A New American Poverty

There's a new American poverty, and it's spreading through every corner of our nation.

There's a new American poverty, and it's spreading through every corner of our nation.

The visuals are familiar: boarded-up homes, abandoned downtowns and shuttered factories. But underneath the visible signs of economic decline, a new social and cultural order has quietly established itself in all of the forgotten cities of the American interior.

I spent…