Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America

Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America by Alissa Quart   Audio Book:  9 hours     Hardback Book:  320 pages        

Very good book, well written and gets to the heart of every topic covered in an informative and conversational way.    The author cuts right to the point without candy covering any thing.  With laser precision she analyzes the problems middle class families face today and believe me she covers the gamut and then some.   Why people today live less comfortable lives than their parents did just one generation prior.    While technology advances it also thwarts.   With the competiton of robots being introduced to take over everything from factory jobs to the service industry ie. robots or A.I. artificial intelligence machines being introduced into the service sector to assist the elderly in nursing homes and doing many tasks formerly the responsibility of nurses or aides to public relations in grocery stores assisting customers, etc. many trend followers are skeptical.   They wonder just how far mankind will go in investing in robots to change the course of society.   While arguments can be made, robots don’t have to have set hours, they don’t call in sick, technically they can go 24/7 without a break or having to leave work to take care of a sick child.    While still in its infancy, A.I. assistants are becoming more accepted for the mainstream of society who still for the most part find A.I. amusing and cute but is putting too much trust in this non-human workforce really reliable?  Currently the cost of setting up robots to do the work of several humans is prohibitive.   For the price of one robot even with paying insurance and benefits it still comes out ahead for businesses to hire humans.   Humans get sick and have home lives to deal with but there is no guarantee a machine won’t break down and when a robot/automaton/high tech set up costs in the millions of dollars as opposed to a minimum wage part-time or full-time worker even with cost of living increases this can still make humans look the better choice, plus in medical care environments the human touch can do so much to assuage the fears of the elderly while a robot might be good at telling a person when to take their meds, but not so much being sympathetic to their feelings and emotions.   Even highly advanced robots while offering comforting words do not have the empathy of a fellow human being.    She talks about the disparity in wages to this day of women and minorities and how many people are choosing not to have children because it would interfere with their being able to work long hours or more than one job even as they are struggling to live paycheck to paycheck.   She discusses the debt most Americans find themselves drowning in and how those struggling paycheck to paycheck often suffer at the hands of high interest loans or credit cards just to try to make ends meet and live as they should be.   She sites many examples throughout of how people both men and women often are paying one bill with a credit card sometimes more than one then when the interest kicks in they cannot get ahead because now they not only owe the bill they owe interest and if they can’t come up with the next payment late fees begin to accrue then their credit rating suffers and they become worse off than they were.   Previous generations leery of buying on credit and living within their means until they could afford to save up and buy something are a dying breed.   Media and Marketing feed the senses that Americans must have more to be more setting up false images and false expectations and sadly piles of debt with little to show for it – debt that won’t go away becomes an all consuming monster that just grows while mankind makes minimum payments that do little to lessen the debt but feed the greed of corporations extending that credit.   Working parents find a huge chunk of their income is paid out for childcare so they can continue to work.   Many women leave the work force because they come out ahead staying home and not having to pay childcare though this puts strain on the other parent who’s income then has to cover all their fundamental needs.   A never ending circle with little hope of escape.   Hence why the lottery is so popular with the poor trying to win their dream life while struggling to come up with the money to buy that magic ticket that might just take them there except more often, it doesn’t.   Attaining the standard of living our parents had is a thing of the past for most Americans.   As many people forego parenting because they simply can’t afford it.    She does offer hopeful ideas so it isn’t all gloom and doom just reality and how it could be possible to fix it.     Really well done.