$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America

This book was so well researched, well written and informative I used it as a text for my undergrad course on poverty. Lots of examples from the lives of families these authors followed in their effort to understand the extreme poverty that has ballooned in this country following welfare reform. They also elucidate what went wrong with the efforts to reform welfare in the 1990s. Everyone should read this. My only disappointment was with the final chapter where the authors give their suggestions for how to improve the problem.

The first hand accounts of individuals was very enlightening. We all here the stories of the abusers of the system but it's useful to hear about the more typical users. This book gave me a better appreciation for the people around me.

All Americans should read this book. It is a discouraging picture of poverty in America brought about by the same old "good intentions" that didn't predict all the outcomes. I hope all the readers will support welfare reform to eliminate the cash deficits in recipients and encourage an increase in SNAP payments. Americans shouldn't have to rely on food banks to survive.

I downloaded $2.00 a Day after reading a recommendation by a fellow clergy person. $2 a day is the standard for poverty around the world. I had no idea that a significant portion of Americans live on $2 a day or less.

Misconceptions about welfare abuse still abound. Remember the stories of recipients buying crab legs with SNAP?

Yes, through the detailed stories shared in this book, I got a different picture, of part of our country struggling to get by day after day. I recommend this book to anyone interested in seeing the faces of those so poor in America it is almost beyond belief.

We've all been through hard times, but regardless what they have been like, chances are they are nothing like the stories found in this book. This is a very eye opening read, and should be a call to arms to anyone with any kind of humanity in their soul. We have the means to keep this from happening, and we should make sure that those resources are tapped to ensure that this study becomes a thing of the past.

Highly recommend! Very well written and engaging. While both authors are respected scholars, it is written in a very accessible manner. The book helps personalize the experiences of the $2-a-day-poor (a concept that is truly mind boggling) to really facilitate understanding. I plan to include it in my spring semester college class on children and families to help students better understand the the issues facing poor families in America today.

All Americans should read this book. It is a discouraging picture of poverty in America brought about by the same old "good intentions" that didn't predict all the outcomes. I hope all the readers will support welfare reform to eliminate the cash deficits in recipients and encourage an increase in SNAP payments. Americans shouldn't have to rely on food banks to survive.

I downloaded $2.00 a Day after reading a recommendation by a fellow clergy person. $2 a day is the standard for poverty around the world. I had no idea that a significant portion of Americans live on $2 a day or less.

Misconceptions about welfare abuse still abound. Remember the stories of recipients buying crab legs with SNAP?

Yes, through the detailed stories shared in this book, I got a different picture, of part of our country struggling to get by day after day. I recommend this book to anyone interested in seeing the faces of those so poor in America it is almost beyond belief.

We've all been through hard times, but regardless what they have been like, chances are they are nothing like the stories found in this book. This is a very eye opening read, and should be a call to arms to anyone with any kind of humanity in their soul. We have the means to keep this from happening, and we should make sure that those resources are tapped to ensure that this study becomes a thing of the past.

Highly recommend! Very well written and engaging. While both authors are respected scholars, it is written in a very accessible manner. The book helps personalize the experiences of the $2-a-day-poor (a concept that is truly mind boggling) to really facilitate understanding. I plan to include it in my spring semester college class on children and families to help students better understand the the issues facing poor families in America today.

Well written and interesting, this look at poverty in America today was surprising to me. I wonder how many other people did not realize how the welfare picture had changed over the past two decades and how many people are virtually locked out of getting meaningful help when they need it.

This book should be required reading for all Americans. It sheds light on the desperately poor of our country and their plight. More importantly, it shows how they are in many ways like everyone else (hard work ethic, family oriented, etc.) yet because of so many circumstances beyond their control, are forced to live in so much hardship. The best thing about this book is the empathy it forces you to have for the $2.00 a day poor.

I am overwhelmed after reading this book, just like I was when I took master's level classes on saving our environment. Unless you are in church or in poverty does anyone want to really talk about this. I will try to help others as I can.

All tea party republicans should read this book before shooting of their mouths about lazy people on welfare. The writer covers actual statistical information and the life stories of some of the poorest people in America. I doubt most of the haters know how to read a book like this but it should be required reading before anyone spouts off about the poor. The American welfare system has changed but the knowledge of people who complain about it has not. Most poor people are willing to admit they made some mistakes in their lives. But most also want to be working, contributing members of society. However our current system of low wages, lack of good medical care and discrimination against people already falling behind makes getting yourself out of a hole so much harder. Let's say you have a minimum wage job or maybe more than one of them, as many do. You can only afford to live in the worst neighborhoods, where car insurance rates are phenomenal. You choose between driving to work without insurance and feeding your kids. Then you make a simple mistake, you roll through a stop sign, get pulled over and get a ticket for no insurance as well as the rolling through a stop. Maybe the two tickets are less than $200.00 but to you that's impossible to pay. You can't pay the rent if you pay the ticket. So eventually a warrant gets issued and the penalties start stacking up. You end up in jail, where the judge adds additional court costs and sets bail, which you have no one to help you pay. You lose your job because you don't show up for work. Soon you and your kids are sleeping in the car you still can't afford to insure. That's the downward spiral caused by just being poor in the first place. The
conditions that some of the people in this book live in, a lot of them children, rival third world countries and that's Americas shame. America needs to raise minimum wages and change some policies regarding support systems for the poor.

Brilliant book on the plight of the working poor. Too many folks disparage the idea of 15$ minimum wage because they think that it will somehow hurt the economy. Or that teenage burger flippers don't deserve to earn that much. However these are real stories of real families struggling to survive on such meager wages. I hope that it opens the conversation on poverty and welfare reform in this country.

You will never fully realize how lucky you are,until you read this book! Aside from the technical/statistical data that's provided, I had really no clear picture of how folks make do with NOTHING and still survive. The punishment for being poor or "less than" is overwhelming and humiliating. How on earth do they do it .? But survive they do, it seems. But for the grace of God there go I. Read it..... it makes you appreciate what you have or what you could lose.

Here's my Goodreads review of this timely and important book:

When I listen to the debate over voting laws, I've always thought that there must be Americans who for some reason can't/don't get an identity card, but I didn't really know why. I figured maybe they were not physically able to get one, didn't understand that they needed one, or just didn't bother. $2.00 a Day is about many these people, although the book never once mentions voting requirements or identification cards.

Edin's book takes some time (although not in great depth) to walk her readers through the history of the U.S. government's efforts to help the poor. Born in 1967, I know that my divorced mom accessed some services (food stamps for one) but by the time I was in middle school she had a college degree and a full time job and we were out of the system. When Clinton became president and changed the welfare system, I wasn't paying attention to the monumental changes he made. So most of Edin's information was, I'm afraid to say, new to me.

The best part of the book is at the end, where Edin discusses numerous ways to help this desperately poor American population. Surprisingly most if not all of her ideas are simple and revolve around what most Americans believe in--the opportunity to work, putting the family first, self autonomy, and joining a community (157-158)

I highly suggest that if you're reading my review and aren't an expert on welfare reform in the past 30 years, you read this book. Read it especially if you believe that the poor are poor because they are lazy.

A fascinating study of the dignity, endurance, resourcefulness and courage of the poorest people in the United States. It exposes the lie in the myth that poor people are lazy and unwilling to work. Indeed, if we created employment opportunities in the places of high poverty, we would reduce poverty in the U.S. dramatically.

This book is very accessible for those just getting introduced to the topic of poverty in America and is highly engaging for poverty researchers and academics. This has all the makings of a book that will be able to spark important dialogues about challenging extreme poverty.

It is interesting to read about the poorest among the poor, but the picture seems quite biased with preconceived ideas. Of course, their study is somewhat limited in order to address the entire issue.
I like to point out “Equality” does not exist in this world and God created the world and its contents unequal in order to make life interesting. We should strive for equal opportunity, though extremely difficult. If everything is equal, then life do not exist.

This is a flawlessly researched and absorbing book about the type of poverty that most people do not want to believe exists in America. The authors use stories from real people that make the research come alive. I could not put this book down! It is a must-read for anyone who is interested in the future of the welfare state.

Reading this book provided some great insight into the struggle ms of every day people and what are basically the working poor. I have given this to both my teenage sons to read in hopes it sends a clear and loud message about the importance of education and making smart decisions for the long term

After reading Barbara Ehrenreich's NICKEL AND DIMED, my understanding of minimum-wage jobs changed a great deal because I came to realize just how that role in the United States' labor markets has changed. Her exploration of how difficult it is for a lone person to survive on those wages tore down the romantic, politically motivated perception that mostly students rely on those jobs, an old notion held over from a time when many of us could earn two semesters' worth of university experience over a summer of working them. Those times have past.

Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer follow the further consequences of this shift in American life in $2.00 A DAY: LIVING ON ALMOST NOTHING IN AMERICA. Like NICKEL AND DIMED, $2.00 A DAY mixes personal profiles, social analysis, and political timelines to indicate how so many of our fellow citizens have become mired in such crippling poverty. The distance between political expediency and immediate need remains a strong focus throughout the work.

It's time to meet some of your neighbors you may not have seen yet. Recommended.

I found the book interesting, but I also disagreed with its unlying premise of securing more wealth transfers to those living on the low end. No doubt there are many in this country that need help, but too many of the situations shown are self-inflicted (e.g. multiple kids that can't be supported without taxpayer assistance.) I believe that many in the country are unfortunately turning a deaf ear to the calls for help, since all the Trillions$ spent on the failed War on Poverty have appeared to be ill spent.

That being said, I still think the book was valuable to showing a side of society that most are immune from. It galvanized me to up my giving to the local food banks and charitable organizations in our part of TN that work with these poor, since I believe they do more than just giving more and more benefits for people to spend on who knows what. Worth the read.

I really want to understand our welfare system in the US. And why generation after generation of some cultures never seem to escape it. Is it the fault of the recipients or the government or society at large? This book left me feeling very frustrated, though not immune to the children suffering from hunger and worse. As far as solutions, this book seemed to say we need to raise the minimum wage and up welfare payments. But reading this book did not leave me convinced that is the solution at all! It made me instead wonder how we can stop the unbearable cycle that repeats itself: women subjugated by abusive lovers, having multiple children when they can't care properly for even one child. Why is birth control glossed over? And if women are selling their food stamps to pay for utilities, and that's the cause of not having enough money to feed their kids, then we need to offer utility company credits that go directly to the utility companies (so the credits cannot be sold on the black market) in addition to food stamps. We need to turn festering vacant lots in inner cities into community vegetable gardens, so that good healthy food can be distributed to those in need along with some sweat equity and community spirit. We need to mobilize churches to increase mentoring partnerships between members who are in need and those who are not. It was interesting that the people in this book who were the most desperate had no connection to a faith-based institution, which could give so much help financially, in employment, in babysitting, in friendship, etc. Also not mentioned is that the US military is a very real haven for people who want to escape this pattern. It ironically provides the first stable environment: "brothers" and "sisters"/comrades; a regular food supply; housing; clothing; medical care; education; employment/vocational training and a sense of purpose, responsibility, and being part of a team. Perhaps we cannot depend on government and bureaucracy - a point the book makes frequently (yet ironically suggesting even more government intervention). But anytime you look at a successful group of people/culture that started out with nothing and made something of themselves, it's because they had the support and encouragement from within the community, not because they relied on the government to save or maintain them. Ultimately, children who didn't ask for this life are the victims. And that knowledge made me sick to my stomach.

A readable insight into the lives of 6 families who are recognizably poor. The authors fail to look at the big picture. The authors are completely nonjudgmental and are OK with a hungry cigarette addict. The authors do not mention street corner begging, one of the most visible signs of poverty in America. Street begging is a survival strategy. There are facts reported that are educational and of value -- not the least of which is that without cash people are frozen into their current economic status. The 1996 Welfare reform hurt many Americans that only the authors have identified (as far as I have read).

The suggestions made by the authors do not deal with the behavior of the 6 families. Only one of the people described (the kool-aid ice-pop lady) demonstrated character. All of the rest had serious social issues and/or mental issues that more money or a steady job would be unlikely to address. The authors hoped a steady job would overcome psychological problems of two of the 6 (they used "maybe" and "might" to express their hope).

My biggest problem with the book is that the authors told only part of the stories of these anonymized people. I don't doubt the truth of the personal facts reported. I easily recognize that a significant part of the facts have been left out -- either through oversight or volition of the authors.