$2.00 a day
by Lucy S
In $2.00 a day: living on almost nothing in America, Kathryn J. Edin and University of Michigan professor H. Luke Shaefer, illuminate a population of America that endeavors to survive, out of necessity, on little to no cash, $2.00 per day per person, or less, “what many of us spend on a cup of coffee each day.” Alex Kotlowitz, There are no children here.
This alarming narrative weaves together personal stories and recent economic history to show how these Americans got to this point, and who, exactly is suffering. Edin and Shaefer narrow their focus on four areas of America; one that represents the "typical" American city, one a rural locale that has been deeply poor for more than half a century, the third, a place where deep poverty is a newer phenomenon, and finally, a place that had been very poor in recent decades but is experiencing economic recovery. Their book takes us to Chicago, Cleveland, Johnson City, Tennessee in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, and several small, rural hamlets in the Mississippi Delta, to get at the heart of what daily life is like for individuals struggling with deep poverty, and the means they go through to survive. The first hand accounts of children going without food for weeks at a time and parents who sell whatever they can (rides in their cars, plasma, social security numbers) to alleviate this hunger are unforgettable. This is an eye opening and important read.
“Affluent Americans often cherish the belief that poverty in America is far more comfortable than poverty in the rest of the world. Edin and Shaefer’s devastating account...blows that myth out of the water.” Barbara Ehrenreich author of Nickel and dimed
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