NPR: While raising her young daughter as a single mother, Stephanie Land cleaned houses through an agency to scrape by. It was back-aching work and the pay — $8.55 an hour to start, $9.25 an hour two years in — just wasn't enough.

Land, who had left an abusive relationship, lived for a time in a homeless shelter with her daughter. She supplemented her housecleaning income with government assistance, at one point accruing seven types of aid simultaneously, including housing and utility assistance, food stamps, child care grants and Medicaid.

Looking back, she says, "There's no way that you can work full time [at] minimum wage and have a family. It's impossible."

Eventually, Land decided to revive her dream of going to college. With the help of a Pell Grant, she pursued a degree in creative writing. Her new memoir, Maid, details her experiences cleaning houses — as well as the hurdles she has faced as a single mother living on public assistance >>>