"Joanne Samuel Goldblum, CEO and founder of the National Diaper Bank Network, and Colleen Shaddox, a journalist and activist, give a book shedding light on the realities faced by those living in poverty across the United States and provide a road map for eradicating poverty via policy changes"--

Recounts the experiences of the author, a college graduate, as he spends one year living as a homeless person and learns valuable lessons about what it takes to break out of the cycle of poverty in the United States.

"Three of the nation's top scholars, known for tackling key mysteries about poverty in America, turn their attention from the country's poorest people to its poorest places. Based on a fresh, data-driven approach, they discover that America's most disadvantaged communities are not the big cities that get the most notice. Instead, nearly all are rural. Little if any attention has been paid to these places or to the people who make their lives there....

A journalist describes the years she worked in low-paying domestic work under wealthy employers, contrasting the privileges of the upper-middle class to the realities of the overworked laborers supporting them.