In $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America, Kathryn Edin and H. Luke Shaefer reveal a chilling and often overlooked aspect of poverty in the United States, one that challenges our perceptions and national discussions around welfare and income inequality. Through two decades of meticulous research, the authors uncover the lives of over a million American households, including three million children, surviving on a shocking $2.00 per person per day. With eye-opening profiles of families like Jessica Compton’s in Tennessee, who rely on plasma donations for survival, and Modonna Harris and her daughter Brianna in Chicago, who often subsist on spoiled milk, Edin and Shaefer shine a light on the devastating effects of systemic poverty that many Americans don’t even realize exists.
This powerful, harrowing exploration is not just a statistical analysis but a deeply human narrative that forces readers to confront the reality of extreme poverty in the richest nation in the world. $2.00 a Day is a sobering reminder of how easily families can fall through the cracks of a broken system, and it demands urgent action and policy reform to address this crisis. Described as a “game-changer” and a “heartbreaking exposé,” this book will anger, sadden, and inspire readers to rethink the structures that allow such desperation to persist in America.
