The radio program “On the Media” recently launched a series designed to correct popular misconceptions about poverty.
Today, more than 45 million Americans live in poverty. The problem has been addressed countless times since the nation’s founding, but it persists, and for the poorest among us, it gets worse. America has not been able to find its way to a sustainable solution, because most of its citizens see the problem of poverty from a distance, through a distorted lens. So we present "Busted: America's Poverty Myths," a series exploring how our understanding of poverty is shaped not by facts, but by private presumptions, media narratives, and the tales of the American Dream.
US Partnership on Mobility from Poverty member Kathryn Edin, co-author of “$2:00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America,” is one of the most prominent voices in episode two, “Who Deserves To Be Poor?”