(2023) - Poverty, by America - Matthew Desmond

Matthew Desmond, a sociologist, argues in his 2023 book, Poverty, by America, that poverty in the wealthiest country on earth isn't a failure of the safety net — it's closer to a design feature. He notes that poverty gets treated as a problem of scarcity, when in fact non-poor Americans actively benefit from cheap labor, exclusionary zoning, and a tax code skewed toward the wealthy. His sharpest line of argument is that ending poverty isn't mainly about spending more, but about others consuming less of the poor's opportunity and security — so the real question isn't whether the country can afford to end poverty, but whether anyone benefiting from it is willing to give that up.