What’s next after “Poverty” book?

December 26, 2023 6:22 AM

I just finished reading “Poverty, by America,” by Matthew Desmond. I have earlier read his book “Evicted”, “Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich, and “Maid” by Stephanie Land. I would like to learn more about causes of and solutions for structural poverty. What do you suggest?
posted by NotLost to Law & Government (22 answers total)

You might enjoy The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone by Kate Pickett.
posted by jacobean at 6:48 AM on December 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

If you are open to fiction that deals with American poverty as a theme, Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver is excellent.
posted by emd3737 at 6:55 AM on December 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

For a UK based take, Poverty Safari by Darren McGarvey is good.
posted by Erinaceus europaeus at 8:19 AM on December 26, 2023

Maybe Colburn and Aldern's Homelessness is a Housing Problem?
posted by straw at 8:24 AM on December 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

This was excellent book, following folks who are living full-time in campers and vans and working the kinds of jobs available to them: Nomadland by Jessica Bruder.
posted by amanda at 8:25 AM on December 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

On the Line by Daisy Pitkin is an engaging story about an effort to unionize industrial laundry workers in the Southwest, that also explains with clarity how unsafe, underpaid, and precarious work is for most people, and the structural barriers to changing that, and makes the case that unionizing is a, or the, solution. Unusually for books about the labor movement, it artfully and thoughtfully talks about the complex emotional dimensions and power mismatches - from how empowering it can be to become an organizer, to the emotional and material distances between educated and middle class organizers and working class people who actually must organize themselves to improve conditions. Highly recommend.

The spiritual parent of this book is Barbara Kingsolver (mentioned above) non-fiction Holding the Line about a devastatingly failed miner's strike in Arizona in the 80s, with a focus on the women involved in that strike, that serves as a useful case study to illustrate the decline of labor power in that decade.
posted by latkes at 9:06 AM on December 26, 2023 [8 favorites]

Poor Bashing: The politics of exclusion by Jean Swanson
Bridging the Class Divide and Other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing by Linda Stout
Broke but Unbroken: Grassroots social movements and their radical solutions to poverty by Augusta Dwyer

A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
Anything from bell hooks or Angela Davis about class

Red Dirt: Growing up Okie by Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz (autobiography; I haven’t read her other works, but she has a number of relevant and more academically oriented books)

Graphic Novels (nonfiction):
Direct Action Gets the Goods: A graphic history of the strike in Canada
Days of Destruction Days of Revolt by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco (about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath)

Useful general background:
Economics for Everyone (book and website) by Jim Stanford
Nothing but Freedom: Emancipation and its legacy by Eric Foner

I haven’t read it yet, but also on my bookshelf:
The Tenant Class by Ricardo Tranjan (has gotten very good reviews by folks I know and trust)
The Anatomy of Inequality by Per Molander
The Color of Law: A forgotten history of how our government segregated America by Richard Rothstein
Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

Publishers that have many other books on this topic include: AK Press, Haymarket Books, PM Press, South End Press, Verso, Between the Lines, Fernwood Press

Websites:
libcom.org has a lot of resources, including articles and pdfs of pamphlets and books
Poor People’s Campaign (continuation of campaign begun by MLK Jr. before his assassination)

Relevant fiction works:
Salome of the Tenements by Anzia Yezierska - includes a good description of one of the ways classism is reinforced, by how clothes and other stuff produced for mass market/poorer people are of lesser quality and use patterns deemed uglier by upper middle class tastes
Sam Vimes ‘Boots Theory’ from Terry Pratchett
Storming Heaven by Denise Giardina - historical fiction about the Battle of Blair Mountain
Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
The Beans of Egypt, Maine by Carolyn Chute
Oranges Aren’t the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

A giant gap in my list include works by Native Americans/First Nations or other Indigenous people from around the world, but ‘500 Years of Indigenous Resistance’ by Gord Hill (available in several formats, I have the graphic novel version) might be a starting point, or ‘This Place: 150 Years Retold’
posted by eviemath at 9:20 AM on December 26, 2023 [12 favorites]

On film, an oldie but worth a watch is Salt of the Earth
posted by eviemath at 9:22 AM on December 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

An oldie but a good analysis of how people address the structural issues: Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail

I will rummage in my virtual bookcases to find the book on the politics of welfare "reform" but one good one on the narrative around Cadillac-driving welfare queens is The Queen by Josh Levin.

I'll also look for the histories of deindustrialization later today.
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:37 AM on December 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Seconding Rothstein's The Color of Law.

Andrea Elliott, Invisible Child

Emily Flitter, White Wall

Lisa Servon, Unbanking of America

Appelbaum and Batt, Private Equity at Work

Kathryn Edin, $2.00 a Day
posted by praemunire at 10:29 AM on December 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality by Angus Deaton
(or Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism by Anne Case and Angus Deaton).

American Made by Farah Stockman
posted by caek at 11:23 AM on December 26, 2023

A bit older, but you might enjoy one of my favorites, Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol, or any of his others, like Amazing Grace.
posted by hydra77 at 11:35 AM on December 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide (2006)
posted by aniola at 11:53 AM on December 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Ghettocide, which I think is where I get the concept of simultaneous over- and under-policing reinforcing each other.

Any of Piketty’s books.
posted by clew at 12:03 PM on December 26, 2023

Earnestly: Marx's Capital. The illustrated one is great and eminently readable if that's a concern with the original.
posted by so fucking future at 12:34 PM on December 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Books about colonialism/imperialism for a cause-of.
posted by aniola at 2:22 PM on December 26, 2023

Read Robert Reich on twitter or wherever else he posts. He's written books, too.
posted by theora55 at 6:04 PM on December 26, 2023

Poor Economics by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, both professors of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences laureates

It has a global focus and uses case studies of many different development program types and why they do or do not work effectively.
posted by ananci at 3:03 AM on December 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Seconding Ghettoside and thirding The Color of Law.

Also, Jason deParle wrote American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare, which has always seemed to me to be a better description of surviving on the poverty line than Ehrenreich's book. This deals with the Clinton administration's attempt to "end welfare as we know it" which is right up there with super predator as an example of how pathetic our understanding of institutionalized racism was, even on the left.

I also strongly recommend The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander which is a gripping read and connects the dots between criminalizing drugs and ensuring oppression of the Black population on the US.
posted by janey47 at 3:27 AM on December 27, 2023

If you want to know what the Depression was like in England, read The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell.
If you want to read about a plausible solution read Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists
posted by Enid Lareg at 6:37 PM on December 27, 2023

Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams
posted by Rykey at 4:26 PM on December 28, 2023

Previously on Metafilter.

Matt Desmond ("Poverty By America") recommends some books at the end of his interview on the Ezra Klein podcast.
posted by neuron at 2:55 PM on January 1