Economic Policy Institute
by Heather Boushey, Chauna Brocht, Bethney Gundersen and Jared Bernstein
“Policy makers in the United States have adopted the view that work is the solution to poverty, and the government’s role is to promote employment rather than provide income support for poor families. For many families, however, work may not be enough to assure a decent standard of living.”
“Using twice the national poverty line as a national proxy for the basic family budget, we found that… families with incomes below the basic family budget level faced nearly the same incidence of critical and serious hardships as those with incomes below the poverty line.”
“… the market has priced basic items such as health care, child care, and housing above what many families can afford.”
“Helping working families meet their basic needs requires a two-pronged approach. First, raising the minimum wage, expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, adopting pay equity policies, and increasing workforce development will increase family incomes. Second, investing in a social safety net of universal programs will help families meet basic needs.”
Barbara Ehrenreich, author of “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America,” a book on her personal experiences on becoming a low-wage worker:
“It is common, among the nonpoor, to think of poverty as a sustainable condition – austere, perhaps, but they get by somehow, don’t they? They are ‘always with us.’ What is harder for the nonpoor to see is poverty as acute distress: The lunch that consists of Doritos or hot dog rolls, leading to faintness before the end of the shift. The ‘home’ that is also a car or a van. The illness or injury that must be ‘worked through,’ with gritted teeth, because there’s no sick pay or health insurance and the loss of one day’s pay will mean no groceries for the next. These experiences are not part of a sustainable lifestyle, even a lifestyle of chronic deprivation and relentless low-level punishment. They are, by almost any standard of subsistence, emergency situations. And that is how we should see the poverty of so many millions of low-wage Americans – as a state of emergency.”
The entire 119 page report is available at:
Barbara Ehrenreich’s book, “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America,” is published by Metropolitan Books, New York, N.Y.