A group of working class people run a dangerous path toward a promised Elysium, and those who survive are rewarded with nothing they can appreciate or comprehend.

A woman returns home to her family having just slept with another man. At dinner, her son gets into an argument with his father about their privilege. As the narrative moves back to the time they spent abroad in Nigeria, Burma and Ecuador, fractures in the family life are revealed.

A young news reporter writes about a peculiar man in his mid-50s who is impoverished and suffers from a chronic illness — but when the man is accused of lying, the news reporter must decide whether to continue reporting the ill man's story or to accept that his claims are false.

On the Great Plains, an aging farmer and his wife struggle to sell their produce amid an increase in frozen food manufacturing. The farmer must figure out how to avoid the fate of his neighbors, who were pushed out of business and into welfare dependence.

A wealthy man in Chicago suddenly learns about the untimely death of a poor woman he'd been dating. Confronted with her child, whom he'd begun to develop a bond with, he must determine to what extent he will allow his greed to overcome his compassion.

A working class man who wants his children to have everything their rich friends have purchases "Semplica Girls" — girls formerly living in poverty who sign contracts to hang as ornaments in people's yards — for his older daughter's birthday. When his younger daughter frees the Semplica Girls, the family is plunged into financial disaster.

When an impoverished man shows up to a wealthy woman's door in dire need of help, she gives him ten dollars and tries to send him on his way. The man insists that he return the next day to thank her husband for the money, but she isn't quite sure if things are as they seem.

Two men down on their luck form a surprising friendship and enact a get-rich-quick scheme.

At the dawn of the Great Depression, an aged Black man returns to the Virginia plantation where he was born a slave 99 years ago. His arrival forces the now-destitute family who once owned him to confront their poverty and their racism alike.

A young boy tries to help his parents make money by selling ice cream at his mother's work at a Snow White Laundry. An accident with one of the machines causes chaos and the narrator is forced to leave.