Overview

Getting By offers an integrated, critical account of the federal laws and programs that most directly affect poor and low-income people in the United States-the unemployed, the underemployed, and the low-wage employed, whether working in or outside the home. The central aim is to provide a resource for individuals and groups trying to access benefits, secure rights and protections, and mobilize for economic justice. The topics covered include cash assistance, employment and labor rights, food assistance, health care, education, consumer and banking law, housing assistance, rights in public places, access to justice, and voting rights. This comprehensive volume is appropriate for law school and undergraduate courses, and is a vital resource for policy makers, journalists, and others interested in social welfare policy in the United States.

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9780199364763

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Reviews

Legal rights only become actual when people can understand them and act to defend them. To that end, this book is an admirably lucid tool to make the legal rights of the American poor real. More than that, Hershkoff and Loffredo show that the rights of the poor also shore up the rights of workers, and this understanding is fundamental and essential to the pursuit of class justice in the United States. -- Frances Fox Piven, co-author of Regulating the Poor and Poor People's Movements Getting By is an essential, go-to guide for the millions of low-income Americans struggling to understand their social and economic rights and how to access them. Lucid and reader-friendly but also precise and comprehensive, this marvelous book will be a vital resource for claimants negotiating the maze of federal programs and for advocates seeking to mobilize for much-needed legal reform. -- David Garland, author of The Welfare State: A Very Short Introduction Knowledge is power. This is the book that we need now to understand the economic rights that are still available to low income people in the U.S., as well as the frayed edges and gaping holes in the safety net. There are no better guides to the U.S. economic rights landscape than Hershkoff and Loffredo. Comprehensive, thoughtfully organized, and with lucid explanations of complex legal provisions, even experts will have something to learn from this volume. This should be a standard resource for anyone who engages with these issues, but this book will not stay on the shelf - you'll be reaching for it again and again to help you navigate, repair, and ultimately expand this vital system of fundamental rights. -- Martha Davis, author of Brutal Need: Lawyers and the Welfare Rights Movement and co-author of Human Rights Advocacy in the United States This book combines extremely useful guidance for low-income persons and their advocates through the labyrinth of the U.S. legal and welfare systems, with an exceptionally comprehensive and insightful overview of how key parts of those systems work and don't work. An invaluable resource. -- Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights At a time when economic inequality is threatening civil liberties, every policy maker, elected official, and journalist - indeed, anyone concerned about the future of the country - ought to know about the problems highlighted in this book and aim to achieve needed reforms. -- Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director, ACLU An important work that is as refreshingly practical as it is rigorously analytical. What a wonderful and impactful work to share with racial, social, and economic justice warriors. -- Adriene Holder, Attorney-in-Charge, The Legal Aid Society, Civil Practice Hershkoff and Loffredo have created a guide to the social safety net that is both comprehensive and easy to read. This is essential reading for students, legislators, legal aid lawyers, social workers, community organizers, or anyone who cares about our 21st century social safety net. -- Philip Tegeler, President and Executive Director, Poverty & Race Research Action Council This timely, essential book examines the ways that government policies hostile or indifferent to the economically marginalized have resulted in the increasingly, shockingly lopsided distribution of economic opportunity and access to even the most basic necessities of nutrition, health care, education, and housing. Pushing back against the growing divisions in the country, it calls out the structural forces that harm the unemployed, the under employed and the underpaid alike. Most importantly, it provides suggestions about what can and must be done to repair the damage to democracy caused by economic inequality. It is this rare balance between theory and practical application that makes this volume a necessity to anyone seeking to understand and address fully economy -- Dennis Parker, Executive Director, National Center for Law and Economic Justice Hershkoff and Loffredo's volume is a comprehensive critique of the United States' poverty policies as they manifest in different facets of daily life. From food and housing to legal protection, and everything in-between, this in-depth account into the vast ramifications of past and present policy is as startling as it is vital. The authors inform the reader of the expansive socio-economic plights thrust upon the American working class and their rights. Moreover, this compelling book succeeds in unifying an often-divided populace under shared economic disenfranchisement. Getting By: Economic Rights and Legal Protections for People with Low Income is an exceptional chronicle of the United States' tumultuous political path towards equal economic mobility and security. Most impressively, it empowers the downtrodden and equips them with the necessary knowledge of their individual and collective power. -- Inimai Chettiar, former Justice Program Director, Brennan Center for Justice

"""Legal rights only become actual when people can understand them and act to defend them. To that end, this book is an admirably lucid tool to make the legal rights of the American poor real. More than that, Hershkoff and Loffredo show that the rights of the poor also shore up the rights of workers, and this understanding is fundamental and essential to the pursuit of class justice in the United States."" -- Frances Fox Piven, co-author of Regulating the Poor and Poor People's Movements ""Getting By is an essential, go-to guide for the millions of low-income Americans struggling to understand their social and economic rights and how to access them. Lucid and reader-friendly but also precise and comprehensive, this marvelous book will be a vital resource for claimants negotiating the maze of federal programs and for advocates seeking to mobilize for much-needed legal reform."" -- David Garland, author of The Welfare State: A Very Short Introduction ""�Knowledge is power. This is the book that we need now to understand the economic rights that are still available to low income people in the U.S., as well as the frayed edges and gaping holes in the safety net. There are no better guides to the U.S. economic rights landscape than Hershkoff and Loffredo. Comprehensive, thoughtfully organized, and with lucid explanations of complex legal provisions, even experts will have something to learn from this volume. This should be a standard resource for anyone who engages with these issues, but this book will not stay on the shelf - you'll be reaching for it again and again to help you navigate, repair, and ultimately expand this vital system of fundamental rights."" -- Martha Davis, author of Brutal Need: Lawyers and the Welfare Rights Movement and co-author of Human Rights Advocacy in the United States ""This book combines extremely useful guidance for low-income persons and their advocates through the labyrinth of the U.S. legal and welfare systems, with an exceptionally comprehensive and insightful overview of how key parts of those systems work and don't work. An invaluable resource."" -- Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights ""At a time when economic inequality is threatening civil liberties, every policy maker, elected official, and journalist - indeed, anyone concerned about the future of the country - ought to know about the problems highlighted in this book and aim to achieve needed reforms."" -- Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director, ACLU ""An important work that is as refreshingly practical as it is rigorously analytical. What a wonderful and impactful work to share with racial, social, and economic justice warriors."" -- Adriene Holder, Attorney-in-Charge, The Legal Aid Society, Civil Practice ""Hershkoff and Loffredo have created a guide to the social safety net that is both comprehensive and easy to read. This is essential reading for students, legislators, legal aid lawyers, social workers, community organizers, or anyone who cares about our 21st century social safety net."" -- Philip Tegeler, President and Executive Director, Poverty & Race Research Action Council ""This timely, essential book examines the ways that government policies hostile or indifferent to the economically marginalized have resulted in the increasingly, shockingly lopsided distribution of economic opportunity and access to even the most basic necessities of nutrition, health care, education, and housing. Pushing back against the growing divisions in the country, it calls out the structural forces that harm the unemployed, the under employed and the underpaid alike. Most importantly, it provides suggestions about what can and must be done to repair the damage to democracy caused by economic inequality. It is this rare balance between theory and practical application that makes this volume a necessity to anyone seeking to understand and address fully economy"" -- Dennis Parker, Executive Director, National Center for Law and Economic Justice ""Hershkoff and Loffredo's volume is a comprehensive critique of the United States' poverty policies as they manifest in different facets of daily life. From food and housing to legal protection, and everything in-between, this in-depth account into the vast ramifications of past and present policy is as startling as it is vital. The authors inform the reader of the expansive socio-economic plights thrust upon the American working class and their rights. Moreover, this compelling book succeeds in unifying an often-divided populace under shared economic disenfranchisement. Getting By: Economic Rights and Legal Protections for People with Low Income is an exceptional chronicle of the United States' tumultuous political path towards equal economic mobility and security. Most impressively, it empowers the downtrodden and equips them with the necessary knowledge of their individual and collective power."" -- Inimai Chettiar, former Justice Program Director, Brennan Center for Justice"

Author Information

Helen Hershkoff is the Herbert M. and Svetlana Wachtell Professor of Constitutional Law and Civil Liberties at New York University School of Law. Stephen Loffredo is Professor of Law at the City University of New York School of Law.

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