Strapped: Why America's 20 & 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead
Tamara Draut
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This book describes in detail the financial challenges facing young adults today, and offers solutions to alleviate the situation. The purpose of the book, in the author's own words, is "to examine why so many young adults who are following the playbook - finishing school, getting jobs, and raising families - are finding it hard to get ahead, and what could have been done differently to avoid the widespread insecurity plaguing today's young adults.”
Strengths
Although Strapped paints a grim economic picture and describes an environment of "choked opportunity" facing young adults, it is hopeful in its conclusion that current patterns don't have to continue.
Draut demonstrates that this problem affects everyone - not just young adults - and it is in all of our interests to fix it. "The clock is ticking," she writes. "In 2011, the 76 million baby boomers will start retiring.”
Strapped goes beyond the surface and takes aim at what it says are the root causes of the money troubles encountered by 20 and 30-somethings - blaming student loans, credit cards, wage stagnation, rising costs of health care, increased expense of owning a home, the disappearance of pensions, and the anticipated collapse of Social Security.
Draut seems to anticipate an objection to Strapped that young adults are in trouble because of their own immaturity and poor choices and connects the problems of the "here and now" to broader social and economic changes.
Strapped offers straight-forward prescriptions to address the problem (mostly at the end of the book). For example, Draut recommends kicking credit card companies off college campuses, where cash-strapped students with undeveloped money management skills are often seduced by easy credit.
Real-life stories drawn from interviews with a variety of young adults puts a human face on the research and statistics presented in Strapped.
Draut helps readers grapple with the long-term implications of the Generation Debt money woes, providing persuasive evidence that the current situation will have young adults toiling away well into their senior years with little hope of ever "getting ahead." In addition, Draut makes the case that this dynamic has far-reaching social effects - from delayed marriage and parenthood to a widening gap between rich and poor.
Things to be aware of
Some readers may find they are impressed with Draut's in-depth descriptions of the problem, while objecting to Draut's tendency to absolve young adults of personal responsibility, and instead to blame "the system” and look to the government for solutions (i.e. the creation of a joint trust to fund universal child care and education).
Though informative, well-researched, and thought-provoking, Strapped is not written from an explicitly Christian stewardship perspective.
Available at: www.amazon.com