ABSTRACT
In his book Making Ends Meet, Caplovitz distinguished six possible reactions to a lowered income: increase income, restrict expenditures, become more self-sufficient, go bargain hunting, share with others, and apply for consumer credit. Caplowitz noted that self-sufficiency and bargain hunting could be viewed as strategies for the very poorest of the poor. In the 1980s, the low credit rating of the poor fell even lower. Their limited financial means are reflected in the fact that three quarters of the black residents of Chicago's extreme poverty areas do not have a checking or savings account. Some ethnographic studies of poverty shed a sharper light than Caplowitz' book does on the income strategies of the poor. Edin's study suggests a picture of efficient and resourceful women who managed to make ends meet. The study barely mentions women who were unable to earn an alternative income, yet the category of less inventive welfare mothers has been described.
