Strapped: Why America's 20- And 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead Hardcover - 2006

From the publisher

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.