Friday, November 7, 2014

The American Way of Poverty by Sasha Abramsky

The American Way of Poverty by Sasha Abramsky

The first two-thirds of this book is excellent. He discusses in detail the most common causes of poverty--job loss, early childbearing, poor education, living in areas of economic depression, mental illness, and drug and alcohol abuse--and interviews in-depth people living in abject poverty from these causes. It is written with both wide-eyed clarity and compassion. 

Then we come to the last one-third of the book which deals with solutions.  There he loses me with the pie-in-the-sky, not a snowball's chance in Hades of happening solutions. I am not saying that implementation of any of them wouldn't help, just that they are not going to pass Congress to be implemented.  So it leaves me frustrated that all I can do is make a donation to my local food bank. 

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