Here are 10 enlightening books about poverty in America, arranged in alphabetical order by the author’s last names. Each is linked to my review.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander – The New Jim Crow: reexamining mass incarceration in America
Prof. Alexander explains how the country’s criminal justice system has been warped to the point of non-recognition by a series of Presidential actions, Congressional legislation, and Supreme Court decisions–as well as the catastrophic consequences of this sequence of events for our cities, our African-American and Latino communities, and ultimately all of ourselves. Read the review.
Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War by Joe Bageant – On the front lines of America’s class war
Bageant writes about “the business class, that legion of little Rotary Club spark plugs . . . vital to the American corporate and political machine. They are where the institutionalized rip-off of working-class people by the rich corporations finds its footing at the grassroots level . . . They are so far right they will not even eat the left wing of a chicken.” Read the review.
99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality Is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It by Chuck Collins – Wealth inequality: how the 99% can fight back
The former executive director of United for a Fair Economy lucidly spotlights the terrible price we all pay for the massive imbalance in wealth between today’s haves and have-nots. He draws a parallel between the Gilded Age of the 1890s through the 1920s and the current era, beginning in the late 1970s—both of them periods when the disparity of wealth grew to unprecedented proportions. Read the review.
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond – Does the profit motive cause homelessness?
Over 18 months in the field, the author followed the lives of several Milwaukee families, both black and white, before, during, and after their experience with eviction. Simultaneously, he tracked the work of two landlords, one with thirty-six badly maintained units in ghetto properties and another who owns a rundown mobile home park containing 131 deteriorating trailers. Read the review.
Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class, by Robert H. Frank – Robert Frank examines income inequality and the tragedy of the commons
Frank goes far beyond the superficial coverage of income inequality in much of the media, which is largely limited to dramatizing just how far and fast the gap has grown between the haves and have-nots. He explains how income inequality forces people of lower or middle income to spend more than they can afford on housing, clothing, and sometimes even food—and how the policies that foster inequality saddle society with inadequate public transportation, polluted air and water, crumbling infrastructure, and other frequently neglected problems. Read the review.
Janesville: An American Story by Amy Goldstein – Janesville book review: The human cost of the Great Recession
Goldstein frames her insightful new book as An American Story. By following the fortunes of a half-dozen families in Janesville, Wisconsin, Goldstein dramatizes the impact of the Great Recession of 2008 in the years following the closure of a large Chevrolet factory. She eloquently shows that the pain it inflicted on the people of Janesville has lasted to this day. This is, indeed, an American story. Read the review.
Taxing the Poor: Doing Damage to the Truly Disadvantaged by Katherine S. Newman and Rourke L. O’Brien – Poverty in America: why the poor get poorer
Students of poverty in America have searched for its roots in many areas, including racism, culture, genetics, personal responsibility, and social policy. Taxes, by contrast, have received little attention. Newman and O’Brien respond to this oversight with an illuminating survey of how tax policy in the South has contributed in major ways to the poverty endemic in the region on both sides of the color line. Read the review.
Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few by Robert B. Reich – Robert Reich explains how to make capitalism work for the middle class
The former U.S. Secretary of Labor takes on the economic issues of the day from a perspective that rarely comes to light in public discourse: he rejects the widespread assumption that a “free market” exists independent of government. “A market—any market—requires that government make and enforce the rules of the game,” Reich writes. Read the review.
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson – A searing look at America’s broken criminal justice system
Stevenson’s perspective on law enforcement is clear: “we have to reform a system of criminal justice that continues to treat people better if they are rich and guilty than if they are poor and innocent.” His book focuses on an African-American businessman in Alabama who was wrongly imprisoned on death row for six years. Read the review.
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance – Hillbilly? Redneck? White trash?
This spellbinding book is the haunting story of one man who escaped the bounds of his class and now sometimes finds himself adrift. The book also paints a vivid picture of America’s hardening class divisions. It’s a riveting illustration of widening economic inequality. Read the review.
Since wealth and income inequality in America can be directly linked to political decisions, you may be interested in 35 excellent nonfiction books about politics.
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