How Americans Are Getting 'Squeezed' By High Cost Of Living
Americans at all income levels are one crisis away from financial peril, according to a new book by author Alissa Quart.
Here & Now‘s Lisa Mullins talks with Quart (@lisquart) about “Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America.”
She says millions of Americans who are in the middle class feel like they’re on shaky economic ground. “A whole range of different people” from adjunct professors to lawyers who work gig to gig are stuck in what Quart calls the “Middle Precariat.”
“It’s precarious,” she says. “They’re living on the edge of not knowing what’s going to happen next year.”
Interview Highlights
On why middle-class life is now 30 percent more expensive than 20 years ago
“Well, I think the big thing that we have to talk about here is taxes, which are relentless for the middle-class population. Right now, you’re being dinged under so-called tax reform for being self-employed. So one of the things is taxes. Another is income inequality itself. We have in America the largest wealth inequality gap of 200 countries, according to a global wealth report in 2015. That’s the largest wealth inequality gap. And when the top 1 percent has so much
