In this cleverly constructed series of case studies, Virginia Eubanks takes a critical eye to the automation of social welfare systems in three separate contexts in the United States. Through rich, qualitative interviews, she continuously advances her key argument: that by automating our social welfare systems - housing, welfare, social supports - we are manifesting the poorhouse - and its affordances - for the age of big data.

Her work is mature ethnography: she forms close, trusted bonds with actors from all parts of the welfare systems she investigates, providing a nuanced, multi-faceted exploration of how the rationalisation and automation of welfare systems embodies and perpetuates fundamentally flawed axiology. In a conclusion that Donna Meadows would be proud of, she entreaties us to upend the system through solidarity, collective action and the recognition that poverty - and its automation - is a choice. We should choose better.