Perhaps America's greatest paradox and greatest tragedy is how a country with our riches and resources has a permanent underclass; an entire demographic with tens of millions of people — men, women, and children — who either currently exist in poverty or are one missed paycheck away from it. What should be impossible (or, at least, improbable) is instead a heart-breaking and embarrassing indictment of our nation. We are the United States of America. And, unfortunately, the United States of Poverty.

MSNBC's Matt Black and Trymaine Lee examine this national condition; journeying across our land from region to region and town to town to chronicle our poverty problem with a project called The Geography of Poverty. Hopefully, with more information about how and why this is happening, and why it is so endemic, we can begin taking meaningful steps to corral and, eventually, end it.