The Financial Diaries : : How American Families Cope in a World of Uncertainty / / Jonathan Morduch, Rachel Schneider.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press Complete eBook-Package 2017
• VerfasserIn: Morduch, Jonathan,; Schneider, Rachel,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2017]; ©2017
• Year of Publication: 2017
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (248 p.) :; 14 line illus.

What the financial diaries of working-class families reveal about economic stresses, why they happen, and what policies might reduce themDeep within the American Dream lies the belief that hard work and steady saving will ensure a comfortable retirement and a better life for one's children. But in a nation experiencing unprecedented prosperity, even for many families who seem to be doing everything right, this ideal is still out of reach.In The Financial Diaries, Jonathan Morduch and Rachel Schneider draw on the groundbreaking U.S. Financial Diaries, which follow the lives of 235 low- and middle-income families as they navigate through a year. Through the Diaries, Morduch and Schneider challenge popular assumptions about how Americans earn, spend, borrow, and save-and they identify the true causes of distress and inequality for many working Americans.We meet real people, ranging from a casino dealer to a street vendor to a tax preparer, who open up their lives and illustrate a world of financial uncertainty in which even limited financial success requires imaginative-and often costly-coping strategies. Morduch and Schneider detail what families are doing to help themselves and describe new policies and technologies that will improve stability for those who need it most.Combining hard facts with personal stories, The Financial Diaries presents an unparalleled inside look at the economic stresses of today's families and offers powerful, fresh ideas for solving them.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction. A Hidden Inequality -- Worlds of Uncertainty -- Chapter 1. Earning -- Chapter 2. Spending -- Chapter 3. Smoothing and Spiking -- How Families Cope -- Chapter 4. Saving -- Chapter 5. Borrowing -- Chapter 6. Sharing -- New Ways of Seeing -- Chapter 7. Sometimes Poor -- Chapter 8. Secure and in Control -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index