The Fourteenth Amendment is one of the most-studied parts of the Constitution, but one of its central concerns has been long ignored by courts and scholars: economic justice. The rights of the poor and powerless to enjoy fundamental freedoms and meaningful equality lie at the very core of the Fourteenth Amendment’s text and history. The Supreme Court has failed to give these fundamental promises their due, producing a jurisprudence that turns a blind eye to the rights of poor people and reads the constitutional promise of economic justice out of our national charter. Recovering the true meaning of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, as reflected in their text and history, would open the door to meaningful doctrinal changes that would help protect the rights of poor people and advance the effort to redress economic inequality.