Broke, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc.?How the Working Poor Became Big Business

Rivlin, Gary

ISBN 10: 0061733210 / ISBN 13: 9780061733215

Published by Harper Business, 2010

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Synopsis:

The era of deregulation has been a golden opportunity for those in the flourishing poverty industry: It gave entrepreneurs permission to devise high-priced products to sell to the credit-hungry working poor, including the instant tax refund and the payday loan. In the process, an industry larger than the casino business was born.

Broke, USA is Gary Rivlin’s report from the economic fringes. From the annual meeting of the National Check Cashers Association in Las Vegas to the foreclosure-riddled neighborhoods of Dayton, Ohio, Rivlin gives students a subprime tour featuring a cast of characters and memorable scenes. Rivlin profiles players like a former small-town Tennessee debt collector whose business offering cash advances to the working poor has earned him a net worth in the hundreds of millions, and Sandy Weill, who rode a subprime loan business into control of the nation’s largest bank. Rivlin parallels their stories with those of the struggling families trapped by the legal but unethical practices of pawnshops, payday loan brokers, storefront check-cashing operations, and other predatory schemes.

Broke, USA is a Fast Food Nation for the “poverty industry” that will also appeal to professors who have adopted Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed and David Shipler’s The Working Poor.

“The abuse of the working poor, as Rivlin describes it, is a hugely growing industry. This is a book with the potential to stimulate outrage-and political reform.”-The Atlantic

From the author of the New York Times Notable Book of the Year Drive By comes a unique and riveting exploration of one of America’s largest and fastest-growing industries—the business of poverty. Broke, USA is a Fast Food Nation for the “poverty industry” that will also appeal to readers of Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed) and David Shipler (The Working Poor).

About the Author: Gary Rivlin is the award-winning author of Fire on the Prairie; Drive By (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year); and The Plot to Get Bill Gates. A two-time Gerald Loeb Award winner, he has worked as a writer and reporter for the New York Times, Industry Standard, East Bay Express, and the Chicago Reader, and his articles have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Salon, Newsweek, and Wired, among other publications.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Broke, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc.?...
Publisher: Harper Business
Publication Date: 2010
Binding: hardcover
Condition: Very Good