Unjust Debts: How Our Bankruptcy System Makes America More Unequal

A groundbreaking look at the hidden role of bankruptcy in perpetuating inequality in America, from an expert in the field"Unjust Debts throws open the doors and windows to the bankruptcy system so readers can see for themselves how this law works and doesn't work for the real people it so profoundly affects." --Beth Macy, New York Times bestselling author of Dopesick and Raising LazarusBankruptcy is the busiest federal court in America. In theory, bankruptcy in America exists to cancel or restructure debts for people and companies that have way too many--a safety valve designed to provide a mechanism for restarting lives and businesses when things go wrong financially. In this brilliant and paradigm-shifting book, legal scholar Melissa B. Jacoby shows how bankruptcy has also become an escape hatch for powerful individuals, corporations, and governments, contributing in unseen and poorly understood ways to race, gender, and class inequality in America. When cities go bankrupt, for examp