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Poverty for Profit: How Corporations Get Rich off America’s Poor
A devastating investigation into the “corporate poverty complex”—the myriad businesses that profit from the poor
Poverty is big business in America. The federal government spends about $900 billion a year on programs that directly or disproportionately impact poor Americans, including anti-poverty programs such as the earned income tax credit, Medicaid, and affordable housing vouchers and subsidies. States and local governments spend tens of billions more. Ironically, these enormous sums fuel the “corporate poverty complex,” a vast web of hidden industries and entrenched private sector interests that profit from the bureaucracies regulating the lives of the poor. From bail bondsmen to dialysis providers to towing companies, their business models depend on exploiting low-income Americans, and their political influence ensures a thriving set of industries where everyone profits except the poor, while U.S. taxpayers foot the bill. In Poverty for Profit , veteran journalist Anne Kim investigates the multiple industries that infiltrate almost every aspect of the lives of the poor—health care, housing, criminal justice, justice, and nutrition. She explains how these businesses are aided by public policies such as the wholesale privatization of government services and the political influence these industries wield over lawmakers and regulators. Supported by original investigative reporting on the lesser-known players profiting from the anti-poverty industry, Poverty for Profit adds a crucial dimension to our understanding of how structural inequality and structural racism function today.
Poverty is big business in America. The federal government spends about $900 billion a year on programs that directly or disproportionately impact poor Americans, including anti-poverty programs such as the earned income tax credit, Medicaid, and affordable housing vouchers and subsidies. States and local governments spend tens of billions more. Ironically, these enormous sums fuel the “corporate poverty complex,” a vast web of hidden industries and entrenched private sector interests that profit from the bureaucracies regulating the lives of the poor. From bail bondsmen to dialysis providers to towing companies, their business models depend on exploiting low-income Americans, and their political influence ensures a thriving set of industries where everyone profits except the poor, while U.S. taxpayers foot the bill. In Poverty for Profit , veteran journalist Anne Kim investigates the multiple industries that infiltrate almost every aspect of the lives of the poor—health care, housing, criminal justice, justice, and nutrition. She explains how these businesses are aided by public policies such as the wholesale privatization of government services and the political influence these industries wield over lawmakers and regulators. Supported by original investigative reporting on the lesser-known players profiting from the anti-poverty industry, Poverty for Profit adds a crucial dimension to our understanding of how structural inequality and structural racism function today.
352 pages, Hardcover
Published May 28, 2024
47 people are currently reading
3560 people want to read
About the author
Anne Kim
2 books39 followersAnne Kim is a writer, lawyer, and public policy expert with a long career in Washington, DC–based think tanks working in and around Capitol Hill. She is a senior editor at Washington Monthly. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, Governing, TheAtlantic.com, the Wall Street Journal, Democracy, and numerous other publications. The author of Abandoned: America’s Lost Youth and the Crisis of Disconnection (The New Press), she lives in northern Virginia.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
June 4, 2024
Really fast read. I love the initial story and then the receipts delineating the government’s predatory practices on basically anyone that makes less than $60,000 annually.. and how those making $25000 annually are the fattest prey. Very sad how lobbyists have the government clutched by the balls.
December 14, 2024
A great book, chock full of details about how private companies' predatory financial practices siphon funds away from Americans who can least afford to lose them. From tax refund advances to exorbitant fees for prisoners to make phone calls or send emails, most of these are likely to be unfamiliar to the book's readers--except, perhaps, the nutritional morass that is school lunch.
Although a great book, I'm not particularly glad I read it. Public policy in this country is already so beholden to craven corporate interests, which will worsen to unimaginable levels in the next four years. So perhaps save this one until after the holidays, when you're looking for some bracing January reading that will inspire you to join whatever this term's iteration of the resistance may be.
Although a great book, I'm not particularly glad I read it. Public policy in this country is already so beholden to craven corporate interests, which will worsen to unimaginable levels in the next four years. So perhaps save this one until after the holidays, when you're looking for some bracing January reading that will inspire you to join whatever this term's iteration of the resistance may be.
Read
May 30, 2025A heavy, indicting feat of investigative journalism that defies any sort of starred rating.
Kim’s Poverty for Profit examines how profiteering interests have commandeered U.S. social service provision, and in turn, exploited millions of Americans. Chapter by chapter, Kim develops case studies on contractor fraud - including tax preparation services who skim the Earned Income Tax Credit from lower income families, health care profiteer franchises who force children on Medicaid into life-threatening procedures, and landlords who purposefully remove apartment amenities for Section 8 voucher recipients.
In educating ourselves on these issues, we gain autonomy and obligation. Towards the end of the book, Anne Kim offers a variety of policy pathways to channel our indignation into legislative action, and I look forward to learning and working.
The path to beloved community is jagged - but also our cross to bare each morning.
Kim’s Poverty for Profit examines how profiteering interests have commandeered U.S. social service provision, and in turn, exploited millions of Americans. Chapter by chapter, Kim develops case studies on contractor fraud - including tax preparation services who skim the Earned Income Tax Credit from lower income families, health care profiteer franchises who force children on Medicaid into life-threatening procedures, and landlords who purposefully remove apartment amenities for Section 8 voucher recipients.
In educating ourselves on these issues, we gain autonomy and obligation. Towards the end of the book, Anne Kim offers a variety of policy pathways to channel our indignation into legislative action, and I look forward to learning and working.
The path to beloved community is jagged - but also our cross to bare each morning.
September 8, 2024
I'll never look at dentists the same way ever again tbh
August 16, 2025
Timely as ever and utterly rage-inducing.
Anyone with basic cognitive skills and some exposure to reality knows that private industry - through corporations - provide worse services and goods in a less efficient and more expensive way. Nearly all of us have experienced this when buying a poor-quality product, being stuck on hold with customer service for an hour, and then ultimately receiving no help. We also know that corporations control our government and many of the most incompetent ones are propped up by generous subsidies and obscene contracts. But what many of us don't know is that the same thing happens with with welfare and other government services for the poor. That's where this book comes in.
In Poverty for Profit, Anne Kim explores the innerworkings of the government programs meant to primarily help the poor. She reveals how these programs are indirectly or often directly derailed in their mission because of the private sector. After Reagan tricked the American public into thinking the government was bad, his pupil Bill Clinton (on the Epstein list) handed over large parts of facilitating these programs to the private industry. What this resulted in was what anyone could have expected: worse outcomes, less efficiency, higher costs, etc.
For decades, neoliberal hacks in Washington have continued to paint a picture that these programs are inefficient, touting privatization as the cure. Anne Kim thoroughly exposes their lies and shows how these government programs don't run well but not because of the government in many instances, rather the incompetent and often parasitic private companies facilitating these services. It's unfortunate that this book hasn't been more widely read because it would have helped along the public discourse surrounding DOGE this year. Americans may have understood the truth: that if we want to make these programs stronger, we need a stronger, more transparent, and capable government to do so. We need to boot out the current parasitic freeloaders that aren't bound by ethics, transparency, or the mission: to provide these services to America's most vulnerable citizens.
Anyone with basic cognitive skills and some exposure to reality knows that private industry - through corporations - provide worse services and goods in a less efficient and more expensive way. Nearly all of us have experienced this when buying a poor-quality product, being stuck on hold with customer service for an hour, and then ultimately receiving no help. We also know that corporations control our government and many of the most incompetent ones are propped up by generous subsidies and obscene contracts. But what many of us don't know is that the same thing happens with with welfare and other government services for the poor. That's where this book comes in.
In Poverty for Profit, Anne Kim explores the innerworkings of the government programs meant to primarily help the poor. She reveals how these programs are indirectly or often directly derailed in their mission because of the private sector. After Reagan tricked the American public into thinking the government was bad, his pupil Bill Clinton (on the Epstein list) handed over large parts of facilitating these programs to the private industry. What this resulted in was what anyone could have expected: worse outcomes, less efficiency, higher costs, etc.
For decades, neoliberal hacks in Washington have continued to paint a picture that these programs are inefficient, touting privatization as the cure. Anne Kim thoroughly exposes their lies and shows how these government programs don't run well but not because of the government in many instances, rather the incompetent and often parasitic private companies facilitating these services. It's unfortunate that this book hasn't been more widely read because it would have helped along the public discourse surrounding DOGE this year. Americans may have understood the truth: that if we want to make these programs stronger, we need a stronger, more transparent, and capable government to do so. We need to boot out the current parasitic freeloaders that aren't bound by ethics, transparency, or the mission: to provide these services to America's most vulnerable citizens.
September 16, 2025
This book is
Infuriating
Maddening
Aggravating
The amount of governmental waste in privatizing social service systems is absolutely staggering - and it's not limited to one party; Dems do it, too. It's a matter of taking from column A and putting it in Column B, but Boy did you save money on Column A!!! Look at that progress!
From Housing, to medical care, to dentistry, to food stamps, to tax returns, to bail bonds and for-profit prisons, YOU, the TAX PAYER, are being endlessly screwed by the privatization of services for the poor and underserved. For every tax dollar spent, 60% or more goes to a middle-man/corporation, who is making millions if not billions off the crappy treatment of the poor.
I now understand why the Orange Pus Pimple wants to do away with cash bail: Because bail bonds are a billion-dollar business, charging poor people - still legally innocent - up to $10,000 or more for bail money - legally a loan of the money - instead of just paying cash. Cash is given back when you show up for court. Who gets the bail money when you show up for court? Not you. You still owe the bondsman for his "loan."
How many people actually get a job through Job Corp? Probably none in your area.
Why are poor children having 40 or 50 fillings at a time? Because the Kool Smiles dentist can bill for each and every service he provides.
Why are people in poor areas kept on dialysis instead of being put on kidney transplant lists? Because there's no money to be made in a transplant, or home dialysis.
Why is the waiting list for affordable housing 30,000 people long in some cities?
Private corporations DEPEND on you being poor. That's how they make their money. And when the government tries to regulate them, or fis the issues, they block and sue the government, so nothing changes.
This book SHOULD make you very, very angry. It's your money they waste, and no one is receiving the services promised, just making more and more fodder for the money machine.
Read this. Then VOTE for change. BOTH parties. BOTH are responsible. End the chain of poverty.
Infuriating
Maddening
Aggravating
The amount of governmental waste in privatizing social service systems is absolutely staggering - and it's not limited to one party; Dems do it, too. It's a matter of taking from column A and putting it in Column B, but Boy did you save money on Column A!!! Look at that progress!
From Housing, to medical care, to dentistry, to food stamps, to tax returns, to bail bonds and for-profit prisons, YOU, the TAX PAYER, are being endlessly screwed by the privatization of services for the poor and underserved. For every tax dollar spent, 60% or more goes to a middle-man/corporation, who is making millions if not billions off the crappy treatment of the poor.
I now understand why the Orange Pus Pimple wants to do away with cash bail: Because bail bonds are a billion-dollar business, charging poor people - still legally innocent - up to $10,000 or more for bail money - legally a loan of the money - instead of just paying cash. Cash is given back when you show up for court. Who gets the bail money when you show up for court? Not you. You still owe the bondsman for his "loan."
How many people actually get a job through Job Corp? Probably none in your area.
Why are poor children having 40 or 50 fillings at a time? Because the Kool Smiles dentist can bill for each and every service he provides.
Why are people in poor areas kept on dialysis instead of being put on kidney transplant lists? Because there's no money to be made in a transplant, or home dialysis.
Why is the waiting list for affordable housing 30,000 people long in some cities?
Private corporations DEPEND on you being poor. That's how they make their money. And when the government tries to regulate them, or fis the issues, they block and sue the government, so nothing changes.
This book SHOULD make you very, very angry. It's your money they waste, and no one is receiving the services promised, just making more and more fodder for the money machine.
Read this. Then VOTE for change. BOTH parties. BOTH are responsible. End the chain of poverty.
September 1, 2024
Despite the government spending billions of dollars of tax payer money a year on programs to help poor Americans, poverty still exists and deepens its impact across the country. The corporate poverty complex has sprung up as a vast apparatus of private sector organizations that ostensibly aid the government in the fight against poverty but in reality pocket large chunks of money meant to aid the poor. Anne Kim details the history and impacts of this complex across multiple industries. How the complexity of the tax code ensures that low income Americans need to rely on profiteering tax filing groups. How the growth of government contractors siphons off money from welfare recipients. How federally funded job training programs are largely unsuccessful. How Medicaid has allowed ineffective and harmful medicine to be the primary forms of treatment for people needing dental work or dialysis treatment. How the criminal legal system keeps poor Americans in its grasp through fines, bail, and horrendous prison conditions. And how rental assistance has failed to provide sufficient or safe housing to those who need it. Despite these issues existing in multiple disparate industries, there are so many commonalities from the failures of legislation to intervene and make change to even some of the same actors appearing in multiple industries.
Anne Kim does an excellent job pulling apart different industries and how they all find different ways to take money from the poor or the government. It is a scathing examination of the failures of regulation over the past few decades and how the federal government can now only help the poor through high costs and little impact. Through a combination of her own original investigations and existing sources, Kim makes an extremely convincing case for reform. The creation and growth of these middlemen taking profits from those who need the money to survive has dealt untold damage to this country and while Anne Kim has done a wonderful job detailing a lot of it, action needs to be taken to start to allow for help.
Thank you to The New Press and NetGalley for a copy of Poverty for Profit in exchange for an honest review.
Anne Kim does an excellent job pulling apart different industries and how they all find different ways to take money from the poor or the government. It is a scathing examination of the failures of regulation over the past few decades and how the federal government can now only help the poor through high costs and little impact. Through a combination of her own original investigations and existing sources, Kim makes an extremely convincing case for reform. The creation and growth of these middlemen taking profits from those who need the money to survive has dealt untold damage to this country and while Anne Kim has done a wonderful job detailing a lot of it, action needs to be taken to start to allow for help.
Thank you to The New Press and NetGalley for a copy of Poverty for Profit in exchange for an honest review.
June 21, 2024
Anyone concerned about the plight of America’s poor should read Anne Kim’s engagingly written and deeply researched account of how corporations and contractors abusively divert billions from government programs intended to lift low-income Americans from poverty. As Kim details, “Poverty, Inc.” is a ubiquitous presence in poor communities. Predatory tax preparers skim low-income tax credits through exorbitant fees, job training contractors check boxes but often provide few marketable skills, and Medicaid mills provide substandard and sometimes unnecessary care that can endanger the health of poor patients. The vast collection of industries that make their living at the expense of the poor also includes bail bondsmen, for-profit prisons, and providers of subsidized housing and food. These poverty profiteers wield considerable political influence and, as Kim notes, “pose formidable structural obstacles to reducing poverty.” The author contends that doubling down on “personal responsibility” will do little to reduce poverty when the poverty industry often controls poor people’s choices. Likewise, simply boosting funding will not solve the poverty problem, but will further line the pockets of privatized poverty swindlers. The solution, Kim believes, is significantly enhancing government oversight, management, and enforcement over privatized providers of government anti-poverty benefits. Kim’s excellent account provides a key roadmap for federal and state officials willing to undertake this difficult but vital task.
July 29, 2025
The premise of this book wasn’t surprising (that corporations get rich off America’s poor), but yet I was still very, very surprised as I read. I had no idea so “[m]uch of the government’s antipoverty apparatus is not, in fact, in government hands.” Nor was I aware of just how much low-income Americans are hit again and again and again by unscrupulous companies and people who nickel and dime them out of every last dollar. It’s not surprising, but it is. The section on Medicaid pediatric dentists and dishonest tax preparers floored me, and not in a good way.
At the end of the book, after presenting her heavily researched arguments and facts, Anne Kim writes that “more funding for federal antipoverty programs won’t solve the problem of poverty, but it will feed the poverty industry.” She continues: “Progressives should couple proposals for increased funding with ideas for programmatic reform, including better oversight and accountability by contractors and other intermediaries.” She provides several suggestions about what that might look like, and it made me wish there were more people who were in positions to do things that would actually do things, that would not simply be beholden to their corporate funders or the fear of being primaried. The abuses described by Kim are real; real people are being affected, and we have people in power that seem neither to know or, worse, to care. Things need to change. They must change.
At the end of the book, after presenting her heavily researched arguments and facts, Anne Kim writes that “more funding for federal antipoverty programs won’t solve the problem of poverty, but it will feed the poverty industry.” She continues: “Progressives should couple proposals for increased funding with ideas for programmatic reform, including better oversight and accountability by contractors and other intermediaries.” She provides several suggestions about what that might look like, and it made me wish there were more people who were in positions to do things that would actually do things, that would not simply be beholden to their corporate funders or the fear of being primaried. The abuses described by Kim are real; real people are being affected, and we have people in power that seem neither to know or, worse, to care. Things need to change. They must change.
December 19, 2024
Really solid and informative book by an author who is clearly very knowledgeable about the subject! While the book covered a wide range of topics and policies, I appreciate how much depth was given to each one that was discussed. I do feel however that there were a few passages where the wording made things somewhat unclear, and the length and structure of the chapters might’ve been broken up so they didn’t feel as dense at times. Even so, these are minor editing notes that do little to detract from the fact that this is a great way to learn a TON about a complex, pertinent topic through an otherwise straightforward book.
June 9, 2025
This was a pretty depressing book, BUT I do recommend that you read it because it shows just how corrupt private organizations are when managing government aid programs. This is extremely important to take note of especially this year (2025) when T. has DOGE dismantling government organizations and cutting off important chains of command with people that know the ins and outs of what needs to happen in these types of programs. If more of these functions get privatized (which is what will have to happen if the government organizations are disbanded)--there will be even more fraud and waste.
August 19, 2024
A great book that will never be read by those who need it most. I'm surprised that my local library had this--I randomly came across it on the new nonfiction shelf. I'm glad I read it even though it just increased my frustration at things I have no control over. The author is not unbiased, but I thought her handling of both major political parties was pretty even, and she was fair towards corporate interests. If only people weren't so inherently self-interested. Sigh.
May 28, 2024
Anne Kim has done an amazing job researching for Poverty for Profit. Each one of the chapters could probably be a book by itself.
News media and politicians like to give soundbites about combating poverty, but I highly suggest reading this book if you want to learn more about poverty in America.
Thank you Anne Kim and New Press for the ARC.
News media and politicians like to give soundbites about combating poverty, but I highly suggest reading this book if you want to learn more about poverty in America.
Thank you Anne Kim and New Press for the ARC.
February 12, 2025
A really interesting source of info, especially in the context of the current discussions surrounding the size of the government budget. It appears that the majority of the government budget goes towards these programs that line contractors pocket without marking meaningful change for the people that are supposed to benefit from the programs.
January 19, 2025
A really great read! Anne Kim delved into the “middle-man”, private sectors, that profit off of governmental aid programs like healthcare, tax industry, food stamps, housing, school lunch program. Truly eyeopening at how these companies benefits off of americans in need.
May 28, 2025
I'm really not sure how wild conspiracy theories are so widespread (fluoride, vaccines, raw milk), but these actual measurable truths are not more well-known. You should read this book, then let it radicalize you, not lead you to dispair.
June 17, 2024
Great storytelling that brings the reader in this topic of how some corporations are more concerned about profits than those they are supposed to be assisting.
August 10, 2024
Scathing, infuriating, meticulously-researched, and required reading
September 15, 2024
This is a must read. Please find time to read this book and better understand the ways that corporations get rich off Americas poor!!
January 10, 2025
Not having a political lean-just facts and examples.
February 8, 2025
Well written book balances being well researched but not overwhelming with details.
March 28, 2025
Well researched and beyond depressing.
April 1, 2025
Really interesting information on a lot of systems and programs we have past or present frequent contact with.
April 7, 2025
Great book
April 13, 2025
Enlightening and horrifying. The breadth of the depravity, the intentional and apathetic plundering of the most vulnerable made feel physically nauseous at times.
May 2, 2025
Everyone should read.
June 25, 2025
Feels like a book that Lisa Simpson would write
August 20, 2025
I wanted to like this book because the information contained in it is so good and important, but it was very dense and hard to read.
October 9, 2025
For those that enjoy investigative journalism style writing or those who enjoyed Poverty, by America or Evicted or Empire of Pain but most of all Profit and Punishment by Tony Messenger.
October 12, 2025
Well-researched and interesting look into the myriad of ways in which privatization and green have stacked the deck against those who need social services the most.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews