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Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond | 284 pages At the risk of sounding a bit melodramatic, this might have been the most important book that I've read all year. Matthew Desmond is a sociologist who teaches at Princeton, and has been the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, as well as the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award, and National Book Critics Circle Award for his prior book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, where he followed the lives of eight impoverished families in Milwaukee who were struggling to get by in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. That was more narrative nonfiction, and it feels like Desmond took all of his energy and his acclaim garnered for that first book and poured it into this one, which is a more data driven sociological analysis of the causes that lead to the kind of poverty that those Milwaukee families (and so many others) experience. The thing I loved about this book is that it was completely unsparing in its assessment of the problem, taking aim at both conservative and progressive policies alike, as well as individuals and families from across the spectrum, from the ultra-wealthy to the middle class, to the poor themselves. My takeaway was that this book is meant to shock and outrage you about the realities of poverty and wealth inequality in this world, and realize that everyone is part of the problem in some way, shape, or form. Some more than others, obviously, but we all play a role in a social structure that is built upon systematic efforts to keep a certain segment of the population in utter poverty. This was not an easy read by any means, but it was an important one. I think it's something that everyone who is concerned with income inequality, or even the state of our modern economy should read, if only for a better understanding of how things are currently, how they got there, and what's been tried (and failed) in the past to address the problems our system has created. It's well worth your time to read it, and I'm excited to see what Desmond writes next. |
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