The American Way of Poverty

Starred review from July 8, 2013
Destitution, squalor, loneliness, and despair are the distinctive features of lower-class America in this searing exposé. Recalling Michael Harrington's The Other America, journalist Abramsky (Inside Obama's Brain) meets and profiles an extraordinary range of people and predicaments: indigent retirees at food pantries; Mexican migrant laborers in desert shantytowns; a middle-class professional woman reduced to prostitution after a spell of unemployment; low-wage workers unable to make ends meet and forced into a daily "âeat or heat'" dilemma. He shows us the persistence of brute hunger, homelessness, and deprivation, but also sensitively probes the psychic woundsâof being too poor to sustain friendships and social life, of feeling like a worthless cast-off in a society that worships wealth. The author sharply critiques the skimpy benefits and humiliating regulations of current welfare programs and lambastes conservatives who want to further shred the safety net. His prescription for a "Robin Hood" programâa laundry list of new entitlements, minimum-wage hikes, public works, and the likeâlacks focus, but has the inestimable virtue of throwing money at people who sorely need it. Abramsky's is a challenging indictment of an economy in which poverty and inequality at the bottom seem like the foundation for prosperity at the top. Photos. Agent: Jim Levine, Levine Greenberg Agency.

July 1, 2013
An updating of Michael Harrington's influential 1962 report on poverty, The Other America, written in the hope that it, too, will launch a new war on poverty. For 18 months, freelance journalist Abramsky (Inside Obama's Brain, 2009, etc.), creator of the oral history project Voices of Poverty, traveled across more than half the states in the country to talk with the newly poor and the long-term destitute. These interviews, many of which can be heard on the project's website, form the bulk of the first part of the book, "The Voices of Poverty." They are accompanied by data from documented sources and hard statistics and by the author's analysis of what he discovered as he looked into such issues as jobs, wages, health care, housing and education. His portrait of poverty is one of great complexity and diversity, existential loneliness and desperation--but also amazing resilience. In the second section, "Building a New and Better House," Abramsky calls for basic changes in the economic landscape to reduce poverty. He bases his proposal on four major revenue sources: a public-works fund; an educational-opportunity fund; a poverty-mitigation fund backed by a financial transaction tax and energy profit taxes; and higher taxes on capital gains and high-end incomes and inheritances. He spells out in some detail just how this money could be used to bring about a more equitable social compact in America. The author sees this as a moral imperative that will require an informed, proactive electorate and a citizen-led push for reform. Abramsky's well-researched, deeply felt depiction of poverty is eye-opening, and his outrage is palpable. He aims to stimulate discussion, but whether his message provokes action remains to be seen.

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September 1, 2013
Not since the Great Depression have so many Americans been counted among the poor. Freelance reporter Abramsky explores poverty in America 50 years after Michael Harrington's groundbreaking book, The Other America. Abramsky offers historical perspective, detailing how poverty as well as social attitudes and public policy regarding poverty have changed. He points to the antitax policies of conservatives that have contributed to growing income inequality in the U.S. and growing concerns most evident in the Occupy movement and protest for the 99 percent versus the 1 percent. From Appalachia to Hawaii, from inner cities to rural areas, from families suffering intergenerational poverty to victims of the recent housing crisis, Abramsky's portraits of the poor illustrate three striking points: the isolation, diversitypeople with no jobs and people with multiple jobsand resilience of the poor. Drawing on ideas from a broad array of equality advocates, Abramsky offers detailed policies to address poverty, including reform in education, immigration, energy, taxation, criminal justice, housing, Social Security, and Medicaid, as well as analysis of tax and spending policies that could reduce inequities.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)