Shortly...I enjoyed this book enormously. Ms. Funiciello is a concise and clear writer. She writes about welfare from the recipient's point of view, revealing the absurdities and cruelties without getting sesationalist. A very good read.

This book offers a rare first hand glimpse into the welfare experience, and in doing so exposes many hypocrisies and problems within it. MUCH has been written about welfare, but rarely has anything been written regarding how welfare recipients see themselves and the system. Therefore, this book is a must for anyone who thinks they know everything about how the welfare system operates, or how it should be run.

The book starts off with Funiciello's experiences as a welfare recipient, including her decision to go on welfare, and her attempts to find a job which should have been able to break her out of it. She then talks about her experiences with a welfare rights organization in New York. She tells stories of women who were trying to navigate their way through the welfare bureaucracy with varying amounts of success. She then goes on to give her opinions about what is wrong, and why we have yet to come up with a satisfying solution.

This book was a breath of fresh air for me, and forced me to reconsider much of what I thought about welfare, it's role in society, and the treatment of its recipients.

Funiciello has spent time on both sides of the welfare system and within which found an undeniable constant...the desparate need for change. In her informative masterpiece, she creates three short books. A personal account as a welfare receipient, the reality of non-profit organizations, and a look at possibilities in welfare reform. Each section is written with remarkable insight and is teeming with pertinent information. The most inspiring trait to this piece is that Funiciello, even at the darkest of moments, remains a glimmer of hope for the men, women and children struggling to survive in the most powerful country in the world.