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More by Tamara Draut

The Fix We're In: Tamara Draut on "The Deregulatory Impulse"

CW Unbound | October 21, 2008

Live Blogging (Sort of) Hearing on Students and Credit Card Debt

Daily Kos | June 28, 2008

Need a Kidney? There's a Credit Card for That

AlterNet | June 11, 2008

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Up to Our Eyeballs
How Shady Lenders and Failed Economic Policies are Drowning Americans in Debt

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Strapped
Why America's 20- and 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead

March 10, 2009

The New Frugality: No Passing Fad

New York Times Room for Debate

By Tamara Draut

Sure, Americans are second-guessing their spending habits, and as a result, skipping things like their daily latte, upgrading their Ipod, going out for a meal or buying their child the latest video game. These are the easy spending cuts to make - the niceties we often take for granted but that any lower-income household has long known how to go without.

But consumer spending also includes many goods and services that families have long been losing their battle to control: health insurance premiums, child care bills, college tuition, rent, heating oil, groceries and a whole host of other essentials that have been rising much faster than family incomes.