Book Review: “Poverty, by America”

The United States is the wealthiest country in the world “with more poverty than any other advanced democracy” (Desmond 5). While Americans pay for the most expensive healthcare system, they lack the universal healthcare of other nations (Desmond 27). Compared with the productivity of the postwar period, labor power has weakened as well. Only one in ten American workers belong to a union (e.g. firefighters, nurses, cops) while 94 percent of private sector workers are not unionized at all (Desmond 49). Consumers have more access to cheaply made, mass-produced goods, but they are spending increasing amounts on utilities and fuel (Desmond 25). While costs rise, wages for the working-class have stagnated over the last 40 years. “The United States now offers some of the lowest wages in the industrialized world” (Desmond 50).

About one in nine Americans (including one in eight children) live in poverty. One in eighteen (about 18 million) live in deep poverty, which is the “poverty line cut in half” (Desmond 16). While 108 million make $55,000 a year or less, “stuck in the place between poverty and security,” 38 million cannot even afford basic necessities (Desmond 5).

U.S. citizens are classified as poor when they cannot afford life’s basic needs (such as food and shelter). This definition originally came from the Official Poverty Measure. It was determined by a…