This is in conversation from Apple News. I'm Shemeita Basu. Today, why there's so much poverty in America and what you can do about it.

Matthew Desmond is a sociologist and writer who likes to talk about big

seemingly intractable problems. His Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Eved, told the story of housing insecurity by following eight families.

But his latest book zooms out and takes a different perspective on why poverty exists in America.

I read this line by Tommy Orange, the novelist, where he writes,

these kids are jumping out of the windows of burning buildings, falling to their deaths,

and we think that the problem is that they're

jumping and I tried to write a book about the fire you know who lit it who's warming their hands by it.

So this is a book about why there's so much poverty in America

and how can we get rid of it.

But in that telling, it's really a book about the fire. It's called Poverty by America. And that part

about who's warming their hands, that's the part that'll stick with you because he's talking to you.

If you are not poor, that is if you're wealthy or even just comfortable,

you are benefiting from a system that keeps people poor. And Matt says when you're benefiting from a system that keeps people poor.

And Matt says, when you're in poverty, it dictates everything.

It's not just the state of not having enough money.

It's pain and exhaustion piled on top of like the nauseating fear of

eviction piled on top of debt collector harassment and tooth rot and the

suffocation of your dreams and literally the suffocation of your life.

Matt says for everyone else it's not enough to simply be against poverty.

You need to be actively anti-poverty.

Similar to the anti-racism movement, there's no such thing as a neutral stance here.

...