ABSTRACT
The inadequacy of income from low-wage work combined with minimal government benefits has become even more apparent in the recent recession. As hours and pay were cut back and government benefits began to diminish, families at the bottom could no longer meet their basic needs. This resulted in the loss of housing, limited ability to buy food and other necessities, inadequate or no child care options, and a significant reduction in medical care. To illustrate, in 2010 46.9 million individuals were living in poverty, up from 37.2 million prior to the recession in 2007. This represents the largest number of people in poverty since the United States began recording poverty rates in the late 1950s. Also in 2010, 17.2 million (one in seven) households experienced food insecurity, the highest number ever recorded in the United States (Coleman-Jensen et al., 2011). In that same year 25.6% of all Americans experienced at least one month without health insurance. In 2012, 27 states had waiting lists for child care vouchers for low-income families, and virtually every state had lowered the income threshold to qualify for these vouchers, making fewer people eligible (Schulman and Blank, 2012). Research has shown that poor families use a combination of resources to make ends meet, which include income from low-wage work, government benefits, and social support networks. Given that work and benefits are often not adequate for some families to survive, much less thrive, social networks in many low-income communities allow different types of social and economic opportunities. Particularly for single women with children, the ability to swap or barter goods and services can make a substantial difference in the ability to sustain their families financially. Creative, community-based solutions that support people outside of the formal market-based system offer a promising approach for low-income and low-asset families. Such approaches include community currencies such as time banks, local economic trading systems, and complementary community currency systems. These alternatives, which in many ways are the antithesis of neoliberal global capitalism, move away from the global economy, into a very local economy. They are based on a radically different set of values-reciprocity, interdependence, fairness, and the centrality of social networks and strong communities. As North (2005) notes, community currencies may offer a viable approach to reduce unemployment and social exclusion, recreate community, regulate the economy using a model embedded in moral and social values, and promote local, sustainable development.
