Welcome to The Poverty Trap, a newsletter and podcast for people who are fed up with the inequality baked into America’s system and want to individually and collectively make change.

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“You do great work, Joan. I don’t always get to read your newsletter, but when I do, I leave more informed and more compassionate…” Amy B.

Wishing Our Substack Community A Happy And Healthy New Year!

I want to thank our Substack community for your support in 2025—your reading and sharing of The Poverty Trap helped make this year our most successful yet! Most of all, your insightful and thoughtful comments added so much to my posts and to the conversation on The Poverty Trap— I am so grateful for you, and what we can do together to make the lives of those living in poverty a bit better, and in the process, make our country better.

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Here are the posts you read, shared and commented on the most in 2025!

— In January, you “enjoyed” this post on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s history and legacy in the context of today’s world of anti-DEI, ICE raids and soaring reports of violent racist and anti-semitic attacks.

— In March, we scored two hits with you:

The first post titled “The Working Homeless”, which discussed how millions of Americans could work full time and still be literally homeless, struck a chord.

The second post titled “Thoughts on Poverty” and featuring an interview between Mathew Desmond (author of “Poverty By America”) and Jon Stewart garnered over 1.3 thousand views and many interesting comments—particularly once we all learned how little money and effort it would take for our government to pull the majority of Americans out of poverty.

— And concluding our round-up of your favorite Poverty Trap posts for 2025….

This post from November titled “I Was On Medicaid And Food Stamps...And This Is What Will Happen When These Already Meager Programs Are Cut” sparked a great conversation about the impending cuts to our country’s social safety net.

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I appreciate each of you and hope you all will continue to join us next year on The Poverty Trap! In the meantime, why not scroll our archives and share with your friends and family?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on these and other posts in the Comment Section below.

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