Want to know how the poor live? Read their diaries. Subir and Mumtaz live with their five children in Dhaka, Bangladesh. With the help of odd jobs and inconsistent employment they aim at making US$1 a day per person. (Book review by Todd Scribner, National Catholic Reporter)

Even during the good times they rarely make that much and in bad times they typically earn less than half. Eating three square meals every day is a blessing, but it is not unusual to eat only twice and sometimes once. Given the unpredictability of their finances, carefully managing any money that they are able to acquire is a constant concern.

The daily struggles of Subir and Mumtaz are just one story among many highlighted in Portfolios of the Poor: How the World’s Poor Live on $2 a Day. In this book the authors analyze about 300 “financial diaries” from households in India, Bangladesh, and South Africa.

While a study of “financial diaries” has the making of a dry sounding book, this study provides some interesting insights into the ingenuity of the poor as they struggle to scrape together a reliable livelihood and provide for the needs of their families.

[Todd Scribner works at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops in the Department of Migration and Refugee Services.]

PORTFOLIOS OF THE POOR:HOW THE WORLD’S POOR LIVE ON $2 A DAY
By Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford and Orlanda Ruthven
Published by Princeton University Press

FULL REVIEW

Diaries highlight the daily ingenuity of the world’s poor (National Catholic Reporter)

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