Lives on the Line: American Families and the Struggle to Make Ends Meet

by Neil G. Bennett, J. Lawrence Aber, Martha Shirk

Book Overview

In Lives on the Line, Martha Shirk, Neil G. Bennett, and J. Lawrence Aber meld affecting personal profiles with sophisticated demographic analysis to create a vivid portrait of what life is like for more than 14 million American children growing up below the poverty line. In personal profiles of ten families across the nation, from a Pacific Islander family in Hawaii to a homeless family in a wealthy New York City suburb, award-winning journalist...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813338204
• ISBN13: 9780813338200
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 294 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Heartbreaking and Inspiring

There are few books I've read over the past few years that have really stuck with me, and this is one of them. With the economy in a downturn, I find myself wondering what's happening to the families whose lives the authors tracked for a couple of years in the late 90s. The real-life families that are profiled here are truly memorable. Fans of "Nickel and Dimed" will like this book because it fills in a lot of the blanks about how poor families cope. The authors keep themselves out of their subjects' stories and basically let the families'words and actions demonstrate how difficult it is to live in poverty. I was inspired by the resourcefulness most of them bring to the challenge.