One Nation, Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us All

by Mark Robert Rank

Book Overview

Despite its enormous wealth, the United States leads the industrialized world in poverty. One Nation, Underprivileged unravels this disturbing paradox by offering a unique and radically different understanding of American poverty. It debunks many of our most common myths about the poor, while at the same time provides a powerful new framework for addressing this enormous social and economic problem.
Mark Robert Rank vividly shows that the fundamental...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195189728
• ISBN13: 9780195189728
• Release Date: July 2005
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

An important book!

From its riveting cover photograph to the call to action in the final chapter, this book held my attention and made me think about poverty in this country in a way I never had before. As a scientist, it takes more than stirring rhetoric to affect my thinking about important issues like this one; it takes a coherent argument supported by checkable facts. And that is precisely what the book delivers (along with some stirring rhetoric). Two important points stand out in my mind. First, poverty isn't something that just happens to other kinds of people, as the author demonstrates through careful analysis of several large, longitudinal data sets; second, poverty is not the result of personal deficiencies, neither moral, motivational, or intellectual weaknesses (as conservatives would claim) nor educational Rather, poverty is a necessary consequence of the current structure of our economic and social systems. As the book points out, however, this does mean the problem is unsolvable. This is an important book that goes beyond the usual partisan positions to propose a new paradigm for the analysis and remediation of socioeconomic inequalities, and I strongly recommend it!

An Essential Book to Understanding Poverty

"One Nation, Underprivileged" is a wonderful companion book to both David Shipler's "The Working Poor" and Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed." While Shipler and Ehrenreich do a great job in providing in-depth accounts of surviving in poverty, Rank's book provides a tremendously helpful context for understanding why poverty occurs in the first place, and what we can do about it. If you've read either Shipler or Ehrenreich, definitely read Rank's book to fill out the picture. It provides the arguments and substance to truly understand the issue of poverty.

Poverty Indeed Affects Us All

We have so often in this country thought of poverty as something that affects someone else. Yet what is remarkable about this book is how the author develops the argument that poverty affects us all. For example, by looking at the risk of poverty across the life course, Rank is able to show that between two thirds and three quarters of all Americans will experience at least one year of their lives below the poverty line. Even more remarkable is that two thirds of Americans will use some type of welfare program (food stamps, AFDC, SSI, etc.) between the ages of 20 and 65. These are truly remarkable statistics that demonstrate how widespread poverty is across the life course. Rank argues that such an understanding can shift the way we think about and act towards the issue of poverty. By realizing that the reduction of poverty is in all of our self-interests, we have a much stronger motivation to become actively engaged. He also develops two other very interesting arguments around the topics of values and citizenship, that again show why poverty is an issue that affects us all. I found the author's writing to be eloquent, and I found his arguments to be very persuasive. If you're at all interested in the issues of poverty, inequality, and/or social justice, this is the book for you.

Bravo!

In my opinion, this is the most important and significant book on American poverty to be published in the last 10 to 15 years. It is extremely impressive in terms of its originality, readability, and scope of the research it presents. If you've ever wondered why the United States has such high rates of poverty and what we can do about it, "One Nation, Underprivileged" is without a doubt the place to begin.

Terrific!

This is a book that every American concerned with the issue of poverty ought to be familiar with. It's extremely readable, yet rock solid in terms of its arguments and research. The author provides a powerful new starting point for challenging the conventional wisdom regarding American poverty. But he also provides us with a strong moral framework for why it is so important to address this issue. It couldn't have come at a more important time. A terrific book!