Making Ends Meet

Welfare mothers are popularly viewed as passively dependent on their checks and averse to work Reformers across the political spectrum advocate moving these women off the welfare rolls and into the labor force as the solution to their problems Making Ends Meet offers dramatic evidence toward a different conclusion In the present labor market, unskilled single mothers who hold jobs are frequently worse off than those on welfare, and neither welfare nor low wage employment alone will support a family at subsistence levels.Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein interviewed nearly four hundred welfare and low income single mothers from cities in Massachusetts, Texas, Illinois, and South Carolina over a six year period They learned the reality of these mothers struggles to provide for their families where their money comes from, what they spend it on, how they cope with their children s needs, and what hardships they suffer Edin and Lein s careful budgetary analyses reveal that even a full range of welfare benefits AFDC payments, food stamps, Medicaid, and housing subsidies typically meet only three fifths of a family s needs, and that funds for adequate food, clothing and other necessities are often lacking Leaving welfare for work offers little hope for improvement, and in many cases threatens even greater hardship Jobs for unskilled and semi skilled women provide meager salaries, irregular or uncertain hours, frequent layoffs, and no promise of advancement Mothers who work not only assume extra child care, medical, and transportation expenses but are also deprived of many of the housing and educational subsidies available to those on welfare Regardless of whether they are on welfare or employed, virtually all these single mothers need to supplement their income with menial, off the books work and intermittent contributions from family, live in boyfriends, their children s fathers, and local charities In doing so, they pay a heavy price Welfare mothers must work covertly to avoid losing benefits, while working mothers are forced to sacrifice even time with their children Making Ends Meet demonstrates compellingly why the choice between welfare and work is complex and risky than is commonly recognized by politicians, the media, or the public Almost all the welfare reliant women interviewed by Edin and Lein made repeated efforts to leave welfare for work, only to be forced to return when they lost their jobs, a child became ill, or they could not cover their bills with their wages Mothers who managed stable employment usually benefited from a variety of mitigating circumstances such as having a relative willing to watch their children for free, regular child support payments, or very low housing, medical, or commuting costs.With first hand accounts and detailed financial data, Making Ends Meet tells the real story of the challenges, hardships, and survival strategies of America s poorest families If this country s efforts to improve the self sufficiency of female headed families is to succeed, reformers will need to move beyond the myths of welfare dependency and deal with the hard realities of an unrewarding American labor market, the lack of affordable health insurance and child care for single mothers who work, and the true cost of subsistence living Making Ends Meet is a realistic look at a world that so many would change and so few understand. New Read [ Making Ends Meet ] author [ Kathryn Edin ] – kino-fada.fr Making Ends Meet How single mothers survive welfare and low wage work delivers where Nickel and Dimed couldn t Whereas the latter is often touted as an eye opening expos of the conditions America s working poor endure, I found Barbara Ehrenreich s Nickel and Dimed self centered and methodologically flawed Kathryn Edin currently at Harvard and Laura Lein currently a dean at the University of Michigan actually interviewed hundreds of single mothers receiving welfare or working for low wageMaking Ends Meet How single mothers survive welfare and low wage work delivers where Nickel and Dimed couldn t Whereas the latter is often touted as an eye opening expos of the conditions America s working poor endure, I found Barbara Ehrenreich s Nickel and Dimed self centered and methodologically flawed Kathryn Edin currently at Harvard and Laura Lein currently a dean at the University of Michigan actually interviewed hundreds of single mothers receiving welfare or working for low wages in four cities, and re constructed their balance sheets Data from previous national ...Solid book Fairly repetitive, and without clear differences between chapters Provides insightful information about how low wage work alone does not provide enough income for single mothers to survive on Information about welfare has become outdated.The policy context is outdated, but the findings are still interesting and in line withrecent research Earth to HHS, the logic of welfare to work is totally off and neither public assistance nor low wage work provide enough to cover even the basic necessities for these families Most interesting to me, though, was the method used One of the authors had done some previous research on family budgets and concluded that accurate information just couldn t be gathered through surveys because m The policy context is outdated, but the findings are still interesting and in line withrecent research Earth to HHS, the logic of welfare to work is totally off and neither public assistance nor low wage work provide e...I always find it interesting then the lives of poor people women are written by people who have never had to struggle to pay the bills, or know what it really is like to live well below the poverty line, but still somehow manage to raise a family With that being said, the authors of this book did a great job of repesenting the facts, with very little bias or interpretations and showed throug...Reading this book about 20 years too late However, the data is interesting and most of research still holds water today It was an eye opener Would love for these authors to redo after the econ crisis.Welfare and low income work impact during the 1990s.See Promises I Can Keep Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before MarriageWelfare costs and benefits and single working mothers Data from 1992, so considerably out of date but shows clearly how difficult it is to live a decent life working little and benefitting littleFascinating Really good read.

• English
• 15 August 2017
Kathryn Edin
• Paperback
• 340 pages
• 087154234X
• Kathryn Edin
• Making Ends Meet