Missing Strugglers: Debt’s Reach, Bankruptcy’s Limits, and a Proxy for Who’s Left Out

This essay uses Debt’s Grip as a point of departure to examine how debt operates as a system of social control in the United States. While the book offers a vivid portrait of those who file for bankruptcy, it also gestures toward a broader reality: millions of financially distressed individuals who never access relief. Drawing on legal scholarship and political theory, this Essay argues that debt disciplines individuals, fragments solidarity, and undermines democratic agency. It proposes a new metric—the ratio of debt collection lawsuits to bankruptcy filings—as a proxy for unmet need, revealing a population of “missing strugglers” visible to creditors but excluded from legal protections.

The analysis calls for reimagining legal and political responses to financial distress beyond the bankruptcy system, urging policymakers to rethink the continued role of credit and debt as substitutes for social provision.