Precarious: One Misfortune Away from Insolvency

As a result, a significant percentage of households that are considered middle-class are one misfortune away from insolvency.

We can summarize the changes in our economy over the past two generations with one word: precarity, as life for the bottom 90% of American households has become far more precarious over the past 40 years, despite the rising GDP and "wealth" as measured in phantom capital.

This reality is expressed in the portmanteau word precariat, combining proletariat …