If he gives her the nod, Obama risks deepening the financial community's distrust of his administration and sparking a confirmation fight. He would be elevating a woman who, despite her mild manner, has repeatedly proven herself a thorn in the administration's side during her tenure as watchdog over the government's $700 billion bank bailout program.
She was the child of a cash-strapped family on the Oklahoma plains, a teenage wife and young mother who became the only member of her immediate family to graduate from college, then went on to teach at Harvard Law School. Drawn to the field of bankruptcy, she initially took a jaundiced view of the irresponsible spendthrifts she believed were gaming the system, only to discover during her research a humanity in their stories that altered her life's work. She has long maintained the bearing of a straight-shooting, "aw shucks" Washington outsider, even though she began showing her Beltway savvy as a political infighter more than a decade ago.
An advocate of the middle-class, Warren wrote a 2003 book with her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, called “The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke.” In it, the pair adopts the controversial belief that families with two incomes are actually less well-off financially than families in the 1970s, when often only one member of the family worked.
Women should still work if they are so inclined, the authors (two working women themselves) argue, but they may not end up in better financial shape. The authors demonstrated that two-income families tend to take on higher fixed expenses like more expensive mortgages, which leave little financial cushion if one member of the family loses their job. In the past, an abrupt loss of income could be compensated for by the other family member sought a low-paying job until that income could be replaced. But now, the two members of a family can’t make up for the sudden jolt of losing a single income.Gardner, Marilyn, "Two incomes, more debt?; A new study offers a controversial theory of why today's families are having a tough time staying afloat," Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 17, 2003(8)Gardner, Marilyn, "Two incomes, more debt?; A new study offers a controversial theory of why today's families are having a tough time staying afloat," Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 17, 2003
Including higher mortgage payments, car payments and tuition payments, the average two-worker home now has less money to spend than a family with one breadwinner in the 1970s. Warren and Tyagi concluded that is the reason why two-income middle-class households report a higher rate of bankruptcy than one-income middle-class homes in the 1970s.
"Every new report on consumer debt or bankruptcy blames families for frivolous buying," said Warren. "Our data show families in financial trouble are working hard, playing by the rules and the game is stacked against them."Shea, Christopher, "Two Incomes, One Bankruptcy Reexamining the Agony of the Middle Class," The Boston Globe, Sept. 14, 2003. Shea, Christopher, "Two Incomes, One Bankruptcy Reexamining the Agony of the Middle Class," The Boston Globe, Sept. 14, 2003.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/12/AR2010081206356_pf.html
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