Chapter 2 Compare And Contrast Edin And Shaefer

In this final chapter, Edin and Shaefer wrap up all of the hardships that $2 a day households endure while trying to maintain barebones survival. In their conclusion, they highlight several important points, but two stuck out to me. The first is that everyone deserves the opportunity to work; whether it be a job in the private sector or a job formed out of government-subsidies. Additionally, another main point in this chapter is that the government’s current safety net for the poor needs a large scale revision. Although it benefits some, it completely overlooks those that are in the biggest need of assistance: the $2 a day poor.
From a societal standpoint, both of these points are very important. A common societal viewpoint is that people that don’t have jobs are “lazy people looking for handouts.” However, people truly don’t understand how hard it is for someone living on $2 a day to get a job. To start, these
Due to this, these individuals jump from job interview to job interview without success, and they continue to live under $2 a day poverty. It was clearly stated in the book there are plenty of underfunded government programs and businesses that could use more employees, so if there were better mechanisms in place to insure that people could be placed with these companies, multitudes of things would change. Overall, thousands of families could be lifted out $2 a day poverty and would be, in the eyes of others, more productive members of society. However, since having a job doesn’t solve all of the programs, the government should still have a proper safety net for the poor. The current system gives tax credits to the working poor, which is great, but those that can’t find jobs or physically can’t work