Quotes from Kathryn J. Edin

There are more avid postage stamp collectors in the United States than welfare recipients.

This book is about what happens when a government safety net that is built on the assumption of full-time, stable employment at a living wage combines with a low-wage labor market that fails to deliver on any of the above. It is this toxic alchemy, we argue, that is spurring the increasing numbers of $2-a-day poor in America.

If the experiences of such countries are any guide, the replacement of a formal economy with an informal one—unregulated and unpoliced—may have a self-perpetuating effect of pushing the $2-a-day poor further and further out of the American mainstream.