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b'Perhaps the biggest evidence that capitalism in America doesn\\u2019t work, at least not for everyone, is growing income inequality and the persistence of poverty. But what is the current state of poverty and inequality in the United States? Why do debates still persist about whether poverty has been eradicated? What do the numbers and official statistics tell us, and should we believe them? What do personal stories and experiences with poverty tell us that data cannot? If poverty has indeed been eradicated, what led to that achievement \\u2013 and if it still persists, what more can be done to abolish it?\\n\\nLast year on this podcast, we did a series about this topic, and we found these episodes to be surprising and more informative than most of the debates about poverty you\\u2019ll hear on the news. So, we wanted to condense that series down into a single episode that captures all of the highlights. The first speaker is former U.S. Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX), who argues in his recent book, "The Myth of American Inequality," that poverty is vastly overstated because official government data does not include transfer payments. The second is Princeton sociologist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Matthew Desmond, who argues in his recent book, "Poverty, by America," that poverty is a terrible scourge, that we have made no progress, and that it is a moral outrage.\\n\\nThe result is a nuanced, surprising, and informative debate on a multifaceted but important issue \\u2013 leaving our hosts, as well as, by extension, our listeners \\u2013 to formulate their own takeaways on what we can all do about them.'