Elizabeth Warren's book, The Two-Income Trap, explained (Vox)

[Recursion]

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/23/18183091/two-income-trap-elizabeth-warren-book

(I'm halfway through the book now. It's.... interesting.)

The “two-income trap,” as described by Warren, really consists of three partially separate phenomena that have arisen as families have come to rely on two working adults to make ends meet:

* The addition of a second earner means, in practice, a big increase in household fixed expenses for things like child care and commuting.
* Much of the money that American second earners bring in has been gobbled up, in practice, by zero-sum competition for educational opportunities expressed as either skyrocketed prices for houses in good school districts or escalating tuition at public universities.
* Last, while the addition of the second earner has not brought in much gain, it has created an increase in downside risk by eliminating an implicit insurance policy that families used to rely on.

This last point is really the key to Warren’s specific argument about bankruptcy, though it’s the first two that would drive her larger interest in politics. Bad things have always happened to families from time to time. In a traditional two-parent, one-earner family, there was always the possibility that mom could step up and help out when trouble arose.

“If her husband was laid off, fired, or otherwise left without a paycheck,” Warren and Tyagi write, “the stay-at-home mother didn’t simply stand helplessly on the sidelines as her family toppled off an economic cliff; she looked for a job to make up some of that lost income.” Similarly, if a family member got sick, mom was available as an unpaid caregiver. “A stay-at-home mother served as the family’s ultimate insurance against unemployment or disability — insurance that had a very real economic value even when it wasn’t drawn on.”

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Long before she wrote that book I understood the two income trap

and remained a stay at home mom.

My husband wasn't always happy about that, because every single other married person he worked with, the spouse also worked. Because I didn't work outside the home I was available to be at home when the cable guy came or any other such service person. We probably kept a closer eye on our expenses than at least some of those other couples.

Once, at a company picnic, a wife who was now expecting her third child (I think the oldest would be no more than four when the new baby arrived) was complaining that once she put that third child in day care, it would be more than her take home pay was. When I suggested she consider staying at home, she looked at me as if I were speaking Martian.

People rarely take a hard look at just how expensive it is to have both parents working if you have young children. And if you're both high earners there's the added pressure to have a dedicated nanny, not just put the kids in daycare. Plus all the rest of the Keeping up with the Joneses nonsense.

All those years I frequently pointed out that if he became unemployed for longer than a week I could quickly get a job, certainly retail, and while I couldn't replace more than a fraction of his pay, it would be vastly better than nothing.

Oh, and I've read the book and it's very good.

[Recursion]

2. Unfortunately it's a societal trap

Because the number of two-income households out there prices one-income households out of a lot of housing markets.

[Bettie]

3. Wages are now set at a place

where the assumption is that there are two incomes.

Nearly every single person I know has to have roommates to have a place to live.

[Recursion]

4. I think of that as normal

Though I never understood America's obsession with having your own apartment

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. That happened precisely because of the entry

of so many women into the workforce.

Here's the thing. I get it that a lot of women have jobs or careers they love and love working at. I also get it that a working wife and mother has been an essential factor for a family to be above poverty, and that's been true forever. Back in the 1960s when I worked as an information and long distance operator for Ma Bell, about half of the operators, all of whom were women, were single. The other half were either single moms or married to a man who didn't have a job that paid enough to keep the family above water. These were not women working to provide luxuries for the most part, but women providing the necessities.

There is a lot that is structurally wrong in our culture. Minimum wage isn't enough to support two people, let alone a family of four. Two parents working at minimum wage can barely do that. Many jobs assume that the employee is endlessly available for work, with no other obligations whatsoever. School times and the school year itself are a holdover from when the majority of kids had a stay at home mom.

It was in no small part that latter thing, the schools, that kept me determined to remain home as long as feasible. And even though I paid a price in no career and now lower Social Security, I'm very glad I did so.