Downwardly Mobile: Before Helicopter Parents and Satellite Radio

Downwardly Mobile is a data-supported, sociopolitical memoir that chronicles one family’s devastating fall from riches to rags. Set in suburban Chicago, it follows a well-resourced white family whose lives unravel after concurrent job losses, multiple insurance-denied medical claims, and the fallout from the 2008–09 market crash strip away their life savings, leaving them on the jagged edge of homelessness.

As the years pass and stable employment remains out of reach, rising taxes further er...