Leicht Featured as Election Expert in FYI

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Kevin Leicht, Director of the ISRC, was featured as one of University of Iowa’s election experts in the November 15th edition of FYI. Leicht notes that his interest in researching the middle class is due to the fact that he sees “a way of life disappearing as a result of conscious choices we are making.” The aftermath of the housing bubble, in his view, will be far reaching, permanently affecting the "wealth accumulation of an entire generation of Americans." In 2007, Leicht published Post-Industrial Peasants: The Illusion of Middle Class Prosperity, in which he demonstrated that the American middle class was living an illusion based on easily available credit. Since that book appeared, the foreclosure crisis and recession have shattered that illusion. The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements represent certain aspects of the current climate of discontent. But how will all this affect the 2012 election? According to Leicht, "Whether all that can jell into a coherent political force is the million-dollar question."