Description

‘An important and necessary book’ – Roman Krznaric

‘This urgent book gives us renewed hope’ – Natasha Carthew

Despite being a focal point of Labour’s 2024 election campaign, poverty continues to rise. It’s now been 20 years since a prolonged decrease in poverty rates, with 14.3 million people and 31% of UK children living in poverty in 2025. Fixing inequality has never been more urgent.

In this eye-opening book, expert and host of the Poverty Unpacked podcast Keetie Roelen argues that empathy -not policy alone – is the missing ingredient in the fight against poverty. She takes readers inside poverty’s lived experience across the social spectrum, explores the latest ideas and programmes to combat it across the globe, and arms readers with the information needed to enact lasting social change.

‘If you want to understand the reality of poverty, start by reading this book’ – Olivier De Schutter

‘A stellar piece of work from a seasoned researcher’ – Mary O’Hara

‘A unique, sensitively-crafted and much-needed book’ – Sarah P Corbett

Previously published as The Empathy Fix.

Publisher Review

An important and necessary book exploring the chronic empathy deficit around global poverty, offering surprising and compelling solutions to one of the greatest injustices of our time. — Roman Krznaric, author of The Good Ancestor and Empathy The enormous achievement of this book is that it provides a lucid assessment of poverty, by connecting dry statistics to human faces and lived experiences… What emerges is a powerful picture showing the inventiveness of people living in poverty and their incredible resilience, but also how their efforts are hampered by povertyism – the abuse and negative stereotyping they confront on a daily basis. If you want to understand the reality of poverty, start by reading this book. — Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Now more than ever this book needs to find its way into the hands of not just global policy makers, but anyone who thinks that poverty doesn’t exist or that there are no solutions to our very often secreted difficulties. This urgent book gives us renewed hope – hope served perfectly and respectfully through the refreshing lens of empathy and equality, a must read! — Natasha Carthew, author of Undercurrent and founder of Working-class Writers Festival An excellent read, combining personal anecdotes with theory to unpack the global poverty crisis. It offers a powerful and compelling argument for the need of empathy and compassion in tackling poverty, providing real-world examples of how to put this in practice. A must-read for anyone wishing to see and act for a better world. — Jennifer Nadel, author of Sunday Times Bestseller, ‘WE: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere’ (with Gillian Anderson) and leader of Compassion in Politics Every school governor, teacher, community leader, decision maker and politician should read this book. Keetie Roelen delivers a radical, readable solution to a problem that will not go away unless we change the narrative. — Nicola Chester Keetie Roelen’s work on poverty has for many years been a key ‘go-to’ resource for those of us who write or campaign about the issue. This book is no exception. A stellar piece of work from a seasoned researcher that sheds fresh light on what has been a perennial problem. Significantly, Roelen does much more than assess the situation, she offers a new perspective on how we might address it – an empathy road map, if you will. This book is a must read for anyone seeking to understand the root cause and effects of poverty but, crucially, solutions. — Mary O’Hara, journalist and author of Austerity Bites Keetie Roelen has written a unique, sensitively-crafted and much-needed book that takes readers on a journey of understanding the complexities of the impact of poverty not just in terms of human needs but also addressing the often hidden or messier parts of poverty people avoid: attitudes, stigmas and unhealthy power dynamics within systems created to help people out of poverty. A vital book! — Sarah P Corbett, activist, author, speaker, and the founder of Craftivist Collective In a time when snap judgements are causing more and more division, this in-depth and nuanced exploration of the many faces of poverty is a refreshing and illuminating read. * Mahsuda Snaith, award-winning author of The Things We Thought We Knew * A powerful and deeply moving book that refuses to keep poverty at a safe distance. Vivid real-life stories bring the human reality behind the statistics in sharp focus… In a culture that too often dehumanises people in poverty, this book is urgent, humane, and demands we look again. — Marina Cantacuzino, author of ‘Forgiveness’