This is a limited enrollment reading group to explore the legal and policy responses to poverty in the United States and to consider how the law shapes the lives of poor people and communities. The first week lays a foundation of the constitutional doctrines affecting the area, followed the next week by a discussion of a summary history of United States social welfare policy. In the subsequent sessions, students are responsible, with the instructor, for selecting readings on selected poverty law topics, such as: housing and homelessness, education policy, hunger and food security, and immigration and low-wage work.