"In the tradition of the classic photodocumentaries that emerged from the Depression years and the 1960s, Below the Line depicts the deplorable extent of poverty that exists in the United States today. In early 1986, Consumers Union commissioned esteemed photographer Eugene Richards to travel across the country to document the dimensions of American poverty. In 144 unforgettable photographs and 14 essays, Richards captures the hoplessness of urban youth, the struggle of Midwestern farmers, the squalor of day-to-day existence for Mexican-American immigrants living in Texas border towns. The men and women of Shantytown on new York City's Lower East Side, a fifteen year old Chicago girl with two children, a Korean war vet and ex-Green Beret living in a Boston shelter, these people tell their stories in a text culled from mroe than one hundred hours of interviews, accompanied by Richards' exceptional portraits."