“Poverty, by America”: Author Matthew Desmond on How U.S. Punishes the Poor & Subsidizes the Wealthy

 Such an excellent and deeply important 

interview and book! ― Molly

 

A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that poverty is the fourth-greatest cause of death in the United States. Roughly 500 people die from poverty in the U.S. every day. Our guest, sociologist Matthew Desmond, is the author of the new book, Poverty, by America, the follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. “There’s so much poverty in America, not in spite of our wealth, but because of it,” says Desmond in an in-depth interview.

 

"This comes as a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA, published on Monday, found that poverty is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, just behind heart disease, cancer and smoking. The study linked 183,000 deaths in the United States in 2019 directly to poverty. That’s an average 500 deaths from poverty every day."

 

Please go here for the original interview and full transcript: https://www.democracynow.org/2023/4/18/matthew_desmond_poverty_book