The average family in the top 20% of the income distribution receives about $35,000 in assistance from the government every year. The bottom 20% of income earners receive only $25,000. "We spend so much more subsidizing affluence and guarding treasure than we do attacking poverty," he says.
RUFUS GRISCOM: Could you share with us your broader mission and how your new book, “Poverty, by America,” supports that mission?
MATTHEW DESMOND: I want to end poverty. I want to be part of the movement that’s growing around the country not to treat it but to cure it, not to reduce it but to abolish it. And I say that because we can. We can, as a country, put an end to all this scarcity and deprivation in our midst.