One Nation, Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us All

From Booklist
Professor Rank, author of Living on the Edge: The Realities of Welfare in America (1994), meticulously builds the case that, despite America's great wealth, society as a whole has abnegated its responsibility to ease the burdens of the nation's poor even while creating an economic system that structurally ensures that a great portion of its citizens will live in poverty. The author debunks the traditional belief that the poor are largely responsible for their own condition. He equates the economy to a game of musical chairs, with a limited amount of jobs substituting for chairs. Thus in this book an amazing statistic is brought out for the first time: nearly one-half of all people in America spend at least one year of their lives in poverty. Rank argues for a recapturing of our Judeo-Christian ethic and that individuals must pay more than lip service to the principles of liberty, justice, equality, and democracy so that the promise of the Pledge of Allegiance will not be "liberty and justice for some," but for all. Allen Weakland
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
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 causes of poverty are to be found in our economic structure and political policy failures, rather than individual shortcomings or attitudes. He establishes for the first time that a significant percentage of Americans will experience poverty during their adult lifetimes, and firmly demonstrates that poverty is an issue of vital national concern. Ultimately, Rank provides us with a new paradigm for understanding poverty, and outlines an innovative set of strategies that will reduce American poverty. One Nation, Underprivileged represents a profound starting point for rekindling a national focus upon America's most vexing social and economic problem.


Book Info
Text offers a unique and different understanding of American poverty, debunking many common myths about the poor. Provides a new framework for addressing this social and economic problem, showing how the fundamental causes of poverty are to be found in our economic structure and policy failures. DLC: Poverty--United States.


Buy from Amazon     Compare Prices

Rank, who teaches social work at Washington U. in St. Louis, has spent a lot of time studying the state of being poor. Here he unravels the paradox of why one of the world's wealthiest nations leads the industrialized world in poverty. He debunks many common myths Americans hold about the poor, showing that the fundamental causes of poverty are to be found in the US economic structure and political policy failures rather than individual shortcomings or attitudes. In fact, he finds, a significant proportion of Americans will experience poverty in their lifetimes. He also provides a framework for addressing the problem. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR


Buy from Barnes & Noble     Compare Prices