$2.00 a day Living on almost nothing in America

FROM THE LATE 1960s to the mid-1990s, a number of developments turned out to have profound effects on destitute families in the United States, which Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer's "$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America" brings into sharp relief. Critics of welfare repeatedly argued that the increase of unwed mothers was mainly due to rising rates of welfare payments through Aid to Families With Dependent Children (A.F.D.C.). Even though the scientific evidence offered little support for this claim, the public's outrage against the program, fueled by the "welfare queen" stereotype that Ronald Reagan peddled in stump speeches during his 1976 run for the presidency, led to calls for a major revamping of the welfare system. In 1993, Bill Clinton and his advisers began a discussion of welfare reform that was designed to "make work pay," a phrase coined by the Harvard economist David Ellwood in his 1988 book "Poor Support." Ellwood, one of Clinton's advisers, argued that to ease the transition from welfare to work, it would be necessary to provide training and job placement assistance; to help local government create public-sector jobs when private-sector jobs were lacking; and to develop child care programs for working parents. President Clinton's early welfare-reform proposal included these features, as well as another component that Ellwood submitted - time limits on the receipt of welfare once these provisions were in place. Republicans, however, seizing control of Congress in 1994, devised a bill that reflected their own vision of welfare reform. Designed as a block grant, giving states considerably more latitude in how they spent government money for welfare than A.F.D.C. permitted, the Republican bill also included a five-year lifetime limit on benefits based on federal funds. States were allowed to impose even shorter time limits. Although the bill increased child care subsidies for recipients who found jobs, the all-important public-sector jobs for those unable to find employment in the private sector were missing. Moreover, there wasn't enough budgeted for education and training. Much to the chagrin of the bill's critics - including Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who predicted in 1995 that the proposed legislation would lead to poor children "sleeping on grates" - President Clinton signed the bill, called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), on Aug. 22, 1996, two days after his signing into law the first increase in the federal minimum wage in five years. In the immediate years following the passing of welfare reform, supporters of TANF argued that Moynihan and other critics were proved wrong. The number of single mothers who exited welfare and found work exceeded all expectations; child poverty rates fell; the expansion of the earned-income tax credit, a wage subsidy for the working poor, combined with the 1996 increase in the minimum wage and the additional availability of dollars for child care (as long as the parents were employed), boosted government provisions for working-poor families. Timing, though, had something to do with the apparent success of welfare reform. The tight labor market during the economic boom of the late 1990s significantly lowered unemployment at the very time that TANF was being implemented. Besides, despite improvements for the working poor, studies revealed that the number of "disconnected" single mothers - neither working nor on welfare - had grown substantially since the passage of TANF, rising to one in five single mothers during the mid-2000s. This is the group featured in "$2.00 a Day," a remarkable book that could very well change the way we think about extreme poverty in the United States. When Edin returned to the field in the summer of 2010 to update her earlier work on poor mothers, she was surprised to find a number of families struggling "with no visible means of cash income from any source." To ascertain whether her observations reflected a greater reality, Edin turned to Shaefer, a University of Michigan expert on the Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation, who was visiting Harvard for a semester while she was a faculty member. (Edin and I served on three dissertation committees together; she is now a professor at Johns Hopkins.) Shaefer analyzed the census data, which is based on annual interviews with tens of thousands of American households, to determine the growth of the virtually cashless poor since welfare reform. His results were shocking: Since the passage of TANF in 1996, the number of families living in $2-a-day poverty had more than doubled, reaching 1.5 million households in early 2011. Edin and Shaefer found additional evidence for the rise of such poverty in reports from the nation's food banks and government data on families receiving food stamps, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and in accounts from the nation's schools on the rising numbers of homeless children. In the summer of 2012, the authors also began ethnographic studies in sites across the country: Chicago, Cleveland, a midsize city in the Appalachian region and small rural villages in the Mississippi Delta. In each of these areas it did not prove difficult to find families surviving on cash incomes of no more than $2 per person, per day during certain periods of the year. Edin and Shaefer's field research provides plausible reasons for the sharp rise in destitute families. The first has to do with the "perilous world of low-wage work." The mechanization of agriculture has wiped out a lot of jobs in the Mississippi Delta, and even in cities like Chicago, the number of applicants for entry-level work in the service and retail industries far exceeds the number of available positions: "Companies such as Walmart might have hundreds of applicants to choose from" for any one position. Moreover, work schedules are often unpredictable, with abrupt ups and downs in the number of hours a worker gets. Responding to decreasing demand, "employers keep employees on the payroll but reduce their scheduled hours, sometimes even to zero." Furthermore, given the glut of applicants, an employer can quickly move to the next person on the list if a job seeker can't be reached by telephone immediately, which is a real problem for those who live in homeless shelters and lack cellphones. Finally, many applicants who are eligible for TANF aren't even aware that it is available. The authors meet people who "thought they just weren't giving it out anymore." there are various strategies that the $2-a-day poor use to survive - from taking advantage of public libraries, food pantries and homeless shelters to collecting aluminum cans and donating plasma for cash. Still, in small Delta towns "the nearest food pantry is often miles away, despite the sky-high poverty." SNAP constitutes the only real safety net program available to the truly destitute - but it cannot be used to pay the rent. "While SNAP may stave off some hardship," the authors write, "it doesn't help families exit the trap of extreme destitution like cash might." All of the $2-a-day families highlighted by Edin and Shaefer have had to double up with kin and friends at various times because their earnings were insufficient to maintain their own home. Some had to endure verbal, physical and sexual abuse in these dwellings, and the ensuing trauma sometimes precipitated a family's fall into severe poverty. This essential book is a call to action, and one hopes it will accomplish what Michael Harrington's "The Other America" achieved in the 1960s - arousing both the nation's consciousness and conscience about the plight of a growing number of invisible citizens. The rise of such absolute poverty since the passage of welfare reform belies all the categorical talk about opportunity and the American dream. Since 1996, the number of families living in $2-a-day poverty more than doubled. WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, a professor of sociology and social policy at Harvard, is the author of "More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City."

Edin and Shaefer's book explores life for the millions of people in the U.S. living on less than two dollars a day. Interweaving statistics, reports, and personal accounts, they contrast daily life for the working poor around the U.S. They draw a vivid picture of the challenges, sacrifices, and no-win situations that many people are subject to on a daily basis as a means of survival. With a soft but clear delivery, Johnson captures listeners' attention and maintains it throughout, always projecting strong conviction in the words she is narrating. She has a steady voice that provides the right amount of emphasis when needed and can smoothly transition into distinct character voices when required. She captures the sincerity and the seriousness of the authors' words, which makes listening all the more powerful than reading. A Houghton Mifflin Harcourt hardcover. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Edin (sociology, John Hopkins; Promises I Can Keep) and Shaefer (social work, Univ. of Michigan) here chronicle the unintended consequences of the 1996 welfare reforms meant to encourage employment and reduce reliance on government cash payments. The reforms have been modestly successful for poor people who are employed. However, for those who are unable to get in or stay in the workforce, life is harsher than ever. The number of individuals in America who survive on less than $2 per person per day, the World Bank standard for global poverty, is growing. It means being inadequately fed, inadequately housed, and underemployed or unemployed. This is compounded by the extremes companies go to in order to keep payroll costs down. For example, the use of software to build optimal schedules results in unpredictable and erratic work routines, which is especially difficult for parents who must arrange child care. Fluctuating hours lead to fluctuating paychecks, creating further difficulties for people on the margins. This work will add important information and understanding to the necessary ongoing public conversation about poverty and income distribution in America. Allyson Johnson narrates with authority. VERDICT Recommended for public libraries and those interested in economics and public policy. ["A must-read, whether you are for or against helping the poor in America": LJ 8/15 review of the Houghton Harcourt hc.]-Cynthia Jensen, Gladys Harrington Lib., Plano, TX © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

1   Welfare Is Dead   It is only 8:00 a.m., half an hour ahead of opening time, but already a long line has formed outside the Illinois Department of Human Services (DHS) office, which sits on a barren block west of Chicago's Loop. It is a wet summer morning, one of those odd times when the rain is falling but the sun still shines. People are hunkered down, some shielding themselves from the rain with umbrellas or hoods, others holding sodden newspapers and thin plastic grocery bags over their heads. This two-story, yellow-brick office building--windowless on the first floor--is where those seeking help come to apply for programs such as SNAP and Medicaid. But traditionally it has been linked most closely to the nation's now nearly moribund cash assistance program, what many refer to as welfare. Modonna Harris shuffles to the end of the line. A friend, noticing that Modonna had no food in her tiny apartment, convinced her to make the trip. She and her fifteen-year-old daughter, Brianna, have been living in a North Side homeless shelter during this summer of 2012. The shelter provides dinner during the week, and Brianna gets breakfast and lunch through a local nonprofit recreation program, but Modonna and Brianna often go hungry on weekends. The shelter's residents can usually count on a "guy who drops off some surplus food" from an unknown source, but recently all he's brought is nasty-smelling milk well beyond its expiration date. When asked why she hasn't applied for welfare, Modonna shrugs. Actually, it hasn't even occurred to her. She explains, "I've been through this before, and I've been turned down .?.?. They did send me a letter. But they just say, 'You're not eligible,' they don't explain why." How could she not be eligible, she wondered, without even one cent in cash income and a child to provide for? Her aunt's explanation is simple: Hasn't she heard? They just aren't giving it out anymore. To Modonna, that seemed as good an answer as any. "I don't actually know anybody who is getting it. And, you know, when my auntie was saying that, I'm thinking, 'Okay, well maybe that's making sense of why I didn't get it' .?.?. I'm like, 'Okay, maybe that's it.'" Despite her now desperate circumstances, Modonna was deeply reluctant even to go to the DHS office and apply for the cash welfare program. Finally, after much persuasion, she relented. Much of the time, when you ask for help from the government, you can expect the process to take a long time. First, you wait in line to "get a number." (In places like Chicago, you have to get to the DHS office early, because the line can stretch down the block even before the doors open.) Once you get a number, you wait for your name to be called so you can see the caseworker and provide the required documentation Then you go home to wait while they process your paperwork. Finally, if your application is approved, you wait for the mail carrier to deliver your electronic benefit transfer (EBT) card, which works like a bank debit card. One way the poor pay for government aid is with their time. Modonna has a proud, even regal, air about her. Her voice is smooth and her diction precise. Her posture is perfect, her dark skin smooth, her smile warm. But most of the other folks waiting in line look to be in rough shape, with worn, dingy clothing, decaying teeth, painful infirmities, and an air of desperation. The kind-looking woman in front of Modonna seems prematurely old. She turns to Modonna and relates how she struggled to get Medicaid for her oldest adult son, desperately ill and then hospitalized with AIDS. Roadblock after roadblock held up the process; months passed and he died--the day before his medical card arrived in the mail. Now she is here again, this time to apply for Medicaid on behalf of her younger adult son, who is also chronically ill and in need of treatment. Modonna is visibly uncomfortable in this line. She would probably say that she's one of the people who doesn't belong here (although you'd perhaps hear that from many of the people in line). Both of her parents worked steadily while she was growing up. She had close to a middle-class upbringing, although it was far from idyllic. Her parents divorced when she was young, and she lived mostly with her unsupportive mother, who suffered from depression. This was better than being with her dad--who was controlling and demeaning. Despite all this, Modonna managed to graduate from one of the better high schools in Chicago and to start college at a decent private university specializing in the arts. But she attended for only two years. With her family unwilling to provide financial assistance, she maxed out on student loans and had to drop out, with a boatload of student debt and no degree to show for it. She left hoping that one day she might go back to complete her degree. But love intervened. Brianna arrived about a year into Modonna's marriage to Brian, who had swept Modonna off her feet with his drive to make it in the music production business. He had a dream, and he seemed to be doing the work to make it happen. Yet after a few years, it became painfully clear that he was a pathological liar with an addiction to hard-core porn. He would hide his dirty magazines under the rug and deny they were his. "They must have been here when we moved in," he'd claim. One time, the family was evicted because Brian just stopped paying the rent and didn't tell Modonna until it was too late. Brian cheated first, and then Modonna got wrapped up in a turbulent, all-consuming love affair. The marriage broke up about the time Brianna entered the first grade. Modonna had worked off and on over the years before the marriage ended. Now on her own, she needed a full-time job. With no college degree and a sporadic work record, the best position she could find was a daytime shift as a cashier at Stars Music downtown, a position paying $9 an hour. She would hold that job for the next eight years. Modonna loved the work. "I learned so much at Stars," she recalls. The mother-daughter pair found a tiny studio apartment in the South Shore neighborhood, near Lake Michigan, and for a while things were good. The two scraped by on a combination of Modonna's paycheck, a small amount of SNAP, and whatever child support Brian managed to provide. Brianna was doing well in school--she even made honor roll one semester. Modonna felt proud to be the provider for her little family. Then their apartment building started going downhill, fast. Deferred maintenance became no maintenance at all. Modonna couldn't handle the "roaches, the size of .?.?. big water bugs," and the other obvious hazards. She tried to get out of her lease and asked that her security deposit be returned. The tension between her and her landlord escalated, and she ended up calling a lawyer, who requested a list of the building's code violations from the city. When it came, Modonna says, it was "eight pages long!" Right when it seemed as if she might win some concessions from her landlord, Modonna's cash drawer at Stars came up $10 short, and she couldn't account for it. She was summarily dismissed, given no benefit of the doubt, despite her years of service and the small amount of money involved. "Ten dollars short, and they found it after they fired me," she says. But no call of apology came, no invitation to return to work. That's when things really started to fall apart. Modonna was approved for unemployment insurance, which is fairly rare among low-wage workers in the service sector, where low earnings and unstable work hours can make it hard to meet the program's eligibility criteria. She knows she was lucky in this regard. But her benefits--which didn't begin to approach what she was making at Stars--weren't enough to cover the cost of her rent. Excerpted from $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America by Kathryn J. Edin, H. Luke Shaefer All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.