Hardcover, 304 pages
English language
Published March 21, 2023 by Crown Publishing Group.
Reimagining the debate on poverty, making a new and bracing argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it.
The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?
In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Those of us who are financially secure exploit the poor, driving down their wages while forcing them to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. We prioritize the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, designing a welfare …
Reimagining the debate on poverty, making a new and bracing argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it.
The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?
In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Those of us who are financially secure exploit the poor, driving down their wages while forcing them to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. We prioritize the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, designing a welfare state that gives the most to those who need the least. And we stockpile opportunity in exclusive communities, creating zones of concentrated riches alongside those of concentrated despair. Some lives are made small so that others may grow.
Elegantly written and fiercely argued, this compassionate book gives us new ways of thinking about a morally urgent problem. It also helps us imagine solutions. Desmond builds a startlingly original and ambitious case for ending poverty. He calls on us all to become poverty abolitionists, engaged in a politics of collective belonging to usher in a new age of shared prosperity and, at last, true freedom.
The powerful realization contained within this book is that we CAN live in a society free of poverty, and there are only a small handful of people preventing that from happening.
A quick read on the general concept of poverty in America as well as some of the diagnoses. It’s fairly approachable and comes at this from the same angle of his other book, Evicted.
Matthew Desmond does an incredible taking us through the history and causes of the poverty crisis in America. There's a systemic issue of people, especially those in privileged positions, to think of others in poverty as fundamentally their fault. Matthew demonstrates how this is absolutely untrue. We as a society need to wake up, recognize the problem before our eyes, and take responsibility that we're a contributor to this problem. As Matthew points out, we don't need to outsmart poverty, we just need to outhate it. Recommended reading for everyone.
I picked this up because I had really enjoyed reading Desmond's previous book, Evicted. While that book was longer and followed a cast of characters, this book is a direct, bracing jeremiad. Poverty exists, in short, because there are a lot of people who can do well while others suffer. That isn't just billionaires -- if you take the mortgage interest tax deduction, you are getting government largesse. We, as a country, just view that differently from food stamps. I am sure that there are many readers of this book who will not be comfortable having Desmond's sights trained on them. But that's precisely the point. Desmond's writing is passionate but thoroughly backed by his analysis. We don't have to live this way, and other countries don't treat their most vulnerable citizens with such contempt (that's why this is poverty "by America"). Solving poverty is possible; we just have …
I picked this up because I had really enjoyed reading Desmond's previous book, Evicted. While that book was longer and followed a cast of characters, this book is a direct, bracing jeremiad. Poverty exists, in short, because there are a lot of people who can do well while others suffer. That isn't just billionaires -- if you take the mortgage interest tax deduction, you are getting government largesse. We, as a country, just view that differently from food stamps. I am sure that there are many readers of this book who will not be comfortable having Desmond's sights trained on them. But that's precisely the point. Desmond's writing is passionate but thoroughly backed by his analysis. We don't have to live this way, and other countries don't treat their most vulnerable citizens with such contempt (that's why this is poverty "by America"). Solving poverty is possible; we just have to care enough to do it.
This is more of a pamphlet (180-some pages) than a full-length book. The first half summarizes the situation described in lengthier books, like Evicted (his other one), Scarcity, and Random Family, while the second half is more prescriptive. I wasn't entirely buying the latter part but I appreciated the survey in the first half, and I would recommend further reading on those topics, starting with the above books.
Poverty abolitionism. Blends description of the exploitative two-tier society we all participate in, earnest responses to socioeconomic myths about destitution and welfare, and policy possibilities for undoing the ways society and government actively perpetuates both wealth and poverty.
Desmond uses a range of evidence to support his argument about the causes of poverty in America, including government policy, specific practices and policies, and societal attitudes towards poverty, such as excessive regulations on housing construction, segregated public schools, and lack of connection between people of different classes. “Poverty”, he says, “isn’t simply the condition of not having enough money. It’s the condition of not having enough choice and being taken advantage of because of that, and he challenges social service organizations to focus on empowering the poor and expanding their choices, rather than simply providing them with financial assistance.
Stirring, enlightening, crucial.
What he said.
Buy this book, read it, keep it handy. Attend local meetings. Talk to representatives. And, little by little, keep doing more.
(I was surprised he never mentioned the role of churches in keeping people poor; nor universities. Then I realized the need for the book to be finite.)
More of a searing polemic than its predecessor; I nonetheless wish it could be required reading. Perhaps the work Desmond describes isn't possible - but it is the work that needs to be done in order to end poverty in America. Its impossibility is a symptom of an ugliness that cuts to the country's core.
The author is not wrong. He talks about issues, however, in a way that cannot actually work to resolve the issue. Basic human psychology needs to be factored in - you need to grapple with loss aversion and things to find a means that people will accept. You cannot just talk about the ends.
