What is the most important point/claim the authors are making?
The most important point that the authors are claiming is how the poor people manage to survive without lacking anything, yet they have an average of two dollars per day as income when averaged over the given period of time. These earnings are not made daily but are those averaged over a period of time. The other claim is also on how the poor are able to manage their meager incomes, especially the various complex ways in which they are able to survive in the days when they have no income in comparison to the other days when they make more than enough income. These methods enable them to acquire their basic needs as well as sound financial security at the moment.
How credible is the evidence backing up their most important claim?
The evidence backing up their most important claim is very credible since they were able to construct the financial diaries after spending time with the poor households from Hamid and Khadeja in Bangladesh, Thembi in South Africa, and The Feizal of India. The authors did their interviews twice every month for a period of one full year and thus were able to follow and capture the minute details of how these people survived despite their lack of enough financial muscle after creating more than two hundred financial diaries.
What is the most important policy implication of the book?
The most important policy implementation is that this report can help governments come up with policies that can help the poor in society to be able to sustain themselves, access Medicare, access lower interest loans, and furthermore educate them on the relevance of taking loans after they have spent their savings and not taking loans yet they have saved on their bank account. The government can also formulate sound financial policies that prohibit paying of interest on savings. This will enable people to manage their financial wellbeing soundly.