Part of the reason I hadn’t known is that until fairly recently, economists also didn’t know, or, at the very least, didn’t discuss it. My friend and local butcher, Brian, who is one of the only men I know who talks openly about his financial struggles, once told me, “If anyone says he’s sailing through, he’s lying.” That might not be entirely true, but then again, it might not be too far off. What I hadn’t known, couldn’t have conceived, was that so many other Americans wouldn’t have the money available to them, either. I knew that I wouldn’t have $400 in an emergency. It was happening all across the country, including places where you might least expect to see such problems. It was happening to college grads as well as high-school dropouts. It was happening to the soon-to-retire as well as the soon-to-begin. It was, according to that Fed survey and other surveys, happening to middle-class professionals and even to those in the upper class. So I never spoke about my financial travails, not even with my closest friends-that is, until I came to the realization that what was happening to me was also happening to millions of other Americans, and not just the poorest among us, who, by definition, struggle to make ends meet. I know what it’s like to have to borrow money from my daughters because my wife and I ran out of heating oil. To struggle financially is a source of shame, a daily humiliation-even a form of social suicide. “Much more likely.” America is a country, as Donald Trump has reminded us, of winners and losers, alphas and weaklings. “You are more likely to hear from your buddy that he is on Viagra than that he has credit-card problems,” says Brad Klontz, a financial psychologist who teaches at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, and ministers to individuals with financial issues. In truth, it may be more embarrassing than sexual impotence. And you certainly wouldn’t know it to talk to me, because the last thing I would ever do-until now-is admit to financial insecurity or, as I think of it, “financial impotence,” because it has many of the characteristics of sexual impotence, not least of which is the desperate need to mask it and pretend everything is going swimmingly. I am nowhere near rich, but I have typically made a solid middle- or even, at times, upper-middle-class income, which is about all a writer can expect, even a writer who also teaches and lectures and writes television scripts, as I do. You wouldn’t even know it to look at my tax return. I have had a passably good career as a writer-five books, hundreds of articles published, a number of awards and fellowships, and a small (very small) but respectable reputation. Nor would you know it to look at my résumé. I like to think I appear reasonably prosperous. You wouldn’t know any of that to look at me. And I know what it is like to have to borrow money from my adult daughters because my wife and I ran out of heating oil. I know what it is like to have to tell my daughter that I didn’t know if I would be able to pay for her wedding it all depended on whether something good happened. I know what it is like to dread going to the mailbox, because there will always be new bills to pay but seldom a check with which to pay them. I know what it is like to be down to my last $5-literally-while I wait for a paycheck to arrive, and I know what it is like to subsist for days on a diet of eggs. I know what it is like to have liens slapped on me and to have my bank account levied by creditors. I know what it is like to have to swallow my pride and constantly dun people to pay me so that I can pay others. I know what it is like to have to juggle creditors to make it through a week.
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