SqueezedSqueezed

Alissa Quart, executive editor of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, examines the lives of many middle-class Americans who can now barely afford to raise children. Quart shows how our country has failed its families. Her subjects--from professors to lawyers to caregivers to nurses--have been wrung out by a system that doesn't support them, and enriches only a tiny elite. Interlacing her own experience with close-up reporting on families that are just getting by, Quart reveals parenthood itself to be financially overwhelming, except for the wealthiest. She offers real solutions to these problems, including outlining necessary policy shifts, detailing the DIY tactics some families are already putting into motion. She argues for the cultural reevaluation of parenthood and caregiving. It casts a bright, clarifying light on families struggling to thrive in an economy that holds too few options.