Ms. Fortune

Two liberal feminists have discovered that...capitalism works!

In their new book, Kitchen Table Entrepreneurs, Martha Shirk and Anna Wadia tell the stories of 11 women who started their own small businesses and pulled their families out of poverty. The authors acknowledge that owning a business has always been part of the American Dream, and aim to encourage it among low-income women.

Though several of these women fled welfare to start their companies, the authors inexplicably insist

that greater welfare benefits are necessary to promote small business growth. Even more puzzling is their recommendation that today's system of channeling welfare recipients into jobs be changed to a system of channeling them toward "training programs" and education instead. They argue this will give people the skills they need to get better jobs and make more money.

But one of their own profilees demonstrates the pattern that has generally worked better in real life. Ollie Barkley, owner of Ollie's Mountaineer Knits, says she became more productive the more she knitted. Her job was job training. Ollie also taught her husband Rick how to knit, which increased their income further. Without her husband by her side, Ollie would not have been able to home school her children in addition to working a job, much less start her own business. It's a glaring omission that the authors don't acknowledge these benefits of marriage.

Shirk and Wadia offer other policy prescriptions on welfare reform that follow the party line laid down by the National Organization for Women as well as the Ms. Foundation. They refuse to recognize the merits of work-based welfare and marriage despite the fact that the experiences of real-life women they chronicle in their own book say something very different.

AUTHOR_AFFILIATION

-Rachel Jurado is a TAE intern.