The book Poverty, by America, written by Matthew Desmond, introduces the reader to America’s lowest point: poverty and how it’s lived among many. Desmond wants to reveal the hidden face of the United States, which is not revealed to the public; this face is just seen by those who experience it, and very little is done to fight it. According to Desmond, people living below the poverty line are the forgotten class and the marginalized class that make up 11.5% of the whole population in the United States. America is seen as a progressive country, but contrary to this belief, America has 37.9 million people who are living in poverty. The many factors that affect this not only involve the government's incompetence to fix the problem but also the person's experience and problems that pile up over time. Poverty is not something that people are born into but something created by the choices made by the person and the society surrounding that person.
Desmond shares his ideology through data, real-life stories, and experience. This reading can be categorized into eight sections: how easy it is to fall into poverty starting from a young age, unsafe living and work conditions, gun violence, the criminal system, housing rent, “deep poverty,” government reaction, mental toll due to poverty, and racial inequality among poor people in the U.S. The author begins his book by introducing us to Crystal and her story of how problems and difficulties started to pile up since she was a child, which led her to a life no one wants.
The author then explains how housing is determined by money and social status. The worst and cheapest places are most likely near petrochemicals with unsafe environments. The author gives an example of his friend and roommate, Woo. Due to unsanitary conditions in their complex apartments, Woo was injured and had his leg amputated because he “couldn’t afford to pay it” and avoided going to a hospital, since America does not have free healthcare. In the same communities of rundown apartments, gun violence thrives, and many other incidents involving homicide and fatal injuries run rampant. These cases have been rising over the years, and according to the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “the rate of gun deaths has increased 36% from 2013 to 2022 in the United States.” Desmond explains that the criminal system has also been a way to disappear homeless people “into jails and prisons…resulting in a falsely rosy statistical picture of American progress,” accusing the laws and prison system of criminalizing poverty and making minor infractions pile up to get someone into jail. After a long day of working in unsanitary conditions, many Americans arrive at their living place, which can’t even be called a home, and immediately worry about rent. Rent has been a rising problem for people living in poverty since income from jobs barely rises, but rent increases every year. Desmond observes, “70 percent [of income] goes to rent and utility costs,” making it almost impossible sometimes to keep up with monthly rent, resulting in the piling up of more problems. These problems can sometimes accumulate so much that some people fall into “deep poverty,” a line that is one half of the line of normal poverty, which is experienced by “5 million” children in America. This can paint a dismal picture of how much the government cares for this group of people, and the reality is that the government turns a blind eye to this issue and rather tries to eradicate poverty by “criminalizing abject poverty.”
People experiencing poverty often have no one to fight for them and fight through this alone, taking a serious mental toll on their health. This is called the “bandwidth tax.” In summary, poverty takes off brainpower and “deprives[s] people of security and comfort.” Poverty is also generated due to race and ethnicity, as the author explains that race plays a big factor in poverty, where Black and Hispanic poor families live under worse conditions than White poor families live, and White people are more likely to have more wealth with less education than Black people with higher levels of education. All of these factors accumulate into what the author describes as poverty lived by the American people.
People can sometimes be forgotten and marginalized in the cycle of poverty, and Desmond does a good job of summarizing how this cycle comes to be. I agree with all eight points Desmond describes in his chapter “The Kind of Problem Poverty Is.” Poverty is not something measured; it is an accumulation of problems from different categories that sometimes add up, creating the poverty known today. I can see why the author blames the government for doing nothing about the issue, since right now some laws in states marginalize the poor by making it illegal for homeless people to be seen on the streets, for the benefit of the middle class, leaving the poorest class alone and with no help. I can see why the author mentions violence and its connection to poverty and how being raised poor affects people in later years and can lead to an increase in crimes. All the things pointed out by Desmond are true and should be reflected upon to create a better society.
Poverty is a long process in most cases, and it starts from childhood. This process is mostly affected by the condition a child is put through in their early days. For example, many times poverty cases mainly start with a bad family structure and childhood, like being sexually abused, physically beaten, or having no parents. The things the parents do also affect how their children respond, since kids tend to look up to grown-ups and follow in their footsteps. Some examples are drug addicts who come from a family that has done drugs and are similar to smoking addicts. Another high tendency is the fact that witnessing or experiencing violence during childhood tends to affect people’s behavior when they are adults, creating a cycle of violence that sometimes results in people ending up in jail due to crimes like assault charges, homicide, and weapon-related accidents. Family is the main foundation in a child’s life, and without a good foundation, it is hard, almost impossible, to escape this cycle of poverty and bad life decisions.
I come from Quito, Ecuador, a country in South America that has poverty and many political issues. When I arrived in the States, I believed the picture-perfect lie given out to the world of the progressive country with many jobs and economic stability. Then, I later found out when I arrived how much of a lie it was. The drug problem, at least in Houston, is big, along with its crime rates and the homelessness. What I noticed from my experience in Ecuador and the US is that poverty is different. In Ecuador, poverty is due to economic challenges and bad government policies that have led to the country losing many jobs, while poverty in the US can also be the result of financial problems but also many other issues, including drugs and addictions found on the streets. The poverty here greatly affects the family environment and creates many children with weak foundations to face life. Children need a mindset to become more and achieve more than what their parents have achieved. Poverty is found around the world, but it is unjust that a country with an advantage over others and that is a symbol of freedom traps many of its citizens into an everlasting cycle of poverty while keeping it hidden from people to see.
What inspired me to write this is the book Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond. My experience living in Ecuador also helped me write and inspired this piece. I was able to witness poverty in two different places, Ecuador and the US, and was able to find similarities and differences among them. I was able to see poverty with my own eyes in Ecuador when I had to help in my church, in poor communities, or when going on the street and seeing homeless people asking for money or doing small tasks to earn enough to buy food.
The structure of my passage starts with an introduction introducing Mathew Desmond and his book on poverty. Then it goes by splitting the chapter of the book I read into eight different sections and giving little insight about each one. Then it introduces and gives a broader discussion of each section with a topic sentence focusing on the main idea of each paragraph, evidence, and how it connects to life. Then I give my own experience when living in Ecuador and compare it to what I read in the book. Finally, I do a summary of everything covered as the conclusion of my writing.
As I was writing this piece, I took some of the inspiration from Matthew Desmond with his piece and started to write the introduction just like he started to write his. I also used the inspiration of a science textbook to sort things out into categories to make it easier for the reader to follow along. I then wrote my comparison between my experience with Ecuador and the book I was making my report on, a type of biography of Saint Padre Pio. I then used a wrap-up of all my ideas, like a style of writing to convince others, like the book Animal Farm.