TANF Isn't Just a Red State Thing.

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Poverty by America is a new book from Matthew Desmond. It looks at the ways in which states are spending federal welfare funds. In one state, Tennessee, $790 million of TANF money was left unspent for next year. Desmond says low-income Americans leave huge amount of aid unclaimed every year.

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.