First published 2023
Matthew Desmond places real American families at the heart of his poverty analysis. He conducts fieldwork with households facing financial collapse. These families wrestle with eviction notices, hunt for stable housing, and make impossible choices about splitting meager wages between shelter, food, and necessities. Desmond refuses to discuss economic hardship in abstract terms. He documents how families survive financially by working alongside people under extreme stress. His research connects individual suffering to larger institutional systems that create and perpetuate economic distress. The book captures moments of mutual aid during poverty's constant assault. Families preserve their relationships and self-respect while fighting systems designed to undermine them. Desmond exposes the specific mechanisms that trap people in cycles of financial instability. Readers discover how inequality operates in everyday situations and observe the remarkable strength ordinary people show when facing economic adversity.
Genres: social-science, sociology, economics, social-issues, non-fiction, american-history
Vibes: compassionate, intimate, thought-provoking, unflinching, urgent
Tropes: institutional-critique, personal-narrative-to-systemic-analysis, resilience-amid-adversity
Setting: America
Period: 21st-century
320 pages · Paperback · Crown