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Broke in America
- Seeing, Understanding, and Ending U.S. Poverty
- Narrated by: Joanne Samuel Goldblum, Colleen Shaddox, JD Jackson
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
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Publisher's summary
Water. Food. Housing. The most basic and crucial needs for survival, yet 40 percent of people in the United States don't have the resources to get them. With key policy changes, we could eradicate poverty in this country within our lifetime - but we need to get started now.
Nearly 40 million people in the United States live below the poverty line - about $26,200 for a family of four. Low-income families and individuals are everywhere, from cities to rural communities. While poverty is commonly seen as a personal failure, or a deficiency of character or knowledge, it's actually the result of bad policy.
Public policy has purposefully erected barriers that deny access to basic needs, creating a society where people can easily become trapped - not because we lack the resources to lift them out, but because we are actively choosing not to. Poverty is close to inevitable for low-wage workers and their children, and a large percentage of these people, despite qualifying for it, do not receive government aid.
From Joanne Samuel Goldblum and Colleen Shaddox, Broke in America offers an eye-opening and galvanizing look at life in poverty in this country: how circumstances and public policy conspire to keep people poor, and the concrete steps we can take to end poverty for good.
In clear, accessible prose, Goldblum and Shaddox detail the ways the current system is broken and how it's failing so many of us. They also highlight outdated and ineffective policies that are causing or contributing to this unnecessary problem.
Every chapter features action items listeners can use to combat poverty - both nationwide and in our local communities, including the most effective public policies you can support and how to work hand-in-hand with representatives to affect change.
So far, our attempted solutions have fallen short because they try to "fix" poor people rather than address the underlying problems. Fortunately, it's much easier to fix policy than people. Essential and timely, Broke in America offers a crucial road map for securing a brighter future.
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Critic reviews
“This listen will educate - and infuriate. The authors and JD Jackson describe how poverty could be eradicated and why it hasn't been.... Jackson conveys just the right amount of exasperation, frustration, and understanding to make this a compelling listen. It's never preachy or academic.” (AudioFile Magazine)
“An exploration of why so many Americans are struggling financially.... A down-to-earth overview of the causes and effects of poverty and possible remedies.” (Kirkus Reviews)
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- Unabridged
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Since the dawn of the digital age, decision-making in finance, politics, health, and human services has undergone revolutionary change. Today, automated systems control which neighborhoods get policed, which families attain needed resources, and who is investigated for fraud. While we all live under this new regime of data, the most invasive and punitive systems are aimed at the poor. In Automating Inequality, Virginia Eubanks systematically investigates the impacts of data mining, policy algorithms, and predictive risk models on poor and working-class people in America.
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Outstanding, Through, Well Researched Book!
- By LISA on 07-11-24
By: Virginia Eubanks
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Viral Justice
- How We Grow the World We Want
- By: Ruha Benjamin
- Narrated by: Ruha Benjamin
- Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Long before the pandemic, Ruha Benjamin was doing groundbreaking research on race, technology, and justice, focusing on big, structural changes. But the twin plagues of COVID-19 and anti-Black police violence inspired her to rethink the importance of small, individual actions. Part memoir, part manifesto, Viral Justice is a sweeping and deeply personal exploration of how we can transform society through the choices we make every day.
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Fantastic book!
- By Avie Kearney on 05-21-23
By: Ruha Benjamin
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Kids These Days
- Human Capital and the Making of Millennials
- By: Malcolm Harris
- Narrated by: Will Collyer
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Everyone knows "what's wrong with millennials". Glenn Beck says we've been ruined by "participation trophies". Simon Sinek says we have low self-esteem. An Australian millionaire says millennials could all afford homes if we'd just give up avocado toast. Thanks, millionaire. This millennial is here to prove them all wrong.
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A devastating dream of revolution
- By Kevin Tierney Jr on 11-23-17
By: Malcolm Harris
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Boom, Bust, Exodus
- The Rust Belt, the Maquilas, and a Tale of Two Cities
- By: Chad Broughton
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2002, the town of Galesburg, a slowly declining Rustbelt city of 33,000 in western Illinois, learned that it would soon lose its largest factory, a Maytag refrigerator plant that had anchored Galesburg's social and economic life for decades. Workers at the plant earned $15.14 an hour, had good insurance, and were assured a solid retirement. In 2004, the plant was relocated to Reynosa, Mexico, where workers sometimes spent 13-hour days assembling refrigerators for $1.10 an hour.
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A Story I thought I Knew
- By Meek84 on 07-08-18
By: Chad Broughton
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All the Money in the World
- What the Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending
- By: Laura Vanderkam
- Narrated by: Karen Saltus
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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How happy would you be if you had all the money in the world? We spend endless hours obsessing over our budgets and investments, trying to figure out ways to stretch every dollar. We try to follow the advice of money gurus and financial planners, then kick ourselves whenever we spend too much or save too little. For all of the stress and effort we put into every choice, why are most of us unhappy about our finances? According to Laura Vanderkam, the key is to change your perspective.
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Very Practical Book with Good Ideas
- By Herstory buff on 07-03-14
By: Laura Vanderkam
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The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America
- The Thom Hartmann Hidden History Series
- By: Thom Hartmann
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 4 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Taking his typically in-depth, historically informed view, Thom Hartmann asks: What if the Supreme Court didn't have the power to strike down laws? According to the Constitution, it doesn't. From the founding of the republic until 1803, the Supreme Court was the final court of appeals, as it was always meant to be. So where did the concept of judicial review start? As so much of modern American history, it began with the battle between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and with Marbury v. Madison.
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A must read to understand why voting is essential.
- By Brandon WIlliams on 10-05-19
By: Thom Hartmann
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Arguing with Idiots
- How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government
- By: Glenn Beck
- Narrated by: Glenn Beck, Pat Gray, Steve "Stu" Burguiere
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
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Idiots can't be identified through voting records, they can be found only by looking for people who hide behind stereotypes, embrace partisanship, and believe that bumper-sticker slogans are a substitute for common sense. If you know someone who fits the bill, then Arguing with Idiots will help you silence them once and for all with the ultimate weapon: the truth.
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Great Book
- By Stacy on 09-22-09
By: Glenn Beck
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No, They Can't
- Why Government Fails - But Individuals Succeed
- By: John Stossel
- Narrated by: John Stossel
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
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The government is not a neutral arbiter of truth. It never has been. It never will be. Doubt everything. John Stossel does. A self-described skeptic, he has dismantled society's sacred cows with unerring common sense. Now he debunks the most sacred of them all: our intuition and belief that government can solve our problems. In No, They Can't, the New York Times best-selling author and Fox News commentator insists that we discard that idea of the "perfect" government - left or right - and retrain our brain to look only at the facts, to rethink our lives as independent individuals - and fast.
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Great Book, Must Listen
- By dan on 04-27-12
By: John Stossel
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The Liberal Invasion of Red State America
- By: Kristin B. Tate
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Progressive upper-middle-class urbanites are deserting expensive liberal meccas like New York and San Francisco and flocking to traditionally red states like Colorado, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Texas. The result is a sudden, confusing purpling of small-town America. School boards and local governments are being reorganized around the progressive agendas of pushy transplants. Neighborhoods are becoming unrecognizable. And the implications for future Congressional and presidential elections are staggering.
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Interesting and back up with facts
- By Jason on 01-23-20
By: Kristin B. Tate
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How We Can Win
- Race, History and Changing the Money Game That’s Rigged
- By: Kimberly Jones
- Narrated by: Kimberly Jones
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In How We Can Win, Jones delves into the impacts of systemic racism and reveals how her formative years in Chicago gave birth to a lifelong devotion to justice. Here, in a vital expansion of her declaration, she calls for Reconstruction 2.0, a multilayered plan to reclaim economic and social restitutions - those restitutions promised with emancipation but blocked, again and again, for more than 150 years. And, most of all, Jones delivers strategies for how we can effect change as citizens and allies while nurturing ourselves in the fight against a system that is still rigged.
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Valid points made, but contradictory as well...
- By Julian C. Young on 01-28-22
By: Kimberly Jones
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The Redemption of Bobby Love
- A Story of Faith, Family, and Justice
- By: Bobby Love, Cheryl Love
- Narrated by: Harvey Reaves, Cheri VandenHeuvel
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
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Bobby and Cheryl Love were living in Brooklyn, happily married for decades, when the FBI and NYPD appeared at their door and demanded to know from Bobby, in front of his shocked wife and children: “What is your name? No, what’s your real name?” Bobby’s thirty-eight-year secret was out. As a Black child in the Jim Crow South, Bobby found himself in legal trouble before his 14th birthday. Sparked by the desperation he felt in the face of limited options and the pull of the streets, Bobby became a master thief.
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Heart Wrenching and Heart Warming
- By ArizonaBorn on 01-01-22
By: Bobby Love, and others
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Arguing with Socialists
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- Narrated by: Glenn Beck, Jeremy Lowell
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
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In Arguing with Socialists, New York Times best-selling author Glenn Beck arms listeners to the teeth with information necessary to debunk the socialist arguments that have once again become popular, and proves that the free market is the only way to go. With his trademark humor, Beck lampoons the resurgence of this bankrupt leftist philosophy with thousands of stories, facts, and arguments for anyone who is willing to ask the hard questions.
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Its great...whatever
- By Jon on 04-08-20
By: Glenn Beck
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There are, in the United States, a significant and growing number of families who live on less than $2.00 per person, per day. That figure, the World Bank measure of poverty, is hard to imagine in this country - most of us spend more than that before we get to work or school in the morning.
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In her thought-provoking voice, Tirado discusses how she went from lower-middle class, to sometimes middle class, to poor and everything in between, and in doing so reveals why "poor people don't always behave the way middle-class America thinks they should."
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Buy the written copy, NOT the audio by the author
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Few topics have as many myths, stereotypes, and misperceptions surrounding them as that of poverty in America. The poor have been badly misunderstood since the beginnings of the country, with the rhetoric only ratcheting up in recent times. Our current era of fake news, alternative facts, and media partisanship has led to a breeding ground for all types of myths and misinformation to gain traction and legitimacy. Poorly Understood is the first book to systematically address and confront many of the most widespread myths pertaining to poverty.
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The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?
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A testimonial based on facts and witness
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NO PDF! NO CHARTS!
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What listeners say about Broke in America
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jacob J. Wieland
- 12-28-22
Narration was a bit slow.
I don't process audial information quickly, so I never increase the listening speed, but I bumped this one up to 1.2x.
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- Ziceeman
- 01-31-23
Necessary book to understand poverty in the USA
This book is a necessity to understand the struggles of poverty in the USA. It outlines systemic issues, crime, education, labor, homeowning, etc. I like that with each section, there is a call to action and solutions suggested so you're not left wandering aimlessly of how to fix the issue.
Overall, great book, but it is sad to listen to these stories.
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- Valorie Kelly
- 09-06-22
New look that addresses the elephant in th room
This publication addresses the challenges and injustice of poverty, regardless of race. When everyone is fighting among themselves they miss the designer suited theft.
The humanity and empathy along with a potential solution is breathtaking
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Overall
- Bert Sloan
- 09-06-22
very left leaning
The book is extremely left leaning and some of the data is intentionally presented in a manner to show only one view. The book does bring up some very vaild points, however.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Alexander L Langhans
- 02-18-21
Interesting, but...
I have only finished half of the book. It started as myself wanting to understand better the "Fight for 15". As a business owner who does employ people below that mark. As well as someone who came out of college making less than that. I felt I had a certain upbringing that enabled me to be empathetic.
What this book does for me so far is give me a little bit of understanding. I felt this book was really meant for people who have had no to very little interaction with people who are poorer. As most of the stories are presented in a way that the reader/listener is ignorant to the material.
The action steps... were forgettable for the most part. I didn't feel a call to action as the stories were not that impactful to me.
I would say that this book is best consumed by chapter with breaks in between. Give time to digest the material. A complementary book to go with this is "Good Economics in Hard Times". As that explores deeper the issues presented in this book.
Overall, the book is fine. It might be a better fit for someone else. But I will still refer to the book from time to time. It just won't be a primary read that is a "must finish".
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- Jennifer
- 04-26-22
Good info but painfully narrated
I listened to this is 1.9 speed. Yes, that is insane. The narration is painfully slow and hard to listen to, which is unfortunate because there is good info to be found in the book
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- Kay M
- 11-30-21
A must read
If you want to learn more about poverty and possible solutions, this is a great book to read. I’ve witnessed poverty firsthand. Growing up in poverty and “making it out”, it’s good to learn more ways in which I can be a helping hand. Taking some of their recommended action steps can bring change to a community, even if it’s a small change. I recommend this book to anyone who’s interested in helping people in poverty.
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- Anonymous User
- 04-09-21
Broke In America
I like the whole book. This is an excellent researched and written book. It should be a Best Seller. I have learned so much about who America is and about. I would highly recommend this book to everyone. This means grade school kids to.
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- Life
- 04-28-21
Absolutely a must read!
Puts poverty under the microscope! Clearly reveals this crippling American autoimmune disease. This book also offers way to treat and defeat this inhuman and sociopathic USA disease. For all of those who want to wipe out poverty in America, this is absolutely a must read!
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- Adewole Akinbi
- 01-09-24
The Research done by the authors.
Required reading for anyone who wants a clear and concise breakdown of the effects of Poverty.
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