Books : Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work
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In association with Amazon.com
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by: Kathryn Edin, Laura Lein
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.856
EAN: 9780871542298
ISBN: 0871542293
Label: Russell Sage Foundation Publications
Manufacturer: Russell Sage Foundation Publications
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 305
Publication Date: 1997-04
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation Publications
Sales Rank: 1528939
Studio: Russell Sage Foundation Publications
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com Review:
One of the unsettling facts that emerges out of Making Ends Meet, by Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein, is that mothers who work outside the home spend twice as much per month as welfare mothers on such necessities as transportation, health care, day care, and housing. Yet many women continue to move--or are being pushed by politicians--off welfare into jobs in the forlorn hope that those positions would one day lead to better careers. Almost inevitably, the economic realities of trying to raise families on the wages from low-paying jobs would force them back on government assistance. Making Ends Meet is a study commissioned by the Russell Sage Foundation, and its disturbing conclusions expose as myth the view prevalent in Washington, D.C., and the country at large that if people would just get jobs they could pull themselves out of poverty.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Must read before you comment on welfare
Bill Clinton ran for President campaigning to end "welfare as we know it" and Republicans cheered him on, arguing that welfare mothers (since America's only real welfare program -- Aid to Families with Dependent Children or AFDC -- goes to single mothers raising children) were simply being lazy and had to be forced to work. The TV pundits and the politicians argued about this perhaps, but nobody challenged the fundamental premises.
Edin and Lein decided to do something different. Instead ... Read More
Rating:  - Who'll Stop the Rain?
3 1/2 stars
During the early 1980s, social scientists noticed that welfare mothers were spending three to six times their official incomes. In his exquisitely written foreword, Harvard sociologist Christopher Jencks argues persuasively that in a "conspiracy of silence," conservatives didn't want to admit that mothers could not survive on welfare checks alone, while "liberals" didn't want to admit that clients had unreported resources. Jencks and his colleagues asked where the additional money ... Read More
Rating: - Who'll Stop the Rain?
3 1/2 stars
During the early 1980s, social scientists noticed that welfare mothers were spending three to six times their official incomes. In his exquisitely written foreword, Harvard sociologist Christopher Jencks argues persuasively that in a "conspiracy of silence," conservatives didn't want to admit that mothers could not survive on welfare checks alone, while "liberals" didn't want to admit that clients had unreported resources. Jencks and his colleagues asked where the additional money ... Read More
Rating: - Throw away all the old data and read this
Excellent statistical and investigative work that predates, but informs, much of the information we will get about the efficacy of welfare reform. Supports of both Charles Murray and Christopher Jencks will find materials in here that support and challenge their views. There are a few methodological problems with this book, however. Because the authors rely on word-of-mouth for their data sample, they over-sample those poor mothers who have social ties, and this probably skews their sample away from society's ... Read More
Rating: - Mr. President, Members of Congress, Governors Read This Book
This book is a year late to influence the Congressional welfare reform debate.
It is on time for the state level debate and policy development that must follow federal reform.
This book acts as a smart bomb to mythic misconceptions, nostalgia and ideology surrounding welfare reform.
Edin's research and writing were formerly available through the Wisconsin based Institute for Research on Poverty. Her work proved a significant resource in my advocacy for effective and compassionate welfare reform in Tennessee. ... Read More
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