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An exploration into the "precariat," and how most Americans find themselves in economic distress.

The author speaks of her own experience and many people whom she has interviewed about their economic condition and standing. She compares and contrasts the predicament of the modern American worker with those of a generation or two ago. She vividly illustrates through her interviews how almost everyone is in distress: the condition of the poor; the problems of child care and the need for 24/7 childcare services; the cost of higher education but no guarantee of financial security; academics working for peanuts and in economic distress; the near impossibility of homeownership and the difficulties in affording a family; the challenges of American business policy toward parents and their needs; the promise, and failure, of post-graduate education to lead to greater financial security.

A must read for anyone who is convinced the problem with people today is they don't work hard enough or are entitled. A demonstration of how the Boomers inherited a great set of workplace standards and have eroded and denigrated them for their descendants. ( )

Alissa Quart is the executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
Squeezed, in the tradition of some of George Orwell’s work and Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich, is a non-fiction narrative reporting and commenting on the conditions of inequality. Orwell wrote about low income live in England and France in the 1930s. Ehrenreich, a writer, who held graduate university degrees, reported on jobs and life at the American minimum wage in the 1990s and the early 2000s.
Ms. Quart discusses the problems of women in America in the early 21st century precariat. She reports discussions with people who are unable to achieve a reasonable middle class standard of living due to real estate costs, stagnant wages, child care costs and the American dedication to neoliberal economic theories. She tells stories of relative hardship, raises questions and makes arguments about economic justice. ( )

While trying to keep your head low and just surviving until your time is served in capitalist america is daunting, I really fear for the younger generations. Well written, this is a book for all Americans who can honestly look at how we all swallowed the cool-aid, what it's done to our social fabric, and ideas to think outside the box. ( )

Mixed Bag of Woes

Most Americans with the least bit of awareness realize that many of their fellow citizens are having a hard time of it financially. After all, the desperation out there has bestowed upon us a cadre of nativists who feel most comfortable venting their frustrations rather than taking action to remedy societal problems. So, it would be nice to report that Quart adds something to raising awareness of problems and solutions to them. Truth is that she adds a little, mostly in the area of showing us how people in dire straits are trying to cope with their financial perils, the human interest angle. And she just interject facts and studies illustrating the various issues. Unfortunately, there’s not much here showing how to reverse the causes of the problems she covers in the book; that is, changing them on a national or state level. These approaches, understandably, given the prevailing individualistic attitude of American and the fright over bugaboos over collective efforts, are ad hoc and limited.

But, really, vast income inequality, rapidly escalating college costs, rip-off for-profit schools, escalating healthcare costs, training for jobs that either don’t exist or will soon disappear, ever growing contractual work without bargaining leverage or benefits, lack of national medical and childcare coverage, the crushing debt brought on by these, and robotic replacement—all are society wide issues that require comprehensive governmental solutions. Bad enough, but the solutions demand a level of cooperation that we can’t seem to summon these days, and that, if we could, some surely would brand as unAmerican. Ad hoc attempts at amelioration, while feeling good, really fall short of the challenge.

That said, if you like seeing how people cope with obstacles to financial security in America, see the human toll our go-it-alone mindset exacts from people, Quart offers up plenty of stories. She also shows, to some people’s distain, that you can make what otherwise might be great incomes but still teeter on the edge because of any number factors, including geography.
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