《英语流行话题阅读:语境识词4500》99 The Fragile American Middle class

　　Unit 99

The Fragile American Middle class

Since 1997, the number of American families filing for bankruptcy 1 annually 2 has exceeded one million. They are going to bankruptcy courts for protection. Those who file are members of the middle class -- a group that has long provided stability and vitality 3 for the American economic system. This raises the troubling question: Why are unprecedented 4 numbers of Americans encountering such serious financial trouble?

Recently the book The Fragile Middle Class, through analyzing 5 court records and demographic data on thousands of bankruptcy cases as well as poignant 6 real-life stories, answers the perplexing question of why Americans have experienced dramatic increases in bankruptcy filing in the midst of unprecedented prosperity. For many middle-class Americans financial stability is fragile -- almost any setback 7 can be a catastrophe 8. The erosion of job stability, divorce and family instability, the visible and invisible costs of medical care, the burden of home ownership, and the staggering weight of consumer debt financed with plastic combine to threaten the financial security of growing numbers of middle-class families. The authors view the bankruptcy process in the light of changing cultural and economic factors and consider what this may signify for the future of a large, secure, and dynamic middle class. This chilling diagnosis 9 of middle-class affliction demonstrates that many Americans may be only a job loss, an illness or credit card indulgence away from the downward spiral leading to bankruptcy.

The authors of this well designed and carefully execute study remind us that there are winners and losers in the American free enterprise system. Many of the US middle class are losers, as their seemingly-secure middle class lifestyles may be shattered by a job loss, a serious accident, illness, divorce, or the irresistible 10 temptation of easy credit. It is all too easy to make purchases when you just have o pull out the "plastic". Easy that is, until all of the monthly bills arrive. Many families use credit to make ends meet and the find it hard, if not impossible, to make all the monthly payments. That's when the "credit card blues 11" set in. The banks make money from those who pay their bills and can absorb the losses from those who cannot. Bankruptcy is part of the American "safety net" which is great for everyone except those who must suffer its humiliation 12. The temptations of easy credit are a problem to which moral and religious leaders should attend.

This is also an important book for women to read. The most disturbing chapter to readers was the description of what happens to women following divorce. The authors show that a divorced woman has a 300% greater chance of filing for bankruptcy than her married sister. Can it be, as the authors say, that a woman's economic success is still largely dependent on marrying -- and staying married?