Drowning in student loan and credit card debt? Can’t afford to get married, buy a home, have children? At last, a book for the under-35 generation (and their parents) that explains why it is not their fault.

Strapped offers a groundbreaking look at the new obstacle course facing young adults—the under-35 crowd—as they try to build careers, buy homes, and start families. As Tamara Draut explains, getting ahead is getting harder. A college degree is the new high school diploma—but it now costs a fortune to get that degree, and students graduate with crippling debts. Good jobs are scarcer thanks to stagnant wages and disappearing benefits. And, the cost of everything—starter homes, health coverage, child care—keeps going up and up. Budding families, even those with two incomes, struggle to pay the bills, while Visa and Mastercard have become the new safety net. Young adults are starting out behind the financial eight ball—borrowing their way into adulthood and wondering whatever happened to the American Dream.

Is this the way things have to be? Not at all, argues Tamara Draut, a leading young commentator and a fresh voice for change. She shows how the obstacle course bedeviling young adults didn’t just happen—it was allowed to happen by a generation of leaders more interested in serving wealthy interests than in investing in the nation’s future. Strapped brims with ideas for a new kind of America where every young person can go to college, buy a home, and start a family.
Strapped will help jump-start a national conversation about where the country is failing—and how we can make it right again.

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Praise for Strapped

“Strapped tells a story that is compelling, frightening, and ultimately liberating. By giving a clear analysis of what has gone wrong, Draut points the way to how to make it better. This is a must-read for anyone who is young—or anyone who cares about anyone who is young.”
—Elizabeth Warren, Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law, Harvard University, co-author of The Two-Income Trap

“Tamara Draut’s meticulously researched book explains why the transition to adulthood has become almost impossibly difficult for the children of low- and middle-income families. Her highly readable account of bad policy choices and changing market forces will persuade you that this problem demands our immediate attention.”
—Robert Frank, Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management, Cornell University, author of Luxury Fever

“It’s no time to be 21, and we have Tamara Draut to thank for describing to us, in precise detail, the forces arrayed against young people—and what can be done to alleviate the situation.”
– Thomas Frank, author of What’s the Matter With Kansas?

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Tamara Draut is Director of the Economic Opportunity Program at Demos, a national think tank headquartered in New York City. Her research and writing have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Newsweek. A frequent commentator, Draut has appeared on CNN Headline News, CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNBC’s Closing Bell, and ABC’s World News Tonight. She lives in New York City with her husband.

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