Review: Squeezed (Why Our Families Can't Afford America) by Alissa Quart

(Disclaimer: I was provided a free advanced copy of this release from the publisher)

Pork chops, green beans, sweet potatoes, and applesauce. Possibly a "typical" middle-class American meal. But what does it mean to be "middle class"? News reports ring alarm bells to tell us that the middle class is disappearing. But what does that mean?

Rating this one was difficult because the importance of the topic made me want to give it a higher starred rating, but the author's passive journalistic style frustrated me. While the last chapter offers a few suggestions for pushing back against "the squeeze", I wish she would have provided more ideas (hers, others, radical, or small) throughout the book for different situations. Anyone in the middle class already knows about most of the struggles referenced in the book but I imagine that readers want ideas and answers in addition to the dozens of depressing stories that are so much like their own lives.