Hand to Mouth

Download Hand to Mouth PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0425277976
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (252 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Hand to Mouth by : Linda Tirado

Download or read book Hand to Mouth written by Linda Tirado and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The real-life Nickel and Dimed—the author of the wildly popular “Poverty Thoughts” essay tells what it’s like to be working poor in America. ONE OF THE FIVE MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS OF THE YEAR--Esquire “DEVASTATINGLY SMART AND FUNNY. I am the author of Nickel and Dimed, which tells the story of my own brief attempt, as a semi-undercover journalist, to survive on low-wage retail and service jobs. TIRADO IS THE REAL THING.”—Barbara Ehrenreich, from the Foreword As the haves and have-nots grow more separate and unequal in America, the working poor don’t get heard from much. Now they have a voice—and it’s forthright, funny, and just a little bit furious. Here, Linda Tirado tells what it’s like, day after day, to work, eat, shop, raise kids, and keep a roof over your head without enough money. She also answers questions often asked about those who live on or near minimum wage: Why don’t they get better jobs? Why don’t they make better choices? Why do they smoke cigarettes and have ugly lawns? Why don’t they borrow from their parents? Enlightening and entertaining, Hand to Mouth opens up a new and much-needed dialogue between the people who just don’t have it and the people who just don’t get it.

When Helping Hurts

Download When Helping Hurts PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Moody Publishers
ISBN 13 : 0802487629
Total Pages : 355 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (24 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis When Helping Hurts by : Steve Corbett

Download or read book When Helping Hurts written by Steve Corbett and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2014-01-24 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With more than 450,000 copies in print, When Helping Hurts is a paradigm-forming contemporary classic on the subject of poverty alleviation. Poverty is much more than simply a lack of material resources, and it takes much more than donations and handouts to solve it. When Helping Hurts shows how some alleviation efforts, failing to consider the complexities of poverty, have actually (and unintentionally) done more harm than good. But it looks ahead. It encourages us to see the dignity in everyone, to empower the materially poor, and to know that we are all uniquely needy—and that God in the gospel is reconciling all things to himself. Focusing on both North American and Majority World contexts, When Helping Hurts provides proven strategies for effective poverty alleviation, catalyzing the idea that sustainable change comes not from the outside in, but from the inside out.

Maid

Download Maid PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Hachette UK
ISBN 13 : 0316505102
Total Pages : 266 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (165 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Maid by : Stephanie Land

Download or read book Maid written by Stephanie Land and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2019-01-22 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A single mother's personal, unflinching look at America's class divide (Barack Obama)," this New York Times bestselling memoir is the inspiration for the Netflix limited series, hailed by Rolling Stone as "a great one." At 28, Stephanie Land's dreams of attending a university and becoming a writer quickly dissolved when a summer fling turned into an unplanned pregnancy. Before long, she found herself a single mother, scraping by as a housekeeper to make ends meet. Maid is an emotionally raw, masterful account of Stephanie's years spent in service to upper middle class America as a "nameless ghost" who quietly shared in her clients' triumphs, tragedies, and deepest secrets. Driven to carve out a better life for her family, she cleaned by day and took online classes by night, writing relentlessly as she worked toward earning a college degree. She wrote of the true stories that weren't being told: of living on food stamps and WIC coupons, of government programs that barely provided housing, of aloof government employees who shamed her for receiving what little assistance she did. Above all else, she wrote about pursuing the myth of the American Dream from the poverty line, all the while slashing through deep-rooted stigmas of the working poor. Maid is Stephanie's story, but it's not hers alone. It is an inspiring testament to the courage, determination, and ultimate strength of the human spirit. "A single mother's personal, unflinching look at America's class divide, a description of the tightrope many families walk just to get by, and a reminder of the dignity of all work." -PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, Obama's Summer Reading List

The Shame Game

Download The Shame Game PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Policy Press
ISBN 13 : 1447349288
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (473 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Shame Game by : O'Hara, Mary

Download or read book The Shame Game written by O'Hara, Mary and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2020-02-27 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to be poor in Britain and America? For decades the primary narrative about poverty in both countries is that it has been caused by personal flaws or ‘bad life decisions’ rather than policy choices or economic inequality. This misleading account has become deeply embedded in the public consciousness with serious ramifications for how financially vulnerable people are seen, spoken about and treated. Drawing on a two-year multi-platform initiative, this book by award-winning journalist and author Mary O’Hara, asks how we can overturn this portrayal once and for all. Crucially, she turns to the real experts to try to find answers – the people who live it.

Partner to the Poor

Download Partner to the Poor PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520257111
Total Pages : 678 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (22 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Partner to the Poor by : Paul Farmer

Download or read book Partner to the Poor written by Paul Farmer and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 678 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Dr. Paul Farmer is one of the most extraordinary people I've ever known. Partner to the Poor recounts his relentless efforts to eradicate disease, humanize health care, alleviate poverty, and increase opportunity and empowerment in the developing world. It will inspire us all to do our parts."--William J. Clinton "If the world is curious about Paul Farmer, there is a reason for that. No one has done more than he has in bringing modern medicine to the poor across the globe and no one has exceeded him in making us appreciate the diverse barriers that prevent proper medicine from reaching the underdogs of the world. In this wonderful collection of essays, putting together Paul Farmer's writings over more than two decades, we can see how his far-reaching ideas have developed and radically enhanced the understanding of the challenges faced by healthcare in the uneven world in which we live. This is an altogether outstanding book."--Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate, Economics "To delve into these pages is to join one of the world's great explorers on an epic life journey--to grapple with culture, poverty, disease, health care, ethics, and ultimately our common humanity in the Age of AIDS. Paul Farmer is a pioneer, guide, and inspiration at a time of unprecedented contrasts: between wealth and poverty, power and powerlessness, health and disease, compassion and neglect. His medical expertise, anthropological vision, and unflinching decency have helped to recharge our world with moral purpose."--Jeffrey D. Sachs, Columbia University "Wow! Perfect for teaching. This is more than vintage Farmer. Editor Haun Saussy knows Farmer's work inside out and has assembled and organized 25 classic articles that project the heart of Farmer's brilliant, radical, inspiring, eminently practical and (dare I say) genuinely subversive work."--Philippe Bourgois, author of Righteous Dopefiend "If they gave Nobel Prizes for raising moral awareness, Paul Farmer would have won his a long time ago. For several decades now, his work has posed a challenge to anyone who dares say that radically improving the health of the world's poor can't be done. This splendid compilation of the best of his work allows us to follow a restless, creative, compassionate mind in action, in and out of prisons and barrios and mud huts and hospital wards, from Haiti to Rwanda to Moscow, never taking 'no' for an answer."--Adam Hochschild, author of Bury the Chains "Paul Farmer is a deep scholar of Haitian society, a formidable medical anthropologist, an implacable theorist of structural violence and health as a human right, and an ethicist for whom the place of social justice in medicine and in the world is an existential need. This book is the platform of interconnected intellectual, academic, and practical engagements upon which the amazing, world-transforming life of Farmer stands."--Arthur Kleinman, author of What Really Matters: Living a Moral Life amidst Uncertainty and Danger "This collection shows the impressive catalytic effects of original scholarship when combined with action, activism, and a commitment to social justice in health. Paul Farmer and his PIH colleagues have twice changed World Health Organization policies; they continue to have a lasting impact on the global health movement and on the lives of the poor.--Peter Brown, Emory University

Teaching with Poverty in Mind

Download Teaching with Poverty in Mind PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : ASCD
ISBN 13 : 1416612106
Total Pages : 194 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (166 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Teaching with Poverty in Mind by : Eric Jensen

Download or read book Teaching with Poverty in Mind written by Eric Jensen and published by ASCD. This book was released on 2010-06-16 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Teaching with Poverty in Mind: What Being Poor Does to Kids' Brains and What Schools Can Do About It, veteran educator and brain expert Eric Jensen takes an unflinching look at how poverty hurts children, families, and communities across the United States and demonstrates how schools can improve the academic achievement and life readiness of economically disadvantaged students. Jensen argues that although chronic exposure to poverty can result in detrimental changes to the brain, the brain's very ability to adapt from experience means that poor children can also experience emotional, social, and academic success. A brain that is susceptible to adverse environmental effects is equally susceptible to the positive effects of rich, balanced learning environments and caring relationships that build students' resilience, self-esteem, and character. Drawing from research, experience, and real school success stories, Teaching with Poverty in Mind reveals * What poverty is and how it affects students in school; * What drives change both at the macro level (within schools and districts) and at the micro level (inside a student's brain); * Effective strategies from those who have succeeded and ways to replicate those best practices at your own school; and * How to engage the resources necessary to make change happen. Too often, we talk about change while maintaining a culture of excuses. We can do better. Although no magic bullet can offset the grave challenges faced daily by disadvantaged children, this timely resource shines a spotlight on what matters most, providing an inspiring and practical guide for enriching the minds and lives of all your students.

The Book of the Poor

Download The Book of the Poor PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781936863334
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (633 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Book of the Poor by : Kenan Heise

Download or read book The Book of the Poor written by Kenan Heise and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Collecting dozens of interviews conducted over 50 years to give voice to the 16 percent that live below the poverty line, journalist Kenan Heise ... addresses unemployment, prison, nutrition needs and hunger, the lives of impoverished children, panhandling, health-care struggles, the role of race in poverty, and Dumpster diving"--P. [4] of cover.

Poor No More

Download Poor No More PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351498002
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (514 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Poor No More by : Peter Cove

Download or read book Poor No More written by Peter Cove and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-12 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1960s, America set out to end poverty. Policy-makers put forth an unprecedented package of legislation, funding poverty programs and empowering the poor through ineffectual employment-related education and training. However, these handouts produced little change, and efforts to provide education and job-training proved inconsequential, boasting only a 2.8 percent decrease in the poverty rate since 1965. Decades after the War on Poverty began, many of its programs failed. Only one thing really worked to help end poverty-and that was work itself, the centerpiece of welfare reform in 1996. Poor No More is a plan to restructure poverty programs, prioritizing jobs above all else. Traditionally, job placement programs stemmed from non-profit organizations or government agencies. However, America Works, the first for-profit job placement venture founded by Peter Cove, has the highest employee retention rate in the greater New York City area, even above these traditional agencies. When the federal government embraced the work-first ideal, inspired by the success of America Works, welfare rolls plummeted from 12.6 million to 4.7 million nationally within one decade. Poor No More is a paradigm-shifting work that guides the reader through the evolution of America's War on Poverty and urges policy-makers to eliminate training and education programs that waste time and money and to adopt a work-first model, while providing job-seekers with the tools and life lessons essential to finding and maintaining employment.

So Rich, So Poor

Download So Rich, So Poor PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : New Press, The
ISBN 13 : 1595589570
Total Pages : 160 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (955 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis So Rich, So Poor by : Peter Edelman

Download or read book So Rich, So Poor written by Peter Edelman and published by New Press, The. This book was released on 2013-09-03 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A competent, thorough assessment from a veteran expert in the field.” —Kirkus Reviews Income disparities in our wealthy nation are wider than at any point since the Great Depression. The structure of today’s economy has stultified wage growth for half of America’s workers—with even worse results at the bottom and for people of color—while bestowing billions on the few at the very top. In this “accessible and inspiring analysis”, lifelong anti-poverty advocate Peter Edelman assesses how the United States can have such an outsized number of unemployed and working poor despite important policy gains. He delves into what is happening to the people behind the statistics and takes a particular look at young people of color, for whom the possibility of productive lives is too often lost on the way to adulthood (Angela Glover Blackwell). For anyone who wants to understand one of the critical issues of twenty-first century America, So Rich, So Poor is “engaging and informative” (William Julius Wilson) and “powerful and eloquent” (Wade Henderson).

Nickel and Dimed

Download Nickel and Dimed PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Metropolitan Books
ISBN 13 : 1429926643
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (299 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Nickel and Dimed by : Barbara Ehrenreich

Download or read book Nickel and Dimed written by Barbara Ehrenreich and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling work of undercover reportage from our sharpest and most original social critic, with a new foreword by Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job—any job—can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing-home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you int to live indoors. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity—a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom. And now, in a new foreword, Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, explains why, twenty years on in America, Nickel and Dimed is more relevant than ever.

Poverty Knowledge

Download Poverty Knowledge PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400824745
Total Pages : 391 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Poverty Knowledge by : Alice O'Connor

Download or read book Poverty Knowledge written by Alice O'Connor and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-10 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Progressive-era "poverty warriors" cast poverty in America as a problem of unemployment, low wages, labor exploitation, and political disfranchisement. In the 1990s, policy specialists made "dependency" the issue and crafted incentives to get people off welfare. Poverty Knowledge gives the first comprehensive historical account of the thinking behind these very different views of "the poverty problem," in a century-spanning inquiry into the politics, institutions, ideologies, and social science that shaped poverty research and policy. Alice O'Connor chronicles a transformation in the study of poverty, from a reform-minded inquiry into the political economy of industrial capitalism to a detached, highly technical analysis of the demographic and behavioral characteristics of the poor. Along the way, she uncovers the origins of several controversial concepts, including the "culture of poverty" and the "underclass." She shows how such notions emerged not only from trends within the social sciences, but from the central preoccupations of twentieth-century American liberalism: economic growth, the Cold War against communism, the changing fortunes of the welfare state, and the enduring racial divide. The book details important changes in the politics and organization as well as the substance of poverty knowledge. Tracing the genesis of a still-thriving poverty research industry from its roots in the War on Poverty, it demonstrates how research agendas were subsequently influenced by an emerging obsession with welfare reform. Over the course of the twentieth century, O'Connor shows, the study of poverty became more about altering individual behavior and less about addressing structural inequality. The consequences of this steady narrowing of focus came to the fore in the 1990s, when the nation's leading poverty experts helped to end "welfare as we know it." O'Connor shows just how far they had traveled from their field's original aims.

Just Give Money to the Poor

Download Just Give Money to the Poor PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Kumarian Press
ISBN 13 : 1565493907
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (654 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Just Give Money to the Poor by : Joseph Hanlon

Download or read book Just Give Money to the Poor written by Joseph Hanlon and published by Kumarian Press. This book was released on 2012-03 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * Argues strongly for overlooked approach to development by showing how the poor use money in ways that confound stereotypical notions of aid and handouts * Team authored by foremost scholars in the development field Amid all the complicated economic theories about the causes and solutions to poverty, one idea is so basic it seems radical: just give money to the poor. Despite its skeptics, researchers have found again and again that cash transfers given to significant portions of the population transform the lives of recipients. Countries from Mexico to South Africa to Indonesia are giving money directly to the poor and discovering that they use it wisely “ to send their children to school, to start a business and to feed their families. Directly challenging an aid industry that thrives on complexity and mystification, with highly paid consultants designing ever more complicated projects, Just Give Money to the Pooroffers the elegant southern alternative “ bypass governments and NGOs and let the poor decide how to use their money. Stressing that cash transfers are not charity or a safety net, the authors draw an outline of effective practices that work precisely because they are regular, guaranteed and fair. This book, the first to report on this quiet revolution in an accessible way, is essential reading for policymakers, students of international development and anyone yearning for an alternative to traditional poverty-alleviation methods.

Riches for the Poor

Download Riches for the Poor PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 9780393320664
Total Pages : 292 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (26 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Riches for the Poor by : Earl Shorris

Download or read book Riches for the Poor written by Earl Shorris and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2000 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking work, Shorris examines the nature of poverty in America today--addressing such issues as why people are poor and why they stay poor--and offers a unique solution to the problem. Print features.

The Privileged Poor

Download The Privileged Poor PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674239660
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Privileged Poor by : Anthony Abraham Jack

Download or read book The Privileged Poor written by Anthony Abraham Jack and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-01 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An NPR Favorite Book of the Year Winner of the Critics’ Choice Book Award, American Educational Studies Association Winner of the Mirra Komarovsky Book Award Winner of the CEP–Mildred García Award for Exemplary Scholarship “Eye-opening...Brings home the pain and reality of on-campus poverty and puts the blame squarely on elite institutions.” —Washington Post “Jack’s investigation redirects attention from the matter of access to the matter of inclusion...His book challenges universities to support the diversity they indulge in advertising.” —New Yorker “The lesson is plain—simply admitting low-income students is just the start of a university’s obligations. Once they’re on campus, colleges must show them that they are full-fledged citizen.” —David Kirp, American Prospect “This book should be studied closely by anyone interested in improving diversity and inclusion in higher education and provides a moving call to action for us all.” —Raj Chetty, Harvard University The Ivy League looks different than it used to. College presidents and deans of admission have opened their doors—and their coffers—to support a more diverse student body. But is it enough just to admit these students? In this bracing exposé, Anthony Jack shows that many students’ struggles continue long after they’ve settled in their dorms. Admission, they quickly learn, is not the same as acceptance. This powerfully argued book documents how university policies and campus culture can exacerbate preexisting inequalities and reveals why some students are harder hit than others.

Who Really Cares

Download Who Really Cares PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0465003656
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (65 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Who Really Cares by : Arthur C. Brooks

Download or read book Who Really Cares written by Arthur C. Brooks and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2007-12-04 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We all know we should give to charity, but who really does? In his controversial study of America's giving habits, Arthur C. Brooks shatters stereotypes about charity in America-including the myth that the political Left is more compassionate than the Right. Brooks, a preeminent public policy expert, spent years researching giving trends in America, and even he was surprised by what he found. In Who Really Cares, he identifies the forces behind American charity: strong families, church attendance, earning one's own income (as opposed to receiving welfare), and the belief that individuals-not government-offer the best solution to social ills. But beyond just showing us who the givers and non-givers in America really are today, Brooks shows that giving is crucial to our economic prosperity, as well as to our happiness, health, and our ability to govern ourselves as a free people.

Poor People

Download Poor People PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 006204379X
Total Pages : 468 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (62 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Poor People by : William T. Vollmann

Download or read book Poor People written by William T. Vollmann and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-10-05 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: That was the simple yet groundbreaking question William T. Vollmann asked in cities and villages around the globe. The result of Vollmann's fearless inquiry is a view of poverty unlike any previously offered. Poor People struggles to confront poverty in all its hopelessness and brutality, its pride and abject fear, its fierce misery and quiet resignation, allowing the poor to explain the causes and consequences of their impoverishment in their own cultural, social, and religious terms. With intense compassion and a scrupulously unpatronizing eye, Vollmann invites his readers to recognize in our fellow human beings their full dignity, fallibility, pride, and pain, and the power of their hard-fought resilience. Some images that appeared in the print edition of this book are unavailable in the electronic edition due to rights reasons.

Not a Crime to Be Poor

Download Not a Crime to Be Poor PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : The New Press
ISBN 13 : 162097553X
Total Pages : 223 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (29 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Not a Crime to Be Poor by : Peter Edelman

Download or read book Not a Crime to Be Poor written by Peter Edelman and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2019-07-02 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Awarded "Special Recognition" by the 2018 Robert F. Kennedy Book & Journalism Awards Finalist for the American Bar Association's 2018 Silver Gavel Book Award Named one of the "10 books to read after you've read Evicted" by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "Essential reading for anyone trying to understand the demands of social justice in America."—Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy Winner of a special Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, the book that Evicted author Matthew Desmond calls "a powerful investigation into the ways the United States has addressed poverty . . . lucid and troubling" In one of the richest countries on Earth it has effectively become a crime to be poor. For example, in Ferguson, Missouri, the U.S. Department of Justice didn't just expose racially biased policing; it also exposed exorbitant fines and fees for minor crimes that mainly hit the city's poor, African American population, resulting in jail by the thousands. As Peter Edelman explains in Not a Crime to Be Poor, in fact Ferguson is everywhere: the debtors' prisons of the twenty-first century. The anti-tax revolution that began with the Reagan era led state and local governments, starved for revenues, to squeeze ordinary people, collect fines and fees to the tune of 10 million people who now owe $50 billion. Nor is the criminalization of poverty confined to money. Schoolchildren are sent to court for playground skirmishes that previously sent them to the principal's office. Women are evicted from their homes for calling the police too often to ask for protection from domestic violence. The homeless are arrested for sleeping in the park or urinating in public. A former aide to Robert F. Kennedy and senior official in the Clinton administration, Peter Edelman has devoted his life to understanding the causes of poverty. As Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy has said, "No one has been more committed to struggles against impoverishment and its cruel consequences than Peter Edelman." And former New York Times columnist Bob Herbert writes, "If there is one essential book on the great tragedy of poverty and inequality in America, this is it."