Nickel and Dimed is a modern classic that deftly portrays the plight of America's working-class poor. Author Barbara Ehrenreich decides to see if she can scratch out a comfortable living in blue-collar America. What she discovers is a culture of desperation, where workers often take multiple low-paying jobs just to keep a roof overhead.

Based on his twenty-five years of experience, Paul Polak explodes what he calls the "Three Great Poverty Eradication Myths": that we can donate people out of poverty; that national economic growth will end poverty; and that big business, operating as it does now, will end poverty. Polak shows that programs based on these ideas have utterly failed-in fact, in sub-Saharan Africa, poverty rates have actually gone up. These failed top-down efforts contrast...

Adopting the structure and themes of the Arthurian legend, John Steinbeck created a “Camelot” on a shabby hillside above the town of Monterey, California, and peopled it with a colorful band of knights. At the center of the tale is Danny, whose house, like Arthur’s castle, becomes a gathering place for men looking for adventure, camaraderie, and a sense of belonging—men who fiercely resist the corrupting tide of honest toil...

"Make the world a better place for people in need! This book is full of ideas and projects readers can put into action to fight poverty"--

"In A People's History of Poverty in America, political scientist Stephen Pimpare brings these lives and stories to the foreground, vividly describing poverty and welfare as poor and welfare-reliant Americans experience it, from the big city to the rural countryside. Through prodigious research Pimpare has unearthed rich, poignant, and often surprising testimonies and powerful accounts - both heartwrenching and humorous - that range from the early...

At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. The story is told by Cyril's son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly...

"[The author] takes us into the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee to tell the story of eight families on the edge. Arleen is a single mother trying to raise her two sons on the 20 dollars a month she has left after paying for their rundown apartment. Scott is a gentle nurse consumed by a heroin addiction. Lamar, a man with no legs and a neighborhood full of boys to look after, tries to work his way out of debt. Vanetta participates in a botched stickup...

Despite their own poverty since Daddy died, Mama tells nine-year-old James Otis they need to help Sarah, whose family lost everything in a fire.

Discusses why investments in the economic development of poor countries rarely see positive change or improvement over time and offers a new framework for spurring growth and prosperity based on entrepreneurship and market-creating innovation.