How billions are made off Americans living paycheck to paycheck—and the grassroots crusaders fighting back.

From the author of the New York Times Notable Book of the Year Drive By comes a unique and riveting exploration of one of America’s largest and fastest-growing industries—the business of poverty.

Investigative journalist Gary Rivlin chronicles the dramatic rise of fringe finance, documenting how check cashers, pawnshops, and installment operators built a multibillion-dollar business on the backs of the working poor.

The narrative moves from storefront operations to major financial centers, uncovering how commercial banks and subprime mortgage companies targeted credit-starved households before sparking nationwide legal battles.

Broke, USA is a Fast Food Nation for the “poverty industry” that will also appeal to readers of Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed) and David Shipler (The Working Poor).

• Predatory Lending: How venerable financial institutions like Household Finance and Fleet targeted credit-starved homeowners with hidden fees, ballooning payments, and deceptive insurance policies that stripped away hard-won equity.
• Payday Loans: Inside the rise of storefront cash-advance empires like Check Into Cash and Advance America, where entrepreneurs turned two-week bridge loans into lucrative, repeat-borrower cycles.
• Case Studies: From an elderly Ohio delivery driver to an Atlanta legal aid attorney uncovering reverse redlining, Rivlin brings human faces to the victims and crusaders on the front lines.
• Economic Disparity: An unvarnished look at how fringe financial sectors—including rent-to-own outlets, pawnshops, and rapid tax refund services—routinely extract billions in fees from families living on under [...] a year.