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

“With revealing stories, Gary Rivlin spotlights the systematic, widespread economic abuse of the poor by supposedly respectable corporations whose predatory conduct breeds misery and undoes many efforts by taxpayers to alleviate poverty.” —David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Free Lunch and Perfectly Legal

“Broke, USA will leave you mad as hell. How could we let this happen, businesses making fistfuls of money off the desperation of working Americans? Thanks, Gary Rivlin, for introducing us to folks like Bill Brennan, who early on saw it coming: predatory lending has destroyed communities. If only we had listened. Broke, USA is a wake-up call.” —Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here and Never a City so Real

“[A] scathing, important book.” —New York Times

“[A] blistering new investigation of the subprime economy.” —New Yorker

“Mr. Rivlin brings to his subject a genuine gift for storytelling…Tales of poverty made worse by unrepayable loans are moving, and Mr. Rivlin tells them vividly.” —Wall Street Journal

“A fascinating and very important work of investigation and explanation, which I hope gets the wide attention it deserves. Everyone has heard the story of the economic crises from the top end, featuring the financiers who cut corners and lined their own pockets through arrangements that put world prosperity at risk. Very few people have heard the story from the other end, the way Gary Rivlin tells it: about the struggling families trapped by the legal but grossly unethical practices of pawnshops, payday loan brokers, storefront check-cashing operations, and similar predatory schemes. 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.” —James Fallows, author of Breaking the News