ABSTRACT
The recent and ongoing economic downturn has produced devastating social effects in the United States. At the time of the writing, unemployment is at 9.2 percent (Council of Economic Advisors 2011), 2.9 million American homes were in foreclosure in 2010 (or one in 45 US households) (Herron 2011), 51 million Americans are without healthcare (DeNavas-Walt, Proctor, and Smith 2010), and 43.6 million live in poverty (Council of Economic Advisors 2011).1
American homeowners are also experiencing significant economic distress as home prices have decreased by 32 percent, leading to a 56 percent decline in home equity or an estimated loss of $7.5 trillion in net housing wealth since the peak of the housing market in 2006 (Council of Economic Advisors 2011). The economic outlook is bleak: U.S. jobs continue to be moved to foreign labor markets, American corporations continue to downsize, and increasingly, workers are losing their jobs to automated processes – all of which have led to a decline in wages (Council of Economic Advisors 2011; Hogan, Chiricos and Gertz 2005; Stiglitz 2002). In sum, these are economically insecure times and there is a great deal of public anxiety about the future.
