Goodreads Project, Part 12: Non-fiction
I’m working on a project to read a semi-finalist in each category of Goodreads’ Best Book of the Year contest. The winners of the contest are listed here. If you click back through my posts, you can see what I have to say about Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mysteries and Thrillers, Romance, Romantasy, Fantasy, Science Fiction, YA Fantasy, YA Fiction, Horror, and Debut Novel. This post reviews a book from the Non-Fiction category.
I don’t read much non-fiction, so I was looking forward to this category as a way to expand my reading. The book I chose was Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond.
The Extent of Poverty in the US
Desmond begins by detailing the extent of poverty in the US, which is wider and deeper than most people realize. This whole book is very data-driven. He brings the numbers for how many people live in poverty and how low their incomes are. One of his points is that the US is a wealthy nation, yet poverty persists to an extent greater than in other developed countries.
He goes through various possible causes, showing that they don’t account for the situation. Government spending on poverty has actually increased (though much of that money is now administered through the states and doesn’t get to poor families). Areas with larger numbers of immigrants don’t have more poverty. Single parent families don’t necessarily account for it either.
His conclusion is: “Poverty persists because some wish and will it to.”
Others Benefit from Poverty
We should, Desmond says, be asking who benefits from the existence of large numbers of poor people. One easy answer is that cheap workers subsidize the purchases the rest of us make. Every time we patronize a fast-food restaurant paying minimum wage, we save on our French fries.
Some businesses also make money from poverty. One example that surprised me was that cheap rentals sometimes yield more profit than more expensive ones. Payday lenders also make huge profits off of loans, that also serve as an example of how expensive it is to be poor.
The tax code gives multiple breaks to the well-off. The impoverished may not pay much in Federal Income Tax, but they pay sales taxes. We’ve all seen the comparisons between the percentage of income paid in taxes by the rich and poor.
Desmond summarizes by saying, “We constrain their choice and power in the labor market, the housing market, and the financial market.”
And it’s hard to fault people who seize their own advantages in such a system. Desmond quotes sociologist C. Wright Mills in saying that we participate in “structural immorality.” Of course, people whose major investment is their house oppose anything that would drag its value down. Of course, old people who live on their IRAs want the stock market to go up, even if that means workers suffer.
He closes with some proposals for what to do, that are too extensive for this review. The book is a sober but enlightening read.
Next
The next category is Autobiography and Biography. I think I’ll look at Prince Harry’s Spare. I deserve a break for some royal gossip. But first I need to reread Yellowface and prepare to lead a book club discussion next month.
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The Trickster
Royal attendant Dilly & smuggler’s son Fitch put together the puzzle of where treason lies in Lac’s Holding. But who will they have to betray to stop it? Also, there’s a dog! A less intense Game of Thrones meets “Pirates of the Caribbean.”
Bookshop (alliance of independent bookshops)
Inspired Quill (UK small press that makes more money when you order directly from them)
