With a timely new foreword by Robert Frank, this groundbreaking book explores the very meaning of happiness and prosperity in America today. Although middle-income families don't earn much more than they did several decades ago, they are buying bigger cars, houses, and appliances. To pay for them, they spend more than they earn and carry record levels of debt. Robert Frank explains how increased concentrations of income and wealth at the top of the...

"For the past several decades, politicians and economists have thought that high levels of inequality were good for the economy. But an economy that works only for the rich simply doesn't work. Because the middle class is so weak, America's economy now suffers from the kinds of problems that plague less-developed countries. Privileged elites more frequently secure special treatment from a government that wastes money and stifles competition. Children's...