Download or read book So Rich So Poor written by Peter Edelman and published by New Press, The. This book was released on 2013-09-03 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A competent, thorough assessment from a veteran expert in the field.” —Kirkus Reviews Income disparities in our wealthy nation are wider than at any point since the Great Depression. The structure of today’s economy has stultified wage growth for half of America’s workers—with even worse results at the bottom and for people of color—while bestowing billions on the few at the very top. In this “accessible and inspiring analysis”, lifelong anti-poverty advocate Peter Edelman assesses how the United States can have such an outsized number of unemployed and working poor despite important policy gains. He delves into what is happening to the people behind the statistics and takes a particular look at young people of color, for whom the possibility of productive lives is too often lost on the way to adulthood (Angela Glover Blackwell). For anyone who wants to understand one of the critical issues of twenty-first century America, So Rich, So Poor is “engaging and informative” (William Julius Wilson) and “powerful and eloquent” (Wade Henderson).
Download or read book Not a Crime to Be Poor written by Peter Edelman and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2019-07-02 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Awarded "Special Recognition" by the 2018 Robert F. Kennedy Book & Journalism Awards Finalist for the American Bar Association's 2018 Silver Gavel Book Award Named one of the "10 books to read after you've read Evicted" by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "Essential reading for anyone trying to understand the demands of social justice in America."—Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy Winner of a special Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, the book that Evicted author Matthew Desmond calls "a powerful investigation into the ways the United States has addressed poverty . . . lucid and troubling" In one of the richest countries on Earth it has effectively become a crime to be poor. For example, in Ferguson, Missouri, the U.S. Department of Justice didn't just expose racially biased policing; it also exposed exorbitant fines and fees for minor crimes that mainly hit the city's poor, African American population, resulting in jail by the thousands. As Peter Edelman explains in Not a Crime to Be Poor, in fact Ferguson is everywhere: the debtors' prisons of the twenty-first century. The anti-tax revolution that began with the Reagan era led state and local governments, starved for revenues, to squeeze ordinary people, collect fines and fees to the tune of 10 million people who now owe $50 billion. Nor is the criminalization of poverty confined to money. Schoolchildren are sent to court for playground skirmishes that previously sent them to the principal's office. Women are evicted from their homes for calling the police too often to ask for protection from domestic violence. The homeless are arrested for sleeping in the park or urinating in public. A former aide to Robert F. Kennedy and senior official in the Clinton administration, Peter Edelman has devoted his life to understanding the causes of poverty. As Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy has said, "No one has been more committed to struggles against impoverishment and its cruel consequences than Peter Edelman." And former New York Times columnist Bob Herbert writes, "If there is one essential book on the great tragedy of poverty and inequality in America, this is it."
Download or read book The Working Poor written by David K. Shipler and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2008-11-12 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Arab and Jew, an intimate portrait unfolds of working American families struggling against insurmountable odds to escape poverty. "This is clearly one of those seminal books that every American should read and read now." —The New York Times Book Review As David K. Shipler makes clear in this powerful, humane study, the invisible poor are engaged in the activity most respected in American ideology—hard, honest work. But their version of the American Dream is a nightmare: low-paying, dead-end jobs; the profound failure of government to improve upon decaying housing, health care, and education; the failure of families to break the patterns of child abuse and substance abuse. Shipler exposes the interlocking problems by taking us into the sorrowful, infuriating, courageous lives of the poor—white and black, Asian and Latino, citizens and immigrants. We encounter them every day, for they do jobs essential to the American economy. This impassioned book not only dissects the problems, but makes pointed, informed recommendations for change. It is a book that stands to make a difference.
Download or read book Broke and Patriotic written by Francesco Duina and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are poor Americans so patriotic? They have significantly worse social benefits compared to other Western nations, and studies show that the American Dream of upward mobility is, for them, largely a myth. So why do these people love their country? Why have they not risen up to demand more from a system that is failing them? In Broke and Patriotic, Francesco Duina contends that the best way to answer these questions is to speak directly to America's most impoverished. Spending time in bus stations, Laundromats, senior citizen centers, homeless shelters, public libraries, and fast food restaurants, Duina conducted over sixty revealing interviews in which his participants explain how they view themselves and their country. He masterfully weaves their words into three narratives. First, America's poor still see their country as the "last hope" for themselves and the world: America offers its people a sense of dignity, closeness to God, and answers to most of humanity's problems. Second, America is still the "land of milk and honey:" a very rich and generous country where those who work hard can succeed. Third, America is the freest country on earth where self-determination is still possible. This book offers a stirring portrait of the people left behind by their country and left out of the national conversation. By giving them a voice, Duina sheds new light on a sector of American society that we are only beginning to recognize as a powerful force in shaping the country's future.
Download or read book A People s History of Poverty in America written by Stephen Pimpare and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2011-06-07 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this compulsively readable social history, political scientist Stephen Pimpare vividly describes poverty from the perspective of poor and welfare-reliant Americans from the big city to the rural countryside. He focuses on how the poor have created community, secured shelter, and found food and illuminates their battles for dignity and respect. Through prodigious archival research and lucid analysis, Pimpare details the ways in which charity and aid for the poor have been inseparable, more often than not, from the scorn and disapproval of those who would help them. In the rich and often surprising historical testimonies he has collected from the poor in America, Pimpare overturns any simple conclusions about how the poor see themselves or what it feels like to be poor—and he shows clearly that the poor are all too often aware that charity comes with a price. It is that price that Pimpare eloquently questions in this book, reminding us through powerful anecdotes, some heart-wrenching and some surprisingly humorous, that poverty is not simply a moral failure.
Download or read book The Undeserving Poor written by Michael B. Katz and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-12 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1989, The Undeserving Poor was a critically acclaimed and enormously influential account of America's enduring debate about poverty. Taking stock of the last quarter century, Michael B. Katz's new edition of this classic is virtually a new book. As the first did, it will force all concerned Americans to reconsider the foundations of our policies toward the poor, especially in the wake of the Great Recession that began in 2008. Katz highlights how throughout American history, the poor have been regarded as undeserving: people who do not deserve sympathy because they brought their poverty on themselves, either through laziness and immorality, or because they are culturally or mentally deficient. This long-dominant view sees poverty as a personal failure, serving to justify America's mean-spirited treatment of the poor. Katz reminds us, however, that there are other explanations of poverty besides personal failure. Poverty has been written about as a problem of place, of resources, of political economy, of power, and of market failure. Katz looks at each idea in turn, showing how they suggest more effective approaches to our struggle against poverty. The Second Edition includes important new material. It now sheds light on the revival of the idea of culture in poverty research; the rehabilitation of Daniel Patrick Moynihan; the resurgent role of biology in discussions of the causes of poverty, such as in The Bell Curve; and the human rights movement's intensified focus on alleviating world poverty. It emphasizes the successes of the War on Poverty and Great Society, especially at the grassroots level. It is also the first book to chart the rise and fall of the "underclass" as a concept driving public policy. A major revision of a landmark study, The Undeserving Poor helps readers to see poverty-and our efforts to combat it—in a new light.
Download or read book Poverty in America written by John Iceland and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2003-10 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This volume is an excellent overview of the dimensions and sources of American poverty. John Iceland combines statistical data, theoretical arguments, and historical information in a book that is highly readable and will very likely become a standard reference for students of poverty."—William Julius Wilson, author of When Work Disappears "In just a few short pages, Iceland brings anyone--lay reader, student, professional researcher--up to speed on the major issues and debates about poverty in America. With succinct and engaging prose, Poverty in America covers the gamut--from theoretical issues to measurement to history to public policy--better than any other book out there right now."—Dalton Conley, author of Honky "Must reading on a tough and important topic. With some answers that may surprise, Iceland sorts out competing theories of why people are poor in the richest country in the world. His book should motivate every reader--policy maker, researcher, citizen-- to think hard about what it means to be poor today and how our society can best reduce the hardship and poverty still with us."—Constance F. Citro, National Research Council of the National Academies, Washington, D.C.
Download or read book Poor America written by Samuel James Eldersveld and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2007 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poor America describes the sharp contrast in the extent of poverty between the United States and six Western European countries. While 36 million Americans live below the poverty line, a much smaller percent of Western Europeans struggle with the same problem. Samuel J. Eldersveld seeks to discover why this variance exists by exploring various theories. To explain the larger percentage of American poor, he tackles the history of poverty in each of the featured countries along with examining the "system theory" approach, the role of values, the political elite character in the United States compared to Europe, and the differential robes of the business elites in these countries. Poor America follows the issue of poverty through the present day, discussing proposals and prospects for reform in poverty relief in the United States.
Download or read book So Rich So Poor written by Peter B. Edelman and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers an informed analysis of how the United States can be so wealthy yet have an out sized number of unemployed and working poor.
Download or read book Hand to Mouth written by Linda Tirado and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The real-life Nickel and Dimed—the author of the wildly popular “Poverty Thoughts” essay tells what it’s like to be working poor in America. ONE OF THE FIVE MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS OF THE YEAR--Esquire “DEVASTATINGLY SMART AND FUNNY. I am the author of Nickel and Dimed, which tells the story of my own brief attempt, as a semi-undercover journalist, to survive on low-wage retail and service jobs. TIRADO IS THE REAL THING.”—Barbara Ehrenreich, from the Foreword As the haves and have-nots grow more separate and unequal in America, the working poor don’t get heard from much. Now they have a voice—and it’s forthright, funny, and just a little bit furious. Here, Linda Tirado tells what it’s like, day after day, to work, eat, shop, raise kids, and keep a roof over your head without enough money. She also answers questions often asked about those who live on or near minimum wage: Why don’t they get better jobs? Why don’t they make better choices? Why do they smoke cigarettes and have ugly lawns? Why don’t they borrow from their parents? Enlightening and entertaining, Hand to Mouth opens up a new and much-needed dialogue between the people who just don’t have it and the people who just don’t get it.
Download or read book Poor America Poor Americans Wake Up written by Dwayne Walden Jr. and published by Booktango. This book was released on 2015-07-02 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Full with Facts, Opinions, and a Solution for Poor Americans to get out of poverty. Poor Americans give out billion of dollars each year to corporations each year with out even knowing. Learn how them billions of dollars can help your poor community with one simple solution.
Download or read book Food and Poverty written by Leslie Hossfeld and published by Vanderbilt University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-30 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Food insecurity rates, which skyrocketed with the Great Recession, have yet to fall to pre-recession levels. Food pantries are stretched thin, and states are imposing new restrictions on programs like SNAP that are preventing people from getting crucial government assistance. At the same time, we see an increase in obesity that results from lack of access to healthy foods. The poor face a daily choice between paying bills and paying for food.
Download or read book The Other America written by Michael Harrington and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1997-08 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the economic underworld of migrant farm workers, the aged, minority groups, and other economically underprivileged groups.
Download or read book White Trash written by Nancy Isenberg and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-06-21 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestseller A New York Times Notable and Critics’ Top Book of 2016 Longlisted for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction One of NPR's 10 Best Books Of 2016 Faced Tough Topics Head On NPR's Book Concierge Guide To 2016’s Great Reads San Francisco Chronicle's Best of 2016: 100 recommended books A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2016 Globe & Mail 100 Best of 2016 “Formidable and truth-dealing . . . necessary.” —The New York Times “This eye-opening investigation into our country’s entrenched social hierarchy is acutely relevant.” —O Magazine In her groundbreaking bestselling history of the class system in America, Nancy Isenberg upends history as we know it by taking on our comforting myths about equality and uncovering the crucial legacy of the ever-present, always embarrassing—if occasionally entertaining—poor white trash. “When you turn an election into a three-ring circus, there’s always a chance that the dancing bear will win,” says Isenberg of the political climate surrounding Sarah Palin. And we recognize how right she is today. Yet the voters who boosted Trump all the way to the White House have been a permanent part of our American fabric, argues Isenberg. The wretched and landless poor have existed from the time of the earliest British colonial settlement to today's hillbillies. They were alternately known as “waste people,” “offals,” “rubbish,” “lazy lubbers,” and “crackers.” By the 1850s, the downtrodden included so-called “clay eaters” and “sandhillers,” known for prematurely aged children distinguished by their yellowish skin, ragged clothing, and listless minds. Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, Isenberg upends assumptions about America’s supposedly class-free society––where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early nineteenth century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics–-a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ’s Great Society; they haunt us in reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty. Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been at or near the center of major political debates over the character of the American identity. We acknowledge racial injustice as an ugly stain on our nation’s history. With Isenberg’s landmark book, we will have to face the truth about the enduring, malevolent nature of class as well.
Download or read book Poor Americans written by Marc Pilisuk and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 1971-01-01 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Rich and Poor in America written by Geoffrey Gilbert and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2008-05-12 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work provides a thorough overview and analysis of the increasing gap between the Americans at the top and bottom of the economic scale. Rich and Poor in America: A Reference Handbook provides an in-depth analysis of—and possible solutions for—the growing disparity between those at the top of the economic ladder and everyone else, a disparity that has reached its highest level since the 1920s. Expertly researched and written, Rich and Poor in America explores a wide range of explanations for the trend that undercuts the U.S.'s "Land of Opportunity" image, including heavy immigration, weakening labor unions, globalization, and technological change. Separate chapters look at the issue chronologically and from a global perspective, while biographical sketches provide fascinating portraits of some of the "winners" in our winner-take-all society, as well as leading scholars and activists working on this issue. copywriter rewrite: Rich and Poor in America: A Reference Handbook provides an in-depth analysis of the widening income gap in the United States—a situation where, over nearly three decades, fewer and fewer Americans have made significant financial strides while more and more have seen their real incomes remain the same or decrease. Objective, expertly researched and clearly written, Rich and Poor in America looks at a wide range of explanations for the income gap, including heavy immigration, weakening labor unions, globalization, and technological change. Separate chapters examine the trend as it has evolved over time and from a global perspective, while biographical sketches provide fascinating portraits of some of notable successful individuals as well as leading scholars and activists working on this issue.
Download or read book The American Way of Poverty written by Sasha Abramsky and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2013-09-10 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Selected as A Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review Fifty years after Michael Harrington published his groundbreaking book The Other America, in which he chronicled the lives of people excluded from the Age of Affluence, poverty in America is back with a vengeance. It is made up of both the long-term chronically poor and new working poor -- the tens of millions of victims of a broken economy and an ever more dysfunctional political system. In many ways, for the majority of Americans, financial insecurity has become the new norm. The American Way of Poverty shines a light on this travesty. Sasha Abramsky brings the effects of economic inequality out of the shadows and, ultimately, suggests ways for moving toward a fairer and more equitable social contract. Exploring everything from housing policy to wage protections and affordable higher education, Abramsky lays out a panoramic blueprint for a reinvigorated political process that, in turn, will pave the way for a renewed War on Poverty. It is, Harrington believed, a moral outrage that in a country as wealthy as America, so many people could be so poor. Written in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse, in an era of grotesque economic extremes, The American Way of Poverty brings that same powerful indignation to the topic.
