This review explains how and why the U.S. has systemically high poverty. Descriptive evidence shows U.S. poverty is: (a) a huge share of the population; (b) a perennial outlier among rich democracies; (c) staggeringly high for certain groups; (d) surprisingly high for those who "play by the...

Although the working poor are a much larger population than the unemployed poor, American poverty research has devoted much more attention to joblessness than to working poverty. Research that does exist on working poverty concentrates on demographics and economic performance and neglects...