Michael R Weisser

What's So Bad About Being Poor? Michael R Weisser

A study which combines data, personal histories and original national surveys to look at American poverty from a fresh perspective. Rather than assuming that the poor are trapped in poverty, this book suggests that many poor people not only live within their means, but feel neither trapped nor frustrated because they see greater wealth around them which they do not have. The book is also a critique of recent scholarship on inequality by Piketty, Deaton and other researchers, and gives graphic, compelling personal examples of what poverty means to people who are poor. The book also suggests that the current political narrative about the 'wage gap' and the shrinking of the middle class need to be rethought and better undertood.