This edited collection brings together essays exploring personal debts to government.

Saul Schwartz is a Professor in the School of Public Policy at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Wisconsin. Broadly speaking, his research involves the analysis of policies aimed at helping the poor. That work currently involves investigations of the prevalence of payday loans among the liabilities of bankrupt individuals, the economic stress experienced by international students during the COVID pandemic and this volume on debts-to-government. His paper entitled "Who Doesn't File a Tax Return?: A Portrait of Non-Filers," co-authored with Jennifer Robson, recently won of the Vandercamp Prize for the best paper submitted in 2020 to the journal Canadian Public Policy.

Introduction; 1. Benefits Overpayments and the Criminalisation of Female Poverty; 2. The Local Austere Creditor; 3. Criminal Justice Debt & The Return of Debtors' Prisons; 4. Student Debt in the United States: Racial Disparities and Wealth; 5. Reducing the Burden of Student Loan Repayment: A Canada-US Comparison