RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Understanding the Dynamics of $2-a-Day Poverty in the United States
JF RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
FD Russell Sage Foundation
SP 120
OP 138
DO 10.7758/RSF.2015.1.1.07
VO 1
IS 1
A1 H. Luke Shaefer
A1 Kathryn Edin
A1 Elizabeth Talbert
YR 2015
UL http://www.rsfjournal.org/content/1/1/120.abstract
AB 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.