I got to hear Desmond speak at ALA a couple years ago and he was introducing this book, Poverty. He didn't just talk about poor people. He talked about the cycle of poverty and how the billionaires could easily eradicate poverty if inclined.

I read and listened to Poverty, by America off and on like I do many non-fiction titles. But it's one that people today should read. If you haven't been poor, or grown up around poverty, then you don't understand how it takes generations to get through that cycle.

Highly recommend. And I look forward to reading Evicted by Desmond.

Mathew Desmond returns with a new book. After the success of Eviction, Desmond delves deeper into many of the root causes of poverty in the United States. We may sometimes view poverty and homelessness as a fault in our community. Instead, Desmond demonstrates that this works as designed. The poor can be repeatedly taken advantage of through micro fees that make corporations and CEOs super-rich. The impoverished don't have lawyers and advocates. When they go to the check cashing place, they get fleeced; it works as designed. When they try to get housing and get blocked, it works as designed. Many communities rely on the impoverished as a warning to keep workers in check; this works as designed. What are the solutions? It is uncertain, but these societal ills won't stop until communities begin to care about all of their citizens.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this incredible book. I’ve been meaning to read Evicted for some time, but haven’t gotten around to it. However, I think Poverty might be an even more important book since it explores and humanizes the loss of money and capital for people in America, the supposed land of wealth and resources. Desmond explored the challenges that people living in poverty face on a daily basis, and how that kind of stigma and lack of resources creates a kind of Matthew effect where they struggle to get out of poverty. Desmond’s approach to observe and interview his subjects provides us with insight into the plight of their poverty, and provides a voice to those we often do not listen to or hear from. For me, Desmond’s book challenged some of the assumptions I have about poverty and the reasons why people become impoverished. This is such an important book, and I think this book would be great to teach as well. It’s accessible and could be used in many different courses, whether exploring sociology, education, or even in a gen ed writing course that explores issues and problems in society. Desmond writes with clarity, avoiding a lot of scholarly jargon. Furthermore, he writes with urgency, acknowledging the complexity and compounding effects of poverty, not just on those who are impoverished, but on society in general. I hope that this book is used in classrooms in the next few years to further explore the issues related to poverty and to provide voice and light to this serious and complicated issue that could happen to many of us.

This book is critical. As someone who grew up in the child welfare system, and reports on the child welfare system and is writing a book of fairy tale translations of DCFS case records, I find Desmond's inquiry so important. I appreciate the distinction between a book about poverty focused on the impoverished and a book about poverty troubling out, how this happened and what we --- the other half, those of us who have escaped or graduated from poverty's clutches can do. I will be teaching this book to my students. I used to work for Barbara Ehrenreich's Economic Hardship Reporting Project. I know we published some of Desmond's work. I'd love to connect with Desmond again in the future.

Remarkable writer and thinker.

Interesting information. I missed the personal stories from Evicted that made me connect with the topic and the people. This one fell a bit short.

Poverty by America is a powerful book and a must read. I learned so much from reading this book, and it opened my eyes to the plight of people in our country. I will definitely return to this book again!

A "wow. I look forward to re-reading this and annotating it for myself. It gets to why poverty in America is unique and why it exists. It examines ways funding and resources are kept from poor people beyond military spending. It tackles white supremacy culture as scarcity culture. It's engaging enough to hold your attention but it's well-researched and nuanced that you'll want to take your time with it.

This is beautifully written and makes the important point that we choose to sustain poverty. The end, sadly, becomes quite polemical.

I don't want to be poor. but I am and this gives me a little insight. I am never really happy to read about the dystopian hellscape we call América but here I am .

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. This book challenged me. Some of it was new to me, some of it was well known. Like some reviewers, I think I would have liked to see more data and a realistic action plan, but overall a solid read. I’ll think about it for a long time.

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. I devoured Desmond's first book Evicted and recommended it to all of my friends and coworkers and anyone who would listen. I think what is missing from this book is the first person narrative from people in the US living in poverty. This book is facts and facts and more facts. I wish there was a more human element to it. That was what got me hooked on Evicted was the storytelling and getting to hear first hand knowledge of people going through these situations. I found the book interesting just not as gripping. And it took me a long time to slog through. Glad I read it. But I would recommend Evicted over this book.

Matthew Desmond has a knack for explaining complex and painful issues in a way that is both accessible and enraging. Poverty in America, as he explains it, is neither an accident or unwanted. It is a necessary part of the economy as we have built it. Devastating and honest.

Matthew Desmond's previous book, Evicted, changed the way I think about housing and his newest release Poverty, by America does it again. Desmond clearly argues how America is the villain and creates its poverty problem on its own. Books about the poor can often fall into sensationalist poverty porn, but Desmond deploys personal stories to ground his manifesto in reality.

This is required reading for anyone who works in social services, who is anti-capitalist or capitalism critical and who wants to make sure everyone in their neighborhood has a place to call home.

Wonky. A lot of numbers and statistics and percentage this, average that, etc. etc. The wonkiness drags the book and prevents the reader from establishing a consistent flow, making Poverty a far more challenging read than it has any right to be. The premise is poverty has a wide ranging effect on those mired in its’ grip and the privileged and privileged adjacent can make some adjustments that would go a long way in aiding the poor. It really wouldn’t take much but the will is lacking. He ultimately delivers enough information so one can see that poverty can be eradicated with more efficient policy and and a more informed citizenry. A book that serves as a siren call, you just have to fight through the noise(the numbers) to hear it clearly.

Matthew Desmond does it again. Showing the the privatized safety net that came after WWII has missed folks and that Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty" is unfinished. We can't have guns and butter.

Desmond takes a searing and unflinching look at poverty in America with statistics and anecdotes. Important read and insightful.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for gifting me a digital ARC of the new book by Pulitzer Prize winning author of Evicted, Matthew Desmond - 4 stars!

The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. In this book, Desmond, gives his opinions as to why this is true and ways to change it.

I was a huge fan of Evicted, and it made me think and feel so much about the plight of the poor and homeless. This book should make you feel all that as well, but to me it was more of an opinion piece. Desmond gave lots of ways we can change poverty (getting the IRS to change tax laws and go after the cheaters, for example) which are great in theory but difficult in practice. Many of his suggestions may help some but hurt the middle-class poor in the process. It's important that this is a conversation though, but realize this is definitely a left-leaning book.

Is Desmond insinuating that richer Americans are part of the problem in keeping poorer Americans poor?

Yes, exactly.

And it’s devastating—but enlightening—to read in detail how it happens, often unaware.

For instance, Desmond writes,

“By one estimate, simply collecting unpaid federal income taxes from the top 1 percent of households would bring in some $175 billion a year. We could just about fill the entire poverty gap in America if the richest among us simply paid all the taxes they owed.”

Desmond says that the average rich and middle-class family draws on the same number of government benefits as the average poor family.

Virtually all Americans, rich or poor, benefit from some form of public aid. “Today, the biggest beneficiaries of federal aid are affluent families.”

And the more the rich receive, the less available there is for the poor.

“Decade after decade, the poverty rate has remained flat even as federal relief has surged. How could this be? — Part of the answer, I learned, lies in the fact that a fair amount of government aid earmarked for the poor never reaches them.”

Desmond calls on us to become poverty abolitionists.

“We are connected, members of a shared nation and a shared economy, where the advantages of the rich often come at the expense of the poor. But that arrangement is not inevitable or permanent. It was made by human hands and can be unmade by them.“

Specifically, here are just a few suggestions that Desmond gives in Poverty, by America.

* Make friends with those who are poor, not just to help them (although do that too if you’re able), but for genuine connection; you’ll become more familiar with their struggles.
* Allow the IRS to crack down on corporations and individuals who cheat on their taxes. (Desmond says, “Studies have shown that most Americans pay 90 percent of the taxes they owe, but the ultra-rich pay only 75 percent.“)
* Be aware of not only the environmental impact of your purchases, but also the poverty impact.
* Investigate what a fair minimum wage should be and then vote for legislators who are supportive.
* Develop a mindset of alleviating poverty instead of overlooking it.
* Make it less complicated and confusing for those who need aid to receive it.

Desmond concludes his book with this:

“Every person, every company, every institution that has a role in perpetuating poverty also has a role in ameliorating it. The end of poverty is something to stand for, to march for, to sacrifice for. . . . The citizens of the richest nation in the world can and should finally put an end to it. We don’t need to outsmart this problem. We need to outhate it.”

Poverty, by America isn’t a how-to book on solving poverty, but it is a compelling book on recognizing the problems. And encouraging us to do better.

I highly recommend it.

My thanks to NetGalley + Crown for the review copy of this book.

Desmond is an incredibly talented writer, as we saw in "Evicted." Unfortunately, his statistical work is sloppy in this book. His entire thesis is undermined by measures of poverty that include safety net benefits, which show - contrary to his argument - that we have actually made tremendous strides in reducing poverty in America since the 1960s. He can paint beautiful pictures, but his slippery handling of data makes the reader approach his narrative with a skeptical eye. A shame, as this had potential to change the conversation. Instead the reader will come away with a misimpression about how intractable the problem of poverty and how difficult a solution may be.

I read Matthew Desmond's book Evicted when it first came out, and it opened my eyes to a lot of the social problems in the US that I never knew much about. This book expands more on the issue of poverty, focusing on the many reasons why the problem persists in this country. This is a well written book full of empathy and compassion, and I think everyone would benefit from reading it.