Ivan Benson

“Most states still allow restaurant and other service workers to be paid a subminimum wage, which is a meager $2.13 an hour at the federal level, forcing nearly 5 million workers to survive on tips. (Where did the concept of subminimum wage come from? It’s a vestige of slavery. After emancipation, restaurant owners hired formerly enslaved Black workers for free. They had to rely on customers’ charity.) This is indefensible.”
― Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America

“That is what I mean when I say that we die many deaths in the course of our lives: The teenager in you dies, the college student in you dies, the single unattached you dies, the version of you that’s a parent of an infant dies, and so on. Once each of these mini-deaths occurs, there’s no going back. Maybe “dies” is a bit harsh, but you get the idea: We all keep moving forward, progressing from one stage or phase of our lives to the next.”
― Bill Perkins, Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life

“As Michael Harrington put it sixty years ago: “It is much easier in the United States to be decently dressed than it is to be decently housed, fed, or doctored.”6”
― Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America

“As the sociologist Gerald Davis has put it: Our grandparents had careers. Our parents had jobs. We complete tasks.”
― Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America