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| Economy |
| ‘The Two-Income Trap' by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi |
| 2019-03-24 |
| BLUF: [Free Beacon] "By the usual logic," they write, "sending a second parent into the workforce should make a family more financially secure, not less. But this reasoning ignores an important fact of two-income life. When mothers joined the workforce, the family gave up something of considerable (although unrecognized) economic value: an extra skilled and dedicated adult, available to pitch in to help save the family during times of emergency." This is the two-income trap: A second earner in middle-class households has, paradoxically, rendered them more financially unstable. This simple idea is easy enough to follow, but ominous in its implications. Is Warren arguing (as Tucker Carlson recently contended) that mothers going to work was a disaster for the country? The mass transition of mothers into the workforce is a relatively recent phenomenon. In 1860 just 7 percent of women with children at home were in the labor force. By 1940, 13 percent were, still just one in eight. But, after women went to work en masse during World War II, their labor force participation rate took off. By 1960 it was 30 percent. In 1978 it hit 50 percent. And in 2000 it peaked at 68 percent, before descending slightly to 65 percent today. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #8 It isn't a trap if you don't spend the extra money. But it usually doesn't turn out that way. When my mother went back to work, school, and teaching — purely for her sanity after deliberately having four children in four years — her entire salary and more went to pay for the increased expenses. Daddy didn’t care because she was much happier, and as a consequence so was he, but there was no pretense that she was adding to the net family income. And this after she sewed most of her work wardrobe instead of spending money in the shops. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2019-03-24 21:15 |
| #7 IMHO. Taxpayer subsidized (use it or lose it) creches AKA government "schools" are there to ensure as many work as possible, which boosts land prices. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2019-03-24 16:28 |
| #6 It isn't a trap if you don't spend the extra money. But it usually doesn't turn out that way. It makes sense to have some reserve capacity somewhere. That isn't even counting the importance of having parents, and not strangers, raise the kids, |
| Posted by: james 2019-03-24 15:04 |
| #5 Re #3: More like Fauxcahontas: "They should stay in the Teepee, abort their papooses, and skin and scalp the white devils" |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2019-03-24 15:04 |
| #4 Reduce the federal debt, stop squandering taxpayer money, lower the rate of inflation and maybe some of these women can afford to stay home with their children. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2019-03-24 14:41 |
| #3 Shorter Fauxcahontas: "They should stay home in the tepee, raising the papooses and scalping/skinning the white devils" |
| Posted by: Frank G 2019-03-24 13:27 |
| #2 Bullshit. They are just playing games with semantics and statistics. In 1860 just 7 percent of women with children at home were in the labor force Ever seem what a farmer's wife with kids was doing? God forbid they have freedom of choice right Lizzie? |
| Posted by: AlanC 2019-03-24 13:11 |
| #1 Good stuff. Much to ponder here. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2019-03-24 13:08 |