When the nation's economy foundered in 2008, blame was directed almost universally at Wall Street bankers. But Reich suggests another reason for the meltdown--the increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of the richest Americans, while stagnant wages and rising costs force the middle class to go deep into debt.

Reviews

"Important and well executed. . . . Reich is fluent, fearless, even amusing."
--"The New York Times Book Review"
"A good read. . . . [Reich] provides a thoughtful dialogue about the structural problems that led to the recent recession. . . . His ideas are worth exploring."
--"The Washington Post"
"One of the clearest explanations to date of . . . how the United States went from . . . 'the Great Prosperity' of 1947 to 1975 to the Great Recession."
--Bob Herbert, "The New York Times"
"All Americans will benefit from reading this insightful, timely book."
--Bill Bradley
"Lucid and cogent."
--"Kirkus"
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"Well argued and frighteningly plausible: without a return to the "basic bargain" (that workers are also consumers), the "aftershock" of the Great Recession includes a long-term high unemployment and a political backlash--a crisis, he notes with a sort of grim optimism, that just might be painful enough to encourage necessary structura