Book Review: Poorly Understood: What America Gets Wrong About Poverty

Poorly Understood: What America Gets Wrong About Poverty, by Mark Robert Rank, Lawrence M. Eppard, and Heather E. Bullock. Oxford University Press, ISBN: 9780190881382, 2021, 242 pages, $29.95 hardback.

    These academics combine social work, sociology, and psychology to refute common misperceptions about American poverty in 20 concise and accessible chapters. They understand the myths about poverty to be centered in an idealized image of an America of opportunity that meritocratically rewards hard work. This American dream, if ever true, has been lost. Today, Americans are more likely to remain on the same rung of the economic ladder as their parents.

    The strongest section of the book challenges the common image of the poor as chronically poor, racialized, inner-city residents. In fact, inter-generational poverty is the exception rather than the rule, with less than 12% of the poor in the inner cities in 2015. More deep-seated poverty is in rural America counties with 20% of the population in poverty, particularly Appalachia, the deep South, the Texas Rio Grande valley, southwest and northern plains reservations, and the central corridor of California (migrant laborers).

    But most American poverty is situational, not intergenerational, lasting for short spells resulting from job loss, changes in family situations (leaving home as a young adult, divorce, birth of a child), major medical conditions, or a disability. Sixty-five percent of Americans will be on at least one means-tested program for a non-consecutive twelve months by age 65. During any 10-year period across the lifespan, at least half of Americans will experience one or more years of economic insecurity. Two-thirds of the poor are white.

    A recurring theme is that poverty is not primarily due to personal deficiencies, but due to systemic or structural causes. There are simply not enough decent jobs to lift people out of poverty. New jobs in the service industries (retail, food service, and hospitality) do not provide adequate wages, reasonable benefits, or stable hours. Even improving educational systems nationwide is unlikely to help, because it merely shifts the relative positions of everyone on the economic ladder.

    Because of the massive social costs associated with childhood poverty, estimated to be over $1 trillion annually, intergenerational poverty must be addressed. Rational long-term policies to eliminate childhood poverty would provide a rate of return of up to 1,200%.

    Comparisons with other economically developed nations suggest that welfare policies could reduce poverty, but first the myth of the welfare queen must die. Here, the authors make their weakest case, using the cash supports in TANF and SNAP as examples of the inadequacy of American social supports when a more comprehensive case would include Section 8 housing and EITC.

    Policy solutions include raising the minimum wage or expanding the EITC. What is essential is to break the association of income and wealth inequality with loss of opportunity, crime victimization, incarceration, and violence. Every social worker and social work student who still believes that poverty is a choice should read this book because, as the authors explain so clearly, almost all of us will be among the poor at some point in our lives. The poor are not the Other; they are Us.

Reviewed by Peter A. Kindle, PhD, CPA, LMSW, Professor of Social Work, University of South Dakota.