The Wasted Americans Author:Edgar May Seven and a half million Americans get relief checks. — They are the migrant, the aged, the mothers of illegitimate children, the "obsolete" uneducated youths, the jobless members of minority groups. Taxpayers have spent billions annually to help them, and their money has been misspent, misused, virtually thrown away. — Here is a shocking, docume... more »nted account of the bungled welfare programs that have paralyzed the poor. Written by a man who traveled across the United States interviewing caseworkers, welfare commissioners, and hordes of despairing poor, it provides some concrete answers to one of the most urgent problems facing America today.
"May has zeroed in on the enemy-apathy, ignorance, fear, deprivation, prejudice, and jargon-to tell a story that Americans have buried in guilt." -Chicago Tribune
"A first-rate, compassionate job of social reportage." -The Nation
Edgar May won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961 for is series of articles on public welfare published in the Buffalo Evening News-a series based on six months of research and casework in the Erie County Welfare Department. From 1962 to 1963 Mr. May worked as a public-welfare consultant for the State Charities Aid Association in New York. The author has worked as a free-lance writer in Europe and as a reporter for newspapers in New York, Massachusettes, and Vermont.« less