Poverty, by America

Matthew Desmond's answer, in this brisk and bracing polemic, is uncomfortable: because so many others benefit from it. The sociologist behind the Pulitzer-winning Evicted argues that poverty persists not by accident but because affluent Americans - through cheap goods, tax breaks, exclusionary neighborhoods and depressed wages - are its beneficiaries and, often, its authors.

Shorter and angrier than his earlier work, the book trades immersive reporting for a direct moral argument and a call to become 'poverty abolitionists.' intendle recommends it as a provocation worth arguing with, clear-eyed about how policy choices produce need. A #1 New York Times bestseller and a best book of 2023 across many outlets, it reframes a familiar problem as a collective responsibility.