Debt's Grip: Risk and Consumer Bankruptcy

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Univ of California Press, Aug 5, 2025 - Political Science - 308 pages
Debt’s Grip tells the story of financial struggle in the United States. Drawing on original data from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, a landmark long-term study, the authors use the words of bankruptcy filers themselves to shed light on their battles to keep their homes and their cars, pay for healthcare and higher education, care for their children, find adequate employment, retire, negotiate with debt collectors, and confront discrimination in lending. Laying bare the consequences of risk privatization, this book makes a powerful case for why the United States must confront the structural inequities that cause so many—especially Black families, women, and the elderly—to struggle in today’s economy.
 

Contents

Living under the Threat of Financial Collapse
1
Filing Bankruptcy and the Bankruptcy System
18
taBles
21
Struggling to Survive
35
Staying Home and Going Places
56
Staying Alive
75
Staying Out of the Red
90
Blackness of Bankruptcy
107
The Riskiest YearsBankrupt Seniors
159
Lawsuits and Debt Collectors
183
Resourced Bankruptcy Filers
202
Reforming Bankruptcys Injustices
216
Methodological Appendix
231
Descriptive Statistics for All Filers in the CBP Sample
236
Bibliography
259
Index
285

All the Single Ladies with Children in Bankruptcy
132

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About the author (2025)

Pamela Foohey is the Allen Post Professor of Law at the University of Georgia. Robert M. Lawless is the Max L. Rowe Professor of Law at the University of Illinois. Deborah Thorne is Professor of Sociology at the University of Idaho.

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