This book is guaranteed to be ignored or rated low by anyone that is made uncomfortable by the plight of the working poor. It is much easier to believe that people are poor and living in the street because they are lazy or like it. This is reality. Unfortunately, the people …more who can make the difference either refuse to acknowledge there is a problem or use the excuse that they can not help everyone. This excuse allows them to justify doing nothing.

After the 1996 welfare reform Barbara began questioning how millions of women were living, and often raising families, on $6 to $7 an hour. With a scientific determination Barbara chooses to step out of the security of her privileged social class to experience the lifestyle of the less fortunate. The resulting ethnography evolves from an investigative journalist paradigm as Barbara discovers the reality of survival in Key West, Florida; Portland, Main; and Minneapolis, Minnesota, on poverty level employment.

Barbara’s experiences were spread out over a two year period between the spring of 1998 and the summer of 2000. She acknowledges that she could not survive for over a month in any one situation. However, the reader never knows for sure the reason for or the length of time between each attempt. In an interest of social does use each individual experience to expose the irrational idealistic concepts that: Any job will lead to self improvement and the ability to defeat poverty. (less)