Our biggest antipoverty program for the working poor is the Earned Income Tax Credit. In 2021, 25 million workers and families received this subsidy, the average payment being $2,411.[36]

I arrived at this rough estimate by multiplying the number of families and individuals below the line with the average amount they would need to rise above it.[12] Now, this figure is on top of current welfare spending,

Poverty is the constant fear that it will get even worse. A third of Americans live without much economic security, working as bus drivers, farmers, teachers, cashiers, cooks, nurses, security guards, social workers. Many are not officially counted among the “poor,” but what then is the term for trying to raise two kids on $50,000 a year in Miami

During the civil rights era, white elites supported the desegregation of public parks and pools because they didn’t use those spaces anyway. They had private clubs. This enraged working-class whites, who called it “integration for everyone but the rich.” In the 1970s, wealthy white liberals resisted rezoning their communities to be more inclusive

The negative effects of unions have been wildly overstated, and there is now evidence that they play a role in boosting company productivity, for example by reducing turnover.[19] The American economy is less productive today than it was in the postwar period, when unions were at peak strength. The economies of other rich countries have slowed as

Complexity is the refuge of the powerful.

it’s not hard to see why that couple would support legislation designed to yield higher returns, even if that means shortchanging workers. Social ills—segregation, exploitation—can be motivated by bigotry and selfishness as well as by the best of intentions, such as protecting our children. Especially protecting our children.

to quote the economist Arthur Okun. “Starvation and dignity do not mix well.”[8]

How do we, today, make the poor in America poor? In at least three ways. First, we exploit them. We constrain their choice and power in the labor market, the housing market, and the financial market, driving down wages while forcing the poor to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit.