Disposable: America's Contempt for the Underclass

by Sarah Jones

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Powerful and heartfelt, Disposable is a compassionate examination of the most overlooked people in the United States.

In this “barn burner of a book” (The New York Times Book Review) New York magazine senior writer Sarah Jones blends personal stories and in-depth reporting to expose the harsh reality of America’s culture of inequality and the devastating impact of the pandemic on our nation’s most vulnerable people.

In the tradition of Matthew Desmond’s Evicted and Andrea Elliot’s Invisible Child, Disposable is a poignant exploration of America’s underclass, left vulnerable by systemic racism and capitalism. Here, Sarah Jones delves into the lives of the essential workers, seniors, and people with disabilities who were disproportionately affected by COVID-19—not due to their age or profession, but because of the systemic inequality and poverty that left them exposed.

The pandemic served as a stark revelation of the true state of America, a country where the dream of prosperity is a distant mirage for millions. Jones argues that the pandemic didn’t create these dynamics but rather revealed the existing social mobility issues and wealth gap that have long plagued the nation. Behind the staggering death toll are stories of lives lost, injustices suffered, and institutions that failed to protect their people.

Jones brings these stories to the forefront, transforming the abstract concept of the pandemic into a deeply personal and political phenomenon. Her book “stands as a reminder of the lessons our country has willfully ignored—an especially stark one with Donald Trump back in the White House and further shredding the social safety net” (The Washington Post).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982197438
Publisher:	Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	02/24/2026
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.38(h) x 0.92(d)

About the Author

Sarah Jones is a senior writer for New York magazine, where she covers politics and religion. She was previously a staff writer for The New Republic and her work has been published by The Nation, the Columbia Journalism Review, and Dissent magazine. Jones won the 2019 Mirror Award for commentary and has been a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She is active on social media (@OneSarahJones). Originally from rural Washington County, Virginia, she now lives in Brooklyn with her husband.

Editorial Reviews

A barnburner of a book.” —New York Times Book Review

“Five years after the World Health Organization declared covid a pandemic, Jones’s book stands as a reminder of the lessons our country has willfully ignored—an especially stark one with Donald Trump back in the White House and further shredding the social safety net.” —Washington Post

“Jones chronicles the human toll of COVID and how the pandemic served to exacerbate the deep inequalities already baked into American society. The book not only explores the ways in which illness intersects with poverty, race, and disability; it also critiques an American economy that leaves many, including herself, living ‘[a] middle-class life threatened on all sides by catastrophe.’” —Kate Tuttle, The Boston Globe

“A deeply reported, enlightening, and empathetic look at the populations that were hit hardest by the pandemic . . . The most powerful parts of her book are the personal stories she gathers from families affected by COVID-19.” —Associated Press

“Incisive . . . In the tradition of Barbara Ehrenreich, [Jones] combines interviews and firsthand observation of poverty with deeply researched history. . . . A full-throated, class-first critique of how the right-wing tendencies of American capitalism made the pandemic so devastating for the working poor . . . What Jones brings to this telling is an unflinching focus on American capital, its unholy marriage to the political class, and the way that union has eroded ordinary people’s faith in authorities.” —The New Republic

“Sarah Jones’s dispatches on culture, politics, and religion for New York over the years have been essential reading. . . . A gripping, important subject given justice by its chronicler.” —Inside Hook

“A disquieting examination of the systemic flaws laid bare by Covid. ... Jones’s vision of America isn’t one where the poor stumbled into Covid-era tragedy by happenstance but one in which it was intentionally engineered, and she interweaves her account with a mind-boggling assortment of anecdotes and insights that showcase systemic harm and humiliation. ... It’s a ghastly panorama of the American way of life.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Written with brutal honesty, Disposable is an unflinching look at a country that does less than nothing to protect its most vulnerable people. . . . Infuriating but vital, Disposable will be especially appreciated by readers of The Anti-Ableist Manifesto and Evicted. . . . Readable and compassionate.” —Shelf Awareness (starred review)

“Jones examines ways in which the excesses of predatory capitalism can be contained. . . . A powerful, heartfelt argument for a more humane economics.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Sarah Jones’s writing about economic disparity is always compelling. In this book, she blends personal narrative and reporting to tell the story of America’s devastating culture of inequality. It’s a subject that couldn’t be more timely, or urgent.” —LitHub, “Most Anticipated Books of 2025”

“Disposable is a massive work of journalism—and a masterful act of love. Meticulously reported, voraciously researched, and poignantly rendered, Sarah Jones makes the blurry clear and the unseen visible. Both a scathing rebuke of corporate health care and a clear-eyed call to action, this book reminds us that we should not and cannot put the pandemic behind us.” —Beth Macy, author of Dopesick

From the Publisher

Sarah Mollo–Christensen performs with clear diction and a serious tone that fits this investigative reporting.”

AudioFile

An unflinching look at a country that does less than nothing to protect its most vulnerable people.”

Shelf Awareness (starred review)

A barnburner of a book.”

New York Times Book Review

Jones’s book stands as a reminder of the lessons our country has willfully ignored.”

Washington Post

A powerful, heartfelt argument for a more humane economics.”

Kirkus Reviews

A ghastly panorama of the American way of life.”

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The most powerful parts of her book are the personal stories she gathers from families affected by COVID-19.”

Associated Press

2024-11-23
An indignant cri de coeur against the practice of contemporary capitalism to make people, yes, disposable.

It is a crime against humanity, born of contempt indeed, that so many Americans—members of ethnic minorities, immigrants, the elderly and disabled—live lives in which it is “normal” to suffer privation. “In America,” assertsNew York magazine writer Jones, “normal for millions can mean fear and hunger and, sometimes, death.” All that came true with the arrival of the Covid-19 epidemic on the watch of a “slumlord president” whose brief it was, by her account, to protect the interests of the ruling class. The pandemic, Jones holds, was a prime example of what Friedrich Engels called “social murder.” One victim was her grandfather, who transitioned from working-class life to “the mercy of whatever rehabilitation center that he and our family could afford,” there being scarcely any safety net for such people in a society based on the fundamental belief that rich and poor enjoy those conditions because somehow they deserve them. “My grandfather died because a virus killed him, but other hands helped him toward his demise,” Jones holds. Others she profiles are among the “essential workers,” who are disproportionately members of ethnic minorities and whose low rate of pay all too often condemns them to poor, overcrowded housing conditions that are perfect vectors for a pandemic. Jones examines ways in which the excesses of predatory capitalism can be contained, from reparations to the reconstitution of labor unions, higher wages, and other protections. The pandemic laid bare the casual cruelty and inequity of a system that, for most people, means “there is work, and then death.” Undoing that system, Jones insists, will require a radical solution: “Excise an inhuman political economy from the national body, and replace it with something else, something we haven’t yet tried.”

A powerful, heartfelt argument for a more humane economics.

Kirkus Reviews