Living on the Edge: The Realities of Welfare in America

by Mark Robert Rank

Book Overview

This acclaimed book powerfully depicts a side of the welfare experience rarely seen, dispelling the myth that only an urban underclass--the center of most policy debate--struggles on welfare. Rank's juxtaposition of numbers and faces demonstrates that welfare recipients share much in common with the rest of the population.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231084250
• ISBN13: 9780231084253
• Release Date: April 1995
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 266 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

A Greater Understanding of America's Welfare Program

Living on the Edge provides a representation of the bleak and desperate conditions that the typical welfare recipient endures. Mark Robert Rank offers an alternative perspective of those who use the welfare system that contradicts the views of popular media and political beliefs. Through statistical review and a thorough interviewing process, Rank reveals that welfare reliance is not a desirable lifestyle and is hardly enticing. The common belief that the welfare system in the United States offers too much and does not motivate recipients to get-off of the program is dispelled in this book. Living on the Edge runs through several different scenarios that describe the various reasons one might turn to welfare. Many theories about how poverty and welfare fit into society are presented with a logical compare and contrast narrative included. The book also depicts the daily struggle that an individual or family that is living in poverty must go through and what efforts are made to get-off of the program. After all of the differences between causes and effects of welfare recipiency that are described, it is interesting to read that there are striking similarities between those Rank interviewed. It seems that all of the interviewed welfare recipients would prefer to be financially independent. They also all seem to have the common bond of a dream that their lives could someday be more than what it is today. The format of Living on the Edge is consistent and clearly written from chapter to chapter, making it an easy read and easy to grasp Rank's main points. I would recommend this book to anyone who wonders what might be going through the mind of someone living through poverty and then turning to the welfare system. This book will provide a view quite different from that, which is portrayed in the mainstream media.

Living on the Edge: A Wake up Call

Mark Robert Rank has done an excellent job portraying the realities of the welfare sysetm in this country. It is very interesting to contrast the facts and data about welfare to the popular concepts and stereotypes about welfare recipients. This book takes an in-depth statistical as well as personal view of how, why and how long families get and stay on welfare. The statistics are interesting, the real stories are with the actual welfare recipients. Rank interviewed several different types of welfare recipients and presented thier stories throuthout the book. It is really amazing to realize that the majority of welfare recipients don't like being on welfare. They would like to have a job as much as the average American. Most of these people have come upon economic or family hardships and the welfare system is a temporary strap to hold them up. The book presents many ideas which are contradictory to popular opinions and views. This book has really changed many of my views about welfare recipients and those that are economically challenged. I recomend that anyone who believes that welfare recipients are lazy, unmotivated, and parasites on society reads this book. It really is a wake up call !