Under the Affluence: Shaming the Poor, Praising the Rich and Sacrificing the Future of America by Tim Wise

Under the Affluence: Shaming the Poor, Praising the Rich and Sacrificing the Future of America Reviews

• 
  Jessaka

  This was like a blast in the face. I have to quit reading these kinds of books. So depressing, but so informative, so I guess I won't stop reading them. But at this moment I am reading a fun loving book, which I have to do in-between some books I read.
  
  First, I don’t believe that all the affluent people have these negative beliefs about welfare people, nor do I believe that that are all racists, and neither does the author. I know many wealthy people who are out there helping people to rise above what has been given to them, which is hard to rise above in our society.
  
  One of the things that this book does is quote from those in the media who are on the far right who believe that we have a lot of welfare fraud, and that people should just be able to pick themselves up, etc. Tim Wise's findings are what I call a blast in the face, because I knew only a little of what was being said in the media, because unless you watch Fox news or listen to Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, and others, you will not really get the full impact of all that is being said. And unless you work at a welfare office or have other facts, you won’t know the truth of the matter.
  
  I know a woman who worked at the welfare office and saw her put someone straight who believed that we should send the Hispanics back to Mexico and get everyone off welfare. One of her statements was, "It is hard to get on welfare." Tim Wise puts people straight. He has spent a lot of time researching this subject. As a result, this book is very well documented.
  
  Anyway, this is a book for those like me and for the unmentionable others who didn’t know the full story or who just don't know, period. It should be required reading in high schools.
  
  
• 
  6655321

  Ok, let's start with the good: Tim Wise is a very readable writer, he obviously cares about the subject at hand (the pathologization of poverty and the lauding of wealth) and he finds really good statistical, demographic and social psych information to tie his points together. He spoke at the college i am teaching at and he has an excellent sense of oratory of which his books are a reflection. So why am i disappointed in this offering? Firstly, i think one of the core problems is that plenty of people are good at identifying these problems (they stretch back to Karl Marx and before him to Utopian Socialists and before that to messianic religious movements who realized the have-nots are getting the short end of the stick). I'm not denying that it is an omnipresent reality that people persist in believing that "the rich deserve to be rich" and this is a way more approachable book than Capital vol 1 or any similar call to arms about the horrifying inequalities promoted by contemporary (at time of publication) governance. The problem with Wise is he bent too far in making this approachable: there is an inherent contradiction in pointing out the police are "underpaid" while simultaneously decrying them for being a necessary component for perpetuating inequality. There is additionally this tendency to push the "nobility in suffering" narrative (i.e. the cuts to welfare started under Reagan and finished by Clinton were based in hyper racist rhetoric and the turn against government intervention to help the poor was overwhelmingly part of non-whites gaining access to these agencies) BUT Wise wants to make the working-poor out to be good workers (rather than those who perhaps could do without work or a lot of the work they are stuck doing). That is, if we're going to push a narrative of regaining compassion, perhaps turning to some of the most racially homogeneous and virulently anti-immigrant and islamophobic countries (Scandinavian Socialists) as a model for success but rather maybe go back to the origin link between a lot of the radical left "some work is unfit for human beings, has no social value and exists solely for the benefit of an elite class of capitalists. Perhaps untangle why to be considered valid as human beings you turn back to the image of "hard working" or "disabled and suffering" because it might be a way that this book ends with you QUOTING FUCKING DJ OF DGR i.e. someone whose organization has utilized anti-racism in brutally silencing ways, who are dyed in the wool transphobic and advocate the extermination of about 80% of the human race which will overwhelmingly NOT BE WHITE PEOPLE WITH HIGH CALORIC LOADS. Maybe some compassion for people trapped in unlivable situations would make you NOT TAKE THE ROUTE OF QUOTING A RACIST, TRANSPHOBIC, ABLEST GARBAGE HUMAN BEING TIM WISE. Anyway, this isn't a bad book per se but i probably didn't *need* it as it worked with information i kinda already knew and then turns to easily palatable solutions that maybe could be replaced with more effective ones?
• 
  Anne

  This book is really hard to read if you are at all concerned about the current situation in our country. It is subtitled "shaming the poor, praising the rich and sacrificing the future of America" and Wise spends a lot of the book illustrating through statistics and stories how deeply ingrained in our society it is to shame the poor. And, of course, so much of this is based on ingrained racism. I fear the people who need to read and learn from this book will not. But, as he says in the last chapter, those of us who can tell stories of our own privilege and can illustrate the truth of poverty, must do that. At this point, in 2018, I fear this will be a long, hard fight.
• 
  Jamie

  All of Tim Wise's books are excellent and I recommend them, but I'd really encourage you to read this one - especially with all that's going on with our nation's political climate and the upcoming election. Examining how class, race, and sex are intertwined, he brilliantly explains structural inequality and the conditions and attitudes that helped create and continue to perpetuate a "culture of cruelty," especially against the poor, and what could be done to achieve a more just and compassionate America. Wise's oft-witty style, mixed with some incredibly moving stories and loads of supporting data, will stir an array of emotions in the reader. Everyone (even those who think they already know a lot about these topics) will learn something from this extremely well-researched and important book.
• 
  Mallory Johnson

  This book is focused on the culture of cruelty and shame the United States has around the poor and how our false narrative of meritocracy has exacerbated inequality. Wise has a great deal of empirical evidence to support his claims (which can be a bit much to sift through), but ultimately comes up with some pretty straightforward recommendations: that we shift the narrative away from blind meritocracy to acknowledge inequalities in our country and be willing to talk about the racial privilege and government support that allows us to be successful (such as great public schools that offered substantial opportunity for academic achievement down the line) and that we generate a culture of compassion in America that will allow us to come closer to creating equality of opportunity.
• 
  Craigtator

  This book takes every argument used to justify the class system in America, explains how it arose, and proceeds to demolish it with facts.
  
  If you want to become radicalized, here are the books to read:
  
  Hand to Mouth (Tirado): A ground level view of living poor in America
  
  Under the Affluence (Wise): A sweeping, macro take on class and race in America
  
  The Divide (Taibbi): Alternating chapters describing how the rich and the poor are dealt with in the American justice system
  
  Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Piketty): How if, left to run its natural course, the rich will always get richer
• 
  Lucky

  If I had to make a list of books that fight evil, this would be one of them.
  
  Wise uncovers the treacherous truth and the history of economic inequity in the United States. He discusses how Americans view government backed safety nets with racist goggles. In short, when post Great Depression white families struggled to make ends meet due to the economic downturn, government assistance was embraced by both Republican and Democrats alike. Support and unity throughout the country was the back drop of these times. Of course, only white families at the time benefited almost exclusively. But once the image of government assistance took the face of African Americans and people of color, Reagan and conservatives through the media exploited racial resentment to flip the script. By stating that government assistance created a culture of poverty, dependency, and laziness, Americans shifted its view on government safety nets.
  
  However, backed with much cited data and research, Wise debunks the myths about the culture of poverty and reveals how the wealthy minority is able to manipulate the white poor and middle class to help set policies to benefit the rich, even when those policies play against their own lives. Wise makes us reflect on how the ideology of meritocracy and racism influences the perpetual inequities. But he also gives us tools to help us pave the path towards turning this culture of cruelty to a culture of compassion.
  
  I truly believe that if every single open-minded American were to read this book, we will achieve to live in a country we claim to be.. equal and just.
• 
  Dolores

  This excellent book brings us face to face with the inequality and injustice that exist in the United States…”the culture of cruelty”. There are pages of statistics, with examples which will blow your mind. The comparison of distributing Super Bowl seats between the very rich and the poorest half of the fans was riveting. I couldn’t help feeling depressed and then angry as I continued to read. I hope our nation can somehow turn in a compassionate direction so that the American Dream will be possible for all our people. Since I’m in my 80’s I know it won’t happen in my lifetime….that saddens me.
  
  I received this eloquent book for free from Goodreads First Reads program.
  
• 
  Christian

  This is a strongly researched book about the economic inequalities in the United States with a focus on what is happening and why there are such inequalities. Wise focuses on the thinking that keeps the U.S. rooted in thinking that valorizes the rich and demonizes the poor as well as offering some suggestions to remedy the situation. It was a very compelling and saddening read.
• 
  Dawson Hughes

  Great book. Everyone should read it
• 
  Marie

  Latinos are about sixty percent more likely than whites to be unemployed (so much for the often heard refrain that they are taking all our good jobs) and African Americans are almost two and a half times as likely as whites to be out of work.
  
  The six heirs to the Walmart fortune are worth as much as the bottom forty percent of the American population, or roughly 120 million people. Meanwhile, most Walmart employees work for wages that leave them near the poverty line if not below it.
  
  Most disturbing, white families with a high school drop out as the head of household have a median net worth of $51,300, whole the median for black families with college educated heads of household is only $25,900.
  
  The United States has the third largest percentage of citizens living at half or less of the national median income- the international standard for determining poverty. Only Mexico and Turkey rate worse among thirty four modern, industrial democracies in terms of poverty rates.
  
  Over the last several decades the nation's tax burden has shifted off the backs of wealthy individuals and corporations and onto those of average workers and families, thereby contributing to overall income equality.
  
  Lack of compassion for people in need has long been fed by a belief among many that low income families and under employed people aren't really suffering that badly.
  
  What percentage of a country's citizens live at half or less of the nation's median wage?
  
  To be poor in a rich country, where one's worth is sadly too often presumed to be linked to one's possessions is to foster a particularly debilitating kind of relative deprivation. To be poor in a place where success is synonymous with being rich and famous increasingly means finding oneself voiceless, ignorable, criminalized and perceived as disposable. To live in a place where wealth is not only visibly flaunted, where the rich make no pretense to normalcy, and where one can regularly hear oneself being berated on the airwaves as losers and vermin and parasites precisely because you are poor or working at a minimum wage job, is to be the victim of a cruelty that the citizenry of poor nations, do not likely experience.
  
  Shouldn't the rich of the United States stop complaining about their taxes? The minimum wage they have to pay employees? If they lived in any other industrialized nation, the taxes they paid would be higher, regulations would be just as strict or more so, and their workers would have far greater protections and safety nets than in the United States.
  
  One of the most prominent types of modern Scroogism is chastising the poor for possessing any material items remotely connected to middle class normalcy, as if somehow the possession of modern conveniences like refrigerators, microwaves or televisions demonstrated that the poor in American aren't really suffering.
• 
  Heather

  First, this is a great companion piece to White Trash because of the historical discussions of poor-shaming. Second, Tim Wise is good at laying out arguments and overall does a solid job at debunking conservative myths about welfare dependency. Third, I was pleasantly surprised that this book was not purely bashing-- he did try to keep it in check. Fourth, one of the strengths was the collection of truly outlandish anti-poverty laws and commentaries made by conservatives. There's really no way to argue with it, and they were really quite damning in and of themselves. Finally, he balances discussion of race well. The things I didn't enjoy: inconsistent quality and neutrality of sources, rapid-fire numbers, and the final third (which was supposed to be suggestions for creating a culture of compassion) was not that helpful in its suggestions.
• 
  Liz

  Tim Wise takes a small detour from his usual anti-racist writing to compile a statistical take-down of the American myth that the wealthy are to be applauded for their hard work, and the poor are to be condemned for their lazy inability to provide for themselves.
  
  The reality Wise presents is depressing; reading the litany of statistics about our American greed was sickening. This is not an easy read.
• 
  Huong

  An advancement for vocabulary and facts about systematic discrimination for me. The author provides a long list of reference at the end. I appreciate that.
• 
  Erik

  Sad story of growth of inequality in US. Weslthy get away with anything and poor are told they just need to work harder as if the wealthy didn't inherit a lot to start with. Not paying a living wage means people struggle no matter how many jobs they work. Four stars for weak third part on how to improve. The only important message in this part if improving humsn connection. When did making millions off the backs of the workers replace looking out for other humans to help them live.
• 
  City Lights Booksellers & Publishers

  RH Reality Check
  "Under the Affluence is an important source of data—bubbling over with hard, footnoted facts—to strengthen readers' resolve against the escalating inequalities in the United States … the book is an essential compendium of numbers, one that will prove useful in strategizing to end inequality and arming readers with the facts they need to tackle these seemingly intractable problems. Overall, the book is an impassioned and heartfelt defense of the poor that is rooted in the idea that America can, as Wise says, 'crawl from under the affluence to a place more equitable.’"––Eleanor J. Bader
  
  Kirkus Reviews
  "Acclaimed inequality essayist and community activist Wise (Dear White America: Letter to a New Minority, 2012, etc.) reports on the damage being incurred in America whereby 'the have-nots and have-lessers are dehumanized while the elite are venerated.' In describing how modern society has become a 'culture of cruelty,' as past attempts to sympathize and support those less fortunate have collapsed beneath the weight of classism and racism, the author explores the framework and the consequences of the nation's economic crisis. He lucidly ponders its genesis as well as the ramifications of wealth inequality, including the rampant demonization of the poor and the valorization of the rich by way of what he refers to as 'Scroogism.' Wise’s extensive experience as an anti-racism activist and a longtime member of the radical left greatly informs his text, which demonstrates, through facts and case histories, that America's enduring racial divide continues to be directly tied to its economic problems. His well-rounded scholarly discussion benefits from the varying intellectual perspectives he offers, including opinions on the damaging effects of blind corporate obeisance to the 'myth of meritocracy.' What is apparent, he believes, is the need for solutions to achieve the kind of 'culture of compassion' necessary for true redemption and a dismantling of social stratification. Wise recognizes that this achievement is a tall order to fill, particularly in the presence of the current elite economic oligarchy possessing the capital and the influence to trounce equalization efforts. Sharp and provocative … the book concludes with hope that his analysis and those like it will spur a counter-narrative outwardly challenging the false notion that both the wealthy and the poor 'deserve' their places within our culture’s economic stratum. An impassioned, intellectual, and vigorously dense report on the repercussions of severe socioeconomic imbalance in the United States."
  
• 
  Ingrid

  A good book if not obviously liberal in nature. Some of the language was intention in its trying to get people angry. And while this is something people should be upset about, getting angry doesn't solve problems. Some of the facts seemed so unreal that I would have to fact check, but if true a very well written book about a hot topic.
• 
  Jennifer

  Despite having rather sternly told myself I was not allowed to check out any books because I already had too many checked out at home, I saw this one in the new non-fiction section and could not resist. Reading it swayed me more to Bernie than any articles actually about the candidates did. The system of inequality is just too unjust for tinkering to fix. It needs a sledgehammer.
  
  Reading this book was highly emotional for me. In many sections, especially early on in the book, the ideas Wise was selling I was already convinced of, but the details and examples were so maddening that I had to skim over them to avoid flying into a rage. At the same time, there were so many stories, studies, argument that we so strongly worded that I had to quote them on goodreads, on Facebook, read them to my family. One section in particular pushed me over the edge, and I had to put the book down so that I could go buy my own personal copy that I could mark up and underline for future debates, so that I could safely return my library copy.
  
  If yu want to learn about systematic inequality, read this book. If you want to know how our (white) racism has damned us, causing us to shred our own safety nets just to erode the (rather more wobbly) nets for people of color, read this book NOW.
• 
  Bill

  The bad news (for me) is Tim Wise wrote exactly the book I was going to write...I even had begun researching (that's how I stumbled onto it). The good news though is he is a great writer and has hit it out of the park. I wish this book could become some sort of required civics reading. It covers income inequality, the myths around welfare, the coddling of the rich, the history of the way economics developed in this country, white privilege and race, the broken notions of who is deserving and undeserving, and so much more. Fantastic reading. The rare 4 Martinie glasses rating.
• 
  Andrew Kline

  I feel like this would have worked better as a feature article in a magazine. I'm not a big nonfiction reader, but I'm trying to expand; unfortunately, while this started out as a compelling read, it quickly got bogged down with paragraphs of numbers and data that were relevant, but started to feel repetitive. I know the poor are treated horrendously, that's one of the reasons I picked up the book, I don't need 100 pages telling me I'm right. I'm glad I read what I got through, and Wise is an excellent writer, but I was not interested in finishing the book.
• 
  Julie Webb

  This was an amazing read. I've heard a lot of talk about "the poor" as if those less fortunate are some how not human but a thing. Compassion is certainly lacking. This book forces a look at this difficult subject and it's complexities. Full of information it is a must read, especially for those who feel compelled to pass judgement on others.
  
  I received a free copy of this book in a goodreads giveaway. Opinions are my own.
• 
  Cherie

  A- This book was very dense, but also very fascinating. Wise looks into why and how the U.S. glorifies rich people, demonizes poor people. He destroys the "You can do anything if you put your mind to it" Horatio Alger BS, and destroys the "welfare mother" myth. Tons of statistics (that's what makes it dense - imagine fact-checking it) but really illuminating stuff.
• 
  Amelia Holcomb

  Based on the most current news media available in 2015. I zipped through just because of that. I always love Wise's composition but was a little bored by the content (only because I was already familiar with most of the articles he referenced).
• 
  Molly Anderson

  Should be required reading in any economics class. Should be required reading of anyone trying to make a living in the U.S.
  The way we think of wealth has to change. Tim Wise uses the simplest language, statistics, common sense and facts to illustrate this beautifully.
• 
  Warren

  Interesting read, a must read for those who need to be awakened. A lot of data being represented in this book. Is that a good or bad thing? Well that's up to the reader to make that call.