Going for Broke: Living on the Edge in the World’s Richest Country

by Alissa Quart (Editor), David Wallis (Editor)

A collection of compelling, hard-hitting first-person essays, poems, and photos that expose what our punitive social systems do to so many Americans.

Going for Broke , edited by Alissa Quart, Executive Director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, and David Wallis, former Managing Director of EHRP, gives voice to a range of gifted writers for whom "economic precarity" is more than just another assignment. All illustrate what the late Barbara Ehrenreich, who conceived of EHRP, once described as "the real face of journalism not million dollar-a-year anchorpersons, but low-wage workers and downwardly spiraling professionals."

One essayist and grocery store worker describes what it is like to be an “essential worker” during the pandemic; another reporter and military veteran details his experience with homelessness and what would have actually helped him at the time. These dozens of fierce and sometimes darkly funny pieces reflect the larger systems that have made writers' bodily experiences, family and home lives, and work far harder than they ought to be.

Featuring introductions by luminaries including Michelle Tea, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and Astra Taylor,  Going for Broke  is revelatory. It shows us the costs of income inequality to our bodies and our minds—and demonstrates real ways to change our conditions.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Economics, Finance

368 pages, Paperback

Published October 3, 2023

About the author

Alissa Quart is the executive editor of the journalism non-profit Economic Hardship Reporting Project. She co-founded its current incarnation with Barbara Ehrenreich. She is also the author of four previous acclaimed books, “Branded,’’ “Republic of Outsiders,’’ “Hothouse Kids’’ and the poetry book “Monetized.’’ She writes the Outclassed column for The Guardian and has published features and reported commentary in many magazines and newspapers, most recently for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Nation and The New York Review of Books. She has won the Columbia Journalism School’s 2018 Alumni Award and the LA Press Club Award for Commentary, was a 2010 Nieman fellow at Harvard University, and has been nominated for an Emmy and a National Magazine Award.

Reviews

[Cari · Rating 4 out of 5]

This poignant collection brings insight into why and how people are squeezed and underprivileged in the US. There are stories from people who are homeless, making far too little money despite being highly skilled, struggling with mental health, or repressed access to resources based on class or privilege. Most have been previously published, but there are notes updating the oldest ones, bringing them to the post-Trump, post-COVID era. I was especially affected by two stories by Joseph Williams, who was cancelled on Twitter after a few choice remarks about Mitt Romney. Williams lost his high-paying job and found himself evicted, which is covered in the first article. The second is about Williams' job at an athletic store (which I kept imagining as Dick's Sporting Goods, but I don't think it was that one). Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed has nothing on these true stories; Ehrenreich was able to go back to her daily life after moonlighting in low-wage work. I don't know how to fix or change any of these societal issues, but I sure will be thinking about them and trying to come up with any answers I can.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Collection of short essays. I’m interested in the subject. quick reads, into minute details of being poor or being broke. Didn’t find short essays as a format to grip my attention as well as a long read

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent collection of essays.