Michael Strain on the economics of the ‘two-income trap’

Last week in the New York Times, Ross Douthat wrote: “Recently, under the somewhat unlikely inspiration of Elizabeth Warren, some conservatives have revived an old debate: Did millions of women entering the work force actually make families worse off?”

Some conservatives, notably Tucker Carlson in a January monologue, agree with Elizabeth Warren’s 2003 prognosis that it did: Instead of getting richer, dual-earner households bid up the price of real estate and child care and lost the division-of-labor benefits of homemaking, working harder for little or no economic gain. Warren dubbed this the “two-income trap.” In a recent Bloomberg Opinion column, Michael Strain takes issue with this characterization. He joins us on this episode to make his case and discuss the ongoing intra-conservative debate.

Dr. Strain is the director of economic policy studies here at AEI, as well as a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. Before joining AEI he worked in the Center for Economic Studies at the US Census Bureau and in the macroeconomic research group at the Federal Reserve.

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Related links:

Stop poor-mouthing the two-earner family

Where are all the socially conservative women in this fight?

The Tucker monologue

The one-income trap