Drowning in student loan and credit card debt? Can’t afford to get married, buy a home, have children? At last, a book for the under-35 generation (and their parents) that explains why it is not their fault.

Strapped offers a groundbreaking look at the new obstacle course facing young adults—the under-35 crowd—as they try to build careers, buy homes, and start families. As Tamara Draut explains, getting ahead is getting harder. A college degree is the new high school diploma—but it now costs a fortune to get that degree, and students graduate with crippling debts. Good jobs are scarcer thanks to stagnant wages and disappearing benefits. And, the cost of everything—starter homes, health coverage, child care—keeps going up and up. Budding families, even those with two incomes, struggle to pay the bills, while Visa and Mastercard have become the new safety net. Young adults are starting out behind the financial eight ball—borrowing their way into adulthood and wondering whatever happened to the American Dream.

Is this the way things have to be? Not at all, argues Tamara Draut, a leading young commentator and a fresh voice for change. She shows how the obstacle course bedeviling young adults didn’t just happen—it was allowed to happen by a generation of leaders more interested in serving wealthy interests than in investing in the nation’s future. Strapped brims with ideas for a new kind of America where every young person can go to college, buy a home, and start a family.

Strapped will help jump-start a national conversation about where the country is failing—and how we can make it right again.

"It's hard to believe: 'Today's college grads are making less than the college grads of thirty years ago.' In fact, men aged 25 to 34 with bachelor's degrees are making just $6,000 more than those with high school diplomas did in 1972. This is just one of the many shocking statistics uncovered by Draut, a think-tank adviser and media pundit, in this incisive and revealing look at why today's young adults find financial independence so difficult. With catchy terms such as 'debt-for-diploma' and 'paycheck paralysis,' Draut shows why this age group's ability to accomplish the traditional adult markers of school, career and family is stagnating. Her presentation features the one-two punch of well-sourced data and a series of stories from a diverse group of interview subjects to prove her thesis that depressed wages, inflated educational costs, soaring credit card debt and skyrocketing health and child-care expenses present nearly insurmountable obstacles to young adults' success. While Draut's conclusions take conservative politicians to task, they are hardly polemical, and her analysis and solutions are refreshingly free of glib how-to advice. Her book should be a jarring wake-up call to both the generation affected most by the current economic reality and the policy makers facing the consequences for decades to come." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"This vital work should be read by anyone who cares about the future of this country. Highly recommended." Library Journal

"[A] grim tale of one-sided generational war....The biggest shame about [Draut's] overstatements is that they distract from the serious and novel parts of her argument." David Leonhardt, The New York Times

"Strapped tells a story that is compelling, frightening, and ultimately liberating. By giving a clear analysis of what has gone wrong, Draut points the way to how to make it better. This is a must-read for anyone who is young — or anyone who cares about anyone who is young." Elizabeth Warren, Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law, Harvard University, co-author of The Two-Income Trap

"Tamara Draut's meticulously researched book explains why the transition to adulthood has become almost impossibly difficult for the children of low- and middle-income families. Her highly readable account of bad policy choices and changing market forces will persuade you that this problem demands our immediate attention." Robert Frank, Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management, Cornell University, author of Luxury Fever

"It's no time to be 21, and we have Tamara Draut to thank for describing to us, in precise detail, the forces arrayed against young people — and what can be done to alleviate the situation." Thomas Frank, author of What's the Matter With Kansas?

For the 60 percent of people between the ages of eighteen and thirt-four who find themselves consistently behind the financial eight ball, STRAPPED offers a groundbreaking look at the new obstacle course facing young adults as they try to build careers, buy homes, and start families. As Tamara Draut explains, various economic and social trends over the last thirty years, as well as adverse government policies, have conspired to alter dramatically the process of becoming an adult. The exploding costs of higher education mean that young adults leave college and graduate school with near-crippling student loan debt. A deregulated and predatory financial industry means that they are trapped in debt at usurious interest rates and preyed on by a new breed of legal loan sharks. Depressed wages, rising costs, and inadequate health care increasingly mean that budding families often need two incomes to pay the bills. Soaring property values have made the traditional starter home unattainable. As a result, young adults are starting out their lives way behind; they are literally borrowing their way to adulthood.

Connecting the economic stagnation of today's young adults to broader social and cultural changes in America over the last three decades, STRAPPED will help jumpstart a national conversation about where the country is failing—and how we can make it right again.

Tamara Draut is Director of the Economic Opportunity Program at Demos, a national think tank headquartered in New York City. Her research and writing have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Newsweek. A frequent commentator, Draut has appeared on CNN Headline News, CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNBC’s Closing Bell, and ABC’s World News Tonight. She lives in New York City with her husband.