Introduction -- Recent changes in income and wealth inequality -- Inequality, happiness, and health -- Envy or context? -- The rising cost of adequate -- Why do we care about rank? -- What types of consumption are most sensitive to context? -- How can middle-class families afford to keep up? -- Smart for one, dumb for all -- Looking ahead -- Lessons for public policy -- Reflections
Summary
With a timely new foreword by Robert Frank, this groundbreaking book explores the very meaning of happiness and prosperity in America today. Although middle-income families don't earn much more than they did several decades ago, they are buying bigger cars, houses, and appliances. To pay for them, they spend more than they earn and carry record levels of debt. Robert Frank explains how increased concentrations of income and wealth at the top of the economic pyramid have set off ""expenditure cascades"" that raise the cost of achieving many basic goals for the middle class. Writing in lively pr
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 133-140) and index
