A 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.
- See more at: http://www.hmhco.com/shop/books/200-a-Day/9780544303188#productInfo
Kathryn Edin
BLOOMBERG DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR, Johns Hopkins University
am the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in the Department of Sociology, Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health. I received my Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University in 1991 and I have also taught at Rutgers University, Northwestern University, the University of Pennsylvania, and, most recently, Harvard University as a Professor of Public Policy and Management at the Harvard Kennedy School and chair of their Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy. I am a Trustee of the Russell Sage Foundation and on the Department of Health and Human Services advisory committee for the poverty research centers at Michigan, Wisconsin, and Stanford. I am a founding member of the MacArthur Foundation-funded Network on Housing and Families with Young Children and a past member of the MacArthur Network on the Family and the Economy. In 2014 I became a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences.
H. Luke Shaefer
Associate Professor of Social Work and Associate Professor of Public Policy
Luke Shaefer's research focuses on the effectiveness of the United States’ social safety net in serving low-wage workers and economically disadvantaged families.
His recent work explores rising levels of extreme poverty in the United States, the impact of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on material hardships, barriers to unemployment insurance faced by vulnerable workers, and strategies for increasing access to oral health care in the United States.
Shaefer is further interested in non-profit management, particularly the economics of social service administration. He has significant non-profit program management experience and has served as board president for a public foundation and an education nonprofit.
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这是一本能够让你放下一切,沉浸其中的作品。我完全被《$2.00 a Day》的故事所吸引,它展现的不仅仅是生存的艰辛,更是人性的韧性。作者的笔触非常细腻,他捕捉到了那些在日常生活中容易被忽略的情感波动,那些在微小互动中闪烁的光芒。我感觉自己仿佛置身于那些人物之中,感受着他们的喜怒哀乐,分享着他们的点滴收获。书中对于社区互助、邻里情谊的描绘,尤其让我动容,在物质匮乏的环境下,人与人之间的情感支持,显得尤为宝贵。它让我深刻体会到,真正的富足,并非仅仅体现在物质财富上,更在于心灵的丰盈和人与人之间的连接。这本书也让我对“满足”有了更深的理解,在最简单的生活里,也能找到最真实的幸福。
评分《$2.00 a Day》这本书,我只能说,它带给我的冲击远超我的预期。它不是一本读起来轻松的书,也不是一本会让你读完就忘的书。相反,它像一颗种子,在我心里深深地扎根,然后慢慢地发芽,不断地提醒我,关于我们这个世界的某些真相。我一直在思考,作者是如何做到的?是如何将如此沉重的主题,以一种不失温度的方式呈现出来?书中那些对社会结构、经济不平等的探讨,既尖锐又富有洞察力,让我不得不去重新审视我们所处的社会体系。它不是简单地控诉,而是试图去理解,去剖析,去寻找那些隐藏在表面之下的根本原因。每一次翻开这本书,我都会有新的发现,新的感悟,它迫使我去挑战我固有的认知,去质疑那些习以为常的观念。
评分这本书的名字起得真有意思,《$2.00 a Day》。光看书名,脑子里就立刻浮现出各种画面,一种混合着好奇、惊讶甚至一丝丝担忧的情绪油然而生。我知道,这本书绝非表面上这么简单。它一定触及了我们这个时代最核心、最隐蔽的问题之一,一个关于贫困、生存,以及人类在极端条件下如何挣扎求生的故事。我猜想,作者一定花了很多心血去深入了解那些生活在最底层人群的生活状态,用最真实、最赤裸的笔触去描绘他们的日常。或许,书中会有一个个鲜活的人物,他们的名字、他们的笑容、他们的泪水,都会被细腻地刻画出来。我期待着跟随作者的视角,去触摸那些我们平时选择忽略的角落,去感受那些我们难以想象的艰辛。这不仅仅是一本书,更像是一扇窗,让我们得以窥见世界的另一面,一个充满挑战却又闪烁着人性光辉的世界。我会带着一颗开放的心去阅读,去理解,去反思,希望这本书能够引发我更深层次的思考,让我对“富有”和“贫穷”的定义有全新的认识。
评分读完《$2.00 a Day》的瞬间,我感觉自己像是经历了一场精神上的远足,目的地是一个我从未真正去过的,却又无比熟悉的世界。书中的叙述方式非常独特,它不是那种居高临下的讲述,而是像一个同行的伙伴,不疾不徐地把你带入每一个场景。我被那些生动的细节所吸引,它们是如此具体,以至于我仿佛能闻到空气中食物的微弱香气,感受到皮肤上粗糙的触感,听到远处孩子们嬉戏的嘈杂声。作者似乎有一种魔力,能够将最平凡的生活琐事,赋予一种深刻的意义。我尤其对书中关于“希望”的描绘印象深刻,即使在最艰难的时刻,那些微小的火苗也从未熄灭。这让我重新审视了自己的生活,那些曾经困扰我的小烦恼,在阅读这本书后,显得如此微不足道。它不仅仅是关于金钱的数字,更是关于尊严、关于坚持、关于在绝境中寻找出路的智慧。
评分如果说有什么书能够改变你看待世界的方式,《$2.00 a Day》绝对是其中之一。它没有华丽的辞藻,也没有跌宕起伏的故事情节,但它拥有一种直击人心的力量。作者以一种非常朴素、诚恳的方式,讲述了那些发生在无数普通人身上的故事。我从书中看到了生命的顽强,看到了在困境中依然闪耀的希望之光。它让我明白,即使是最微小的努力,也可能带来巨大的改变。同时,它也提醒了我,作为社会的一份子,我们有责任去关注那些处于弱势地位的人群,去伸出援手。这本书不是简单的阅读体验,更像是一次深刻的教育,一次关于爱与同情心的洗礼。它让我开始思考,我能够为这个世界带来什么,我如何才能让这个世界变得更好一点点。
评分发达工业社会里的贫穷根源不在个人努力与否,而是系统的局部失灵。
评分“A little bit of cash means a little bit of freedom.”
评分写的倒是很亲民很故事性,没什么直接的理论引用,或多或少还是让我联想到了Marx/Spitzer对于资本主义市场的描述,万分符合这些赤贫家庭找不到工作只能做social junk/dynamite的地步。比较有意思是美国历届政府如何将“福利养穷人养懒人”(里根口中的welfare queen)根植于人心,并将其归因于个人失职而非结构因素,真是糟糕透了。农村的赤贫家庭比大城市中的家庭更岌岌可危。始终没有搞懂研究的方法论是怎样的,通常是给受访者一部分钱做补偿,但对于如此赤贫的家庭到底怎样的补偿才不至于影响研究的中立性。结尾中提出要为家庭提供就业、住房、以及现金流太理想了 Chris
评分In the beginning there is a brief history about American welfare reform. I find that the most informative. The detailed account of the history is also helpful.
评分发达工业社会里的贫穷根源不在个人努力与否,而是系统的局部失灵。
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