Education Really Not To Blame The Warrens have accomplished a tremendous public service in the writing of this book. While I whole-heatedly agree that the pursuit of a good school district has forced working families to make the financial decisions that lead many to place themselves in precarious positions, I feel they are slightly off by not acknowledging the tremendous bite taxes are taking on working families.
Every decade or so, Congress "simplifies" the tax code which effectively sticks it to the tax base - the working families featured in this book. The logic is perfectly illustrated by the Warrens themselves in the first couple of chapters where they describe the discretionary money of a 1-income family from the 1970's is actually greater than a 2-income family had in the 2000's. They point out that it is the increased fixed costs that has left families with less money even when there is a second bread-winner.
Well, the largest fixed cost is not the mortgage, it's taxes! And logically so with a second bread-winner. More income means more taxes. I hope the Warrens take a closer look at the role of taxes in the two-income trap and follow up this excellent book with one that more closely addresses the issue of taxation on the middle class.
In the meantime, all you two-income trapped families, should explore ways to lower your tax bite. Try books by Sandy Botkin or Alan M Williams (Money Mastery). Lowering your taxes now and immediately will have a much greater and more practical impact on working families than trying to legislate school voucher programs or overhaul the educational system. Although we should stay the course to do just that.
Nothing like All Your Worth : The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan !!!!!! I orignally read their other book All Your Worth : The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan and I loved the book. It's a selfhelp book about finance and I just assumed from the title of two-income trap that it was similar, but it's nothing even close to their second book. They do give you a lot of research information, but unless I'm in congress I'm not sure how that information can help me as a person. I was really expected to read more of things you can do and the part that says on the cover "suprising solutions", well maybe solutions the president of the USA or somebody else can do for the country, but not for yourself. Only the last chapter, which is 20 pages offers you things you can do yourself.
Also the book is writen towards a woman adience. If you can get a text version of the book do a search for the world women and I'm sure it's in there hundreds of times. I'm not sure what a guy can do with all the information about how women are more likely to go bankrupt and all the other information.
On a positive note the book does offer good research like two income family is two and a half more times likely to go bankrupt than a single income family. But to be honest with you all the information that I thought was useful I could have read in about a 10 page article or less. I wouldn't recommend this book, unless you are into politics and you want to see how to change bankruptcy.Wondering why your finances are so tight? This book has some answers. This book details research on bankruptcies and the American family. Before I read it, I knew that a lot of people were having financial trouble in today's America, but I had no idea it had gotten so out of hand. The authors make it clear that it's tougher for a family to make it today than it was a few decades ago. This is not due to an increase in selfishness or irresponsibility; families really do have less discretionary income today. This is in spite of the fact that far more women are working today. The book is worth reading just for this information. This certainly struck a chord with me. My husband and I both work at good jobs, similar to the job my father had when I was a child. Yet living the lifestyle my father and mother had when I was young is completely out of our reach. My parents owned a detached house; we own a small condo. They could afford several children and a wife who was a full-time homemaker; we have one child and find even that a financial struggle. It is nice to know that we aren't the only ones. When it comes to the author's policy prescriptions to solve this problem, some of their ideas are very good. The authors make an excellent case for reregulating the interest rates credit card companies are allowed to charge. Allowing banks to charge very high rates only encourages them to make loans they know people can't afford to pay back. The authors make a good point that the sale of actual goods has to a large extent now become a sort of financial sideline to where the real money is made, which is charging interest on the purchase. (Maybe in their next book they can apply the same principle to student loans--education has now become a sideline to the student loan business.) I was disturbed that the authors missed one of the main reasons why housing is so much more expensive now. The population of the U.S. has doubled since the 1940s. There isn't enough room, or for that matter enough gasoline, for a house and a yard and the roads to reach them for all of those people. Want to get housing prices back to a more reasonable level? First, cut immigration and stabilize the U.S. population. Second, change zoning laws to encourage higher density housing near jobs and public transportion.
