What if the American Dream isn't broken-just working exactly as designed?
In The American Nightmare Project, sociologist Eric Leo delivers a clear, first-person examination of why life in the United States has become unaffordable for most people-even those who do everything right.
This is not a book about personal failure.
It's about systemic design.
Drawing from lived experience on the disability system and grounded economic analysis, Leo shows how the core pillars of American life-housing, healthcare, education, and childcare-have been transformed into profit-driven systems that keep people trapped in survival.
You're not just struggling.
You're being managed.
Inside this book, you'll discover:
- Why hard work no longer leads to stability
- How wages fell behind the real cost of living
- Why 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck
- How essential needs became investment opportunities
- Why poverty in America functions as a policy outcome-not a personal failure
- What a livable society would actually require
At the center of this book is a simple truth:
A system where survival is unaffordable is not a system-it's coercion.
This is lived sociology.
If you've ever worked nonstop and still couldn't get ahead...
If you've ever felt like the system wasn't built for you...
If you've ever wondered why life feels this hard in the richest country in the world...
This book gives you the answer.
And more importantly, it shows why it was never your fault.
