Kathryn Edin

In October 2014, ACOSS released a new report revealing that poverty is growing in Australia with an estimated 2.5 million people or 13.9% of all people living below the internationally accepted poverty line. Of those, 603,000 or 17.7%, are children.

And as politicians whine about the increasing costs of the welfare system (from the suite of their tax payer funded five star hotel room) and the media whips middle class society into a frenzy by highlighting the worst examples of the minority who show more abuse the system, the Australian government is considering implementing a program similar to America’s model of SnAP.

What $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America shows is that the American welfare system, and specifically the reliance on the SnAP program, fails to provide for or protect its most vulnerable citizens. It looks generous on paper but in practice, but it leaves families without access to cash, vital for everyday life. Without cash they are unable to use public transport, pay bills, buy underwear, or school supplies, without having to resort to trading SnAP for half its worth on the dollar, selling blood, collecting cans, or illegal activities, such as prostitution, all for a few dollars.

Statistics show 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, and the authors introduce the reader to eight families who are struggling to survive on incomes of $2.00 per person, per day or less.

The causes of such extreme poverty are complicated. ‘Get a job’ cries the middle classes, but with scarce unskilled work opportunities and exploitative employers, the answer is not that simple. Modonna worked as a cashier in one store for eight years but when her register came up $10 short after a shift she was fired, and even though the store later found the money, she received no apology nor an invitation to return to work. Unable to keep up with her rent she was evicted and she and her teenage daughter were forced into a homeless shelter, and despite applying for hundreds of jobs, Modonna remains unemployed.

And what of the children? Tabitha is one of thirteen children. She grew up with one set of clothes, sharing a mattress with seven of her siblings in a three bedroom apartment. They often went without food especially when their mother found it necessary to trade some of the SnAP she received, at almost half its value, for cash in order to pay the electricity or water bill. In tenth grade a desperate Tabitha agreed to sleep with one of her teachers who offered her food in exchange in for regular sex. In her junior year she was forced to leave home when she intervened in a fight between her mother and her abusive partner and the man issued Tabitha’s mother an ultimatum. Now eighteen she is finishing high school and has a place to live thanks to a boarding school scholarship, but she will graduate in a matter of months and though she’d like to go to college, there is no money to do so.

There are no easy solutions to the kind of poverty experienced by Modonna and her daughter, or Tabitha and her family, but its clear the current welfare system is failing. Without cash, many families have no hope of escaping the cycle of poverty, or surviving the experience without deep physical and emotional wounds. The authors argue for sensible reforms that would go some way to alleviating the plight of those living on $2.00 per person, per day.

This is an eyeopening and important book that will challenge your preconceptions of poverty, welfare and the poor. It is much harder to blame or condemn the homeless or unemployed (or dole bludgers in the Australian vernacular) for their circumstances when you understand the challenges they face.

“…the question we have to ask ourselves is, Whose side are we on? can our desire for, and sense of, community induce those of us with resources to come alongside the extremely poor among us in a more supportive, and ultimately more effective, way?” show less

This book is short but powerful. It focuses on the poorest of the poor--those with under $2/person/day income, living a virtually cash-free existence. Their ranks have grown since the 1996 welfare reform that virtually extinguished cash welfare.

What's clear from the families interviewed is that most of them want to work. Even the disabled are putting in substantial effort. The reasons they are not working are largely structural: they face obstacles to getting and keeping jobs. It's hard for show more them to apply, they lack transportation, and employers demand complete availability that they do not have. Alternatively, as with residents of the Mississippi Delta (a devastating portrait of a virtually collapsed economy) there are no jobs to get, and their poverty is too deep for them to leave. The families wind up in a vicious circle of instability with little way to get themselves out. Unstable housing leads to job issues which leads to even more housing instability.

Edin and Schaefer aren't as negative about welfare reform as many liberals, but the book, whether intentionally or not, points up its flaws. First, AFDC was effectively abolished. Instead of just limiting it, it was block granted and states were permitted to spend the money on other things. Their incentive was simply to get people off the rolls--not to help them. At this point many recipients believe welfare doesn't even exist. Some are even told it isn't available by state workers. In Mississippi, recipients have declined from 180,000 at AFDC's peak to only 17,000 in 2014, and this is America's poorest state. Families are forced to rely on a variety of strategies to supplement the cash income they lack, some more legal than others, and the availability of nongovernmental resources varies widely. Programs like SNAP and the EITC have helped the slightly less poor by topping up their incomes, but EITC does not help the unemployed. SNAP, while improving nutrition significantly, also presents problems since it is sometimes traded at a discounted rate by the cashless (the authors are careful to note that welfare fraud is rare and has declined, but the poorest may have no other option). One family receives $1600 in SNAP for 11 people, but with almost no cash income, $600 has to be traded in for cash to pay the electric bill, leaving kids hungry. If it were all cash, $300 would not be lost. On the other hand, for those with cash income, SNAP enables cash to be reallocated and results in an increase in the food budget.

What this book makes clear is that the poor need more help. A lot of it. They need jobs that are stable, housing that is affordable and better quality, accessible childcare, and more. And yes--we need cash welfare to bridge the gap.

I wouldn't call this revolutionary--if you're familiar with actual poor people and work on poverty, the basic outline should be familiar. But the fieldwork and statistics are excellent and worth reading. show less

I can't say very much about this book because it will fill me with rage and spike my blood pressure. But the number of families in the US with no cash income - none, zero, nada - is outrageous and heartbreaking. They basically subsist on SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) and selling SNAP when they need cash. This books follows several people living on less that $2.00 a day and contrary to political myth, they are not lazy or stupid or addicted to drugs or out to game the system. They are show more parents and spouses and grandmothers who have had not just the system, but the entire organization of society, rigged against them. This book made me mad and sad and left feeling dirty when I spend more than double these people's daily income on a routine trip to Starbucks.

There was some discussion about housing insecurity in the book which made me want to read Evicted even more than I already did, but I am going to have to wait until I cool off a bit, I think. show less

The authors profile several families living on less than $2 per day (per person). If you've read books about poverty in America before, the profiles are sad but not shockingly so. The general thread is that people are working, or are trying to work, but they can't get enough hours, or jobs at all, and the jobs they do get are precarious and easily lost.

After the profiles, the authors offer their suggestions for welfare reform. Their ideas follow the same blueprint as Clinton's 1996 welfare show more reform bill - essentially, make more opportunities for work - along with suggestions for expanded housing subsidies and cash safety nets. After reading about living conditions, health problems, and instability faced by the families in the book, it is astounding that the authors thought that the solution was essentially "welfare just needs a little help." The family in rural Mississippi can't be helped to get jobs that simply don't exist. All of the people suffering from abuse and violence desperately need protection and support. The people with untreated or undertreated health problems need care. Hoping that jobs - which often do not provide health insurance, sick leave, or even particularly stable incomes - would solve the problem feels unrealistic. (The authors praise companies that are good places to work, but don't suggest how other companies could be induced to adopt similar practices)

In 2023 - and even in 2015, when this book was published - we have a fair bit of evidence that direct cash transfers are effective and helpful. At one point in this book, the authors mention a poor woman who received $50 for participating in a study; when the researchers returned the next day, the woman had bought food for her baby and an outfit for interviews. When working to solve homelessness, the Housing First approach, where people are first given housing, then support to address the issues that made them homeless, has all but eradicated homelessness in the cities that have used it. I don't think a "Cash First" approach would eliminate poverty as thoroughly - in some places, the jobs and opportunities are too rare, a problem that can't be addressed at an individual level - but it would help more than the work-based attempts proposed here. show less