Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond
This is a really good book. Weaving together statistics with personal anecdotes, Desmond dives into America’s long history of (gutting) welfare programs, wage theft, and tax evasion by the country’s wealthiest citizens, enumerating the reasons the richest country on earth also has the highest rates of poverty and inequality. His study is accessible, thoroughly researched, and well argued. It will inform you--and then it will make you really angry. By the end, you’ll have a head full of numbers and, hopefully, someday, a belly full of the rich you’ve eaten.