Chapter 1: Just the Way She Planned

The first chapter of The Two Income Trap sets up the setting and goal for the rest of the book.

The chapter begins with a short anecdote about a "normal" American family. They set up the perfect life for themselves--two kids, decent house, a good job for both the mother and the father. However, after the father loses his job, the family slips father and farther into financial ruin until they are eventually forced to declare bankruptcy.

The authors set up their credentials; Elizabeth is a Harvard business law professor, Amelia is an economist. Both women are mothers; in fact, Elizabeth is Amelia's mother. They explain that while conducting a study on financial ruin, they discovered that families are much more likely to experience financial problems than single families. Single mothers are at the highest risk to declare bankruptcy of all age catagories. They attribute this to a number of different factors, such as how two-income families rarely save any of their checks and so are left with no emergency fund when financial crisis hits.

The authors promise to explain in the rest of the book how they believe the increase of women in the workforce has helped to inflate the costs of middle class "essentials," such as houses, day cares, and college educations. Finally, they plan to present possible solutions to the rapid (600%) increase of bankruptcies in both families and among single mothers. These solutions will encompass changes from the level of the national government to changes families can make in their lives today to prevent financial ruin from ever descending upon their household.