Sondra J. Fogel, Guest Editor

William E. Powell, Editor

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Overall, this collection of perceptive, timely, and diverse work suggests that we must be innovative in our approach to assisting the working poor by joining with and learning from new partners and organizations to facilitate individual and family self-sufficiency. Efforts to ameliorate the unintentional negative consequences of current public policies must increase and expand. Our advocacy can make a difference.

Clearly, social work is involved in defining the next steps for successful strategies and collaborations for the working poor, yet there is still so much to learn.

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Nothing for the many millions stuck at the bottom of the social ladder is free or easy. Being poor and financially fragile guarantees a stressful and precarious life and one that is more—not less— complicated. Being at the very bottom of the heap comes with its own peculiar costs and foreshortening of life; the next step up the ladder, as a card-carrying member of the “working poor,” has additional hidden costs.

While being poor exacts its price most exquisitely and personally on the very people who’ve been devalued and consigned to our society’s metaphorical drain trap, the cost to our collective wellbeing and our communal soul is both chronic and enormous.