$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in AmericaA revelatory account of poverty in America so deep that we, as a country, don't think it exists Jessica Compton's family of four would have no cash income unless she donated plasma twice a week at her local donation center in Tennessee. Modonna Harris and her teenage daughter Brianna in Chicago often have no food but spoiled milk on weekends. After two decades of brilliant research on American poverty, Kathryn Edin noticed something she hadn't seen since the mid-1990s -- households surviving on virtually no income. Edin teamed with Luke Shaefer, an expert on calculating incomes of the poor, to discover that the number of American families living on $2.00 per person, per day, has skyrocketed to 1.5 million American households, including about 3 million children. Where do these families live? How did they get so desperately poor? Edin has "turned sociology upside down" (Mother Jones) with her procurement of rich -- and truthful -- interviews. Through the book's many compelling profiles, moving and startling answers emerge. The authors illuminate a troubling trend: a low-wage labor market that increasingly fails to deliver a living wage, and a growing but hidden landscape of survival strategies among America's extreme poor. More than a powerful exposé, $2.00 a Day delivers new evidence and new ideas to our national debate on income inequality. |
Contents
1 Welfare is Dead | 1 |
2 Perilous Work | 35 |
3 A Room of Ones Own | 65 |
4 By Any Means Necessary | 93 |
5 A World Apart | 129 |
Where Then from Here? | 157 |
Back Matter | 175 |
Back Flap | 211 |
Back Cover | 212 |
Spine | 213 |
Other editions - View all
$2.00 A Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America Kathryn J. Edin,H. Luke Shaefer Limited preview - 2015 |
Common terms and phrases
$2-a-day poverty adults AFDC afford Alva Mae American Azara benefits bill Brianna cash income Chicago Chicago City child city’s claim Cleveland Clinton couldn’t David Ellwood Delta Devin Devin Brown dollars earnings economic EITC Ellwood employers employment families family’s federal food stamps full-time homeless households interview Jennifer Hernandez Jennifer’s Jessica Johnson City Kaitlin Kaitlin and Cole Kathryn Edin kids living low-wage Luke Shaefer Martha million Mississippi Delta Modonna month National neighborhood offer Paul percent Peter Edelman plasma Policy poor poverty line private charities Rae’s recipients refundable tax credits rent says selling Shaefer and Edin shelter single mothers SNAP Social someone strategies subsidy survive Susan Tabitha TANF tax credits there’s tion Travis U.S. Census Bureau U.S. Department virtually wage Walmart week welfare reform What’s workers