LinkedIn presents I wonder if we ever believed the stories we told ourselves about the connection

between work and poverty. You know that people could just work their way out of poverty and

if people are poor it's because they haven't put in the the muscle, the shoe leather you know

and there's a part of me that thinks we didn't really believe it in our hearts of hearts.

I'm Wufus Griskym and this is the next big idea. Today can we abolish poverty?

I don't know about you but I've spent much of my life living in a bubble.

I grew up upper middle class, my mother was a social worker, my father, a lawyer. I spent the last

two decades living in New York City where you can't help but see poverty right alongside

extraordinary wealth but to be honest I've never really fully understood the mechanics of poverty

why the problem is so intractable and why we haven't made the kinds of progress other wealthy

nations have in taking care of our people. That changed however when I read a new book by

Pulitzer Prize-winning sociologist Matthew Desmond called Poverty by America. Heralded by the

New Yorker as a moral gut punch, Matt's book has really opened my eyes to why it is that so many

people got left behind in America and who benefits. The story he tells is heartbreaking,

inspiring and in the end infuriating. It's a story of greed and competence obliviousness.

Who's greed you might ask? Who's obliviousness? In the end I realized it's ours.

Why can't we solve the problem? Matt's answer is unflinchingly direct because we don't want to.

You may feel as I have that inequality is not your fault. We've all made small efforts to make

the world better. We vote for politicians who we think will heal the nation. Many of us vote to

raise our own taxes. We may make donations or give money to people we see on the street or

make small gestures that cause us to feel like we're one of the good guys.

But we also like our cheap stuff. Inexpensive products from Amazon that arrive at our doorstep

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