Poverty, by America
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Evicted reimagines the debate on poverty, making a "provocative and compelling" (NPR) argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Oprah Daily, Time, The Star Tribune, Vulture, The Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Public Library, Esquire, California Review of Books, She Reads, Library Journal "Urgent and accessible . . . Its moral force is a gut punch."--The New Yorker
Longlisted for the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Award - Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal 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.
Longlisted for the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Award - Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal 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.
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Community Reviews
Considering Evicted, and all the hype that has surrounded this book, I guess I had expected it to be more substantive. It struck me as not much more than a polemic. Its central argument—poverty is structural, and those of us who benefit from the same structure(s) should realize our own complicity—isn't very enlightening or helpful. I agree with the final guidance—we need more integration (both economic and racial) in American society. But again, I didn't find Desmond's articulation of it especially groundbreaking or powerful. I'm sure this will raise awareness for a lot of people, and hopefully it will help budge the needle a bit. But if you already realize that tax avoidance and NIMBYism are obnoxious ways to behave, you're probably not going to get a lot from this.
Matthew Desmond's "Evicted" is one of my favorite books of all time. This explosive follow-up about poverty in America is profound and eye-opening. A much quicker read than Evicted, "Poverty" is a grand manifesto on the constant economic disparities between Black and other PoC Americans and White Americans.
The American Sociologist Matthew Desmond is a Princeton University in New Jersey professor. Matthew Desmond published Poverty, By America in 2023. Desmond sees himself as a poverty abolitionist who views his job as working to abolish poverty in the contemporary United States. I thought it was fun that Matthew Desmond's book referenced the Russian Writer Leo Tolstoy several times (Desmond 146-147). The first six chapters of Desmond’s book are about the roots of the contemporary United States. The remaining three chapters are on how Desmond thinks we can solve the problem of poverty in the United States. Desmond writes, “the richest country on earth, with more poverty than any other advanced democracy. If the poor in the United States founded a country, that country would have a bigger population than Australia or Venezuela” (Desmond 6). The book has a section of notes and an index. Desmond writes, “Countries like Ireland and Spain have mandated inclusionary zoning as a solution to housing shortages. In the United States, the state is leading the way in this in New Jersey” (Desmond 202). Many of the examples in Desmond’s book are from the state of New Jersey. Desmond’s example of the changing of Desmond’s study of the roots of American Poverty and how to solve the problem of poverty in the United States is thought-provoking.
Works Cited:
Desmond, Matthew. 2023. Poverty, By America. New York: Random House Large Print.
Really important topic, but instead of pinning the blame where it belongs (the top 5% and corporations and unfettered capitalism), Desmond fixated on the middle class (which actually has almost ceased to exist because of the aforementioned dynamic trio). Could he be choosing this scapegoat because, oh I don’t know, his work is funded by Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg? What do you think?
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