Enlarge this image Spencer Platt/Getty Images Spencer Platt/Getty Images The United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, yet over 10 percent of people – nearly 40 million – live in poverty. In this episode, we talk with Pulitzer Prize-winning author and sociologist Matthew Desmond, whose book Poverty, By America, helps explain why poverty persists in the United States, how it's holding all of us back, and what it means to be a poverty abolitionist.