Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America

FEATURING ALISSA QUART – The US is the most unequal developed nation in the world. Inequality is so high today that having a child or a single medical emergency even for those who are insured, can bury a family so deep in debt that they may never financially recover. Women are particularly vulnerable to the pressures of not having children in order to have job security. People of color are disproportionately less likely to make ends meet or have assets to fall back on. The middle class is increasingly “Squeezed” as the title of a new book on American inequality suggests. So why then, do we assume that it’s our fault rather than that the fault of a system deliberately rigged against us?

Alissa Quart, Executive Editor of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, a journalism non-profit with Barbara Ehrenreich. She is also the author of four acclaimed books, Branded, Republic of Outsiders, Hothouse Kids, and Monetized. She writes a bi-monthly column for The Guardian. Her new book is called Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America

**This interview was originally broadcast on September 4, 2018.