Growing Up On the Ragged Edge of the Middle Class
Senator Elizabeth Warren grew up in Oklahoma, on the ragged edge of the middle class. She has three older brothers who served in the military. Her dad was a janitor, her mom worked part-time jobs, and there was never a time they didn’t worry about money. When she was 12, her dad had a heart attack. He lost his job, their family station wagon was repossessed, and they were about to lose their home. Before that could happen, her mom put on her best dress and walked over to the Sears, getting herself a minimum wage job answering phones. That job saved their home and their family.
A fighting Chance
Elizabeth’s story wasn’t a straight line. She dropped out of college to get married at 19. To fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a public school teacher, she went back to school, attending a public college that cost $50/semester – a price she could afford on a part-time waitressing job. She had her first baby, a daughter, when she was 22 and learned firsthand the struggle of finding quality, affordable childcare as she juggled her baby with starting law school at Rutgers. Shortly after she graduated, her son was born.
Making Government Work For Working People
Elizabeth dedicated her career to studying why middle class families go broke, and spent more than 30 years as a law professor. Elizabeth rose to prominence warning leaders of a major economic crash – which came to fruition in 2008 when Wall Street crashed the economy. Her original thinking, political courage, and relentless persistence led to the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which she helped stand up and has successfully protected millions of consumers from financial tricks and traps often hidden in mortgages, credit cards, and other financial products.
Elizabeth came to the United States Senate in 2013, where she’s taken on special interests, fights for workers and consumers, and works across the aisle to level the playing field for working families in Massachusetts and around
the country.
Accomplishments
Since her election to Congress in 2012, Senator Warren has: