer (Univ. of Michigan Sch. of Social Work) easily found people living on less than two dollars a day in every region of the United States. This ease could be equated to a staggering number uncovered from Shaefer's findings: "In early 2011, 1.5 million households with roughly 3 million children were surviving on cash income of no more than $2.00 per person, per day in any given month." The authors reveal that despite the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, which sought to reform welfare, the number of individuals living below the poverty line continues to increase. Those documented wish to be part of a transformation that will take them beyond poverty. They strive for a 40-hour workweek, safe housing with affordable rent, and enough income to have food on the table every day. This book explains what happens to individuals who are still struggling to reach working-poor status after a government safety net is removed. VERDICT A must-read, whether you are for or against helping the poor in America.--Angela Forret, Clive P.L., IA

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.