Poverty: up close and very personal

What does it mean to be poor in America? To walk miles a day to a minimum-wage, no-benefits job? To go without glasses, or dental care or prenatal visits? To lose your apartment, your car, your job because you have no cushion if something goes wrong?

How does it feel to be judged by your teeth, your clothes, your skin? To be sneered at for having a cigarette, a drink or God forbid, children? To live a life that is often grueling, soul-crushing and wretched and know there is little chance that things will improve?

In Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America, Linda Tirado unflinchingly describes her reality, her roach-ridden, food stamp, perpetually angry reality where things like health care, a savings account or a vacation are luxuries. In this important book, Tirado explains and expands our understanding of what being poor is really like and reminds us that “poverty is a potential outcome for all of us.”