Kathryn J. Edin is a sociologist at Princeton University whose research focuses on the welfare system, low-wage work, and the lives of impoverished Americans. Her work often incorporates qualitative research methods, which are suited for answering questions of why or how something is occurring. One of the outcomes of this research are the detailed narratives presented in this book, which provide insight into how the $2-a-day poor survive and how they came to be in such circumstances. Edin also wrote Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage (2005).

Edin has researched poverty for decades, but in 2010 she noticed a level of destitution that she had not witnessed before. She encountered families with no cash income at all—the poorest of the poor. She teamed up with Luke Shaefer to further investigate this phenomenon and figure out what can be done about it.

H. Luke Shaefer is a professor of social work and public policy at the University of Michigan who has spent his career studying poverty in the United States, including research pertaining to the social safety net and low-wage work. He is a leading expert on the Survey of Income and Program Participation (