"Daniel Brook has written a searing indictment of an unequal America in which anxiety rules and even idealists sell their souls to the highest bidder. This book is funny, smart, and compulsively readable, but most of all it is terrifying." --David Callahan, author of  The Cheating Culture and The Moral Center   " The Trap shows how the decimation of the middle class is making the most meaningful kind of work unsustainable. When jobs that are altruistic and creative are a sure ticket to penury, the whole society loses. This is an incisive, important, consciousness-raising book that should inspire professionals to understand their financial insecurity as the system's failure, not their own--and to demand change." --Michelle Goldberg, author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism   "Daniel Brook makes a truly powerful case against the hyperindividualism rotting away at the foundations of our society. He shows, with data and also with one story after another, what a tough time it is to be coming up in America. If you know someone (maybe yourself) who feels trapped in a job that doesn't really reflect their hopes and dreams, then this book will help explain how it happened, and how, together, we might be able to change it.

"--Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future   "Daniel Brook's The Trap will transform the way we think and  talk about America's most pressing economic and social problem, growing income inequality. It's a terrific book."--Robert H. Frank, author of  The Economic Naturalist and  The Winner Take All Society   "We let inequality call itself 'freedom,' when freedom is precisely what inequality is costing us. Daniel Brook's The Trap is a powerful corrective to this enormous mistake."--Benjamin Kunkel, author of Indecision.