Matthew Desmond

Due to contract restrictions, this presentation will be available to view through February 2, 2024.

Matthew Desmond is a sociologist, MacArthur Fellowship recipient, and the founder and principal investigator of the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. He is the author of four books, each of which looks at socio-economic habits that perpetuate poverty and housing inequality.

His most recent book, Poverty, By America is a New York Times bestseller and explores why the U.S. has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to reach his conclusion: Poverty persists because the rest of us benefit from it. To become poverty abolitionists, Desmond argues that we must engage in a politics of collective belonging to usher in a new age of shared prosperity and true freedom.

Desmond is also the author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City and On the Fireline as well as the coauthor of two books on race and the editor of a collection of studies on severe deprivation in America. He’s written essays on educational inequality, dangerous work, political ideology, race, and social theory, and the inner-city housing market. You can find his works in the New York Times Magazine, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and the Chicago Tribune.

Presentations at Calvin University

Poverty, By America
Part of the: January Series
Friday, January 19, 2024 12:30:00 PM

Publication(s) for this event

Poverty and Profit in the American City
Part of the: January Series
Thursday, January 5, 2017 12:30:00 PM
Covenant Fine Arts Center Auditorium