$2.00 A Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America

by Kathryn J. Edin

Yet in 2011, more than 4 percent of all households with children in the world’s wealthiest nation were living in a poverty so deep that most Americans don’t believe it even exists in this country.

Too often, America has gone down the road of trying to shame those in need. We’ve put up barriers. We’ve made people jump through hoop after hoop—all based on the not-so-subtle presumption that they are lazy and immoral, intent on trying to put something over on the system.