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

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In Lives on the Line, Martha Shirk, Neil G. Bennett, and NCCP Director 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 Martha Shirk depicts the realities of life for children below the poverty line. She takes readers deep into the lives of families in poverty—lives sometimes marked by childhood abuse, parental loss, and long-term violence—and with each family explores their prospects for moving above the poverty threshold. Along the way, Shirk finds amazing resilience, resourcefulness, and strength of spirit in many of these poor families.

Neil G. Bennett, Director of Demography for the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University (NCCP), shatters many commonly held stereotypes by analyzing Census Bureau data to show which American children are most likely to be poor. He reports, for instance, that over 60 percent of poor young children have at least one employed parent, that most poor young children live in suburban or rural areas, and that a parent's graduation from high school is insufficient to insure against poverty. Among his most startling findings are that in the last two decades, the Young Child Poverty Rate grew significantly faster in the suburbs than in urban or rural areas, and that it grew much faster among whites than among blacks.

J. Lawrence Aber, a nationally recognized expert in child development and social policy, describes the effects of poverty on child development and showcases proven strategies for preventing or reducing child poverty. He also shows us that it is in our national self-interest to address the problem of child poverty by making a smart investment in America's future.

As a powerful portrait of the effects of poverty on America's children and families, Lives on the Line narrows the gap between “them” and “us.” It will change the way you think about the poor.

Discussion of Lives on the Line

• “The ‘distorting polarities’ of the debate on poverty—structural vs. personal causes—often remind one of the nature vs. nurture debate, obscuring the complexities of reality so richly described here. This book is wonderfully written, reading like a page-turning novel, drawing us into those whose ‘lives are on the line’ in a way that sharpens our policy vision and evokes a more lucid understanding of both existing and developing policies.“
  
  Gary Stangler
  President, American Public Human Services Association

• “This is the book President Clinton and top decision-makers should carry in their beach bags this summer. An exquisitely reported look at the increasing numbers of Americans who hover on the edges of official poverty. We walk right past them every day—these tired house-cleaners and house-painters and fast-food workers—never seeing the complicated layers of hope and despair which Shirk uncovers. Critical context and explanation about the demographics of child poverty in the U.S. from the National Center on Children in Poverty make this a compelling, important book.”
  
  Cathy Trost
  Director, Casey Journalism Center for Children and Families

• “With so many children growing up in poverty today, the ability to peer into the everyday lives of their families—to see their parents at work and at home—offers us a rare and invaluable window through which to observe what is happening to our nation's young. Lives on the Line gives us this essential perspective which few other publications have.”
  
  Melissa Ludtke
  Editor, Nieman Reports; Author of On Our Own: Unmarried Motherhood in America

• “How can the world’s wealthiest nation tolerate a higher percentage of our children living in poverty than any other industrial nation? Because poverty is statistics, not people. This book makes poverty come alive, prodding our collective dulled conscience.”
  
  Senator Paul Simon
  Director, Public Policy Institute, Southern Illinois University