While You Were Working

You worked harder than your parents did.You are more educated, more productive, and more connected to the global economy than any generation of workers in American history. And yet you can't afford the house your parents bought on one income. You ration your prescriptions. You lie awake doing the math on your rent, your car payment, your student loan, your child's future — and the math doesn't work.You are not failing. You are being failed.While You Were Working tells the story of how the richest economy in human history was quietly rewired — rule by rule, tax cut by tax cut, regulation by regulation — to funnel its rewards to a narrow ownership class while leaving everyone else with the bill. It is the story of a fifty-year heist conducted in plain sight, justified by economic theory, protected by political power, and paid for by you.This is not a book about what capitalism could be in theory. It is a book about what it has become in practice — and what it would take to make it work for the people who do the work.The economy didn't end up this way by accident.And it doesn't have to stay this way.