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Alanna McAuliffe: Hi, I'm Audible Editor Alanna McAuliffe, and today I have the pleasure of speaking with MacArthur Fellow and Pulitzer Prize–winning sociologist Matthew Desmond. Matthew's latest work, Poverty, by America, incisively examines the origins and effects of the poverty epidemic, and how we, as a collective society, can work towards eliminating financial insecurity. Matthew, thank you so much for being here.
Matthew Desmond: Hi, Alanna. Thanks for having me.
AM: To get started, I wanted to quickly take a look back. Many of our listeners will know you from your 2016 book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, and the RFK Book Award, amongst a host of other accolades and acclaim. Has anything changed in terms of policy or public opinion since you wrote that book? And how much of that previous research and writing on poverty, avarice, and exploitation influenced the composition of Poverty, by America?
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MD: Right. So, a lot has changed and a lot has remained the same. If you're looking at the housing crisis, which is what Evicted addressed, it's gotten worse over the years. Last year, rents rose by more than ever on record. And so I think that the things that I tried to document in Evicted, the human costs of the housing crisis, are problems that are still very much ongoing today. We know more about it. You know, I started something called The Eviction Lab, which created the first ever national database of evictions in America. Housing organizers have done an incredible job raising this issue on the national platform. But we still are waiting for real, federal, bold relief to intervene in the housing crisis.
We did see it during COVID, though. We had the first ever national eviction moratorium, which lasted almost a year and saved thousands of lives. One study estimates it decreased the death rate by 11 percent. And then we also had the government intervene in a major way with emergency rental assistance, which went on to reach 10 million American families and dropped the eviction rate to the lowest on record. So, the big resounding lesson from COVID is we know how to fix poverty. When the government flexes its muscle, it can make a big, huge difference. And we need to fight for that to be the new normal, not just something that comes out of an emergency situation.
AM: Yeah, that was something that I was really struck by in Poverty, by America, some of these rather startling statistics on how government intervention and swift action led to such a sharp decline in poverty rates during the COVID-19 pandemic. And on a similar note, while we're talking about this unprecedented era in this new normal that we're settling into, I was wondering if you had any thoughts on this growing conversation on worker burnout and the recently dubbed “Great Resignation” that followed the COVID-19 pandemic as we continue forward?
MD: So, if you dig into the data about the Great Resignation, you see that what's happening isn't that people are leaving the labor force in mass numbers. Our unemployment rate is basically what it was in 2019 right now. But people are working a little less. So, journalists have called this the “quiet quitting” phenomenon, where people are volunteering to work 45 hours a week, 55 hours, instead of 60 or 70 hours a week. And so it does seem like COVID has reset people's labor priorities, and people are acting on those new priorities.
"I do think there is something uniquely American about this kind of low-road capitalism—our high tolerance for mass homelessness, public squalor, incredible amounts of poverty in this land of dollars."
We also heard a lot, in COVID, about how government aid might have caused people to stay home and not work. This is an old story in America, how welfare leads to dependency. But the data just don't support it. The data don't support it with COVID, either. So when states dropped many of the kind of extended benefits, those states didn't have their job numbers jump up. Basically, they were the same numbers as states that kept the unemployment insurance, for example. And so I think that we are in a moment of reckoning as a country with what work should be, and I hope that moment of reckoning is sticking. I hope that moment of reckoning leads us to things like demanding higher wages for workers, turning away from worker exploitation, and finding new ways to empower people out in the workforce.
AM: So, while we're on the topic of addressing American attitudes and this moment of reckoning, from the title of your book to the observations held within, there lies this connection between American values, including individualism and the very notion of meritocracy, and the existence of widespread poverty. Is there something inherently American about a form of capitalism that takes advantage of the poor? What are other advanced democracies doing to alleviate economic disparities that are so apparent in our own nation?
MD: They're investing deeper in their people. They're investing in things like universal childcare, in housing everyone in their country, for example. And so if you compare the American welfare state, based on its investments in low-income families, to the welfare state in France or Germany or other places, you just see much deeper investments in other places.
Now, if you look at the American welfare state as a whole, you see that it's quite active, actually. But we're making deep investments in the rich and upper class. We have made decisions to subsidize affluence over alleviation of poverty. This was a big surprise to me while researching the book, digging into the tax data so you don't have to, and just trying to figure out, like, "How much of the total benefit goes to the upper 20 percent of Americans and the bottom 20 percent of Americans?" And by our calculations, the top 20 percent of Americans get around $35,000 a year in government benefits, and the bottom 20 percent of Americans get around $25,000 a year. It's a 40 percent difference. And so we are giving the most to people that need it the least. So, I do think there is something uniquely American about this kind of low-road capitalism—our high tolerance for mass homelessness, public squalor, incredible amounts of poverty in this land of dollars.
I mean, a third of us get by on less than $55,000 a year. You know, 38 million of us live below the poverty line, which is just a static, sterile way of saying, "38 million of us can't afford basic necessities." And that's, like, the population of Australia. That should shame us, especially those of us living in the richest country in the history of the world.
AM: Absolutely. And you know, while we get to the heart of that matter, in discussions about the powerful and how policy is shaped, a phrase that really piqued my interest and stuck with me long after the conclusion of your book was the assessment that, "Complexity is the refuge of the powerful." Can you expand a bit on that sentiment? Do you think that the language of policy is meant to purposely obfuscate?
MD: So, this is a sentiment that I drew from John Kenneth Galbraith's book The Affluent Society. And Galbraith, in that book, was really wrestling with the tension that my book takes up. What does it mean to have so much poverty in a rich nation? And Galbraith, kind of in passing, makes this comment about complexity, which, for an economist, as Galbraith was, it kind of struck me. And it really stuck with me. And it's something that I think researchers like me really have to reckon with. A lot of social movement organizers have expressed frustration at academics and policymakers, because the answer is kind of staring us right in the face. And we convene panels. We run studies. We want to get back to you in 10 years. And as a researcher that runs studies, I think studying the heck out of a problem is really important. But I also think we have to just fess up to the fact that we have the know-how to end poverty in America, not reduce it by a few percentage points, but end it. We have the resources. So, what are we waiting for? And one thing that slows us down, I think, is a retreat into complexity, using credentials for certain institutional processes to slow down poverty amelioration.
AM: Right. And in both Evicted and Poverty, by America, there's this reinforced notion that it's not just studies or theoreticals, these are real people being impacted in real time. And in the prologue of Poverty, by America, you discuss your own upbringing and your time spent in poor communities, as well as your continued professional focus on patterns of inequality. I'm wondering how those experiences and encounters shape your own view of poverty, one that eschews othering, and instead, emphasizes the need for self-reflection on behalf of the privileged and protected.
MD: I grew up, pretty modest home, our home was foreclosed before it was all the rage. When I was in college, our gas often got shut off. And so I got a taste of financial insecurity growing up. But it was nothing like what I saw in Milwaukee when I moved to Milwaukee to write Evicted. This one time I was with sheriffs, they were doing evictions, and they got to this house. And there were just kids in the house. And it was kind of confusing. The story came out that the mom had died, and the kids had just gone on living in the house after her funeral. And until the landlord couldn't take it anymore. And you know, they just evicted the kids and put them out on the street—it was a cold April rainy day in Milwaukee—and moved onto the next eviction. And I met elderly women in mobile-home parks living without heat in Wisconsin. Just living under blankets all winter and hoping the space heaters lasted.
And I think when you see that kind of poverty, it's hard not to conclude that this is an abomination. This isn't a minor social problem. This isn't a necessary, regrettable aspect of modern society. This is really a stain on our country. And I think it affected me, and my view of poverty, in the fact that poverty is measured by an income level, right? "How big is your family, how much is your income?" And if you're above or below a certain line, you're "poor." But poverty's much worse than just the fact of not having enough money. Poverty is pain, on top of depression, often on top of debt-collector harassment, on top of the nauseating fear of eviction, on top of death come early and often. Poverty is this tight knot of social maladies. And I think that recognizing that has big implications for the moral urgency that we assign to the problem, and for the policies that we use to tack to it too.
AM: Right. So, like you just addressed, it's so heartbreaking because it's not just the physical toll of poverty that we're addressing here. There's an interesting commentary in your book that centers on the commodification of immaterial notions, like choice and opportunity. Do you see this as a mere byproduct of unfettered capitalism or an indication of some deeper cultural misunderstanding of what must be earned?
MD: So, I see the country turning away from poor and working-class families. And I see the commodification of opportunity. It's not my phrase, it's a phrase that I borrow from a sociologist named David Grusky. But what that means is, "Hey, if you got enough money, you can put your kids in a good school. You can afford really good childcare, you can buy your way into public safety. And if you don't, you just can't access the roads to opportunity. The country often talks a big game about being a land of opportunity. And there was a time where social mobility rates were much higher in the United States than they are today. But as we've commodified those roads to financial security, we've left millions and millions of people behind.
"I think studying the heck out of a problem is really important. But I also think we have to just fess up to the fact that we have the know-how to end poverty in America, not reduce it by a few percentage points, but end it. We have the resources."
Now, is that a reflection of, like you said, "unfettered capitalism” or unique American culture? I think probably both. I do think that you can definitely have a capitalist society that has far, far less poverty than America does, which, if you just go to any European country, you can plainly see for yourself. And I also think that when I talk about broad American culture, it gets sometimes really slippery. You know, we used to talk about the culture of poverty. And I think we have to talk about the culture of poverty in the vein of, "We have a culture of union busting and low wages and worker exploitation. We have a culture of rent-gouging and normalized eviction. We have a culture of saddling the poor with debt obligations and charging them enormous interest fees. We have a culture of segregation and opportunity hoarding." So, I think there is something about American culture that contributes to all this scarcity in our midst.
AM: To that end, on concepts like union busting, Poverty, by America also poses an interesting moral quandary, exploring how consumers often develop hang-ups on issues of, say, carbon emissions or unfavorable political donations, but rarely extend that same critical lens to the lived experiences of employees. Why do you think that is? And how can we become more attuned to issues directly affecting an organization's workforce?
MD: I think one reason is because it's harder. You can divest from fossil fuels if you invest in the stock market. You can clearly see "This is an organic cucumber. That one's not. I'm going to buy that one." But we don't have real clear markers of companies saying, "We're unionized. You should buy us.” And so we have markers to tell us the carbon footprint of our flight, but we don't really know how that airline crew is treated in one airline over the other. So I think we need to work as a country to really elevate those issues. We know that Snapple bottles are made from 100 percent recycled material. We have no idea if Snapple employees are unionized.
And so you can go to places like Union Plus, or B Corp, these are nonprofit organizations that are working to elevate corporations that, for example, support unionized labor or do right by the environment. But I think there's also maybe a deeper psychological thing going on here, which is a lot of times when we have the inequality debate, we talk about the rich and the rest of us. And that's certainly an incredibly important debate to have. But it can also be really absolving. And it can lead us to think that "The solution to poverty's out there. It's with Congress. Or it's with the top 1 percent." But I think we also have to start asking, "How are my tax benefits and my kids' schools, and the way I live my life and my consumption habits, my address, how do all of those things contribute to the perpetuation of poverty? And how can I unwind myself from being complicit?"
AM: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And you know, while we're discussing work that needs to be done countrywide, and by individuals, and sort of this necessity to have deeper conversations and to unlearn a lot of what we know, woven throughout this listen is the intersection of race and poverty, and how, as you write, "Racism and exploitation feed on each other." How does the reality of systemic racism uphold barriers to income equity and continue to perpetuate that cycle of poverty? And would you say that the antiracism and poverty-abolition movements are inextricably linked?
MD: I think so. You know, it's impossible to write a book about poverty in America without writing about current and past racism in the country. So, if you take land and housing, you can look at home ownership rates and you can see that most white families own their home in America, and most Black and Latino or Latina families don't. Why? Because of our systematic dispossession of people of color from the land, which, from slavery, to sharecropping, to the Great Migration and ghettoization, to redlining, to the GI Bill—which basically went to white veterans—to contract selling, to the subprime lending crisis that targeted Black and Latinx communities: All of that adds up to something that's completely relevant to poverty, the fact that Black and Latinx families comprise kind of a semi-permanent renter class in America. And that's the result of statecraft.
Or a big argument in the book is about segregation. And if you read accounts of segregation from the 1930s and the 1950s, the white families that are making the arguments about why they don't want Black families in their neighborhood are the same arguments that white families are making today. "Scared about my property values. What about crime? What about my kids' school?" And so let's look in the data, you know? And you can go to a book like Rucker Johnson's about school integration. And he compares schools that integrated after Brown v. Board of Education and those that didn’t, and looked at the Black kids that went to integrated or segregated schools. And the Black kids that went to integrated schools did far better than the ones that went to segregated schools. And the white kids stayed on track. There was no cost, that is, to their success. And so I think that we have to finally end our just evil embrace of segregation. We have to show up to those Tuesday night zoning board meetings and be like, "I refuse to deny kids the opportunity my kids have enjoyed by living here. Build this thing." And so that is all about race, you know? And so I think that there's a lot of commonality, and there's a lot of solidarity, I think, between movements to abolish poverty and those to abolish racism.
AM: Thank you so much for that thoughtful response, and call to action. It's so, so vital that people are reading and understanding more about these concepts that are affecting so many Americans. I want to pivot for a moment to talk about the audio edition of Poverty, by America, specifically. Like Evicted, it's narrated by Audie Award-winning narrator Dion Graham. Have you had a chance to listen to the audio yet? And if so, what has your experience been in hearing your words brought to life by such a decorated performer?
MD: Yeah, well, Dion's just the best. And Dion brought so much power and control and beauty to Evicted. And it's really something to entrust your book to the narrator, you know? And he just nailed it. And he brought such heart and feeling to that book. And he's done it with Poverty, by America too. We talked a lot before he started narrating the book. And it's been wonderful just kind of hearing how he brings that book alive. He connects to some of the humor in the book, and makes sure the reader kind of gets that and how that comes through. He connects to moments in the book that deserve an extra pause, moment of reflection, where you really are sitting with the weight and the misery of the thing. And so I just feel so honored to be working alongside Dion. I can't imagine a better narrator for my book.
AM: I have to say I agree. He was brilliant, really took important research and your critical lens and elevated it in the audio. So I couldn't agree more with that. And I have to ask, because that was such an enthusiastic response to how special audio is, are you an audiobook and podcast fan? And if so, are there any that you'd suggest to our listeners?
MD: Yeah, totally, I'm a huge fan. And I'm a runner. And so I listen to audiobooks when I run. I'm also a big, big podcaster too. So I'm kind of always plugged in. I'm the laundry guy at home, so when I'm doing the laundry, I listen to podcasts. But when I'm running or doing a longer thing, it's audiobooks. I was really blown away by the audio version of Circe, and I just felt that was such a beautiful way to kind of capture [Madeline] Miller's project, and bring it to life. It was so well done. I was really affected by that. I did Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry of the Future on audiobook, which, it was amazing, I think, and I highly recommend that. Those are the two that spring to mind right now.
AM: Yeah. That's perfect. Circe is a bit of an in-house favorite too. I'm sure that my fellow editors will love to hear that you share that sentiment. So, as we wrap up our conversation, I'd like to leave our listeners with some final thoughts and maybe some actionable advice. One of the most revolutionary facets of this audiobook is the exploration of how all of us living above the poverty line benefit directly from the exploitation of those below it, and what we can do collectively, and as individuals, to change that dynamic. What do you ultimately hope listeners take away from Poverty, by America, and how can they begin to work towards poverty abolition in their day-to-day lives?
MD: I would like listeners to take away a new story about poverty. And I think it is a new story that many of us are ready for. The polling data shows that most Democrats and most Republicans now believe that poverty is caused by unfair circumstances, not by a moral failing. But I think what we haven't grappled with as a country is how we create those unfair circumstances, and how our collective moral failing contributes to just widespread scarcity and deprivation in this land.
"Poverty's much worse than just the fact of not having enough money. Poverty is pain, on top of depression, often on top of debt-collector harassment, on top of the nauseating fear of eviction, on top of death come early and often. Poverty is this tight knot of social maladies. And I think that recognizing that has big implications for the moral urgency that we assign to the problem..."
And so there's a call to action in the book, that we become poverty abolitionists. That's a belief system. That's a belief that poverty is a sin, it's a misery. It should be abolished. But then it means it's a personal and a political project. And at the base, it means saying, "I don't want to be associated with this. I do not want to be someone that exploits, and segregates, and hoards opportunity when my happiness, and my safety, and my children's success does not require that I do so."
And so poverty abolitionism can start small. You can start shopping with economic justice at the top of the mind. You can start investing with economic justice at the top of the mind. And now, look, exploitation pays. So, if you change your investment portfolio, or start shopping differently, if you can—not everyone can, but those of us who can, should—you might pay a bit more, or your returns might be a little less. And in that recognition, we recognize our complicity, how we're bound up in that.
I think that we can just disrupt how we often talk about poverty in the country. And I don't mean the normal ways. I mean like a lot of us, when tax season rolls around, we complain about our taxes, left, right, center. But what if, instead of doing that, we paused and just reflected on how the country is way more about wealth-fare than it is about welfare? What if we started donating what we received from our mortgage interest deductions to local housing providers, and writing our congressperson, saying, "I don't want this. I don't need this. Wind this down. Divert this money to families that need it."
And I think we can stand for inclusive communities. We can turn away from segregation. We can go to our local elected officials and demand something better. A lot of folks that have been the defenders of segregation, they work hard. They show up to those meetings. They write letters. They do petitions. And so we have to show up too. And I think we have to stand up and say, "No. It's going to stop with me."
And then there's so many exciting organizations out there working in poverty. There's organizations in your community. There's organizations working at the national level, like the Poor People's Campaign, like Community Change, like National Domestic Workers Alliance. On and on I can go. And so one thing that's going to happen with the publication of this book, is we're launching a website called endpovertyusa.org. And that has national organizations you can plug into, and it has thousands and thousands of local organizations working hard to fight poverty in your own community. So, if you want to get plugged, get plugged in in the movements. And it's hard to resist. These are organizations are on the right side of history, but they're also having a lot of fun. The tagline for People's Action is “Join Our Joyous Rebellion.” And I think that for those of us that are involved in antipoverty movements, yeah, it's hard work, it often is a long struggle, but it's often a joyous and community-based and a loving space to be.
AM: Wow, that's incredible, and so, so well said. Thank you so much for sharing some more information about those organizations. We'll be sure to direct our listeners to them, so they can get involved as well. And I have to say, after listening to it, I really think Poverty, by America will most certainly be a crucial, beneficial, and joyous disruptor in how we talk about poverty. So, Matthew, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for writing this book and for sharing more about this important work.
MD: Thanks, Alanna. These were incredible questions. I really enjoyed this conversation.
AM: And listeners, you can get Poverty, by America on Audible now.
