Making a Life on Mean Welfare

<p>We are often told that mean welfare is what the public wants. Whether or not that's true this book encourages us to at least be honest about what that entails. </p><p> It explores how diverse welfare users navigate the personal and practical hurdles of Australia's so-called social security system where benefits are deliberately meagre and come with strings attached. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a region of Sydney known for ethnic diversity and socio-economic disadvantage Emma Mitchell brings her own experience of belonging to a poor family long reliant on welfare to her research. </p><p> This book shows the different cultural resources that people bring to welfare encounters with a sensitivity and subtlety that are often missing in both sympathetic and cynical accounts of life on welfare.</p>