A People's History of Poverty in America

by Stephen Pimpare

A sweeping, revelatory history of poverty in America from the nineteenth century to today, told through the eyes and experiences of the poor themselves. "When you live in a shelter, other people control your life. They tell you when you may come in and when you must go out. They tell you when you can take your shower and when you can wash your clothing." —from A People's History of Poverty and Welfare in America In this compulsively readable social history, a brilliant new addition to The New Press's acclaimed People's History series, political scientist Stephen Pimpare vividly describes poverty from the perspective of poor and welfare-reliant Americans from the big city to the rural countryside. He focuses on how the poor have created community, secured shelter, and found food and illuminates their battles for dignity and respect. Through prodigious archival research and lucid analysis, Pimpare details the ways in which charity and aid for the poor have been inseparable, more often than not, from the scorn and disapproval of those who would help them. In the rich and often surprising historical testimonies he has collected from the poor in America, Pimpare overturns any simple conclusions about how the poor see themselves or what it feels like to be poor—and he shows clearly that the poor are all too often aware that charity comes with a price. It is that price that Pimpare eloquently questions in this book, reminding us through powerful anecdotes, some heart-wrenching and some surprisingly humorous, that poverty is not simply a moral failure.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Poverty, Economics, Sociology, American History

322 pages, Hardcover

First published November 3, 2008

About the author

Stephen Pimpare is founder and director of the UNH Public Service & Nonprofit Leadership Program and a Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy; he has previously taught at Columbia University, NYU, Simmons University, and the City University of New York. His second book, A People's History of Poverty in America, received the Michael Harrington Award from the American Political Science Association “for demonstrating how scholarship can be used in the struggle for a better world.”

Pimpare previously served as a senior-level administrator of not-for-profit organizations addressing issues of poverty, hunger, and homelessness throughout New York City. One of the programs he helped to create, One City Café, New York’s first non-profit restaurant, was hailed by the New York Times as “the reinvention of the soup kitchen” and subsequently received the Victory Against Hunger Award from the U.S. Congressional Hunger Center.

Reviews

[sologdin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A useful addition to the ‘people’s history’ series overseen by subcommandante Zinn. Approach is thematic (eating, sleeping, working, revolting, &c.), rather than strictly chronological, and is heavy on quotations of the subaltern. Text is therefore consistent with Zinn’s conception of people’s history as a subgenre, as opposed to Morton’s centralizing dialectical-voice-from-the-heavens approach (which I nevertheless also appreciate, and which is used with good effect by Nzongola-Ntalaja, say).

These virtues make it difficult to centralize for a quick review. Some highlights:

“The welfare state was not an innovation of the national government during the Great Depression but a creation of the first large American cities, much of it created by poor people themselves” (30). This is a humane contrast to the prior practice of ‘boarding out,’ which involved, since the 17th century, auctioning off paupers to households as servants, which households were responsible for their maintenance (id.);

In 2004, payday loan brokers were replacing pawnshops as the indigent’s line of credit, with “annualized rates of 350 to 1000 percent” (35);

Standard workhouse was very Cool Hand Luke: “others created make-work projects (moving stones from one side of the yard to the other then back again” (44);

Finding it “easier to fixate upon drink as the cause of misfortune, perhaps, than to see it as merely a symptom,” many institutions “sought to cure intemperance,” thinking that it needed “moral reform rather than medical intervention” (45);

A typology of homelessness provided by one interlocutor: “hippies and punks; the classic bum; the con man; the perpetually helpless (genuinely but constantly in need); lost souls; flaming assholes; trust fund babies; teenage runaways; hermits; Vietnam vets; blacks; the sexually deranged; in-and-out-of-the-joint; the secret homeless; skid row types; bohemians; spiritual seekers; the martyrs; acid casualties; natural leaders; and those who ‘just can’t pay the fucking rent’” (61);

Per DVA, “a quarter of a million or more American veterans are homeless on any given night, and one third of all homeless men are vets” (63);

War veterans were the first beneficiaries in the US of poverty relief, and the first targets of the rightwing, even after the war for independence: "the enactment of our first national cash entitlement program, even though it targeted its benefits to the most ‘worthy’ of those in need, led immediately to a backlash and to cutbacks” (65);

We similarly see a “taxonomy of tramps”: “pillagers, moochers, floppers, stiffys, timbers, mush fakers, stickers, pegs, blinkys, wingys, pokey stiffs, phoney stiffs, proper stiffs, gandy stiffs, alkee stiffs, stew bums, fuzzy tails, gay cats, dynamiters, yeggs, Jockers, preshuns, punks, gonsils, and more” (anyone know WTF any of that means?) (66-67);

We see that some kindly rightwingers advised “when a tramp asks you for bread, put strychnine or arsenic in it, and he will not trouble you any more” (94);

And so on. Lots of great details. More impressive still is the analysis of relief programs diachronically. For instance, lengthy section presents a “definition of the welfare state” as “historically has been understood to be a collection of government programs that provide citizens with money, food, shelter, health care, and education” (167), but also that “decommodify labor--the extent to which they make it possible for citizens to survive outside the labor market” (id.). The assumption is typically “that welfare state institutions are benevolent” but here it is argued that “the history of AFDC and TANF clearly shows [that] American relief has also functions to regulate the sexual, reproductive, and labor market behavior of vulnerable populations” (167-68). Thereafter comes the relation of the welfare state to slavery, which had been alleged by proponents of chattel slavery as a beneficent program for African Americans. The argument here is that much assistance has required some form of work, typically awful work in appalling conditions. (The argument is not the objectivist style ‘welfare enslaves the rich person who pays for freeloaders,’ NB.) Reminds us in this connection that “it is only recently that we have not thought of the prison as a welfare state institution” (185), with much discussion of this thesis (convict labor as post-slavery slavery, i.e.)

Well written, informative, &c.

Recommended for those who believe that the culture of poverty can be a revolutionary force, readers who, like Sen, redefine poverty as a ‘lack of freedom,’ and persons who behave precisely like a horse, have to be cared for like babies, & ought to be in an institution for the feeble-minded.

[W. Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was deeply moved by the many personal and first-hand accounts of Americans living in poverty contained in this book. I felt sympathy for many of them, and I felt compassion toward those whose existences are so much less wealthy than my own meager one. Best of all, this book is not simply a statement of fact. I appreciate (even if I do not always agree with him) Pimpare's bold assessment of our individual and social responsibilities toward the poor and poverty. I have long thought it inexcusable that the richest nation in the world is home to so many homeless. I hope policy makers are reading this book!

[Ollie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard to imagine how you can go wrong with a "People's History" book. In this one, we hear from the ones who suffer the most from poverty: the poor, the homeless, the vagabonds, the ones on welfare, etc. They have plenty to say about what it's like to feel helpless, what it's like to have next to nothing, what it's like to be screwed by the system and others in poverty, and what it's like to fight back. Very inspiring and highly recommended.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good inside look at poverty in America, and what it is really like, covering a long time span, showing how the same lies and condemnations from the elite and politicians blame the people for what they, the politicians/elite created.

[Lynn Rainsford · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an enlightening book about America's poor. It examines society's views on the poor, why the poor are that way, and why it is so hard to escape.

[Billie Pritchett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm really glad to have read Stephen Pimpare's People's History of Poverty in America, as depressing as the news of the conditions of American poverty are. This is a must-read for anyone who would like to learn about the extent to which Americans are stricken with poverty, largely through no fault of their own. Unforunately for most Americans, we have no had the luxury to have been born to wealthy families and since we have not, the opportunities we have are limited in terms of how much money our families can invest in our future. This should be so obvious as to not be worth saying, but people often invoke equality of opportunity as though the starting conditions were exactly equal for Americans starting out, which is evidently false.

Something work keeping in mind that is revealed in Pimpare's book is that much of the care that we have provided to our poor in the United States has been the result of a great deal of solidarity on behalf of people to actually do something about it, by putting pressure on their governments to get them to change. And lest any of us get on our high horses or try to make too many hard-and-fast distinctions about the deserving and undeserving poor in America, here is a fact from the book: "Over the course of their lives, 65 percent of all Americans use some form of means-tested aid, which you must be poor enough to qualify for--food stamps, Medicaid, disability income or cash relief. Most of us will be on welfare." The conclusion: "Being on welfare is not an aberrant behavior confined to the idle and undeserving poor, as myth would have it," but affects most all of us.

[Tea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended reading for anyone who wants a wider, deeper picture of what poverty has and continues to look like for USians on the bottom rungs. Includes more topics than I was expecting and in the best way possible.

Also way way more readable than a good half of stuff I read for college. More than half probably.

[Toby Mustill · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important addition to the “People’s History” series. A themed account of the lives of poor folks across history and across the world.

I will say it’s a little less engaging than some others in the series and does get bogged down in parts. Hence why it took me so long to read - I take breaks when I need time to process. Still a good and important book.

[Prentice Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic coverage of a difficult subject

Wonderfully detailed account of the factors and faces of poverty throughout American history often in the words of those who’ve experienced it.

[Ryan O'Malley · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important addition to the people’s history series. This does a great job amplifying the voices of low income folks throughout history

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Poverty is the enemy of human happiness." -Samuel Johnson

For the brief period of time that I pursued my Ph.D at Boston University (before someone started knocking my wife up and ruining my plans), my area of research was on the impact of poverty on school children. One of the terms that really has stuck with me comes from developmental neurology: the swamping effect. The swamping effect occurs when an overwhelming number of environmental factors batters a developing nervous system, limiting its development, restricting its growth, and retarding its potential. Poverty, for children, has a broad-based, multifaceted, relentlessly determined swamping effect on their physical, emotional, and intellectual development.

In this book, the author--a professor of Social Work in some college I never heard of--lets those living in poverty speak for themselves. The book is organized by topic: food, shelter, medical care, community, resistance,etc.-- and spans the totality of American history. There are voices from Colonial times, the Civil War, the Progressive Era, the Great Depression, the Reagan and Clinton eras, etc. What comes across over and over again is how powerless the poor feel, and how difficult it is to pull one's self up by the proverbial bootstraps and become self-sufficient. Many people, especially those who are born into poverty, have a very difficult time extracting themselves from it. For many, the physical and intellectual damage that is done by a childhood spent in poverty makes the likelihood of later success in life quite low. It is heartbreaking, and it is a part of our society. Always has been.

The book does not propose any cures for poverty, although those who are poor certainly make their needs and desires known ("bread and roses," if you know that reference). For myself, having become quite knowledgeable about the history of anti-poverty programs in the United States over the past decade for so, I can tell you that the current assault on our social safety net--flawed and imperfect though it may be--will result in tremendous human suffering, as well as long-term damage to the next generation of Americans. The only thing worse than some inefficient government sponsored program to meet a child's basic needs is no program at all.

Jesus said the the merciful are blessed and will themselves be shown mercy. May God have mercy on all of us for what we are allowing to happen in our country.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

NB: This is not a proper review (not that I can write proper reviews!).

I usually like footnotes, but this is footnote heavy, and I wish some things would have been elaborated on, like a few mentions about Tammany Hall (which, I learned of in the last book I read, a cozy mystery by author Rhys Bowen. Aren't books just wonderful? I think I vaguely remember learning something about Boss Tweed in school, but that was ages ago! [I've just looked up Tammany on WikiP....] I digress.).

I know, in this age of Google, I could easily find out about Tammany online (like I'm doing now), but if there are going to be a ton of footnotes, why not add another to explain that?
That said, this is a well-researched book about the history of poverty in the U.S. Two things that are still with me after having finished this book are:

1. Pages 146, last paragraph through the end of page 148.
2. Page 244, an excerpt from National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI), which, among other things, says that the U.S. has "The highest rate of child poverty among industrialized nations."*

The author also explains in the epilogue that measuring poverty is not easy, and, from what I could glean, current measures are based on old systems of thinking, and are simply outdated. Plus, poverty can be different in other regions, i.e., I'm dirt poor in San Fran, but I'd be considered well off in say, Appalachia (I think). So, a national measuring system of poverty simply won't do.

Do give this book a try. I give it two stars, but that's not an awful rating; it was, for me, a bit trying at times to read (probably due to my not reading footnote heavy type books that often).

*The footnote for this provided a link that didn't have that excerpt on it, but I dug around and found it here (same site, just located on another page within the site):
http://www.nesri.org/human_rights_us/...

[Thom DeLair]

This book attempts to investigate the broader cultural narrative of the bottom two tenths of America. The abundance of quotations made it a bumpy read for me, but the point was to provide a multitude of perspectives. Poverty is both extremely common and, as Pimpare argues, extremely misunderstood. The ending is devoted to defining and more deeply understanding poverty after covering the nine themes of the book.

One of the more interesting points brought up is role of reciprocity within lower income communities or groups. It kind of reminded me of the role of reciprocity within hunter gather cultures, not that I want to make any sharp comparisons. Personally I was hoping for a bit more of a narrative rather than a discussion of themes, but it gave a lot of breadth to critical aspect of understanding history and how to understand some important themes or components of many very different people that struggle with poverty.

By the end of the book I thought a bit about my own class, how I am surrounded by it, it's something that everyone comes to learn what they were born into and how they "fit in" to a society. I think the book's strongest aspect is presenting accounts that shows an economically rational actor that is living in poverty.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

It could be that I have read a lot of literature on America's poor and working poor. It could by that I have spent a lot of time talking to, counselling and helping the poor and working poor attain some of their goals. This book is good. It is in fact very good. Pimpare does a really effective job in debunking myths surrounding America's poor and the ideological, racial and ethnic motivations behind such myths. He does it by quoting extensively from interviews, testimony and memoirs of people who have experienced poverty. So he is very successful here as well. What I liked, in particular, was that the book did not fall into the trap of being the kind of liberal poverty porno that I feel authors like Barbara Ehrenriech and Jonathan Kozal often fall into: titilating in the self-flagellating tsk tsk we are a bad country sort of way. At the same time, he quoted extensively from other works that if you have read extensivley from the socialogical investigations of poverty you will have come across. This is, nonetheless a very good read, and it would be an excellent introductory text for anyone interested in American policy and history revolving around poverty.

[Miroku Nemeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Middle-class people have rights and they like to think that everyone does. The rich, of course, know that rights are bought and sold, and the poor know it too. Those between them live in an illusion.".

Lars Eigner, quoted in Pimpare's "A People's History of Poverty in America" (141)

Not an easy book to read, but very much a necessary book to read.

[Kelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Offers some interesting first-person perspectives that you don't often hear on this subject. It made me think about my old welfare-to-work clients in a different light.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although not the primary focus of the book, I was unaware of how deeply both poverty and the welfare system are women's issues.

[Wordwizard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting. Introduction was fairly dry, I thought, but the rest of the book was extremely accessible.

[Hyojin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Make you rethink about what poverty means in reality. Well researched, eye-opening book. Highly recommended.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

sadly, in america, some things never change.

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Contains material that everyone should read. You may think you know all you need to know about poverty. You don't.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great history of how we have and do conceive of poverty in America.

[Sheri Irons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classwork

Good for class. It's a great book to read for classes. I have nothing more to say about this book.

[Georgia Rae · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great introduction and I look forward to reading more of the works referenced in this book.

[Bridget · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very sad but very illuminating. Read this book if you are at all curious.

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars

[Jon]

heard author interview w/Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive