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Small Change: Six Lives on the Edge of the American Dream
Hardcover
General Political SciencePoverty & Social Work
Publisher Price: $28.99
Publisher: New Press
Published: May 25 2027
Pages: 288
Language: English
From the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize finalist, a brilliant, narrative-driven account of the small-dollar solutions that could transform the lives of millions of struggling Americans
In showcasing people who are persistent, clever, flawed, loving, struggling and full of contradictions, [Kirshner] affirms why it's worth solving the hardest problems in our most challenging cities in the first place. --from The New York Times review of Jodie Kirshner's Broke
Nearly eleven million young adults live in poverty in America. Small Change, the new book from award-winning author Jodie Adams Kirshner, exposes a hidden cause of their predicament: not a lack of ambition or effort, but the small-dollar barriers America's tattered safety net was never built to catch. For millions of young people struggling to do the right thing, a single, unexpected expense--a textbook, a car repair, a medical bill--can knock a promising life off course.
Over four years and across four states, Kirshner follows six remarkable young people on the cusp of adulthood--an aspiring engineer in Memphis selling his plasma to buy schoolbooks, a Nashville honors student facing sudden homelessness, a coal miner's son in West Virginia stranded without broadband, a Chicago teenager whose veterinary dreams collide with a family business starved for cash. Their stories weave hope and heartbreak into an unforgettable portrait of hard work, resiliency, and dreams that hinge on small but precious sums.
At a moment when economic mobility has stalled and the American Dream feels out of reach, Small Change points the way to innovative policy solutions--often dubbed microfunding--which could fill urgent needs without a radical overall of public policy. With a novelist's eye and a reporter's instincts, Kirshner reveals how little it takes to derail a future--and how little it would take to put millions of Americans' lives back on track.
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