Back

As a child, Mathew Desmond experienced poverty firsthand.

He saw his family home repossessed and endured the stresses and humiliations of his family’s lack of means.

It raised the question that he would go on to dedicate his professional life to answering:

Why is there such stark #inequality in America?

The hard truth, he said, is that
so many of us benefit from it.

Desmond shared a litany of statistics illustrating the growing burden of poverty and inequality in the United States:

• 1 in 3 families live in a household that has an income of $55,000 a year or less.
• 38 million people are below the federal poverty level of $30,000 for a family of four.
• Evictions have increased by 22% since the turn of the century.
• The number of public-school kids who are unhoused has increased by 74% since the turn of century.
• The amount of inflation-adjusted, non-mortgage debt has increased by more than 200% -- and the number of families reporting no income apart from food stamps has quadrupled since the 2008 recession.
• Since 1985, rent increases have outpaced wage growth by 325%.
• Each year, people are charged $11 billion in overdraft fees and $10 billion in payday loan fees.

“So, here's one reason there's so much poverty in America today:

because the poor are #exploited,”
said Desmond, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Evicted" and his more recent work "Poverty, by America".

“I think it's a word we should use more.”

The exploitation is perpetuated, not only by the corporations, financial institutions, and landlords who withhold fair wages, charge exorbitant fees, and profit off those in poverty,
but also by affluent Americans who benefit from the exploitation, he said.

Desmond quoted an analogy from novelist Tommy Orange,

“Kids are jumping out the windows of burning buildings, falling to their deaths. And we think the problem is that they’re jumping.”

The American approach to poverty has often been to focus on those who are poor and what they can do to uplift themselves -- rather than changing the systems that keep them poor.

This can be uncomfortable for those whose #property #values are protected by segregation of affordable housing,
those who have invested in the #stock #market and make money when exploitative corporations net profits,
and those with #free #checking #accounts that are subsidized by the poor who pay fees for their lack of capital, he explained.

The affluent also benefit from government subsidies more than the poor, he said.

According to Desmond, the #wealthiest families in the United States receive an average of about $35,000 annually in tax benefits, while the #poorest get an average of $25,000 in subsidies.

These are realized in #mortgage #incentives, special #investment #accounts, like #529 accounts that help pay for college, and other #tax #breaks for the wealthy.

Many affluent families further contribute to poverty by building communities that exclude and marginalize the poor
— pushing them out of their neighborhoods using #zoning ordinances, Desmond said

https://www.aamc.org/news/we-can-solve-poverty-america-we-just-don-t-want