@article{7d08345964614877b6bac21612b59311,
title = "Understanding the dynamics of $2-a-day poverty in the United States",
abstract = "Shaefer and Edin (2013) have found a large rise in “extreme poverty”-defined as cash income of no more than $2 per person per day, for a month or calendar quarter-among U.S. households with children between 1996 and 2011. This article explores some underlying dynamics of this phenomenon, referred to here as “$2-a-day poverty,” presenting evidence from both qualitative fieldwork and quantitative analysis of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). The rise in $2-a-day poverty has been concentrated among children experiencing it chronically-that is, for seven or more months during a calendar year. Both qualitative and quantitative evidence find that a large majority of children experiencing $2-a-day poverty live in households where an adult worked during the year, while only a small proportion live in households accessing TANF. Finally, households experiencing $2-a-day poverty appear to be more likely to face material hardships than other low-income households.",
keywords = "Low-wage work, Material hardship, Poverty, Social policy, Welfare",
author = "Shaefer, {H. Luke} and Kathryn Edin and Elizabeth Talbert",
note = "Funding Information: Luke Shaefer{\textquoteright}s time on this research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grant no. SES 1131500. The authors thank participants in the 2013 University of Chicago EINet Symposium, “Employment Instability and the Safety Net”; members and staff of the Council of Economic Advisers; session participants at the annual conference of the American Sociological Association; participants at the Russell Sage Foundation conference “Severe Deprivation in America;” and Indi Dutta-Gupta for helpful comments on earlier versions of this work. The opinions and conclusions presented here are solely those of the authors and should not be construed as representing the opinions or policies of the National Science Foundation or any other entity. Direct correspondence to: H. Luke Shaefer at lshaefer@umich.edu, School of Social Work, University of Michigan, 1080 S. University Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48109; Kathryn Edin at Kathy_edin@jhu.edu, Zanvyl Krieger School, Johns Hopkins University, Department of Sociology, 533 Mergenthaler Hall, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218; and Elizabeth Talbert at etalber2@jhu.edu, Zanvyl Krieger School, Johns Hopkins University, Department of Sociology, 533 Mergenthaler Hall, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2015 Russell Sage Foundation.All right reserved..",
year = "2015",
month = nov,
doi = "10.7758/rsf.2015.1.1.07",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "1",
pages = "120--138",
journal = "RSF",
issn = "2377-8253",
publisher = "Russell Sage Foundation",
number = "1",
}