Wage-Poor Mothers and Moral Economy

This article explores the subaltern work and family care practices of 300 low-wage women. Although US welfare reform enforced the labor market as the sole route for family support, many, often single–mother, families remain wage impoverished. Their work habits orbit around keeping children safe and defy market norms. Furthermore, in wage-poor America and beyond, this defiance is understood as morally legitimate, representing a hidden challenge to an economic ideology that subordinates humanity to the market.