The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents are Going Broke by Elizabeth Warren (PDF)

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In this revolutionary exposé, Harvard Law School bankruptcy expert Elizabeth Warren and financial consultant Amelia Tyagi show that today’s middle-class parents are increasingly trapped by financial meltdowns. Astonishingly, sending mothers to work has made families more vulnerable to financial disaster than ever before. Today’s two-income family earns 75% more money than its single-income counterpart of a generation ago, but has 25% less discretionary income to cover living costs. This is “the rare financial book that sidesteps accusations of individual wastefulness to focus on institutional changes,” raved the Boston Globe. Warren and Tyagi reveal how the ferocious bidding war for housing and education has silently engulfed America’s suburbs, driving up the cost of keeping families in the middle class. The authors show why the usual remedies-child-support enforcement, subsidized daycare, and higher salaries for women-won’t solve the problem. But as the Wall Street Journal observed, “The book is brimming with proposed solutions to the nail-biting anxiety that the middle class finds itself in: subsidized day care, school vouchers, new bank regulation, among other measures.” From Senator Edward M. Kennedy to Dr. Phil to Bill Moyers, The Two-Income Trap has created a sensation among economists, politicians, and families-all those who care about America’s middle-class crisis.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “A startling account of the elusiveness of the American Dream.” — – Time Magazine”Makes a good case that the epidemic of bankruptcy is not about people being irresponsible.” — – Paul Krugman”You should read this book!” — – Dr. Phil About the Author Elizabeth Warren is the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. She is the co-author of As We Forgive Our Debtors and The Fragile Middle Class, as well as three leading commercial law casebooks. She is vice-president of the American Law Institute, and served as Chief Advisor to the National Bankruptcy Review Commission. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.Amelia Warren Tyagi has worked as an Engagement Manager with McKinsey and Company, specializing in health care, insurance, and education, and she co-founded the successful healthcare start-up HealthAllies. She lives in Pacific Palisades, California, with her husband and two-year-old daughter, Octavia.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I believe one insightful portion of the dedication to this book sums up its thesis best:”..dedicated to all parents who wake up with hearts thudding over the possibility that buying school shoes and Girl Scout uniforms will mean that there won’t be enough left over to pay the mortgage… They travel anonymously among us, but we know them. They went to college, had kids, bought a home, played by the rules- and lost.”This is not the first time that Elizabeth Warren has sounded the alarm about stable, hard-working people going under in droves. Indeed, the contents of this book are actually a graphic, terrifying distillation of two previous books written by Prof. Warren (in collaboration with Teresa Sullivan and Jay Lawrence Westbrook) chronicling the rapidly evolving disaster of consumer bankruptcy in America. The first book, As We Forgive Our Debtors, was an outgrowth of the US Consumer Bankruptcy Project, and looked at all of the key players in consumer bankruptcy, focusing in particular on bankrupt debtors and their creditors; it was very academic in nature, which may have explained its tepid reception in the marketplace (however, I suspect the very incendiary comments and conclusions all throughout the book rankled quite a few feathers in the banking industry, and may well be the real reason the text was conspicuously ignored). The second book, The Fragile Middle Class, focused exclusively on bankrupt debtors, and looked closely at the fallout associated with consumer bankruptcy for several reference groups; it was less academic and more activist in tone, and actually preceded The Two Income Trap in sounding the alarm about US consumer bankruptcy.The Two-Income Trap also sounds the alarm, and zeroes in on the reference group everyone would readily say is most likely NOT to go bankrupt: two-income, solidly middle-class mothers and fathers with kids and a home in the burbs. This book, much like the ones before it, dispells the prevailing myths that the bankrupt are ignorant, low-income deadbeats, unrepentant spendthrifts who take advantage of a far-too-lenient system with giddy glee, and have no control over their impulses. Instead, each book has demonstrated that the bankrupt have to have a fairly high degree of financial savvy to even consider bankruptcy, that the majority of the bankrupt are solidly middle class, that most got in over their head in a situation far beyond their control, and all are profoundly embarassed by their bankruptcy, which all of them see not only as a financial failure, but also a personal one, as well.Yet, it is also clear to me that the spirit of activism, which was subdued in As We Forgive Our Debtors and quite forceful in The Fragile Middle Class, is not only alive and well in this book, but also very loud, and very clear; indeed, the activist tenor is quite torrential in this narrative. The authors, both women, clearly have written a book to discuss the plight of a particular reference group: middle class women, be they married, single or divorced, with children. This reference group has quickly become the single biggest cohort represented in the bankruptcy rolls. In the book, the authors go so far as to imply that women’s liberation has resulted in more than a few of their sisters ending up in the poorhouse.Having previously read Lionel Tiger’s The Decline of Males, and Warren Farrell’s insightful books, Why Men Are The Way They Are and The Myth of Male Power, I found the contents of this book (and the authors’ aforementioned implication) most interesting. I submit that equality of the sexes has finally been achieved, albeit in a most peculiar and unorthodox way- via financial insecurity, as nowadays it apparently knows no gender difference. Though my intention is to be partially humorous, I realize that more than a few will take offense at such a comment, but my main thrust is this: what we see before us is all part of a larger plan to reinstate the New And Improved Feudalism upon the masses. Call me crazy if you like, but before you pass judgment, I strongly suggest that the intelligent, thinking individual read Robert Manning’s Credit Card Nation for more insight into my claim.For many, the pursuit of the American Dream (which many would say was a cute little myth in any event) has devolved from an honest chance at a guaranteed title shot, to little more than a gamble with one’s finances resembling Russian Roullette with an interesting twist: instead of one chamber holding a live round, five chambers have live rounds. Lose a job, miss a payment, and you can kiss your house and your middle class existence goodbye.Frankly, this game’s too rich for my blood, and I think I will pass…

⭐This study provides an insightful and well-reasoned analysis of the problems facing middle class families. I intend to use it in my next Sociology course because the younger students need a perspective on how to survive in the contemporary economy. Also it is an excellent example of how to link problems at the level of individual families to public policy. As far as analysis, she is too quick to dismiss Juliet Shor who does a better job of economic analysis. Moreover, she clearly ignores central findings in the sociology of education which link school performance to the family background of students rather than the quality of the school. Indeed most of the families seeking out the “best” districts equate that with the class level of the families in that district. Their children might do far better in a “blue collar” district with supportive community institutions. Are they looking to raise their status and rationalizing it as meeting the needs of the children? More on target is her critique of credit practices. I was totally unaware of the legal changes that have occurred and that insight made the entire book worthwhile. Those criticizing families and individuals who accumulate large debts clearly favor the legalization of drugs. After all, if responding to such “temptations” is entirely one’s own fault, does that not also apply to drug addiction. And if the kids suffer then it is the fault of the parents. And then let us pass a law that ensures the family will never be able to recover. What we really need is a new “bankruptcy” law that allows the debtor to walk in and terminate all obligations in which their payments equal the original amount borrowed. This will quickly end all usurious practices. If we really support family values, we should support family institutions just as was done during the era of the “Greatest Generation.”

⭐I bought this after reading All You Are Worth. This is far more academic and although Warren has strong arguments I found the book did not really deliver solutions . Well researched and good background references.

⭐Un libro molto importante scritto da una possibile futura candidata alla presidenza del S.U, scritto quando era “solo” una docente universitaria, quindi interessante da leggere.

⭐Not found.

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