Getting by: Economic Rights and Legal Protections for People with Low Income

Getting By offers an integrated, critical account of the programs, rights, and legal protections that most directly affect poor and low-income people in the United States. These people may be unemployed, underemployed, or employed, and they may work within the home or outside the home. The book covers cash assistance programs, employment and labor rights, food assistance, health care, housing programs, education, consumer and banking laws, access to counsel, and the right to vote. Insufficient popular understanding about programs and legal protections has contributed to a widening gap between paper rights that exist on the books and actual benefits that people can enforce on the ground. A central goal of this volume is to empower individuals, groups, and communities to bridge this gap and, in doing so, to bridge gaps among those who are locked out of the American dream.