Waubonsee Community College

The American way of poverty, how the other half still lives, Sasha Abramsky

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

index present

non fiction

The American way of poverty

bibliography

846846814

Sasha Abramsky

how the other half still lives

Fifty years after Michael Harrington published his groundbreaking book The Other America, in which he chronicled the lives of people excluded from the Age of Affluence, poverty in America is back with a vengeance. It is made up of both the long-term chronically poor and new working poor, the tens of millions of victims of a broken economy and an ever more dysfunctional political system. In many ways, for the majority of Americans, financial insecurity has become the new norm. This book shines a light on this travesty. The author brings the effects of economic inequality out of the shadows and, ultimately, suggests ways for moving toward a fairer and more equitable social contract. Exploring everything from housing policy to wage protections and affordable higher education, he lays out a panoramic blueprint for a reinvigorated political process that, in turn, will pave the way for a renewed War on Poverty. It is, Harrington believed, a moral outrage that in a country as wealthy as America, so many people could be so poor. Written in the way of the 2008 financial collapse, in an era of grotesque economic extremes, this book brings that same powerful indignation to the topic. -- Provided by publisher

Prologue : A scandal in the making -- pt. 1. The voices of poverty -- Poverty in the land of the plutocrats -- Blame games -- An American dilemma -- The fragile safety net -- The wrong side of the tracks -- Stuck in reverse -- pt. 2. Building a new and better house -- Why now? -- Shoring up the safety net -- Breaking the cycle of poverty -- Boosting economic security for the working poor -- Coda : Attention must be paid