Summary Of Poverty By Herbert

roads and bridges, airports and levees and cities have collapsed into ruin…who will be left to fix them when they break down.”(2015, p. 3) Who indeed? In addition to connecting the two issues of failing infrastructure and its relation to society, Herbert further identifies how the problem of high unemployment rates over the last decade have created increased poverty and financial inequality among the American people.
By the time 2013 rolled around, “nearly fifty million Americans were poor…another fifty million, the so called near poor, were living just a notch or two above the official poverty line” (Herbert, 2014, p. 98). The sheer number of the number of people affected by the corporate elite is unfathomable. Poverty knows no bounds. Teenagers, older adults, whole families and others alike are affected. One of the most sobering insights of the book, voiced by a soup kitchen volunteer was, “We’re seeing fold who are just stunned to find themselves in a soup line. People are coming to understand that they are only a job loss or an illness away from catastrophe” (Herbert, 2014, p.101). …show more content…
If the purpose of this book is to educate those of how America is troubled then it should include evidence of how racially biased the job market is and how those numbers are related to “the ordinary American” as Herbert puts it. Though the book is made to present an overarching picture of America’s current predicament, it falls short of exploring the specifics of very different experiences that minority groups in the U.S. face. Not acknowledging these differences, does not inform the reader just how dire the situation can be when discussing unemployment, inequality and poverty of minority