Pulitzer Prize winner Matthew Desmond talks about his book — Poverty, By America
Airdate: April 21st, 2023
Pulitzer Prize winning author Matthew Desmond’s new book, Poverty, By America has started a conversation about what we thought we knew about poverty and being poor in this country. Major media outlets across the nation have interviewed Mr. Desmond. The book debuted at number one on the New York Times’ non-fiction best seller list last month and is still in the top ten sellers.
Why is it getting so much attention? Probably because it goes against what many have considered conventional wisdom about poverty and Desmond has challenged that conventional wisdom.
Appearing on The Spark Friday, Desmond listed statistics showing poverty is growing,”Since 2000, eviction filings have gone up 22% since that year, the share of families visiting food pantries has gone up almost 19% since the Great Recession. The number of homeless school kids is up 74%. And one last one. Since the late 1990s, the number of Americans reporting no cash income by collecting food stamps has increased by more than 400%. These are very troubling signs.”
Desmond said saying there’s not enough money for poverty programs doesn’t hold true,”A study came out a few years ago that showed that the top 1% of Americans just pay the taxes they owed. I paid more taxes, just stopped evading the taxes that they owed. We as a nation would collect an additional $175 billion a year. What is that number? Well, that’s more than enough to reestablish the child tax credit that did so much to reduce poverty during COVID. That’s more than enough to double our investment in affordable housing and still have money left over. That’s almost enough to pull everyone out of the official poverty line. We have the resources.”
Desmond added,”If you look at the welfare state and you count up everything the government does for us, the means tested programs, social insurance, but also tax breaks. And we have to look at tax breaks as government programs. They put money in our pocket and they cost the government money. So if you look at everything the government does for us, the families in the bottom 20% of the income distribution receive about $26,000 every year from the government. But our richest families, families, the top 20% of the income distribution, they receive about $35,000 from the government. That’s almost a 40% difference. That’s our true nature of our welfare state. We give most to families that need it the least. And then we have the audacity. To look at a program that would reduce child poverty or make sure every person in America has access to a doctor and ask, how can we afford it? And the answer staring us right in the face. We could afford it if the wealthiest among us took less from the government.”
In the book, Desmond writes that poor people are exploited by employers who keep wages low and, banks that have high overdraft fees on those who who can least afford it. He points out that segregation in housing is a significant reason people stay in poverty because subsidized housing is “walled off” from more affluent communities.
Poverty, By America is WITF and Midtown Scholar Bookstore’s Pick-of-the-Month for April, 2023.
