Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer: Recent Episodes
Civic Ventures
Any society that allows itself to become radically unequal eventually collapses into an uprising or a police state—or both. Join venture capitalist Nick Hanauer and some of the world’s leading economic and political thinkers in an exploration of who gets what and why. Turns out, everything you learned about economics is wrong. And if we don’t do something about rising inequality, the pitchforks are coming.
It’s been a little over a year since President Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act, which invested $231 billion into semiconductor manufacturing in the United States, into law. Despite the fact that those investments are already creating economic growth around the country, most Americans don’t recognize the impact that the CHIPS Act is already having on the national economy. Today, Ronnie Chatterji, the former CHIPS Coordinator at the White House, joins the pod to provide a better understanding of what the CHIPS Act really does and why it matters.
Aaron Chatterji is the Duke University Professor of Business and Public Policy. He was previously the White House CHIPS Coordinator and Acting Deputy Director of the National Economic Council in the Biden Administration.
Twitter: @RonnieChatterji
CHIPS Act: National security is priority for funding, analyst says https://finance.yahoo.com/video/chips-act-national-security-priority-150516934.html
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
We saw during the pandemic that giving people cash is good for individuals and the economy as a whole. It makes sense: When people have more money, they spend it in their communities and stimulate the local economy. So why don’t we give people money all the time? Our guest today started a charity that combats poverty by giving people cash, with no strings attached, to use how they wish. The results have been really encouraging. Paul Niehaus, co-founder of GiveDirectly, explains how his program works—and more importantly, why it works.
Paul Niehaus is an economist at UCSD and an entrepreneur working to accelerate the end of extreme poverty. He is co-founder, former president, and current director at GiveDirectly, the leading international NGO specialized in digital cash transfers and consistently rated one of the most impactful ways to give.
Twitter: @PaulFNiehaus
GiveDirectly https://www.givedirectly.org
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
New technologies are sold as a net benefit to society as a whole, but the truth is that technological progress is only loosely correlated to the improved welfare of the majority of citizens. This is not to say that technology and innovation are bad—we’re big supporters of both—but when tech CEOs hold all the power to make decisions that affect all of us, that becomes a problem. For a long time, technology has been used by the rich and powerful to further enrich themselves and consolidate their own power. Is there a way to ensure that everyone benefits from innovation—not just the wealthy few? Returning guest Daron Acemoglu shares insight from his new book on the subject, Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity.
Daron Acemoglu is the Institute Professor of Economics at MIT, the university’s highest faculty honor. For the last twenty-five years, he has been researching the historical origins of prosperity, poverty, and the effects of new technologies on economic growth, employment, and inequality. He is an author (with James Robinson) of The Narrow Corridor and the New York Times bestseller Why Nations Fail.
Twitter: @NarrowCorridor
Power and Progress https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/daron-acemoglu/power-and-progress/9781541702530
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Nick and Goldy answer more of your questions! What happens to current economic systems if world population growth goes to zero? Should I feel guilty for wanting my stocks to do well? What could be a good methodology to measure how progressive a tax is? And more!
If you have questions for a future “Ask Me Anything” episode, leave us a voicemail at 731-388-9334.
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Today we’re talking about wages—specifically, how the widespread suppression of wages is destroying the American economy. Author, professor, and fellow traveler Michael Lind just published a new book titled “Hell to Pay” that argues America is in need of a revolution in the way we think about work and wages. Lind warns that if American worker power isn’t restored to its previous highs, there’ll be hell to pay. (Sounds a bit like “the pitchforks are coming,” doesn’t it?)
Michael Lind is the author of more than a dozen books. He is a columnist for Tablet and has been an editor or staff writer for The New Yorker, Harper’s, The New Republic, and The National Interest. He’s one of the founders of the New America Foundation. He has taught at Harvard and Johns Hopkins and is currently a professor of practice at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.
Hell to Pay https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/690656/hell-to-pay-by-michael-lind
“Hell To Pay”: Michael Lind On A True Good Jobs Strategy https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelbernick/2023/05/16/hell-to-pay-michael-lind-on-a-true-good-jobs-strategy/?sh=c4e0c584d160
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Industrial Policy (IP) has dominated conversations in economic and political circles thanks to President Biden’s big investments in manufacturing, infrastructure, and working Americans. But according to today’s guest, development economist Isabel Estevez, the conversation around IP is too narrow. IP is not just about manufacturing and clean energy, she argues—smart IP also encompasses policies that improve outcomes for people, like reducing child poverty and cleaning our drinking water.
Isabel Estevez is the Deputy Director of Industrial Policy and Trade at the Roosevelt Institute. She conducts research at the intersection of industrial and trade policy, with a focus on the transformation and decarbonization of heavy industries, such as steel and aluminum.
Twitter: @Isabel_Estevez_
Industrial Transformations https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/industrial-transformations
The American Industrial Policy Series https://rooseveltinstitute.org/think-tank/climate-and-economic-transformation/the-american-industrial-policy-series
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Over the last decade, private equity firms wiped out nearly 600,000 jobs in the retail sector by taking over and bankrupting major retailers like Toys R Us and Payless Shoes. But in that same time, private equity also destroyed companies in healthcare, housing, medicine, and many other industries that affect our everyday lives. Today’s guest, federal prosecutor Brendan Ballou, explains how we can stop private equity’s plan to pillage America.
Brendan Ballou is a federal prosecutor and served as Special Counsel for Private Equity in the Justice Department's Antitrust Division. Previously, he worked in private practice, and before that, in the National Security Division of the Justice Department, where he advised the White House on counterterrorism and other policies.
Twitter: @brendanballou
Plunder: Private Equity's Plan to Pillage America https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brendan-ballou/plunder/9781541702103
Private Equity is Out of Control and Looting America. This Prosecutor Says We Can Fix It. https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/private-equity-is-out-of-control-and-looting-america-this-prosecutor-says-we-can-fix-it
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
“Bidenomics” is closely aligned with many—probably even most—of the middle-out economic principles that we discuss on this podcast every week. Much to our surprise and delight, Joe Biden has become the first President in 40 years to reject trickle-down economics in favor of building the economy from the middle out, and the results speak for themselves: Since the pandemic began, America has seen the strongest growth of any leading economy in the world. The economy has added 13 million jobs, inflation has fallen for 12 straight months, and a recession is no longer on the horizon. National Economic Council Deputy Director Bharat Ramamurti returns to the show to explain why Bidenomics has been so successful.
Bharat Ramamurti is the Deputy Director of National Economic Council (NEC) for The White House. He previously served as a Member of the Congressional Oversight Commission for the CARES Act, and as the Managing Director of the Corporate Power program at the Roosevelt Institute.
Twitter: @BharatRamamurti
Bidenomics is Working https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/06/28/bidenomics-is-working-the-presidents-plan-grows-the-economy-from-the-middle-out-and-bottom-up-not-the-top-down
The Transformation at the Heart of Biden’s Middle-Out Economic Agenda https://prospect.org/economy/2023-02-09-biden-middle-out-agenda
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Low pay is obviously terrible for workers, but a growing body of research proves that it’s bad for businesses, too. Smaller paychecks lead to higher turnover, decreased productivity, and poor sales. Will low-wage employers in the grocery, retail, and restaurant industries ever understand that their employees are their most important asset? Zeynep Ton hopes so. She’s written a book explaining how labor investments can pay for themselves, and she joins us today to explain why better-paying jobs are good for everyone in the long run.
Zeynep Ton is a Professor of the Practice in the Operations Management group at MIT Sloan School of Management. She is also president of the nonprofit Good Jobs Institute, where she works with companies to improve their operations in a way that satisfies employees, customers, and investors alike.
Twitter: @zeynepton
Good Jobs are Good Business https://time.com/6285516/good-jobs-good-business
The Case for Good Jobs: How Great Companies Bring Dignity, Pay, and Meaning to Everyone’s Work https://store.hbr.org/product/the-case-for-good-jobs-how-great-companies-bring-dignity-pay-and-meaning-to-everyone-s-work/10579
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
In the 21st century, summertime isn’t just for lounging on the beach and trips to the ice cream shop. Climate change has made summer much more unpleasant—and even dangerous. This year alone, New York City and Chicago have been choked with wildfire smoke and the southern U.S. suffered through a wave of record-breaking high temperatures. That’s why we’re revisiting our conversation with financial regulation expert Sarah Bloom Raskin about how fiscal policy can help save the environment. She explains what levers already exist to steer monetary policy toward lasting sustainability, and which proposed regulatory strategies could create transformative climate outcomes.
This episode originally aired on July 20, 2021.
Sarah Bloom Raskin is the former Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and a former Governor of the Federal Reserve Board. She is currently a visiting professor and distinguished fellow at Duke Law School’s Global Financial Markets Center, and a member of President Biden’s Regenerative Crisis Response Committee.
Twitter: @SBloomRaskin
News clips from: CBS News, PBS NewsHour, and TODAY
Learn more about the Regenerative Crisis Response Committee here: https://regenerativecrisisresponsecommittee.org
Does environmental regulation kill or create jobs? https://policyintegrity.org/files/media/Jobs_and_Regulation_Factsheet.pdf
Do regulations really kill jobs? https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/regulations-jobs/513563
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
It’s Paul and Goldy’s summer reading list!
We want to know what you’re reading, too. Leave us a comment on Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics
Remember to shop local and small when you can, or order from IndieBound or Bookshop.org—both of which support independent bookstores! All of these books are also likely available through your library.
Every book mentioned in this episode: Corporate Bullsh*t - Nick Hanauer, Joan Walsh, and Donald Cohen The Ministry for the Future - Kim Stanley Robinson A Spectre, Haunting - China Miéville The City & the City - China Miéville Fight Like Hell - Kim Kelly Rich White Men - Garrett Neiman The 9.9 Percent - Matthew Stewart When the President Calls - Simon W. Bowmaker Capitalism and Freedom - Milton Friedman Essential - Jamie K. McCallum The Journey of Humanity - Oded Galor SPQR - Mary Beard The Death and Life of Great American Cities - Jane Jacobs When McKinsey Comes to Town - Walt Bogdanich & Michael Forsyth Humanly Possible - Sarah Bakewell Bloodlands - Timothy Snyder The Road to Unfreedom - Timothy Snyder On Tyranny - Timothy Snyder Black Earth - Timothy Snyder
Pre-Order Nick’s new book with Joan Walsh and Donald Cohen, Corporate Bullsh*t from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Bullsh-Exposing-Half-Truths-Protect/dp/1620977516
Pre-Order Nick’s new book with Joan Walsh and Donald Cohen, Corporate Bullsh*t from Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/p/books/it-s-never-our-fault-and-other-shameless-excuses-a-compendium-of-corporate-lies-that-protect-profits-and-thwart-progress-donald-cohen/18096544?ean=9781620977514
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
On its website, the Doughnut Economics Action Lab describes Doughnut Economics as “a compass for human prosperity in the 21st century.” Its proponents prioritize economic solutions that meet both the basic needs of all people—food, housing, equity, democratic inclusion—and the ecological needs of the planet that we all call home. Economist Andrew Fanning joins the show to discuss how Doughnut Economics can redefine economics for the 21st century, and he doesn’t sugarcoat the importance of implementing the doughnut model in order to successfully combat climate change.
Andrew Fanning is an ecological economist and the Data Analysis & Research Lead at Doughnut Economics Action Lab at the University of Leeds.
Twitter: @AndrewLFanning, @DoughnutEcon
Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL) https://doughnuteconomics.org
Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/doughnut-economics-paperback
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
In the 20th century, big corporations sold franchising to Americans as a less risky way to buy into business ownership. But in recent years, the franchise industry has tipped hugely in favor of franchisors, extracting wealth from both franchisees and the employees who work for them through complicated contracts that kill competition and rig the system. Economist Marshall Steinbaum returns to the podcast to share the findings from his deep dive into the (intentionally) complex and arcane franchise system, and to explain the latest data from Washington State’s recent enforcement campaign against no-poach clauses in franchising contracts.
Marshall Steinbaum is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Utah and a Senior Fellow in Higher Education Finance at Jain Family Institute.
Twitter: @Econ_Marshall
Vertical Restraints and Labor Markets in Franchised Industries https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4155571
The Effect of Franchise No-poaching Restrictions on Worker Earnings https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4155577
Coercive Rideshare Practices: At the Intersection of Antitrust and Consumer Protection Law in the Gig Economy https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4196215
Shared Security, Shared Growth https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/37/shared-security-shared-growth
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Human society is built on social contracts, but decades of neoliberalism have left many of our most fundamental contracts—worker power, social safety nets, trust in key institutions— in tatters. It’s no wonder that people are pissed off: without fairness, we can’t have cooperation, and without cooperation, we can’t have a strong economy… or a strong democracy. Can we restore the social contracts that served us so well, or has our sense of fairness been damaged beyond repair? Oxford economics professor Eric Beinhocker shares his latest research into the psychology and economics of cooperation. Eric Beinhocker is a Professor of Public Policy Practice at the Blavatnik School of Government and the Executive Director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the University of Oxford’s Martin School.
Twitter: @EricBeinhocker, @INETOxford
Fair Social Contracts and the Foundations of Large-Scale Collaboration https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/publications/no-2022-26-fair-social-contracts-and-the-foundations-of-large-scale-collaboration INET Oxford https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
In one of the highlights of last week’s EconCon Presents event in Washington D.C., Washington Post columnist Perry Bacon Jr. convened an all-star panel of political experts. Maurice Mitchell, Faiz Shakir, and Anna Greenberg joined Bacon to share lessons learned from the midterm elections, and debate strategies for driving the progressive economic agenda forward in 2023 and beyond.
Thanks to our friends at EconCon for sharing audio of this event for Pitchfork Economics listeners. For more information about upcoming EconCon events, follow them on Twitter: @EconConPresents. Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Kroger wants to buy Albertsons and effectively become the second-largest grocery chain in the United States. This merger would result in less competition, rising grocery prices, and lower wages. Corporate greed has gotten us into this mess, but new federal anti-merger guidelines, and some tenacious Attorneys General, may just get us out. Returning guest Stacy Mitchell explains why mergers like this one are bad news for workers and shoppers alike.
Stacy Mitchell is Co-Executive Director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a research and advocacy organization that challenges concentrated corporate power and works to build thriving, equitable communities.
Twitter: @stacyfmitchell
Institute for Local Self-Reliance: https://ilsr.org
Stacy Mitchell Responds to Kroger’s Bid to Buy Albertsons https://ilsr.org/statement-kroger-albertsons-merger Report: How New Federal Anti-merger Guidelines Can Roll Back Corporate Concentration and Build Local Power https://ilsr.org/rolling-back-corporate-concentration-how-new-federal-anti-merger-guidelines-can-restore-competition-and-build-local-power
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
If there's one thing we learned from the far-right campaign against voting rights following the 2020 election, it's how fragile our democracy really is. That’s why we’re celebrating Election Day 2022 by revisiting our conversation with Vote.org CEO Andrea Hailey, who explains how voter suppression happens and what reforms would help ensure a truly inclusive democracy. Don’t forget to vote!
This episode originally aired in October 2021.
Andrea Hailey is the CEO of Vote.org, the nation’s largest nonpartisan digital voter engagement organization.
Twitter: @AndreaEHailey
Vote.org: https://www.vote.org
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Corporate concentration has strained the labor market for virtually all workers, but the resulting lack of competition has caused unique harm to the creative economy. Increasingly exploitative monopolies have rendered artists, authors, musicians, and other creative workers all but powerless. Novelist Cory Doctorow and intellectual property expert Rebecca Giblin discuss their new book, Chokepoint Capitalism, which documents the increasing tensions between extractive corporations and creative laborers, and offers solutions to help fight back against the devaluation of creativity.
Cory Doctorow is a science fiction writer and activist, as well as a special advisor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a visiting professor of computer science at the Open University and of library science at the University of North Carolina, and an MIT Media Lab research affiliate.
Rebecca Giblin is an ARC Future Fellow and Professor at Melbourne Law School. She is Director of the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia and heads up the Author’s Interest and eLending projects.
Twitter: @doctorow, @rgibli
Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We'll Win Them Back http://www.beacon.org/Chokepoint-Capitalism-P1856.aspx
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Economics is another form of storytelling—specifically, it’s the story of who gets what and why. And as the rise of trickle-down and middle-out economics shows us, telling the right story at the right time can transform the economy for a generation. The same is true for politics, but simple and easy-to-understand narratives are notoriously not a strength of Democratic politicians. That’s what the folks at the Winning Jobs Narrative Project are trying to fix. On this must-listen episode before the midterm elections, Bobby Clark and Melissa Morales explain why messaging matters to voters. Bobby Clark is a Communications Strategist who advises philanthropic and progressive advocacy organizations on investments in communications research, structures, and campaigns. Bobby led the team that developed the Winning Jobs Narrative. Twitter: @bobbyprogress Melissa Morales is the Founder and President of Somos Votantes (C4) & Somos PAC (527), which are currently running multi-million dollar Latino-focused electoral programs in battleground states ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Twitter: @Melissa_in_DC The Winning Jobs Narrative Project https://winningjobsnarrative.org Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
We’ve lived in the shadow of trickle-down economics for over 40 years. During that time, our leaders unquestioningly embraced economic policies that prioritize the wealthiest and most powerful, with the idea that their wealth will eventually "trickle down" to everyone else. Finally, a contrasting progressive economic understanding is beginning to take hold. Middle-out economics—the idea that prioritizing the working- and middle-class is better for everyone in the economy—is having a moment. But where did middle-out come from? Michael Tomasky’s new book chronicles the history of middle-out and the rise of progressive economics in the United States.
Michael Tomasky is a journalist and author. He’s top editor of The New Republic, editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, and a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times.
Twitter: @mtomasky
The Middle Out https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/671443/the-middle-out-by-michael-tomasky
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
While President Biden has embraced middle-out economics here in the states, the UK’s new leaders have decided to enthusiastically revive trickle-down economics. Political economist Mark Blyth, who teaches International Economics, shares his thoughts on the United Kingdom’s troubling new budget policies, certainty’s role in building an economy, and much more on this wide-ranging episode.
Mark Blyth is Director of the William R. Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance. He’s a professor, author, and political economist. His latest book, Diminishing Returns, is out now.
Twitter: @MkBlyth Forget trickle down, what the UK needs is middle-out economics https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/25/forget-trickle-down-what-the-uk-needs-is-middle-out-economics Angrynomics by Mark Blyth and Eric Lonergan https://angrynomics.com Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The United States is in the midst of a housing crisis. Prices are skyrocketing, supply is dwindling, and wages haven't kept up with cost of living. It's a complicated problem, but the good news is that many of its solutions are relatively simple. Jenny Schuetz literally wrote the book on how good policy solutions can help resolve some of the worst pressures on our stressed housing market.
Jenny Schuetz is a Senior Fellow at Brookings Metro, and is an expert in urban economics and housing policy. She’s also the author of a new book, Fixer-Upper: How to Repair America’s Broken Housing Systems.
Twitter: @jenny_schuetz
Fixer-Upper: How to Repair America's Broken Housing Systems https://www.brookings.edu/book/fixer-upper Don’t Think of a Recession https://civicventures.substack.com/p/dont-think-of-a-recession
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
President Biden recently announced his plan for student loan forgiveness. It’s a policy that helps build the economy from the middle out by erasing some of the 1.7 trillion dollars in debt that’s holding Americans back. Economist Marshall Steinbaum, who has spent most of his career researching student debt, explains why this forgiveness plan is a great start—and why Biden can, and should, do more.
Marshall Steinbaum is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Utah and a Senior Fellow in Higher Education Finance at Jain Family Institute.
Twitter: @Econ_Marshall
The Student Debt Crisis is a Crisis of Non-Repayment https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/crisis-of-non-repayment
A Middle-Out Education https://civicventures.substack.com/p/a-middle-out-education
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Millions of Americans are being kept out of the workforce due to the lingering effects of Covid, resulting in billions of dollars in lost wages and productivity. How is this affecting our economy? Returning guest Katie Bach shares the findings from her new report which outlines just how severe the labor market effects of long Covid have become.
Kathryn Bach is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute and the CBO of &pizza.
Twitter: @kathrynsbach
New data shows long Covid is keeping as many as 4 million people out of work https://www.brookings.edu/research/new-data-shows-long-covid-is-keeping-as-many-as-4-million-people-out-of-work
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
If you're a salaried worker, chances are you're no longer eligible for the overtime pay that you would have received 40 years ago. A robust federal overtime standard used to serve as a kind of minimum wage for the middle class, providing both a valuable source of extra income and a shield of protection for the 40-hour workweek. When he interviewed workers around the country, Journalist Marcus Baram learned firsthand why we must raise the overtime threshold and restore overtime protections for American workers.
Marcus Baram is a journalist and author who has written for The New Yorker, The WSJ, Capital & Main, and more
Twitter: @mbaram
(Full disclosure: Civic Ventures is a partial funder of Capital & Main's inequality reporting project.)
Who Killed Overtime Pay? https://capitalandmain.com/latest-news/the-50-100-pay-gap/who-killed-overtime-pay-the-50-100-pay-gap
America Gave Up on Overtime https://time.com/6168310/overtime-pay-history
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The Inflation Reduction Act may be smaller than the original Build Back Better plan, but it still represents a huge leap forward in middle-out economic thinking. The IRA addresses out-of-control healthcare costs, it helps build a fairer tax code, and it combats the climate crisis. It’s a huge win for the Biden administration and, more importantly, for the middle class. Economist Rose Khattar breaks down the many benefits of the IRA on our first episode back from summer break.
Rose Khattar is the Associate Director of Economic Analysis at the Center for American Progress.
Twitter: @rose_khattar
Top 11 Benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act https://www.americanprogress.org/article/top-11-benefits-of-the-inflation-reduction-act
I Helped Coin the Phrase “Middle-Out Economics”, Biden is Making It a Reality https://newrepublic.com/article/167506/biden-middle-out-economics
How the Inflation Reduction Act could help normal Americans fight rising costs https://www.businessinsider.com/democratic-budget-bill-inflation-reduction-act-could-fight-intrest-rates-2022-8
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
One of the central theories of classical economics is that markets respond quickly and efficiently to changes in demand. But the supply chain disruptions that left store shelves empty for much of the pandemic demonstrate that the markets aren’t the efficient adapters that classic economists believe them to be. Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz explains why the tendency to believe in the market is one of the most deeply rooted trickle-down myths, and why government intervention is the best way to respond to economic downturns.
This episode was originally released in May 2020.
Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel laureate economist and a professor at Columbia University. He is also the co-chair of the High-Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress at the OECD, and the Chief Economist of the Roosevelt Institute.
Twitter: @JosephEStiglitz
People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781324004219
Four Priorities for Pandemic Relief Efforts: https://rooseveltinstitute.org/four-priorities-for-covid19-pandemic-relief-efforts/
Why Our Affluent Society Is Facing Shortages in the Face of the Coronavirus Pandemic: https://time.com/5811505/affluent-society-shortages-coronavirus-pandemic
Deficit Lessons for the Pandemic From the 2008 Crisis: https://prospect.org/economy/deficit-lessons-pandemic-2008-crisis/
How the Economy Will Look After the Coronavirus Pandemic: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/15/how-the-economy-will-look-after-the-coronavirus-pandemic/
Top economist: US coronavirus response is like ‘third world’ country: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/22/top-economist-us-coronavirus-response-like-third-world-country-joseph-stiglitz-donald-trump
Website: https://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
What became known as “essential work” during the pandemic was really just forced labor, according to labor market economist Suresh Naidu. He shares employers' secret tricks for manipulating the labor market and explains how powerless most workers have become as a result.
This episode was originally released in September 2020.
Suresh Naidu is a professor of economics and international and public affairs at Columbia University as well as a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, external faculty at the Santa Fe Institute, and a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Twitter: @snaidunl
‘Essential’ workers are just forced laborers: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/05/21/essential-workers-pay-wages-safety-unemployment
Website: https://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Did you know that since 1975 a staggering $50 trillion has been diverted from the paychecks of working Americans to the pockets of the wealthiest 1%? That shocking number was discovered in a groundbreaking study done by the RAND Corporation that finally put a price tag on the massive inequality we’ve seen in America over the last 40 years.
This episode was originally released in September 2020.
Carter C. Price is a senior mathematician at the RAND Corporation.
Twitter: @CarterCPrice
The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90% – And That’s Made the U.S. Less Secure: https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/
“We were shocked”: RAND study uncovers massive income shift to the top 1%: https://www.fastcompany.com/90550015/we-were-shocked-rand-study-uncovers-massive-income-shift-to-the-top-1 Website: https://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
These days "conservative economics" can mean anything from strict libertarianism to formless Trumpism. But what were the foundations of American conservatism? According to Oren Cass, the executive director of a think tank called American Compass, the answer is simple: family, community, and industry. He shares his mission to reclaim American conservatism and joins Nick and Goldy in a search for some common ground.
This episode was originally released in December 2020.
Oren Cass is the executive director of American Compass, whose mission is to restore an economic orthodoxy that emphasizes the importance of faith, community, and industry to the nation’s liberty and prosperity. He is the author of ‘The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America’.
Twitter: @oren_cass
Workers of the World: https://americancompass.org/essays/workers-of-the-world
The elite needs to give up its GDP fetish: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/opinion/us-gdp-coronavirus.html
Oren Cass on the future of economics and society: https://www.manhattan-institute.org/economics-after-partisanship-markets-society
Website: https://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
What do the internet and COVID vaccines have in common? Neither would be possible without the work of DARPA, a mission-focused federal agency responsible for funding research and development. Professor Mariana Mazzucato explains that our economy would be better off if more government agencies adopted DARPA’s mission-oriented approach.
This episode was originally released in May 2021. You can find the show notes and transcript for that episode here.
Mariana Mazzucato is a Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London, where she is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. She is the author of three highly-acclaimed books: The Entrepreneurial State, The Value of Everything, and Mission Economy.
Twitter: @MazzucatoM
Mission Economy: https://marianamazzucato.com/books/mission-economy
It’s 2023. Here’s how we fixed the global economy: https://time.com/collection/great-reset/5900739/fix-economy-by-2023
DARPA’s early investment in COVID-19 antibody identification producing timely results: https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2020-11-10
Website: https://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick's twitter: @NickHanauer
While most Americans know that our tax system advantages wealthy white families, not as many people realize how much it also actively disadvantages Black families. Tax law professor Dorothy Brown breaks down how racial inequality is built into U.S. tax policy and how we can try to fix it.
This episode was originally released in November 2021.
Dorothy A. Brown is professor of law at Emory University School of Law. She is a nationally recognized scholar in tax policy, race, and class and has published extensively on the racial implications of federal tax policy. She is the author of The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans — And How We Can Fix It.
Twitter: @DorothyABrown
The Whiteness of Wealth: https://bookshop.org/books/the-whiteness-of-wealth-how-the-tax-system-impoverishes-black-americans-and-how-we-can-fix-it/9780525577324
Black families pay significantly higher property taxes than white families, new analysis shows: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/02/black-property-tax/
Website: https://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
What are the ethical limits of the market? How do we shift the balances of power back towards workers? What does true freedom really look like? Nick and Goldy explore these questions and more in a fascinating conversation with Philosophy Professor, Elizabeth Anderson.
This episode was originally released in September 2020.
Elizabeth Anderson is the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk About It), and a recipient of the 2019 MacArthur Fellowship.
Private Government: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691176512/private-government
The philosopher redefining equality: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/07/the-philosopher-redefining-equality
Website: https://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Business leaders can use their power and resources to make meaningful change, but should they? Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the founders of iconic ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s, have navigated the landscape between business and activism since the 1970’s. They share their thoughts and experiences as well as their latest mission: ending qualified immunity.
This episode was originally recorded and released in April 2021.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield are the co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. They’re also leaders of the Campaign to End Qualified Immunity, a police reform and criminal justice campaign.
Ben’s twitter: @YoBenCohen
https://campaigntoendqualifiedimmunity.org
Website: https://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Nick and Goldy answer more of your questions! What’s the deal with cryptocurrency? How are people still saying that inflation was caused by the stimulus? Is capitalism better than market socialism? Plus some summer reading recommendations and an important podcast announcement.
If you have questions for a future AMA episode, leave us a voicemail at 731-388-9334.
Why This Computer Scientist Says All Cryptocurrency Should “Die in a Fire” https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/05/why-this-computer-scientist-says-all-cryptocurrency-should-die-in-a-fire
Consumers deserve an inflation rebate (with Congressman Ro Khanna) https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/consumers-deserve-an-inflation-rebate-with-congressman-ro-khanna/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Chile has a proud tradition of protests, but the unrest of 2019 was different. More than a million people took to the streets to protest their nation’s vast inequality. The uprising made international news, unseated a neoliberal dictatorship, and led to the election of a new president—but did it also create lasting change? Chilean historian Marcelo Casals catches us up on the latest developments in Chile’s battle against neoliberalism.
Marcelo Casals is an independent scholar based in Santiago. He holds a PhD in Latin American history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and recently wrote an article for Dissent Magazine titled, ‘The End of Neoliberalism in Chile?’
Twitter: @Palquelea
The End of Neoliberalism in Chile? https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-end-of-neoliberalism-in-chile
Gabriel Boric: From student protest leader to Chile’s president: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-59694056
‘Chile Woke Up’: Dictatorship’s Legacy of Inequality Triggers Mass Protests: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/world/americas/chile-protests.html
The texture piece is from 2019 and is courtesy of Gustavo de la Piedra, a listener from Santiago, Chile. The news clips are sourced from the news station France 24.
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Millions of Americans lost their jobs because of the pandemic. While men have returned to their pre-pandemic level of employment, a million women are still missing from the workforce. Without access to paid maternity leave and affordable child care, women are choosing to stay home – or being forced to. It’s time for a more inclusive economic recovery. Reshma Saujani, the Founder of Girls Who Code and the Marshall Plan for Moms, has a plan to get us there.
Reshma Saujani is the founder of Girls Who Code and the Marshall Plan for Moms. She’s also an author of several books, her latest is called Pay Up: The Future of Women and Work (and Why It's Different Than You Think)
Twitter: @reshmasaujani
McKinsey - Meeting the challenge of moms’ ‘double double shift’ at home and work: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/sustainable-inclusive-growth/future-of-america/meeting-the-challenge-of-moms-double-double-shift-at-home-and-work
The Business Case for Child Care: https://marshallplanformoms.com/childcare-report/
Marshall Plan for Moms https://marshallplanformoms.com
Pay Up https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Pay-Up/Reshma-Saujani/9781982191573
House Resolution 121 https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolution/121
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
What can the history of human progress teach us about modern inequality? In his new book, ‘The Journey of Humanity: The Origins of Wealth and Inequality,’ economist Oded Galor explores that question, as well as why human progress was stagnant for so much of history, if growth is still possible without ruining the planet, and what this all means for our future.
Oded Galor is a Professor of Economics at Brown University and the founding thinker behind Unified Growth Theory. He’s also the author of The Journey of Humanity: The Origins of Wealth and Inequality.
Twitter: @GalorOded
The Journey of Humanity https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/679024/the-journey-of-humanity-by-oded-galor/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
When it comes to crafting economic policy, cost-effectiveness, efficiency, choice, and competition have reigned supreme among policymakers for decades. Sociologist Elizabeth Popp Berman says that this style of economic reasoning—prioritizing efficiency above all else—makes good ideas seem like bad policy. She walks us through how that short-sighted style of thinking took hold in DC and explains when policymakers are right to lean on purely economic thinking—and when they should reject it in favor of prioritizing more fundamental values.
Elizabeth Popp Berman is a sociologist at the University of Michigan and the author of “Thinking Like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy”.
Twitter: @epopppp
Economics: Looking Back to Move Forward https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/64/economics-looking-back-to-move-forward
Thinking Like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691167381/thinking-like-an-economist
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Reducing inequality is not only possible, but it’s actually happening all across the globe. Faiza Shaheen, the Inequality Program Lead at NYU, has been researching the conditions and policies that can lower inequality for years. She shares which countries have successfully done so, and speculates about whether the United States has a shot at joining them.
Dr. Faiza Shaheen is the Program Head for the Inequality and Exclusion Grand Challenge of the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies.
Twitter: @faizashaheen
Solutions to inequality https://medium.com/sdg16plus/solutions-to-inequality-962306388018
From Rhetoric to Action: Delivering Equality & Inclusion https://www.sdg16.plus/delivering-equality-and-inclusion
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
john a. powell, the Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute, explains why the concept of belonging is so important for a healthy community and why inclusion is the key to a thriving economy.
john a. powell is the Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.
Twitter: @profjohnapowell
Targeted universalism: a solution for inequality? https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/california/targeted-universalism/509-2127090b-7f50-4a91-91e7-04c47acf3309
Othering & Belonging Institute https://belonging.berkeley.edu/john-powell
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Gas prices have reached record highs in the United States. Is inflation actually to blame, or is it the greed of Big Oil, which is enjoying record profits? Congressman Ro Khanna walks us through his proposal for a Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax, which he says will help curb profiteering while reducing gas prices.
Congressman Ro Khanna represents California’s 17th Congressional District. He’s the author of Dignity in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work for All of Us.
Twitter: @RoKhanna
Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax would protect consumers from giant oil companies taking advantage of world events to jack up prices https://khanna.house.gov/media/press-releases/release-gasoline-prices-sky-high-khanna-whitehouse-announce-curb-big-oil
Dignity in a Digital Age https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Dignity-in-a-Digital-Age/Ro-Khanna/9781982163341
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The Biden Administration’s 2023 budget proposal includes a Billionaire Minimum Income Tax and a rewrite of stock buyback practices. Will these changes actually take effect? If so, will they do enough to curb runaway corporate power? Niko Lusiani from the Roosevelt Institute breaks down what’s inside Biden’s budget.
Niko Lusiani is the Director of Corporate Power at the Roosevelt Institute.
Twitter: @NikoLusiani
Budget of the U.S. Government https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/budget_fy2023.pdf
Roosevelt Institute Responds to Billionaire Minimum Income Tax Proposal in Biden Administration FY 2023 Budget https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2022/03/28/statement-roosevelt-institute-responds-to-billionaire-minimum-income-tax-proposal/
Starbucks Halts Stock Buybacks as Schultz Returns https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2022-04-04/starbucks-halts-stock-buybacks-as-schultz-pivots-to-workers#:~:text=Starbucks%20announced%20late%20last%20year,the%20company%20announced%20in%202018
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The idea behind private equity firms—to buy failing companies and turn them around for a profit—is not inherently bad. So why is private equity such a major driver of economic inequality? Jim Baker, the Executive Director for the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, explains these Wall Street pirates’ risky business practices and shows how workers are paying the price.
Jim Baker is the Executive Director for the Private Equity Stakeholder Project
Twitter: @PEstakeholder
Pirate Equity: How Wall Street Firms are Pillaging American Retail https://pestakeholder.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Pirate-Equity-How-Wall-Street-Firms-are-Pillaging-American-Retail-July-2019.pdf Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
In 2019, a group of business leaders signed a high-profile pledge promising that they would voluntarily move toward a more inclusive stakeholder-focused version of capitalism. But throughout the pandemic, those same companies reported record profits while workers were left behind. Brookings Institute Senior Fellow Katie Bach walks us through her new report examining the pandemic labor practices of 22 companies, spanning nearly every sector, and employing more than 7 million frontline workers.
Katie Bach is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute and the CBO of &pizza.
Twitter: @kathrynsbach
As shareholder wealth soared, workers were left behind https://www.brookings.edu/research/profits-and-the-pandemic-as-shareholder-wealth-soared-workers-were-left-behind
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Non-compete clauses, and the lesser-known no-poach agreements between franchises, are shockingly common for low-wage workers. Although these contracts were originally intended to protect trade secrets among high-level executives, they have spiraled into an unfair labor practice that keeps wages low, limits employee mobility, and decreases competition. Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson explains how non-competes and no-poach agreements violate the law in many states, what his team did to get hundreds of huge employers across the country to cease and desist, and why you should tell your state’s Attorney General if you know of any low- or middle-income workers who are being forced into signing these agreements.
This episode was originally recorded and released in May 2021.
Bob Ferguson is Washington State’s 18th Attorney General. As the state’s chief legal officer, Bob is committed to protecting the people of Washington against powerful interests that don’t play by the rules.
Twitter: @BobFergusonAG
Noncompete agreements have pushed U.S. wages even lower, says a new Biden administration report: https://www.fastcompany.com/90729820/noncompete-agreements-have-pushed-u-s-wages-even-lower-says-a-new-biden-administration-report
Why aren’t paychecks growing? A burger-joint clause offers a clue: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/business/pay-growth-fast-food-hiring.html
Workers in Washington state win big under new non-compete law: https://www.emeryreddy.com/2019/09/workers-in-washington-state-win-big-under-new-non-compete-law/
Attorney General Bob Ferguson stops King County coffee shop’s practice requiring baristas to sign unfair non-compete agreements: https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/attorney-general-bob-ferguson-stops-king-county-coffee-shop-s-practice-requiring
AG Report: Ferguson’s initiative ends no-poach practices nationally at 237 corporate franchise chains: https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/ag-report-ferguson-s-initiative-ends-no-poach-practices-nationally-237-corporate
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
It’s trendy to mock the malicious pervasiveness of neoliberalism now, but have you ever wondered what its origins are? This week, George Monbiot and Binyamin Appelbaum join the show to uncover just where the dominant economic theory of our time came from and how it took hold. This episode was originally recorded and released in October 2019.
George Monbiot writes a weekly column for The Guardian and is the author of a number of books, most recently ‘Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis’. As an investigative journalist and self-described “professional troublemaker,” George uncovers the complicated truths behind the world’s most persistent problems.
Twitter: @GeorgeMonbiot
Binyamin Appelbaum writes about economics and business for the editorial page of The New York Times. From 2010 to 2019, he was a Washington correspondent for the Times, covering economic policy in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis. His new book, ‘The Economists’ Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society’ is a Wall Street Journal Business Bestseller.
Twitter: @BCAppelbaum
Further reading: Out of the Wreckage: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781786632890
The Economists’ Hour: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780316512329
Neoliberalism - the ideology at the root of all our problems: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot
Games Economists Play: http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/marshall-steinbaum-games-economists-play
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
What role does the criminal justice system play in economic inequality? How does economic inequality cause mass incarceration? And how do we tease those two questions apart? Robynn Cox, an expert in the economics of mass incarceration, talks about her research uncovering the links between economic inequality and the criminal justice system.
Robynn Cox is an assistant professor at the University of Southern California School of Social Work. She is an economist and inequality researcher, and her work focuses on understanding the social and economic consequences of mass incarceration.
Twitter: @RobynnCox
Overcoming social exclusion: Addressing race and criminal justice policy in the United States https://equitablegrowth.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Cox.pdf
The Impact of Mass Incarceration on the Lives of African American Women https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1007/s12114-011-9114-2
Identifying the Link Between Food Security and Incarceration https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/soej.12080
www.robynncox.com
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pam.22277
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07418825.2019.1709883
http://www.jameinpcunningham.com/uploads/1/1/2/0/112070441/black_lives_ccow.pdf
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Ever wondered what the minimum wage would be if it had kept pace with inflation and productivity like it used to? Here’s a hint: $7.25, and even $15.00, don’t come close. Economist Dean Baker has been crunching the numbers on the minimum wage for years. He joins the podcast this week to share what he’s found and why it matters. Since the publication of this episode, the Center for Economic and Policy Research issued a correction to Dean Baker’s August 2021 report that a minimum wage that kept up with productivity would be $26 per hour. In fact, it would be $23 per hour.
Dean Baker is a Senior Economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Twitter: @DeanBaker13
Further reading: This is What Minimum Wage Would Be If It Kept Pace with Productivity https://cepr.net/this-is-what-minimum-wage-would-be-if-it-kept-pace-with-productivity/
Work Should Pay: A $15 an Hour Minimum Wage Is a Start https://cepr.net/work-should-pay-a-15-an-hour-minimum-wage-is-a-start/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
While many Americans struggle to make ends meet, corporate America’s 2021 profits were higher than ever. So why are corporations making more money while supply chain issues are still driving up inflation for the rest of us? The Groundwork Collaborative’s Chief Economist, Rakeen Mabud, wants you to know that the supply chain is working exactly as it was designed: for maximum profit, rather than reliably getting goods to people. And that’s the problem.
Rakeen Mabud is the Chief Economist and Managing Director of Policy and Research at the Groundwork Collaborative.
Twitter: @rakeen_mabud
How We Broke the Supply Chain https://prospect.org/economy/how-we-broke-the-supply-chain-intro/
Corporations Raise Prices as Consumers Spend ‘With a Vengeance’ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/27/business/economy/price-increases-inflation.html
Opinion: Larry Summers Shares the Blame for Inflation https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/28/opinion/larry-summers-inflation.html
Inflation causing financial strain for nearly half of U.S. households, poll finds https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/12/02/inflation-gallup-financial-hardship/
Stock Buybacks Beat Capital Spending for Many Big Companies https://www.wsj.com/articles/stock-buybacks-beat-capital-spending-for-many-big-companies-11631611802
The stock market is punishing Walmart and Target for keeping costs low while the rest of the corporate sector prioritizes profits and makes inflation worse https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-target-keep-prices-low-corporations-prioritize-profits-inflation-worse-2021-11
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Investigative financial analyst Tom Bergin cut his teeth investigating corporate wrongdoing. When he turned his attention to the economics profession, he learned that eight major economic theories—used by experts to shape policy across the globe—entirely lack factual basis. He joins the pod to explain how those theories wormed their way into dominant economic thinking, the evidence against them, and why he believes economists are finally starting to shift toward studying the world as it actually is.
Tom Bergin is an Investigative Financial Journalist for Reuters and the Author of Free Lunch Thinking: How Economics Ruins the Economy
Twitter: @tombergin_News
Further reading: Economics is Once Again Becoming a Worldly Science https://aeon.co/essays/economics-is-once-again-becoming-a-worldly-science
Free Lunch Thinking https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/111/1118880/free-lunch-thinking/9781847942739.html
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The Congressional Budget Office, the institution that furnishes cost-benefit analyses for federal legislation under consideration by Congress, has a really hard job. But some of the assumptions they rely on to predict economic consequences are just plain weird. Economist Mark Paul leads us through the strangest practices at the CBO, including their (untrue) claim that public investment is only half as productive as private investment and the complete lack of peer-reviewing of reports that can signal the death knell for a bill.
Mark Paul is an Economist at the New College of Florida and a Fellow at the Berggruen Institute.
Twitter: @MarkVinPaul
Further reading: The Pitch: Economic Update for February 10th, 2022 https://civicventures.substack.com/p/bidens-big-union-push
Mark’s tweet about the CBO: https://twitter.com/MarkVinPaul/status/1491165138288005121
The Macroeconomic and Budgetary Effects of Federal Investment https://www.cbo.gov/publication/51628
CBO issues score on how much Build Back Better would cost if programs were permanent https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/10/politics/build-back-better-cbo-score/index.html
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Billionaires have looted economies, hidden from tax bills, and destabilized democracies for decades. But the subset of billionaires who make a show of pretending to be good citizens have to be the worst among them. They’re called “Davos Man'' and according to New York Times Global Economics Correspondent Peter Goodman, they’re devouring the world we live in.
Peter S. Goodman is the Global Economics Correspondent at the New York Times. He is a two-time winner of the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism. His new book Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World is available now.
Twitter: @petersgoodman
Further reading: Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World https://www.harpercollins.com/products/davos-man-peter-s-goodman?variant=39325320282146
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
We often discuss abortion as an issue of bodily autonomy, personal rights, and reproductive justice. Of course it’s all of those things, but it’s also an economic issue. Access (or lack thereof) to an abortion profoundly affects women’s lives by determining if, when, and under what circumstances they become mothers. Whether or not women have access to abortion can change the direction of their lives, affecting educational attainment, labor force participation, and overall earnings. Economist Caitlin Myers breaks down her research into the subject and provides examples of the causal link between abortion access and economic outcomes in women’s lives.
Caitlin Knowles Myers is the John G. McCullough professor of economics at Middlebury College and Co-Director of the Middlebury Initiative for Data and Digital Methods. She’s known for her recent research on the impact of contraception and abortion policies in the United States.
Twitter: @Caitlin_K_Myers
Opinion: Economists can tell you that restricting abortion access restricts women’s lives https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/29/abortion-economics-supreme-court
Lack of abortion access will set US women back, economists warn https://www.ft.com/content/61251b31-0041-461c-bd33-aacf2f13fe10
What can economic research tell us about the effect of abortion access on women’s lives? https://www.brookings.edu/research/what-can-economic-research-tell-us-about-the-effect-of-abortion-access-on-womens-lives
The economic reality behind a Mississippi anti-abortion argument https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/02/business/mississippi-abortion-law-economy.html
The Economic Consequences of Being Denied an Abortion https://www.nber.org/papers/w26662
The Turnaway Study https://www.ansirh.org/research/ongoing/turnaway-study
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Nick and Goldy answer your questions! How is any form of union busting legal? Why can’t America be more like the Nordic countries? Is taxing unrealized capital gains a good idea? And more!
Thanks to Brad from Pennsylvania, Larry from Boston, Julie from Arizona, Duncan from California, Zach from Minnesota, and Dave from Illinois who left the great voicemails included in this episode. If you have any questions for a future AMA episode, leave us a voicemail at 731-388-9334.
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Further reading: The Velocity of Money https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/the-velocity-of-money-with-ann-pettifor
Two new studies published about the Seattle minimum wage ordinance https://www.washington.edu/news/2019/02/06/two-new-studies-published-about-the-seattle-minimum-wage-ordinance
U.S. employers are charged with violating federal law in 41.5% of all union election campaigns https://www.epi.org/publication/unlawful-employer-opposition-to-union-election-campaigns Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Modern Monetary Theory is an attempt to accurately describe how government debt and complex financial systems actually work and it can help us responsibly use our resources. No one is more knowledgeable on the subject than returning guest, Professor Stephanie Kelton. On this episode, originally released in 2020, Kelton explains the myths surrounding MMT and what a new understanding of the budget could do for our economy.
Stephanie Kelton is a Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Stony Brook University. She is the leading expert on Modern Monetary Theory. Her book, The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy, shows how to break free of flawed deficit thinking.
Twitter: @StephanieKelton
The Deficit Myth: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781541736184
Learn To Love Trillion-Dollar Deficits: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/opinion/us-deficit-coronavirus.html
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The United States spends far more on healthcare costs than other industrialized countries, yet we continue to have wider gaps of coverage and report worse health outcomes. California Assemblymember Ash Kalra is paving the way for a better system in his state through the California Guaranteed Health Care for All Act, which at the time of recording had been advancing through the state legislature for nearly a year. The night before this episode posted, the Bill died in the Assembly — but Assemblymember Kalra's thoughts on how a state-based single payer system would work, the hurdles it faces, and how such a program could become the blueprint for national health care reform can still inspire future lawmakers and activists to find new paths forward for health care in America.
Ash Kalra represents California’s 27th District. In 2016 he became the first Indian American to serve in the California Legislature in state history and was re-elected to his third term in 2020.
Twitter: @Ash_Kalra
Single-payer healthcare proposal fizzles in California Assembly: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-31/single-payer-healthcare-proposal-fizzles-in-california-assembly
Assemblymember Ash Kalra, Author of AB 1400 CA Guaranteed Health Care for All Act, Releases Statement: https://a27.asmdc.org/press-releases/20220131-assemblymember-ash-kalra-author-ab-1400-ca-guaranteed-health-care-all-act
Universal health care bill advances in California Assembly: https://www.kpbs.org/news/local/2022/01/12/universal-health-care-bill-advances-california-assembly
‘CalCare’ begins its long crawl to passage: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/california-playbook/2022/01/12/calcare-begins-its-long-crawl-to-passage-495692
California Democrats Revive Universal Health Care Bill, Paid For By Tax Increase: https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2022/01/06/universal-health-bill-california-democrats-tax-increase/
Fundamental health reform like ‘Medicare for All’ would help the labor market: https://www.epi.org/publication/medicare-for-all-would-help-the-labor-market/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Even in the middle of a pandemic, trickle-down politicians still love to claim that the free market is the best way to resolve human problems and that the government can't be trusted to serve the public good. But when we privatize public health, utilities, and other shared necessities, we hand over control of those public goods—the things that we all need and that we need everyone to have— to for-profit entities that don’t answer to the public. Donald Cohen, an expert on privatization, shares examples and talks about the consequences of privatization in America.
Donald Cohen is the founder and executive director of In The Public Interest, a national resource and policy center on privatization and responsible contracting. He's also co-author of the new book The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back.
Twitter: @donaldrcohen12
The Privatization of Everything: https://bookshop.org/books/the-privatization-of-everything-how-the-plunder-of-public-goods-transformed-america-and-how-we-can-fight-back/9781620976531
Why Privatization is Worse Than You Know: https://publicseminar.org/2022/01/why-privatization-is-worse-than-you-know/
Opinion: The pandemic proved that privatization can’t provide enough public goods—like vaccines, education, justice, and a sustainable planet: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-pandemic-proved-that-privatization-cant-provide-enough-public-goodslike-vaccines-education-justice-and-a-sustainable-planet-11640027547
The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back: https://nextbigideaclub.com/magazine/privatization-everything-plunder-public-goods-transformed-america-can-fight-back-bookbite/31594/
A Conversation With Donald Cohen, Author of ‘The Privatization of Everything’: https://capitalandmain.com/a-conversation-with-donald-cohen-author-of-the-privatization-of-everything
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s Twitter: @NickHanauer
In most states, tipped workers are not subject to the minimum wage. Why? Because it’s legal to pay tipped workers a subminimum wage as low as the federal minimum of $2.13 per hour. As long as any worker in the country can be paid less than the minimum wage, the minimum wage is meaningless. Saru Jayaraman, a leader in the national fight for one fair wage, lays out the path forward.
Saru Jayaraman is the President of One Fair Wage, an organization that fights to raise wages and working conditions for all tipped and service workers She is also the Director of the UC Berkeley Food Labor Research Center and the author of One Fair Wage: Ending Subminimum Pay in America.
Twitter: @SaruJayaraman
New Year to bring higher minimum wages in record number of states and cities: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/higher-minimum-wages-2022-in-record-number-of-states/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top
Arkansas waitress fired after $4,400 tip shows why tipping at restaurants has to stop: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/arkansas-waitress-fired-after-4-400-tip-shows-why-tipping-ncna1286076
When the minimum wage isn’t enough: https://commonwealthmagazine.org/economy/when-the-minimum-wage-isnt-enough/
Seven facts about tipped workers and the tipped minimum wage: https://www.epi.org/blog/seven-facts-about-tipped-workers-and-the-tipped-minimum-wage/ Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
When the Federal Reserve makes money, where does it go? Turns out, the Fed’s hands are tied—it can’t do anything other than assume that the new money will trickle down into the hands of ordinary Americans through Wall Street’s coffers. And according to journalist Christopher Leonard, that’s put the United States’ economic stability at risk and accelerated income inequality.
Christopher Leonard is a business reporter and executive director of the Watchdog Writers Group at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He is the author of Kochland: The Secret History of the Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America. His new book is The Lords of Easy Money: How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy.
Twitter: @CLeonardNews
The Lords of Easy Money: https://bookshop.org/books/the-lords-of-easy-money-how-the-federal-reserve-broke-the-american-economy/9781982166632
How Nov. 2, 2010 Made the Rich So Much Richer: https://time.com/6112931/federal-reserve-wealth-inequality-recession/
The Fed’s Doomsday Prophet Has a Dire Warning About Where We’re Headed: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/12/28/inflation-interest-rates-thomas-hoenig-federal-reserve-526177
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
If it seems to you like the ultimate goal of the most extreme conservatives is to undermine democracy and cripple democratic institutions—well, according to historian Nancy MacLean, you’re right. This week, MacLean unpacks the meteoric rise in popularity of the radical right’s ideas, and offers a way forward for progressives, based on lessons from successful social movements throughout American history. This episode was originally released in July 2020.
Nancy MacLean is an award-winning scholar of the twentieth-century U.S. and the William H. Chafe Distinguished Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University. Her book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, was a New York Times bestseller and finalist for the National Book Award, and The Nation magazine named it the “Most Valuable Book” of the year.
Twitter: @NancyMacLean5
Democracy in Chains: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781101980965
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The 2017 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act included a little-known provision establishing something called opportunity zones. The plan, which was lauded as a way to direct investments into under-developed communities in the U.S., created 8,764 tax havens that were almost immediately exploited by the wealthy to gobble up capital gains tax breaks. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Wessel explains how opportunity zones came to be, who is profiting off of them, and why it’s so difficult to tweak the tax code without creating windfalls for the rich.
David Wessel is a senior fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings and director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy. He is the author of two New York Times bestsellers: “In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke’s War on the Great Panic” (2009) and “Red Ink: Inside the High Stakes Politics of the Federal Budget” (2012). His most recent book is “Only the Rich Can Play: How Washington Works in the New Gilded Age” (2021). He has shared two Pulitzer Prizes, one in 1984 for a Boston Globe series on the persistence of racism in Boston and the other in 2003 for Wall Street Journal stories on corporate scandals.
Twitter: @davidmwessel
The Rich Have Found Another Way to Pay Less Tax: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/10/opinion/opportunity-zones-tax-loopholes.html?referringSource=articleShare
Only the Rich Can Play: https://bookshop.org/books/only-the-rich-can-play-how-washington-works-in-the-new-gilded-age/9781541757196
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
In the U.S., inequality is often framed as the 99% versus the wealthiest 1%. But that’s not quite the right matchup. While the bottom 90% has done dramatically worse over the last several decades and the top 0.1% has done dramatically better, the 9.9% in between those groups still controls more than half of the wealth in the United States. Author and philosopher Matthew Stewart thinks that the 9.9% are not innocent bystanders, and he joins Nick and Goldy to discuss how this group is entrenching inequality and warping our culture.
Matthew Stewart is an author and philosopher. He is the author, among other books, of Nature’s God and The 9.9 Percent.
The 9.9 Percent: https://bookshop.org/books/the-9-9-percent-the-new-aristocracy-that-is-entrenching-inequality-and-warping-our-culture/9781982114183
The 9.9 percent is the new American aristocracy: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/
Who are the 9.9% A closer look at the math of American inequality: https://lithub.com/who-are-the-9-9-percent-a-closer-look-at-the-math-of-american-inequality/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
How can we center the role of race in our economic policy and in our politics in a way that will drive real change? Kyle Strickland, the deputy director of race and democracy at the Roosevelt Institute, explains how our leaders have fallen under the sway of racial liberalism, which focuses solely on disavowing personal bigotry and overt discrimination. In order to realize true racial and economic justice, he argues we should move beyond racial liberalism and toward a greater understanding of the systemic injustices built into our political and economic systems.
Kyle Strickland is the Deputy Director of Race and Democracy at the Roosevelt Institute. He is also the Senior Legal Analyst at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity and the Director of My Brother’s Keeper Ohio.
Twitter: @kstrickland_
A New Paradigm for Justice and Democracy: https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/RI_A-New-Paradigm-for-Justice-and-Democracy_Report_202111-1.pdf
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The average family earning $25,000 a year in the U.S. spends about $2,400 on financial transactions. Whether it’s the astronomical interest rates of a payday loan or the costs that come with being unbanked, the extractive practices of the financial services industry are effectively keeping the poor in poverty. Lawyer and author Mehrsa Baradaran and economic mobility expert Cate Blackford join Nick and Steph this week to explain why banking while poor is so expensive, and what states can do to rein in the people who profit from it. This episode was originally released in February 2020.
Mehrsa Baradaran is a professor of law at UC Irvine. She writes about banking law, financial inclusion, inequality, and the racial wealth gap. Her scholarship includes the books How the Other Half Banks and The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap.
Twitter: @MehrsaBaradaran
Cate Blackford was the Director of Outreach and Donor Development at the Bell Policy Center when we recorded this episode, but she is now the Public Policy Director at Maine People’s Alliance. She was the Co-Chair of the 2018 Proposition 111 campaign in CO to limit the interest lenders could charge on payday loans and eliminate fees from payday lending products, which passed with 75% of the vote.
Twitter: @catetiller
Further reading: Capitol One to end overdraft penalties as CFPB takes aim at ‘exploitative junk fees’: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/12/01/capital-one-overdraft-fees/
How the Other Half Banks: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674983960
The Color of Money: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674237476
If the U.S. Government Treated Poor People as Well as It Treats Banks: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/if-the-us-government-treated-poor-people-as-well-as-it-treats-banks/410614/
CO’s Prop 111 explained: https://coloradosun.com/2018/10/22/proposition-111-colorado-2018-explained/
Briefed by the Bell - Predatory Economy: https://www.bellpolicy.org/2018/09/10/predatory-economy/
How Do Payday Loans Work? https://www.incharge.org/debt-relief/how-payday-loans-work/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Until very recently, the prevailing wisdom cautioned that transitioning to a clean energy economy would be extremely expensive, and therefore only possible if undertaken slowly. New research upends that thinking—when it comes to going green, the faster we go, the cheaper it will be. University of Oxford professors Eric Beinhocker and Doyne Farmer talk with Nick about a new strategy for clean technology that could transform the climate fight.
Eric Beinhocker is a Professor of Public Policy Practice at the Blavatnik School of Government and the Executive Director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the University of Oxford’s Martin School. He is also a Supernumerary Fellow in Economics at Oriel College, and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute.
Twitter: @EricBeinhocker
Doyne Farmer is Director of the Complexity Economics program at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. He is Baillie Gifford Professor in the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute.
Website: http://www.doynefarmer.com/
Going big and fast on renewables could save trillions in energy costs: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/going-big-and-fast-on-renewables-would-save-trillions-in-energy-costs/
A new strategy for climate: make the clean stuff cheap - https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/a-new-strategy-for-climate-make-the-clean-stuff-cheap/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The number of unhoused Americans is at a historically high rate right now. This podcast is produced in Seattle, a city with the third highest homeless population in the U.S. Though many Seattleites identify as progressive, we can’t reach a consensus on how to help our most vulnerable populations—or even find agreement on the root causes of the housing crisis. Why are perspectives on homelessness, and possible solutions to it, so polarized? Josephine Ensign, a University of Washington nurse and health care provider for people experiencing homelessness, shares some of her insights from her career on the frontlines of this crisis.
Josephine Ensign is a professor in the School of Nursing and an adjunct professor in the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington. Her most recent book is Skid Road: On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in an American City.
Twitter: @josephineensign
Skid Road: https://bookshop.org/books/skid-road-on-the-frontier-of-health-and-homelessness-in-an-american-city/9781421440132
Homelessness Rises Faster Where Rent Exceeds a Third of Income: https://www.zillow.com/research/homelessness-rent-affordability-22247/
WA Department of Commerce: http://www.commerce.wa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/hau-why-homelessness-increase-2017.pdf
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Every company you can think of has benefitted from a public investment. Whether it’s direct handouts through the tax code, government research efforts, or employee reliance on programs like EITC or TANF, taxpayers are subsidizing wildly profitable companies. David Dayen, the executive editor of The American Prospect, and Financial Times associate editor Rana Foroohar join Nick and Zach to explain how we let corporate parasites get so out of control—and what we can do about it. This episode was originally recorded and released in January 2020.
Rana Foroohar is Global Business Columnist and an Associate Editor at the Financial Times. She is also CNN’s global economic analyst. She is the author of Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business and Don’t Be Evil: How Big Tech Betrayed Its Founding Principles and All of Us.
Twitter: @RanaForoohar
David Dayen is the executive editor of The American Prospect. He is the author of Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power and Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street’s Great Foreclosure Fraud.
Twitter: @ddayen
Confronting the parasite economy: https://prospect.org/labor/confronting-parasite-economy/
Makers and Takers: https://www.ranaforoohar.com/makersandtakers
How to Cure Corporate America’s Selfishness: https://newrepublic.com/article/150695/cure-corporate-americas-selfishness
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
We know that the tax system is set up to advantage people with money. And we know that in the U.S., people with money are disproportionately white. But what many people don’t realize is that the tax system actively advantages white families. Tax law professor Dorothy Brown explains how racial inequality is baked into tax policy in non-obvious ways, and how that affects wealth-building.
Dorothy A. Brown is professor of law at Emory University School of Law. She is a nationally recognized scholar in tax policy, race, and class and has published extensively on the racial implications of federal tax policy. She is the author of The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans — And How We Can Fix It.
Twitter: @DorothyABrown
The Whiteness of Wealth: https://bookshop.org/books/the-whiteness-of-wealth-how-the-tax-system-impoverishes-black-americans-and-how-we-can-fix-it/9780525577324
Black families pay significantly higher property taxes than white families, new analysis shows: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/02/black-property-tax/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The opioid crisis in the United States is a textbook example of free market economics. The powerful lie, manipulate, and skirt regulations to make buckets of money, while innocent people suffer. Journalist Sam Quinones joins Goldy and Paul to unpack the economics behind the opioid crisis, and the new threat of synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
Sam Quinones is a journalist best known for his reporting in Mexico and on Mexicans in the United States. He is the author of the award-winning Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic. His new book, The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth, is out today.
Twitter: @samquinones7
The Least of Us: https://bookshop.org/books/the-least-of-us-true-tales-of-america-and-hope-in-the-time-of-fentanyl-and-meth/9781635574357
What did the Sacklers know? https://newrepublic.com/article/162148/sacklers-know-patrick-radden-keefe-purdue-opioid-crisis-review
The 'Secret History' Of The Sackler Family & The Opioid Crisis: https://www.npr.org/2021/04/14/987195464/the-secret-history-of-the-sackler-family-the-opioid-crisis
State-Level Economic Costs of Opioid Use Disorder and Fatal Opioid Overdose: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7015a1.htm
Massive Costs of the US Opioid Epidemic in Lives and Dollars: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2780313
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Behind every aspect of the voting system that makes it harder to vote, there’s a policy that made it that way. Andrea Hailey, the CEO of Vote.org, joins Nick and Goldy to explain how voter suppression happens, and what reforms would help ensure a truly inclusive democracy.
Andrea Hailey is the CEO of Vote.org, the nation’s largest nonpartisan digital voter engagement organization.
Twitter: @AndreaEHailey
Vote.org: https://www.vote.org/ Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
It’s been a little over a month since the unemployment benefits programs that were established by the CARES Act expired, so we’re taking a look at how well they worked. Washington Post writer Amy Goldstein and Elliott Morris, a data journalist at The Economist, deliver the facts to Jessyn and Paul.
Amy Goldstein is a staff writer at The Washington Post, where much of her work has focused on social policy. She is the author of Janesville: An American Story.
Twitter: @goldsteinamy
Elliott Morris is a data journalist at The Economist.
Twitter: @gelliottmorris
Further reading: Poverty fell overall in 2020 as result of massive stimulus checks and unemployment aid, Census Bureau says: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/09/14/us-census-poverty-health-insurance-2020/
Welfare rolls decline during the pandemic despite economic upheaval: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/01/welfare-roles-during-the-pandemic/
Why now is the time to fix the UI system: https://www.epi.org/publication/introduction-why-now-is-the-time-to-fix-the-ui-system/
The racial disparity in unemployment benefits: https://www.rand.org/blog/2020/07/the-racial-disparity-in-unemployment-benefits.html
Unpacking Inequities in Unemployment Insurance: https://www.newamerica.org/pit/reports/unpacking-inequities-unemployment-insurance/introduction/
Ending pandemic unemployment aid has not yielded extra jobs—yet: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/08/28/ending-pandemic-unemployment-aid-has-not-yielded-extra-jobs-yet
Janesville: An American Story: https://bookshop.org/books/janesville-an-american-story-9781508283966/9781501102264
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Anti-monopoly and pro-local advocate Stacy Mitchell joins the show to talk about small business, big business, and decentralizing economic power.
Stacy Mitchell is the co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. She directs ILSR’s Independent Business Initiative, which produces research and analysis and partners with a broad range of allies to design and implement policies to reverse corporate concentration and strengthen local enterprise.
Twitter: @stacyfmitchell
Further reading:
Small Business Rising: https://www.smallbusinessrising.net/
Institute for Local Self-Reliance: https://ilsr.org/
Senate Testimony: Concentration is at the Root of Rural Distress: https://ilsr.org/stacy-mitchells-senate-testimony-on-state-of-rural-economy/
As Amazon rises, so does the opposition: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/technology/athena-mitchell-amazon.html
Why the left should ally with small business: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/democrats-labor-business-monopoly/
Report: Amazon’s stranglehold: How the company’s tightening grip on the economy is stifling competition, eroding jobs, and threatening communities: https://ilsr.org/amazon-stranglehold/
Don’t let Amazon get any bigger: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/opinion/amazon-antitrust.html
Amazon doesn’t just want to dominate the market - it wants to become the market: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/amazon-doesnt-just-want-to-dominate-the-market-it-wants-to-become-the-market/
The rise and fall of the word ‘monopoly’ in American life: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/word-monopoly-antitrust/530169/
Big box swindle: https://stacymitchell.com/front-page/
Voters want to curb the influence of big tech companies: https://www.wsj.com/articles/voters-want-to-curb-the-influence-of-big-tech-companies-new-poll-shows-11632405601 Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Few books have shaken the philanthropy world more than ‘Winners Take All’, Anand Giridharadas’s blistering critique of wealthy do-gooders. Global elites who ostentatiously give away hundreds of millions of dollars, he argues, are actually just preserving the status quo that grants them power in the first place. On this episode, originally recorded and released in October 2019, Anand joins Nick and Goldy to explain how do-gooding can perpetuate inequality.
Anand Giridharadas is a writer. His most recent book, ‘Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World,’ is a national bestseller. He is an editor-at-large for TIME, an on-air political analyst for MSNBC, and a visiting scholar at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University.
Twitter: @AnandWrites
Further reading:
Winners Take All: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/539747/winners-take-all-by-anand-giridharadas/9780451493248
Beware Rich People Who Say They Want to Change the World: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/opinion/sunday/wealth-philanthropy-fake-change.html Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Who are the winners and losers in our skill development system? How can we move the onus of skill further into the purview of employers and away from our education system? UNC Professor Nichola Lowe talks to Goldy about the future of “skill” as we know it in the economy, and what’s at stake if we get it wrong.
Nichola Lowe is a professor in City and Regional Planning at UNC-Chapel Hill. Her work focuses on the institutional arrangements that lead to more inclusive forms of urban and regional economic development.
Twitter: @lowe_nichola Putting Skill to Work: How to Create Good Jobs in Uncertain Times: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/putting-skill-work Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Contrary to popular belief, Nordic countries aren’t actually socialist! No, friends, the Nords are capitalists—but they pull it off much better than we do. To help re-imagine American capitalism, writers Anu Partanen and Trevor Corson join us this week all the way from Finland. This episode was originally recorded and posted in February 2020.
Anu Partanen is a journalist and the author of The Nordic Theory of Everything. The book debunks some of the most common myths about Nordic societies and discusses what the United States might be able to borrow from aspects of Nordic success in the twenty-first century. She has written for The New York Times and The Atlantic.
Twitter: @anupartanen
Trevor Corson is an award-winning author and editor. His articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and many more.
Twitter: @TrevorCorson
Further reading:
The Nordic Theory of Everything: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062316547
Finland Is a Capitalist Paradise: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/07/opinion/sunday/finland-socialism-capitalism.html
What Americans Don’t Get About Nordic Countries: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/bernie-sanders-nordic-countries/473385/
Capitalism Redefined: https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/31/capitalism-redefined/
Safe, happy and free: does Finland have all the answers? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/12/safe-happy-and-free-does-finland-have-all-the-answers
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Right-to-work laws, which make unionizing more difficult in 28 states, could more accurately be referred to as right-to-work… for less. Why? On average, worker pay drops 3.1% when right-to-work laws are passed. Shane Larson from CWA, the largest communications and media labor union in the U.S., joins Goldy to explain why right-to-work laws are so harmful, how they came to be, and why it’s so important to pass the PRO Act to fight for workers’ rights.
Shane Larson is the Senior Director for Government Affairs and Policy for the Communications Workers of America.
Twitter: @ShaneLarsonCWA @CWAUnion
https://www.epi.org/publication/so-called-right-to-work-is-wrong-for-montana/
https://aflcio.org/issues/right-work
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/04/24/the-right-to-work-really-means-the-right-to-work-for-less/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Democrats used to be known as the party of the working people—so how did they get so off track? Who took over the party, and why? Author and professor James Kwak joins Nick and Paul in a blistering analysis of the decline of the Democratic Party, and explains how we can get it back on track. This episode originally aired in January 2020.
News clips credit: C-SPAN, ProfGP, CNN
James Kwak is a professor at the UConn School of Law and the chair of the board of the Southern Center for Human Rights. He is the author or co-author of 13 Bankers, White House Burning, and Economism. His latest book, Take Back Our Party: Restoring the Democratic Legacy, is available for free online at The American Prospect.
Twitter: @jamesykwak
Read Take Back Our Party on The American Prospect:
Introduction - Restoring the Democratic Legacy: https://prospect.org/politics/take-back-our-party-restoring-the-democratic-legacy/
Chapter 1 - Their Democratic Party: https://prospect.org/takebackourparty/chapter-1-their-democratic-party/
Chapter 2 - Bad Policy: https://prospect.org/takebackourparty/chapter-2-bad-policy/
Chapter 3 - Bad Politics: https://prospect.org/takebackourparty/chapter-3-bad-politics/
Chapter 4 - Our Democratic Party: https://prospect.org/takebackourparty/chapter-4-our-democratic-party/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
DC restaurateur Mark Bucher explains what’s behind the “labor” shortage (hint: it’s the wages), the role that restaurant owners need to play in stopping the “churn and burn” model of low-wage workers, and the future of the restaurant industry post-Covid.
Mark Bucher is the co-owner of Medium Rare, a decade-old steakhouse with three locations in D.C., Arlington, and Bethesda. During the pandemic, he established “Feed the Fridge”, a project that places refrigerators around the DC metro area and pays local restaurants to fill them with fresh meals daily.
Twitter: @MediumRareDC
DC restaurateur: There’s no staffing crisis. There’s a wage crisis. https://wtop.com/business-finance/2021/07/dc-restauranteur-theres-no-staffing-crisis-theres-a-wage-crisis/
Feed the Fridge: https://feedthefridge.org/
Minimum wage hike boosts customer experience: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/08/minimum-wage-hike-boosts-customer-experience
Restaurant industry unharmed by modest minimum wage hikes: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2016/01/restaurant-industry-unharmed-modest-minimum-wage-hikes
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
What does it take for someone to act in the interest of others? What constitutes trust in general, and trust in government in particular? Margaret Levi, a professor of political and behavioral sciences, shares her research on how people can be persuaded to act in the interest of others if they don’t already want to. The conversation covers vaccines, unions, citizen confidence in government, and a lot more.
And make sure not to miss these Pitchfork-adjacent opportunities:
Sign up for Econ Con, an upcoming progressive economy conference put on by our friends at the Groundwork Collaborative in partnership with other awesome organizations. It’s free, it’s online, and we’ll be there, so… what are you waiting for? Sign up here: https://econcon.com/
Nick is on TikTok! You have to see it for yourself to believe it: https://www.tiktok.com/@realnickhanauer
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Margaret Levi is the Sara Miller McCune Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS), Professor of Political Science, and Senior Fellow of the Woods Institute, Stanford University. She is Jere L. Bacharach Professor Emerita of International Studies in the Department of Political Science at the University of Washington. One of her most recent books, In the Interest of Others (Princeton, 2013), co-authored with John Ahlquist, explores how organizations provoke member willingness to act beyond material interest. In other work, she investigates the conditions under which people come to believe their governments are legitimate and the consequences of those beliefs for compliance, consent, and the rule of law.
Twitter: @margaretlevi
Margaret Levi: Citizen confidence in government - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBbq7izCslU&ab_channel=WZBlive
In the Interest of Others: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691158563/in-the-interest-of-others
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
There have been far more lethal pandemics than Covid-19, but the scale of our response to Covid-19 is dramatically new. For the first time in human history, our civilization made a collective decision to shut much of the world economy down. Contemporary historian Adam Tooze helps us understand what happened, why it happened, and how we can learn from it.
Sign up for our new weekly newsletter, The Pitch: https://civicventures.substack.com/
Adam Tooze holds the Shelby Cullom Davis chair of History at Columbia University and serves as Director of the European Institute. In 2019, Foreign Policy Magazine named him one of the top Global Thinkers of the decade. His most recent book, Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World’s Economy, is out now.
Twitter: @adam_tooze
Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World’s Economy: https://bookshop.org/books/shutdown-how-covid-shook-the-world-s-economy/9780593297551
Check out the Unf*cking The Republic podcast at https://www.unftr.com
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Roosevelt Institute President Felicia Wong and writer Hanna Brooks Olsen join Nick and Goldy to explore how the intense burdens of poverty make it nearly impossible to even think about climbing the economic ladder. This episode was originally recorded and released in 2019.
Sign up for our new weekly newsletter, The Pitch: https://civicventures.substack.com/
Felicia Wong is the President and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute.
Twitter: @FeliciaWongRI @rooseveltinst
Hanna Brooks Olsen is a writer and the co-host of Spotless, a podcast about cleaning.
Twitter: @mshannabrooks
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Everything you need to know about what the expanded child tax credit actually is, why it’s good policy, and how it will impact people’s lives.
Wendy Bach is a Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She is a nationally recognized expert in poverty law.
Twitter: @wendyabach
Biden’s child tax credit is a step away from a discriminatory system: https://qz.com/2034199/how-does-the-us-child-tax-credit-work/
Two-thirds of people now receive monthly benefit checks: https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2021/07/19/two-thirds-of-people-now-receive-monthly-benefit-checks/
The time tax: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/07/how-government-learned-waste-your-time-tax/619568/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
What’s the next generation of access to credit? Why are home prices and rents so out-of-whack with each other? And how can we approach the discord between what liberals say they want for their community versus what housing and development policies they’ll actually support? Glenn Kelman, the CEO of real estate brokerage website Redfin, helps us examine the future of housing and the best ways that companies like his can contribute to solving the housing crisis.
And if you’re wondering why this episode sounds so good, or why nobody mentions the pandemic… it’s because this conversation is from our archives of interviews that we recorded in-studio, just before the pandemic hit. But don’t let that discourage you—this is still just as relevant today as the day it was recorded. Enjoy!
Glenn Kelman is the CEO of Redfin.
Twitter: @glennkelman
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Is inflation bad? What’s the difference between a neoliberal and a conservative? If large corporations were held to higher labor standards than small employers, wouldn’t Walmart get all the talent? And more!
Thanks to Mark from Nashville, David from Japan, Mike from Dallas-Fort Worth, Mary from Pennsylvania, Steve from Austin, and Pete from Boston, who left the great voicemails included in this episode! If you have any questions for a future AMA episode, leave us a voicemail at 731-388-9334.
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Workers at a Frito-Lay factory in Topeka, Kansas made national headlines when they went on strike to protest dismal labor conditions including forced overtime and 84-hour workweeks. (Frito-Lay's parent company, PepsiCo, made $10.5 billion in profit last year.) The strike ended after 19 days on July 26th, but it’s an important part of a national conversation about labor and corporate profits. Kansas state Representative Jason Probst joins the show to explain the details of the strike and how these insidious labor practices affect his state’s economy. Jason Probst serves in the Kansas House of Representatives.
Twitter: @thatguyinhutch
Substack: https://thatguyinhutch.substack.com/
Kansas Frito-Lay workers end strike: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/07/26/frito-lay-strike-topeka/
Striking information - what PepsiCo’s annual report tells us about the Frito Lay strike: https://thatguyinhutch.substack.com/p/striking-information
The Backbreaking Work That Goes Into a Bag of Chips: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/07/frito-lay-workers-on-their-strike.html
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Nick and Goldy answer your questions! If we had progressive taxation, would we still need means testing? Can we send ultra-rich people away to their own economy? What are the best economic indicators for the progressive economy? And more!
Thanks to Lisa from Indianapolis, Rick from Baltimore, Jacob from Portland, Sean from Philadelphia, Linda from Seaside, and Frank from Georgia who left the great voicemails included in this episode! If you have any questions for a future AMA episode, leave us a voicemail at 731-388-9334.
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Can we create transformative climate outcomes by adopting new regulatory strategies? Financial regulation expert Sarah Bloom Raskin helps us explore what levers exist to steer fiscal and monetary policy toward lasting sustainability.
Sarah Bloom Raskin is the former Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and a former Governor of the Federal Reserve Board. She served as the Commissioner of Financial Regulation for the State of Maryland from 2007 to 2010. She is currently a visiting professor and distinguished fellow at Duke Law School’s Global Financial Markets Center, and a member of President Biden’s Regenerative Crisis Response Committee, which recommends changes in fiscal, monetary, and financial regulatory policies that are likely to enable the U.S. to achieve net carbon neutrality before 2050.
Twitter: @SBloomRaskin
Learn more about the Regenerative Crisis Response Committee here: https://regenerativecrisisresponsecommittee.org/
Does environmental regulation kill or create jobs? https://policyintegrity.org/files/media/Jobs_and_Regulation_Factsheet.pdf
Do regulations really kill jobs? https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/regulations-jobs/513563/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Our friends at the Center for American Progress put on a great virtual event last week with Senator Sherrod Brown, discussing how the U.S. tax codes favors the wealthy and the tools Congress plans to use to rebalance the tax system.
Twitter: @amprog
You can watch video of the event here: https://www.americanprogress.org/events/2021/06/21/500822/billionaires-paying-no-taxes/
The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Contrary to fears that economic inclusion must come at the expense of economic growth, global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company's research and empirical evidence supports the idea that economic growth is at its best when it is most inclusive – but that equity needs to be embedded in systems from the start in order to be effective. What does ‘inclusion’ mean in the context of an economy that works for everyone? McKinsey's JP Julien explains how policymakers and companies can ensure that economic growth goes hand-in-hand with – and is enhanced by – reducing inequality.
JP Julien is an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he serves US federal, state, and city governments on inclusive economic-development topics and supports private-, public-, and social-sector organizations in advancing racial equity. He is a leader of the McKinsey Institute for Black Economic Mobility, a global economic think tank focused on inclusive economic development and racial equity topics.
Twitter: @McKinsey
The case for inclusive growth: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/the-case-for-inclusive-growth
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
It’s Nick and Goldy’s summer reading list!
We want to know what you’re reading, too. Let us know on Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics.
Remember to shop local and small when you can, or order from IndieBound or Bookshop.org—both of which support independent bookstores! All of these books are also likely available at your library.
Every book mentioned in this episode: The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous by Joseph Henrich
Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity by Walter Scheidel
The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? by Michael J. Sandel
Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Merit by Robert H. Frank
The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Democracy, Race, and Justice: The Speeches and Writings of Sadie T. M. Alexander by Nina Banks
Why Buddhism is True by Robert Wright
Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope by Jon Meacham
The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee
1491 by Charles C. Mann
Nature’s God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic by Matthew Stewart
The Second World War by Winston Churchill
Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell
Debt by David Graeber
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Callum Williams from The Economist predicts what we can expect from the economy in the coming months based on past periods of massive non-financial disruption, including past pandemics and major world wars.
Callum Williams is a senior economics writer at The Economist.
Twitter: @econcallum
What history tells you about post-pandemic booms: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/04/29/what-history-tells-you-about-post-pandemic-booms
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
You probably saw the news that Chipotle is raising its menu prices by 4 percent, and that leadership is blaming the price increase on the fact that they had to raise their starting pay to $15 per hour. It’s not at all surprising to see a large employer like Chipotle blame rising wages for everything, but what was disappointing was the media’s willingness to repeat Chipotle’s story without looking deeper into the numbers: namely, none of the stories covering the price increases mentioned that Chipotle gave its CEO a $24 million raise last year, and that the company is in the middle of enacting a $153 million stock buyback program to enrich a handful of shareholders. Around here, that type of trick will land you the title of Trickle-Down Clown! This week Goldy has a few choice words to say about Chipotle’s behavior, and then we thought it would be a good time to revisit our stock buybacks episode with Senator Cory Booker for an explanation of the pervasiveness and dangers of the practice.
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
We’re back to our favorite topic this week—TAX THE RICH! Beyond all the benefits that come from a well-funded social safety net, taxing the wealthy would lessen inequality, which would make most people—including the extravagantly wealthy—happier. Super-rich Danish entrepreneur Djaffar Shalchi shares the wisdom that Denmark understands: Inequality is bad for everyone. Djaffar Shalchi is an entrepreneur from Denmark and founder of Millionaires for Humanity, a network of wealthy people who advocate for raising taxes on wealthy people. He is also the founder and Executive Director of Move Humanity, a global initiative to mobilize at least one percent of the wealth of the world’s super-rich for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Twitter: @djaffarshalchi
OPINION: I’m a millionaire who wants to be taxed to pay for COVID-19: https://news.trust.org/item/20210329080742-gpnj6/
The American dream is now in Denmark: https://the.ink/p/the-american-dream-is-now-in-denmark
Dear Mr. Deutsch: Come to “F***ing Denmark.”: https://medium.com/@humanact/dear-donny-deutsch-come-to-f-ing-denmark-ea6995bb684d
Biden will seek tax increase on rich to fund child care and education: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/22/business/economy/biden-taxes.html
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Radical and rising economic inequality is no secret — and now, thanks to new research from the Economic Policy Institute, neither is its price tag nor its cause. There’s never been a study quite like this — one which places specific, real dollar amounts on every trickle-down policy American politicians have embraced. The study’s authors, Larry Mishel and Josh Bivens, explain how their work reveals that the massive upward redistribution of income our nation has suffered these past four decades can largely be attributed to policies intentionally designed to suppress the wages of American workers. Lawrence Mishel is a distinguished fellow at EPI after serving as president from 2002-2017. In the more than three decades he has been with EPI, Mishel has helped build it into the nation’s premier research organization focused on U.S. living standards and labor markets.
Twitter: @LarryMishel
Josh Bivens is the director of research at EPI. His areas of research include macroeconomics, fiscal and monetary policy, the economics of globalization, social insurance, and public investment.
Twitter: @joshbivens_DC
Middle-class pay lost pace. Is Washington to blame? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/business/economy/middle-class-pay.html
Identifying the policy levers generating wage suppression and wage inequality: https://www.epi.org/unequalpower/publications/wage-suppression-inequality/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
You have no doubt seen the scary headlines warning of a “labor shortage” caused by the additional pandemic unemployment insurance payments. The coverage of this story is widespread, even though most economics reporters can find no credible evidence linking unemployment checks to a labor shortage. EPI economist Heidi Shierholz joins us to explain why UI and stimulus payments aren’t causing a “labor shortage”, and why the answer to this made-up problem is so clear: it’s the low wages, stupid.
Heidi Shierholz is the Senior Economist and Director of Policy at the Economic Policy Institute.
Twitter: @hshierholz
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Unemployment benefits are not creating a worker shortage: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/worker-shortage-unemployment-benefits_n_609056c3e4b09cce6c21a850
Is unemployment insurance behind the fast-food labor shortage? https://prospect.org/labor/is-unemployment-insurance-behind-fast-food-labor-shortage/
Restaurant labor shortages show little sign of going economywide: https://www.epi.org/blog/restaurant-labor-shortages-show-little-sign-of-going-economywide-policymakers-must-not-rein-in-stimulus-or-unemployment-benefits/
U.S. Labor Shortage? Unlikely. Here’s why: https://policydialogue.org/opinions/worker-shortages/
It’s not a ‘labor shortage’. It’s a great reassessment of work in America: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/05/07/jobs-report-labor-shortage-analysis/
The Myth of Labor Shortages: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/briefing/labor-shortages-covid-wages.html
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Non-compete clauses, and the lesser-known no-poach agreements between franchises, are shockingly common for low-wage workers. Although these contracts were originally intended to protect trade secrets among high-level executives, they have spiralled into an unfair labor practice that keeps wages low, limits employee mobility, and decreases competition. Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson explains how non-competes and no-poach agreements violate the law in many states, what his team did to get hundreds of huge employers across the country to cease and desist, and why you should tell your state’s Attorney General if you know of any low- or middle-income workers who are being forced into signing these agreements.
Bob Ferguson is Washington State’s 18th Attorney General. As the state’s chief legal officer, Bob is committed to protecting the people of Washington against powerful interests that don’t play by the rules.
Twitter: @BobFergusonAG
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Why aren’t paychecks growing? A burger-joint clause offers a clue: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/business/pay-growth-fast-food-hiring.html
Workers in Washington state win big under new non-compete law: https://www.emeryreddy.com/2019/09/workers-in-washington-state-win-big-under-new-non-compete-law/
Attorney General Bob Ferguson stops King County coffee shop’s practice requiring baristas to sign unfair non-compete agreements: https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/attorney-general-bob-ferguson-stops-king-county-coffee-shop-s-practice-requiring
AG Report: Ferguson’s initiative ends no-poach practices nationally at 237 corporate franchise chains: https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/ag-report-ferguson-s-initiative-ends-no-poach-practices-nationally-237-corporate
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
What do the internet and COVID vaccines have in common? Neither would be possible without the work of DARPA, a mission-focused federal agency responsible for funding research and development. Professor Mariana Mazzucato is with us this week to argue that our economy will be better off if more government agencies adopt DARPA’s mission-oriented approach.
Mariana Mazzucato is a Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London, where she is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. She is the author of three highly-acclaimed books: The Entrepreneurial State, The Value of Everything, and Mission Economy.
Twitter: @MazzucatoM
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Mission Economy: https://marianamazzucato.com/books/mission-economy
It’s 2023. Here’s how we fixed the global economy: https://time.com/collection/great-reset/5900739/fix-economy-by-2023/#new_tab
DARPA’s early investment in COVID-19 antibody identification producing timely results: https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2020-11-10
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Essayist Anusar Farooqui makes the case that we are witnessing the final break from neoliberalism in the United States.
Anusar Farooqui writes on Substack as Policy Tensor.
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The Making of the Mother of All Economic Booms: https://policytensor.substack.com/p/the-making-of-the-mother-of-all-economic
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Can business leaders use their power and resources to make meaningful change? Should they? Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the founders behind iconic ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s, help map the landscape between business and activism and introduce their new project, the Campaign to End Qualified Immunity.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield are the co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. Most recently, they are the leaders of the Campaign to End Qualified Immunity, a new police reform and criminal justice campaign.
Ben’s twitter: @YoBenCohen
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https://campaigntoendqualifiedimmunity.org/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
EPI economist Valerie Wilson joins us for a conversation about the economic costs of racism, and which policies could help further racial equality.
Valerie Wilson is the Director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute. Prior to joining EPI, she was an economist and vice president of research at the National Urban League Washington Bureau.
Twitter: @ValerieRWilson
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Racism and the Economy: https://www.epi.org/blog/racism-and-the-economy-fed/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The latest monthly report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed massive gains in March—the strongest in seven months—indicating that economic growth is gaining speed. Economist Austan Goolsbee explains why he’s optimistic, what kind of numbers we need to keep seeing to realize a full recovery, and how the report proves that even though some think high unemployment insurance payments will disincentivize people from returning to work, a lack of jobs is actually what’s driving unemployment rates.
Austan Goolsbee is the Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He previously served as the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and a member of President Obama’s Cabinet.
Twitter: @Austan_Goolsbee
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Strong job growth in March as vaccine distribution expands and the American Rescue Plan ramps up: https://www.epi.org/blog/strong-job-growth-in-march-as-vaccine-distribution-expands-and-the-american-rescue-plan-ramps-up/
The soft underbelly to a looming economic boom: Millions will miss out: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/03/30/fed-inflation-bad-economy-low-wage/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The relationship between time, work, and freedom has always been a battleground in the American economy. Could our devotion to free-market fundamentalism in fact be making Americans less free? Author Mike Konczal joins the show to talk about positive versus negative freedom and the policies that would make us more free, in a real sense.
Mike Konczal is the Director of Progressive Thought at the Roosevelt Institute. His latest book is Freedom from the Market: America’s Fight to Liberate Itself from the Grip of the Invisible Hand.
Twitter: @rortybomb
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Freedom from the Market: https://bookshop.org/books/freedom-from-the-market-america-s-fight-to-liberate-itself-from-the-grip-of-the-invisible-hand/9781620975374
Time is the universal measure of freedom: http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality-law-justice/mike-konczal-time-universal-measure-freedom
Our episode with Elizabeth Anderson: https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/coercion-in-the-workplace-with-elizabeth-anderson/
Our episode with Anu Partanen and Trevor Corson: https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/re-imagining-capitalism-with-anu-partanen-and-trevor-corson/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
On his podcast Yang Speaks, former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang asks Nick about pervasive economic myths, the next big labor standards fight (the overtime threshold), and the early days of the Fight for $15. Plus, they debate whether a higher minimum wage or a universal basic income would be better for society. The episode from Yang Speaks: https://shows.cadence13.com/podcast/yang-speaks/episodes/f017e270-cc82-40ab-b4a2-6b90b1a564e0 Show us some love by leaving a rating or a review! RateThisPodcast.com/pitchforkeconomics Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
If you’re one of the many people who have asked us to take down the concepts in Atlas Shrugged, which argues that we’re a fundamentally selfish species, this episode is for you! If you’re not one of those people, well, this episode is ALSO for you! Evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson has infused the idea of prosociality (the desire to help others) into his new book, Atlas Hugged, and he joins us to explain why Atlas Hugged is a better predictor of how people act than Atlas Shrugged.
David Sloan Wilson is an evolutionary biologist and SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University. His books include This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution and the recently published Atlas Hugged.
Twitter: @David_S_Wilson
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Ayn Rand Meets Her Match: David Sloan Wilson Fights Fiction with Fiction: https://evonomics.com/rand-meets-david-sloan-wilson-atlas-hugged/
Get Atlas Hugged for free: https://atlashugged.world/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
When GameStop’s stock skyrocketed early this year, Wall Street was pissed. A group of Redditors had manipulated the stock market—and everyone knows only professional hedge fund managers are allowed to do that! We couldn’t ignore the market news that took the world by storm, so Nick and Goldy called up CA Congressman Ro Khanna to talk about what happened with GameStop, what it means for financial regulations, and what the government’s response signals about a changing tide in our country’s leadership.
Congressman Ro Khanna is a Representative of California’s 17th District. Rep. Khanna sits on the House Committees on Agriculture, Armed Services, and Oversight and Reform. He is the Deputy Whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus; serves as an Assistant Whip for the Democratic Caucus and is the Democratic Vice Chair of the House Caucus on India and Indian Americans.
Twitter: @RoKhanna
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Further reading: A leading progressive Democrat slams Robinhood’s move to restrict trading on some stocks after Reddit-fueled surge: https://www.businessinsider.com/ro-khanna-slams-robinhood-trading-restriction-reddit-traders-amc-gamestop-2021-1
Lawmakers call for regulation after Robinhood halts trading: https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-tech/lawmakers-want-regulation-after-robinhood-halts-trading/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
This weekend, the Senate passed the coronavirus relief bill—and the House is scheduled to debate the bill, and widely expected to pass it, on the day this episode is published (Tuesday, March 9th). While the Senate debated what would be the largest disaster-relief legislation in American history, moderate Democrats and ultra-conservative Republicans alike repeated one common criticism—that infusing so much money into the economy would cause inflation. Austan Goolsbee, past Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, explains why those fears are misplaced in this episode that will answer every question you’ve ever had about inflation, stimulus checks, and disaster relief.
Austan Goolsbee is the Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He previously served in Washington as the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and a member of President Obama’s Cabinet.
Twitter: @Austan_Goolsbee
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Further reading: Biden and the Fed Leave 1970s Inflation Fears Behind: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/15/business/economy/biden-fed-inflation-covid.html
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Tackling existential threats to our future like climate change and economic inequality is a huge undertaking, and building the future is going to require massive public investment. Cornell Law Professor Saule Omarova calls for a National Investment Authority that would work inside private markets as a soup-to-nuts problem-solving operation.
Saule Omarova is the Beth and Marc Goldberg Professor of Law at Cornell Law School. She specializes in financial sector regulation, banking law, international finance, and corporate finance.
Twitter: @STOmarova
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Further reading: Public Investment Reimagined: A National Investment Authority - https://prospect.org/economy/public-investment-reimagined-a-national-investment-authority/
Key benefits of a National Investment Authority: https://www.dataforprogress.org/a-national-investment-authority
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Over the last century, the velocity of money—the rate at which money changes hands through the economy—has declined. Today, money moves at one of the slowest rates on record, meaning every dollar today generates 70% less economic activity than a dollar did just ten years ago. That has big implications for our economy. Political economist Ann Pettifor joins Nick and Goldy to explain how the velocity of money is related to money creation, and why taxing the rich is ultimately pro-growth (it’s all related, we promise!).
Ann Pettifor is a political economist, author, and public speaker, and the Director of PRIME (Policy Research in Macroeconomics). Her work focuses on the global financial system, sovereign debt restructuring, international finance, and sustainable development. She is the author of many books, including The Production of Money and The Case for the Green New Deal.
Twitter: @AnnPettifor
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Further reading: Want to expand the economy? Tax the rich! https://prospect.org/power/want-expand-economy-tax-rich/
A world awash in money: https://media.bain.com/Images/BAIN_REPORT_A_world_awash_in_money.pdf
What does money velocity tell us about low inflation in the U.S.? https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2014/september/what-does-money-velocity-tell-us-about-low-inflation-in-the-us
Vultures are circling our fragile economy… https://www.annpettifor.com/2020/06/vultures-are-circling-our-fragile-economy/
Decades of empirical research finds no inverse correlation between top tax rates and growth:
https://archive.org/stream/R42111TaxRatesandEconomicGrowth-crs/R42111%20Tax%20Rates%20and%20Economic%20Growth_djvu.txt
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/09_Effects_Income_Tax_Changes_Economic_Growth_Gale_Samwick.pdf
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/107919/1/Hope_economic_consequences_of_major_tax_cuts_published.pdf
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/04/20/a-graphical-assault-on-supply-side-tax-cuts/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The theory of marginal product of labor says that every worker is paid exactly what they’re worth—the value that their labor generates. Employers cite marginal productivity to legitimize paying the lowest wages possible, but that’s just another trickle-down scam. Economist Marshall Steinbaum and food labor expert Saru Jayaraman expose the lie of marginal productivity, and show how it’s been used to exploit workers for centuries.
Marshall Steinbaum is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Utah and a Senior Fellow of Higher Education Finance at the Jain Family Institute. He studies market power in labor markets and its policy implications.
Twitter: @Econ_Marshall
Saru Jayaraman is President of One Fair Wage and Director of the Food Labor Research Center at UC Berkeley.
Twitter: @SaruJayaraman
No, Productivity Does Not Explain Income: https://evonomics.com/no-productivity-does-not-explain-income/
ROC United Diners’ Guide App: https://rocunited.org/diners-guide/
Saru Jayaraman: How Restaurant Workers Are Inheriting a Legacy of Slavery in the U.S.: https://bioneers.org/saru-jayaraman-restaurant-workers-inheriting-legacy-slavery-u-s-ztvz1712/
Evidence and Analysis of Monopsony Power, Including But Not Limited To, In Labor Markets: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2018/08/ftc-2018-0054-d-0006-151013.pdf
Antitrust and Labor Market Power: https://econfip.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Antitrust-and-Labor-Market-Power.pdf
Why Are Economists Giving Piketty the Cold Shoulder? http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/marshall-steinbaum-why-are-economists-giving-piketty-cold-shoulder
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Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The big news in the minimum wage world this week is the brand new CBO report—which, among many benefits, also found that a $15 federal minimum wage would cost jobs, increase the deficit, and raise prices. How can that be, when most modern minimum wage studies suggest the opposite? Goldy and Paul explain how CBO arrived at their numbers.
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Further reading:
The CBO report: https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2021-02/56975-Minimum-Wage.pdf
General coverage and analysis -
CBO report finds $15 minimum wage would cost jobs but lower poverty levels: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/02/08/minimum-wage-hike-15-an-hour-by-2025-would-result-14-million-unemployed-nonpartisan-congressional-budget-office-says/
CBO analysis confirms that a $15 minimum wage raises earnings of low-wage workers, reduces inequality, and has significant and direct fiscal effects: https://www.epi.org/blog/cbo-analysis-confirms-that-a-15-minimum-wage-raises-earnings-of-low-wage-workers-reduces-inequality-and-has-significant-and-direct-fiscal-effects-large-progressive-redistribution-of-income-caused/
Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2024 would lift pay for nearly 40 million workers: https://www.epi.org/publication/raising-the-federal-minimum-wage-to-15-by-2024-would-lift-pay-for-nearly-40-million-workers/
We still need stimulus: How the CBO’s new report captures the urgency of this moment: https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2021/02/01/still-need-stimulus-cbo-report-captures-urgency-of-moment/
Minimum wage and employment -
Impacts of minimum wages: review of the international evidence: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/impacts-of-minimum-wages-review-of-the-international-evidence
The effect of minimum wage on low-wage jobs: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/134/3/1405/5484905?login=true
The new wave of local minimum wage policies: Evidence from six cities: https://irle.berkeley.edu/the-new-wave-of-local-minimum-wage-policies-evidence-from-six-cities/
They said Seattle’s higher base pay would hurt workers. Why did they flip? https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/22/business/economy/seattle-minimum-wage-study.html
Minimum wage shocks, employment flows, and labor market frictions: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/685449?journalCode=jole
Myth or measurement: What does the new minimum wage research say about minimum wages and job loss in the United States? https://www.nber.org/papers/w28388
Minimum wage and prices -
The impact of a city-level minimum wage policy on supermarket food prices by food quality metrics: A two-year follow up study: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/1/102
Wages, minimum wages, and price pass-through: The case of McDonald’s Restaurants: https://dataspace.princeton.edu/bitstream/88435/dsp01sb397c318/4/646.pdf
Minimum wage and the federal budget -
Effects of a federal minimum wage increase to $15 by 2025 on the federal budget: https://irle.berkeley.edu/effect-of-a-federal-minimum-wage-increase-to-15-by-2025-on-the-federal-budget/
Raising the minimum wage would boost an economic recovery - and reduce taxpayer subsidization of low-wage work: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2021/01/27/495163/raising-minimum-wage-boost-economic-recovery-reduce-taxpayer-subsidization-low-wage-work/
A $15 minimum wage would have significant and direct effects on the federal budget: https://www.epi.org/publication/a-15-minimum-wage-would-have-significant-and-direct-effects-on-the-federal-budget/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
You know the drill: Nick and Goldy answer your questions! Did we see ‘pitchforks’ at the Capitol insurrection? What should people who subscribe to the economic theories we talk about in this podcast call themselves? What are the smartest investments the average person can make for a stronger, more prosperous, more democratic America? And more!
To ask Nick and Goldy a question for a future AMA, leave us a voicemail at (731) 388-9334.
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The Pitchforks are Coming… For Us Plutocrats: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014
CORE Economics: https://www.core-econ.org/
Evonomics: https://evonomics.com/ Institute for New Economic Thinking: https://www.ineteconomics.org/
Rethinking Economics network: https://www.rethinkeconomics.org/
Raising the minimum wage leads to significant gains for workers, not to ‘benefits cliffs’: https://www.nelp.org/publication/raising-minimum-wage-leads-significant-gains-workers-not-benefits-cliffs/
Study finds increasing minimum wage does not cause loss of jobs: https://www.dailycal.org/2018/09/10/study-finds-increasing-minimum-wage-does-not-cause-loss-of-jobs/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Here’s another resource from the archive that will help you wade through the loud and often misleading coverage of the Raise the Wage Act.
Not all minimum-wage studies are equal. Some of the most headline-grabbing negative reports on the effects of the minimum wage were commissioned and promoted by right-wing organizations looking to legitimize trickle-down policies that hurt workers. How can you spot studies that aren’t worth their salt? Economist Ben Zipperer joins Nick and Jasmin to reveal some of the tricks that economists pull, and to help us understand how some studies can conclude that raising wages will kill jobs—even though, as we know, the opposite is true.
Ben Zipperer is an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. His areas of expertise include the minimum wage, inequality, and low-wage labor markets. He has published research in the Industrial and Labor Relations Review and has been quoted in outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, and the BBC.
Twitter: @benzipperer, @EconomicPolicy
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Further reading:
Gradually raising the minimum wage to $15 would be good for workers, good for businesses, and good for the economy: https://www.epi.org/publication/minimum-wage-testimony-feb-2019/
Six reasons not to put too much weight on the new study of Seattle’s minimum wage: https://www.epi.org/blog/six-reasons-not-to-put-too-much-weight-on-the-new-study-of-seattles-minimum-wage/
Studies mentioned in the episode:
New EPI study: The Effect of Minimum Wages on Low-Wage Jobs: Evidence from the United States Using a Bunching Estimator: https://www.nber.org/papers/w25434
Card and Krueger: Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania: http://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/njmin-aer.pdf
University of Washington study - Minimum Wage Increases, Wages, and Low-Wage Employment: Evidence from Seattle: https://www.nber.org/papers/w23532
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Is the U.S. an oligarchy, or does it just have a bunch of super-rich people living in it? Is there a difference? Author Thom Hartmann joins Nick and Paul to explain the relationship between wealth and American political power and share some of the research that went into his latest book, ‘The Hidden History of American Oligarchy.’
Thom Hartmann is the #1 progressive radio talk show host in the US and a New York Times bestselling author.
Twitter: @Thom_Hartmann
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The Hidden History of American Oligarchy: https://bookshop.org/books/the-hidden-history-of-american-oligarchy-reclaiming-our-democracy-from-the-ruling-class/9781523091584
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
You may have noticed that the trickle-downers are out in full force again spouting bad ideas in response to the Raise the Wage Act, which will raise the federal minimum wage to $15/hour. To set the record straight, we’re reposting one of our first-ever episodes, from early 2019, that reveals what the research proves (no, raising the minimum wage doesn’t affect employment), and asks why changing public perception around the minimum wage has been so difficult. Eric Garcetti is the Mayor of LA, where he signed a $15 minimum wage ordinance into law in 2015.
The late Alan Krueger was a leading labor economist best known for his work on the effects of the minimum wage.
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Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Democrats used to win elections in rural areas, but that seems like a distant memory now. This week, Zach is joined by Bill Hogseth, a political organizer from rural Wisconsin, to talk about the difference between making promises and delivering change—and how Democrats can win rural America back again.
Bill Hogseth is a political organizer from rural Wisconsin, where he works for the Wisconsin Farmers Union. He is the former Chair of the Dunn County Democrats.
Twitter: @billhogseth
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Opinion: Why Democrats Keep Losing Rural Counties Like Mine: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/01/democrats-rural-vote-wisconsin-441458
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer Zach's twitter: @zachariahsilk
Celebrate the end of inauguration week with this compilation of fun soundbites from past guests who are now serving in the Biden Administration!
Featuring: Jared Bernstein, from ‘What can a board game teach us about capitalism? https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/what-can-a-board-game-teach-us-about-capitalism/
Chris Lu, from ‘Whatever happened to overtime?’ https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/whatever-happened-to-overtime/
Felicia Wong, from ‘Why is getting out of poverty so hard?’ https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/why-is-getting-out-of-poverty-so-hard/
Lisa D. Cook, from ‘Economic Woman’: https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/economic-woman-with-katrine-marcal-lisa-d-cook-and-anna-gifty-opoku-agyeman/
Mehrsa Baradaran, from ‘The hidden costs of banking while poor’: https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/the-hidden-costs-of-banking-while-poor-with-mehrsa-baradaran-and-cate-blackford/
Ron Klain, from ‘Leadership failure made the U.S. pandemic worse’: https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/leadership-failure-made-the-u-s-pandemic-worse-with-ronald-klain/
Heather Boushey, from ‘Inequality and coronavirus’ and ‘Whatever happened to the middle class? https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/inequality-and-coronavirus-with-heather-boushey-and-michelle-holder/ https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/whatever-happened-to-the-middle-class/
Joelle Gamble, from ‘How Econ 101 upholds racist systems’: https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/how-econ-101-upholds-racist-systems-with-joelle-gamble/
Bharat Ramamurti, from ‘The case for a True New Deal’: https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/the-case-for-a-true-new-deal-with-bharat-ramamurti/
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Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Idrees Kahloon from The Economist joins us for inauguration week to assess the daunting economic challenges that the Biden-Harris administration will face the second they take office.
Idrees Kahloon is the Washington correspondent for The Economist. He covers US policy, poverty, and COVID-19 stimulus packages.
Twitter: @imkahloon
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Further reading: President Joe Biden will face two extraordinary economic challenges: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/11/14/president-joe-biden-will-face-two-extraordinary-economic-challenges
Joe Biden is taking office amid a poverty crisis: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21582005/joe-biden-poverty-covid
Here’s a look at the economy Biden will inherit next month: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/12/17/us/joe-biden-trump#heres-a-look-at-the-economy-biden-will-inherit-next-month
Joe Biden’s Four-Year Plan: https://prospect.org/day-one-agenda/joe-bidens-four-year-plan/
The three progressive policies voters seem to love: https://slate.com/business/2020/11/progressives-election-minimum-wage-marijuana-medicaid.amp
Top charts of 2020: https://www.epi.org/publication/top-charts-of-2020-the-economic-fallout-of-covid-19/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
In a recent report, The Roosevelt Institute called for a new set of policies to mitigate the economic suffering caused by the pandemic. Taken all together, these policies are as sweeping as the New Deal was—but unlike the New Deal, they’re truly representative of America’s race, class, and gender diversity. Attorney Bharat Ramamurti, the incoming Deputy Director of the Biden administration’s National Economic Council and a co-author of the report, joins Nick and Goldy to make the case for a True New Deal.
Bharat Ramamurti is the incoming Deputy Director of the National Economic Council. At the time of our interview, he was the managing director of the Corporate Power Program at the Roosevelt Institute and a member of the COVID-19 Congressional Oversight Commission. He was previously an economic advisor to Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Twitter: @BharatRamamurti
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A True New Deal: https://rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/true-new-deal-for-the-covid-19-era/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
No matter what some politicians may claim, there’s actually no such thing as ‘less regulation’ — there are only regulations that favor the powerful, and those that don’t. Stanford economist Anat Admati walks us through the deregulation of the banking industry and explains how she would overhaul financial regulations to make them work well for society, not just for the rich and powerful. Anat Admati is the George G.C. Parker Professor of Finance and Economics at Stanford University Graduate School of Business, a director of the Corporations and Society Initiative, and a senior fellow at Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. She has written extensively on information dissemination in financial markets, portfolio management, financial contracting, corporate governance, and banking. She is the co-author of ‘The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do About It’.
Twitter: @anatadmati
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Making financial regulation work for society: https://www.ineteconomics.org/events/finance-society/agenda/making-financial-regulation-work-a-conversation-with-anat-admati-and-brooksley-born
When she talks, banks shudder: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/business/when-she-talks-banks-shudder.html
Financial crises, corporate scandals and blind spots: who is responsible? https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2018/01/25/financial-crises-corporate-scandals-and-blind-spots-who-is-responsible/
The Bankers’ New Clothes: http://bankersnewclothes.com/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Trickle-down economics would have you believe that the rich are job creators. For decades we’ve been told that the more money the wealthy have to invest in creating jobs, the better the economy will be for everybody. This lie has had catastrophic effects: the top 0.1% of Americans now own more wealth than the bottom 90% of Americans combined. As debates rage among our leaders over stimulus bills and Americans battle their way through this economic crisis, the case for taxing the wealthy has never been as strong as it is now—so this week we’re re-surfacing this episode, originally published in 2019. Class traitor Abigail Disney and tax expert Chye-Ching Huang make the case for taxing the rich.
And we highly recommend Abigail Disney’s podcast, All Ears: https://www.forkfilms.com/all-ears/
Abigail Disney is a documentary filmmaker, philanthropist, and social activist. She is the granddaughter of Roy Disney, the co-founder of the Walt Disney Company.
Twitter: @abigaildisney
Chye-Ching Huang is the Director of Federal Fiscal Policy at the Center on Budget Policy Priorities, where she focuses on the fiscal and economic effects of federal tax and budget policy. She rejoined the Center in 2011 after working as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Auckland, where she taught tax law and conducted research in tax law and policy.
Twitter: @dashching @CenteronBudget
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Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The CARES Act delayed student loan payments as a form of stimulus, raising an important question: if forgiving student loan debt is good policy and broadly popular with Americans, should we just cancel student debt altogether? University of Wisconsin Madison Associate Professor Fenaba Addo, who researches debt and wealth inequality, helps us explore the merits and shortcomings of student debt cancellation.
Fenaba Addo is the Lorna Jorgensen Wendt Associate Professor of Money, Relationships, and Equality at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Her research examines the role of debt and increasing wealth inequality over the past forty years within communities of color and among economically vulnerable populations in the U.S.
Twitter: @FenabaAddo
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Six stupid arguments against forgiving student loan debt: https://prospect.org/day-one-agenda/six-stupid-arguments-against-forgiving-student-loan-debt/
The Racialization of the Student Debt Crisis: http://1xfsu31b52d33idlp13twtos-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Student-Debt_essay_individual.pdf
I paid off all my student loans. I still support student loan forgiveness: https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/first-person/2019/5/2/18527036/biden-millennials-cancel-student-debt-forgiveness
Forgiving student debt would boost economy, economists say: https://www.npr.org/2019/11/25/782070151/forgiving-student-debt-would-boost-economy
Writing off student debt is one way biden can build black wealth: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-12/writing-off-student-debt-is-one-way-biden-can-build-black-wealth
Student debt is hitting African Americans the hardest. These experts have a plan to fix it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/student-debt-is-hitting-african-americans-the-hardest-these-experts-have-a-plan-to-fix-it/2019/09/20/5f786e48-d0fb-11e9-b29b-a528dc82154a_story.html
Constrained after College: Student Loans and Early Career Occupational Choices: https://www.nber.org/papers/w13117
Is student debt cancellation regressive? No. https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/06/is-student-debt-cancellation-regressive-no
Who owes all that student debt? And who’d benefit if it were forgiven? https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/who-owes-all-that-student-debt-and-whod-benefit-if-it-were-forgiven/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Six years after the beginning of the Fight for $15 movement, conventional wisdom is finally waking up to economic reality. How do we know? Because the New York Times recently published an editorial titled ‘Let’s Talk About Higher Wages’ calling on the incoming Biden administration to focus on higher wages for everyone. They couldn’t be more right on. Binyamin Appelbaum, the lead writer on business and economics for the Editorial Board, helps us understand the change in consensus on wages.
Binyamin Appelbaum is the lead writer on business and economics for the Editorial Board of The New York Times. From 2010 to 2019, he was a Washington correspondent for the Times, covering economic policy. His book, ‘The Economists’ Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society’ is a Wall Street Journal Business Bestseller.
Twitter: @BCAppelbaum
Nick on Marketplace: https://www.marketplace.org/2020/12/08/new-rand-study-quantifies-cost-of-rising-us-inequality/
Binyamin has been a guest on our show before! Here’s our episode with him and George Monbiot, ‘How neoliberalism happened’, from October 2019: https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/how-neoliberalism-happened-with-george-monbiot-and-binyamin-appelbaum/
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Further reading/listening: Let’s talk about higher wages: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/28/opinion/wages-economic-growth.html
Do higher wages kill jobs? (with Mayor Eric Garcetti and Alan Krueger): https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/do-higher-wages-kill-jobs/
The top 1% of Americans have taken $50 trillion from the bottom 90% - and that’s made the U.S. less secure: https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/
And as promised by Annie and Ashley, you can find the last 100+ years of New York Times Editorial Board pieces on the minimum wage here: https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/why-conventional-wisdom-is-finally-pushing-for-higher-wages-with-binyamin-appelbaum
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Neoliberal economics says free trade is always good, and its followers try to lower trade barriers without discretion. Freedom is an essential ingredient for successful international trade—but that doesn’t mean all trade should be unregulated. Competition law expert Michelle Meagher joins Goldy to debunk common competition myths and talk about strategies to hold powerful monopolies accountable.
Michelle Meagher is a Senior Policy Fellow at the University College London Centre for Law, Economics, and Society, and co-founder of the Inclusive Competition Forum, a think tank focused on democratizing corporate power and the enforcement of competition law.
Twitter: @MichMeagher
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Competition is Killing Us: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/competition-is-killing-us-how-big-business-is-harming-our-society-and-planet-and-what-to-do-about-it/9780241423011
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
“Conservative economics” in the U.S. has become synonymous with libertarian principles. But that’s not what American conservatism was originally about. Oren Cass, the executive director of a new think tank called American Compass, is on a mission to restore conservative economics to its roots in family, community, and industry—and he joins Nick and Goldy to find common ground.
Oren Cass is the executive director of American Compass, whose mission is to restore an economic orthodoxy that emphasizes the importance of faith, community, and industry to the nation’s liberty and prosperity. He is the author of ‘The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America’.
Twitter: @oren_cass
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Further reading: Workers of the World: https://americancompass.org/essays/workers-of-the-world/
The elite needs to give up its GDP fetish: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/opinion/us-gdp-coronavirus.html
Oren Cass on the future of economics and society: https://www.manhattan-institute.org/economics-after-partisanship-markets-society
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
We’re continuing to celebrate our 100th episode this week with another compilation — the best of the benevolent dictator question. What would you do to fix the world’s most intractable problems if you had no restraints? Our guests from over the last two years weigh in.
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Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
It’s our 100th episode! To celebrate, we pulled together some of our favorite answers to the question we love to ask our guests: Why do you do this work? Plus, Nick answers the question too. We’re thankful this week for the thoughts shared by these inspiring people, and for YOU — thanks for listening to the show. We’re excited for the next 100.
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Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Right now, 26.3 million workers are either on unemployment or waiting to be approved for unemployment benefits. But for many of these jobless workers, the clock is running out on their eligibility to receive unemployment — and with no stimulus bill in sight, we could be entering a grim new phase of this recession. What will happen to the economy when unemployment insurance runs out? What will happen to the people who rely on those benefits? Economist Ioana Marinescu helps Nick and Goldy understand what the near-future of unemployment benefits looks like in the U.S.
Ioana Marinescu is an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice, and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She studies the labor market to craft policies that can enhance employment, productivity, and economic security.
Twitter: @mioana
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Further reading: Emergency unemployment programs will expire at year’s end, putting millions at risk: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/business/emergency-unemployment-programs-will-expire-at-years-end-putting-millions-at-risk.html
Policy Basics: How many weeks of unemployment compensation are available?: https://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/policy-basics-how-many-weeks-of-unemployment-compensation-are-available
30 weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic and workers desperately need stimulus: https://www.epi.org/blog/30-weeks-in-to-the-covid-19-pandemic-and-workers-desperately-need-stimulus/
Unemployment insurance and job search behavior: http://www.marinescu.eu/publication/marinescu-unemployment-2020/
You can’t afford to live anywhere in the United States solely on unemployment insurance: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2020/09/10/490265/cant-afford-live-anywhere-united-states-solely-unemployment-insurance/
With millions of people out of work, the Senate’s inaction is not only cruel, it’s bad economics: https://www.epi.org/blog/with-millions-of-people-out-of-work-the-senates-inaction-is-not-only-cruel-its-bad-economics/
Scraping by on benefits and part-time work, but a cutoff looms at year’s end: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/29/business/scraping-by-on-benefits-and-part-time-work-but-a-cutoff-looms-at-years-end.html
How America gave up on fighting the pandemic and saving the economy: https://www.vox.com/21523204/coronavirus-unemployment-stimulus-economy
8 million have slipped into poverty since May as federal aid has dried up: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/15/us/politics/federal-aid-poverty-levels.html
Pelosi sends letter to Secretary Mnuchin on areas still awaiting responses from White House: https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/102920
Slowdown in jobs added means we could be years away from a full recovery: https://www.epi.org/press/slowdown-in-jobs-added-means-we-could-be-years-away-from-a-full-recovery/
Exclusive: America’s true unemployment rate: https://www.axios.com/americas-true-unemployment-rate-6e34decb-c274-4feb-a4af-ffac8cf5840d.html
Young workers hit hard by the Covid-19 economy: https://www.epi.org/publication/young-workers-covid-recession/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
In the first major staffing announcement of his incoming administration, President-elect Biden named Ron Klain, Obama’s ebola czar, as his chief of staff. We had a great conversation with Klain back in April, in which he argued that leadership failure and government unpreparedness made the pandemic much worse in the U.S. Now’s a great time to refresh yourself on this episode if you’re wondering how the Biden-Harris administration will respond to the coronavirus and approach wide-spread economic recovery.
Ronald Klain is a lawyer who served as the White House Ebola response coordinator for President Obama. He has held a wide variety of legal and policy positions in government, including his service as chief of staff to VPs Biden and Gore, chief of staff to the attorney general, associate counsel to the president, and chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee. After serving as an advisor to the Biden 2020 campaign, he was named chief of staff for the incoming Biden administration.
Twitter: @RonaldKlain
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Further reading: Confronting the Pandemic Threat: https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/40/confronting-the-pandemic-threat/
Biden Names Ron Klain as White House Chief of Staff: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/us/politics/ron-klain-biden.html
We’re past ‘if’ on the coronavirus. We’re on to ‘how bad will it be?’: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-coronavirus-has-landed-in-the-us-heres-how-we-can-reduce-the-risk/2020/01/22/afebe9ee-3d53-11ea-baca-eb7ace0a3455_story.html
Trump says US has coronavirus ‘completely under control’ as Washington state confirms first case outside of Asia: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-coronavirus-china-wuhan-disease-outbreak-airport-screening-travel-a9296926.html
Obama’s ebola czar on what strong federal response looks like: https://www.wired.com/story/ebola-czar-ron-klain-federal-coronavirus-response/
The huge cost of waiting to contain the pandemic: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/opinion/covid-social-distancing.html
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
This September, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy enacted a budget deal with his legislature that increased state taxes on incomes over $1 million. As the country’s second-richest state, this is a big win for progressive taxation. Governor Murphy explains what the tax revenue will go to, how it won’t hurt businesses or cause wealthy people to leave the state, and why it’s the right thing to do in the midst of a national economic crisis .
Phil Murphy is the Governor of New Jersey. He was the U.S. Ambassador to Germany from 2009 to 2013.
Twitter: @PhilMurphyNJ and @GovMurphy
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Further reading: Deal reached in N.J. for ‘Millionaires Tax’ to address fiscal crisis: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/nyregion/nj-millionaires-tax.html
Why these millionaires are staying put despite a new tax on them: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/02/your-money/wealthy-millionaires-tax-states.html
Who pays? A distributional analysis of the tax systems in all 50 states: https://itep.sfo2.digitaloceanspaces.com/whopays-ITEP-2018.pdf
Do millionaires migrate when taxes are raised? https://inequality.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/media/_media/pdf/pathways/summer_2014/Pathways_Summer_2014_YoungVarner.pdf
N.J. will borrow $4.5 billion as pandemic pain hits states: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/nyregion/new-jersey-coronavirus-budget.html
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
When are we going to know the results of this election? What can we do about voter suppression? And are Democrats finally giving up on trickle-down economics? Zach and political strategist Cristina Uribe answer these questions and more as they discuss what this election means for our economy and the health of our democracy.
It’s not too late to vote! If you’re unsure how, go to vote.org. And if you already voted by mail, track your ballot and make sure it was accepted!
Cristina Uribe is a veteran political strategist and manager working at the intersection of advocacy and politics. She has held senior management roles at several organizations, including California Director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center (BISC), Senior Advisor for Strategic Initiatives at the National Education Association (NEA), and Western Regional Director at EMILY’s List. She has led campaigns and civic engagement efforts in dozens of states across the country.
Twitter: @curibeca
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Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
This strange Halloween, we bring to you the harrowing tale of two young trick-or-treaters who dare to stop at James Buchanan’s house. To learn more about the real-life horrors of Buchanan, read Jane Mayer’s ‘Dark Money’ — the spooky real-life story of the right-wing trickle-down machine.
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Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The real looting in America is the looting of the wages and savings of the bottom 90% by the wealthiest 1%. And although it’s not in the news nearly as much as other types of looting recently, our rigged economic system causes far more harm to our society. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich joins Nick and Jessyn to explain who rigged the system, and what it will take to stop the real looting.
To contact your elected leaders about the transfer of $50 trillion over the past 45 years from working Americans to the top 1%, text RAND to 67076 or go to www.civicaction.com/rand.
Robert Reich is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written 18 books, the latest of which is “THE SYSTEM: Who Rigged It, and How To Fix It.” He is a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, founder of Inequality Media, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentaries “Inequality for All” and “Saving Capitalism,” both now streaming on Netflix.
Twitter: @RBReich
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Further reading: Protesters criticized for looting businesses without forming private equity firms first: https://www.theonion.com/protestors-criticized-for-looting-businesses-without-fo-1843735351
Banks gave richest clients ‘concierge treatment’ for pandemic aid: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/business/sba-loans-ppp-coronavirus.html
Who is really “looting” America? https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/06/9852642/billionaires-rich-looting-america-tax-law-money
The top 1% have taken $50 trillion from the bottom 90%, and that’s made the U.S. less secure: https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/
The golden age of white collar crime: https://www.huffpost.com/highline/article/white-collar-crime/
Some companies seeking bailouts had piles of cash, then spent it: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/business/coronavirus-bailouts-buybacks-cash.html
U.S. billionaires got $845 billion richer since the start of the pandemic: https://www.fastcompany.com/90551712/u-s-billionaires-got-845-billion-richer-since-the-start-of-the-pandemic The rich really do pay lower taxes than you: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/06/opinion/income-tax-rate-wealthy.html
What is private equity, and why is it killing everything you love? https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/1/6/21024740/private-equity-taylor-swift-toys-r-us-elizabeth-warren
When Wall Street is your landlord: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/02/single-family-landlords-wall-street/582394/
Many companies pay nothing in taxes. The public has a right to know how they pull it off: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/22/many-companies-pay-nothing-taxes-public-has-right-know-how-they-pull-it-off/
Purdue Pharma admits to crimes for its OxyContin marketing. But no one is going to prison: https://www.vox.com/2020/10/21/21526868/purdue-pharma-oxycontin-opioid-epidemic-department-of-justice
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Harvard Business School professor Rebecca Henderson tells Nick and Goldy why businesses should reject the idea that the sole purpose of the corporation is to maximize shareholder value, and how businesses can help reform the market system.
Rebecca Henderson is a professor at the Harvard Business School, a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a fellow of both the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is an expert on innovation and organizational change, and her research explores the degree to which the private sector can play a major role in building a more sustainable economy.
Twitter: @RebeccaReCap
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Further reading: Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire: https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/rebecca-henderson/reimagining-capitalism-in-a-world-on-fire/9781541730137/
Do managers have a role to play in sustaining the institutions of capitalism? https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/BrookingsInstitutionsofCapitalismv5.pdf
Ending shareholder primacy in corporate governance: https://rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/ending-shareholder-primacy-in-corporate-governance/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Why did the American middle class boom after WWII, and how do we get it booming again? New York Times economics reporter Jim Tankersley joins Paul to lay out the thesis of his new book, ‘The Riches of This Land’—that the economy will thrive when everyone can fully participate in it.
Jim Tankersley covers economic and tax policy for The New York Times. Over more than a decade covering politics and economics in Washington, he has written extensively about the stagnation of the American middle class and the decline of economic opportunity in wide swaths of the country.
Twitter: @jimtankersley
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The Riches of This Land: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781541767836
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
What’s the opposite of neoliberal economics? What would the manifesto of the perfect political party look like? How much money do corporations spend lobbying against taxes, and is it even worth it? Nick and Goldy answer these questions (and more!) from listeners.
To ask us a question, use the contact page on our website: https://pitchforkeconomics.com/contact/
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Further reading: Economism: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781101871195
The Curse of Econ 101: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/economism-and-the-minimum-wage/513155/
Arguing with Zombies: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781324005018
Nick’s publications: https://nickhanauer.com/publications/
Trends in income from 1975 to 2018: https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA516-1.html
The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%—And That's Made the U.S. Less Secure: https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/
Money spent on lobbying skyrocketed during tax overhaul: https://apnews.com/article/bd8a878c5fe84ea48ffbcf05b4edba0e
The 4 companies that lobbied most on tax overhaul - and what they got for it: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/7/16709586/republican-tax-bills-lobbying
Corporations now spend more lobbying Congress than taxpayers spend funding Congress: https://www.vox.com/2015/4/20/8455235/congress-lobbying-money-statistic
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
This week, Biden-Sanders unity task force appointee Dr. Abdul El-Sayed walks Nick and Goldy through the Biden transition team’s health care plan.
Abdul El-Sayed is a physician, epidemiologist, public health expert, and progressive activist. He is the Chair of Southpaw Michigan and a contributor at CNN. He is the author of ‘Healing Politics’ and the co-author of the upcoming ‘Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide’. He also hosts “America Dissected,” a podcast by Crooked Media.
Twitter: @AbdulElSayed
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Further reading: Coronavirus is exploiting an underlying condition: our epidemic of insecurity: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/19/coronavirus-insecurity-anxiety-us-epidemic
Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force Recommendations: https://joebiden.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/UNITY-TASK-FORCE-RECOMMENDATIONS.pdf
Healing Politics: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781419743023
Health insurance and the COVID-19 shock: https://www.epi.org/publication/health-insurance-and-the-covid-19-shock/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
This week, labor market economist Suresh Naidu explains how his field attempts to account for the influence of power while studying employee/employer relationships, and unveils the hidden tricks of the coercive labor market.
Suresh Naidu is a professor of economics and international and public affairs at Columbia University as well as a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, external faculty at the Santa Fe Institute, and a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Twitter: @snaidunl
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Further reading: 'Essential' workers are just forced laborers: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/05/21/essential-workers-pay-wages-safety-unemployment/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Yesterday, a groundbreaking study by the RAND Corporation put the first-ever price tag on how much income inequality costs American workers. The bill? $50 trillion. You read that right: $50 trillion has been diverted from working Americans to the wealthiest 1% since 1975. To make sense of this staggering number, Nick and Goldy are joined by mathematician Carter Price, the study’s co-author.
Carter C. Price is a senior mathematician at the RAND Corporation.
Twitter: @CarterCPrice
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Further reading: The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90% - And That’s Made the U.S. Less Secure: https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/
“We were shocked”: RAND study uncovers massive income shift to the top 1%: https://www.fastcompany.com/90550015/we-were-shocked-rand-study-uncovers-massive-income-shift-to-the-top-1
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Economist Olugbenga Ajilore explains how policymakers should be thinking about rural America (it’s not a monolith), and what interventions we should pursue to provide what he calls a “different kind of help.”
Olugbenga Ajilore is a senior economist at the Center for American Progress. His expertise includes regional economic development, macroeconomic policy, and issues in diversity and inclusion.
Twitter: @gbenga_ajilore
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Further reading: COVID and Rural America: https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/covid-and-rural-america/
Congress Must Help Rural America Respond to the Coronavirus: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2020/07/27/488129/congress-must-help-rural-america-respond-coronavirus/
Economic Recovery and Business Dynamism in Rural America: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2020/02/20/480129/economic-recovery-business-dynamism-rural-america/
Rural Americans are Vulnerable to the Coronavirus: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2020/03/05/481340/rural-communities-vulnerable-coronavirus/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
What would the workplace look like if workers were truly free? Elizabeth Anderson, a leading theorist of democracy and social justice, joins Nick and Goldy for an exploration of the ethical limits of market, theories of value and rational choice, and true freedom.
Elizabeth Anderson is the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk about It), and a recipient of the 2019 MacArthur Fellowship.
Further reading: Private Government: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691176512/private-government
The philosopher redefining equality: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/07/the-philosopher-redefining-equality
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
In this special bonus episode, Zach talks to political expert Michael Linden about the message that progressives can, and must, hammer home to win.
Michael Linden is the Executive Director of the Groundwork Collaborative, an organization working to advance an economic vision for strong, broadly shared prosperity and true opportunity for all.
Twitter: @MichaelSLinden
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Neoliberalism arose in the 1970s as a response to the failure of Keynesianism to deal with the effects of stagflation. But what is Keynesianism—and who is John Maynard Keynes? In this author interview, Goldy learns from the Keynes expert, HuffPost senior reporter Zachary Carter, how Keynes’ idea defined American liberalism for much of the 1900s.
Zachary Carter is a senior reporter at HuffPost, where he covers economic policy and American politics. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller, ‘The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes’.
Twitter: @zachdcarter
The Price of Peace: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780525509035
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Recessions are inevitable—but the complete economic catastrophe that we’ve experienced for the last five months was not. Professor Trevon Logan explains where we went wrong, debunks myths about the federal unemployment benefit (no, it doesn’t disincentivize people from returning to work!), and calls on Congress to steer us away from this economic cliff.
Trevon Logan is a Professor of Economics and Associate Dean at Ohio State University, and Director of the American Economic Association Mentoring Program. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He specializes in economic history, economic demography, and applied microeconomics.
Twitter: @TrevonDLogan
Further reading: Vox: We are sleepwalking toward economic catastrophe
Wall Street Journal: Lapse in Extra Unemployment Benefits to Hurt U.S. Recovery, Economists Say
PBS NewsHour: The economics behind racial coronavirus disparities
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
We know that state budget cuts and other austerity policies worsened the 2008 recession and led to a prolonged, uneven recovery. With state and local leaders already clamoring to meet the impending revenue shortfall caused by the COVID crisis, what have we learned, and what can we do differently? In this bonus episode, Paul talks to Groundwork Collaborative strategic advisor Kitty Richards about how states can act now to invest in their residents, bolster their economies, and push back against skyrocketing inequality.
Kitty Richards is a freelance policy consultant and strategic advisor to the Groundwork Collaborative. She has previously worked on federal budget and tax policy at several think tanks, including the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Center for American Progress, and has served as an economic policy staffer on Capitol Hill and in the White House.
Twitter: @KittyRichardsDC
Bolstering state economies by raising progressive taxes: https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/RI_BolsteringStateEconomies_IssueBrief_072020.pdf
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Child care in the U.S. has been in crisis mode for a long time. It’s wildly expensive for families to afford, and difficult for providers to make ends meet. But now, in the age of COVID-19, even the future existence of child care in America is in doubt. Jessyn and Nick tackle the value of care work, the impossibility of finding affordable child care, and the importance of feminist economics with economist Kate Bahn.
Kate Bahn is the director of labor market policy and economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Her areas of research include gender, race, and ethnicity in the labor market, care work, and monopsonistic labor markets. Previously, she was an economist at the Center for American Progress. Bahn also serves as the executive vice president and secretary for the International Association for Feminist Economics.
Twitter: @LipstickEcon
Further reading: A feminist economic policy agenda in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the quest for racial justice: https://equitablegrowth.org/a-feminist-economic-policy-agenda-in-response-to-the-covid-19-pandemic-and-the-quest-for-racial-justice/
America’s child care problem is an economic problem: https://www.vox.com/2020/7/16/21324192/covid-schools-reopening-daycare-child-care-coronavirus
Where is the American Child Care Bailout? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-22/u-s-child-care-providers-need-a-bailout-fast
Women’s work-life economics: https://equitablegrowth.org/womens-work-life-economics/
Child care is still the missing ingredient for a fast economic recovery: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-06-08/lack-of-childcare-options-missing-ingredient-fast-economic-recovery
After coronavirus, nearly half of the day care centers in the U.S. could be gone: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coming-child-care-crisis-coronavirus-covid-19_n_5ea1fab4c5b6bb28aa34b642?guccounter=1
Why child care is so ridiculously expensive: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/why-child-care-so-expensive/602599/
Senator Murray introduces $50 billion child care stabilization fund legislation: https://www.murray.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/newsreleases?ContentRecord_id=6CA6719F-5CF4-46F8-B3DC-05630F7C0AF1
Biden announces $75 billion plan to fund universal child care and in-home elder care: https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/07/21/biden-to-unveil-775-billion-plan-to-fund-child-care-and-elder-care.html
Public education should be a birthright: https://crooked.com/articles/public-education-birthright/
If you support public schools, you should support universal child care: https://civicskunk.works/if-you-support-public-schools-you-should-support-universal-child-care-4944041934b1
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
In 12 years, we’ve seen two economic crises with devastating long-term impacts. It seems by now we should be prepared to expect the unexpected… but instead, we’re relying on hastily prepared crisis legislation to save our economy. Again. Economist Lindsay Owens proposes an alternative plan: a standing, off-the-shelf program to stabilize the economy in the event of an economic emergency.
Lindsay Owens is a Fellow at the Great Democracy Initiative, where her writing and research centers on a progressive economic agenda for housing, climate, labor, and healthcare. She previously served as Deputy Chief of Staff and Legislative Director to Representatives Pramila Jayapal and Keith Ellison and as Senior Economic Policy Advisor to Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Twitter: @owenslindsay1
No more bailouts: https://greatdemocracyinitiative.org/document/no-more-bailouts/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
It’s less than 100 days until Election Day. What are the chances of political realignment? Is vote-by-mail a panacea? And how can despairing citizens contribute to real change? Civic Ventures President and campaign expert Zach Silk and veteran political strategist Cristina Uribe are joining forces to answer your questions about the 2020 election this week.
Cristina Uribe is a veteran political strategist and manager working at the intersection of advocacy and politics. She has held senior management roles at several organizations, including California Director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center (BISC), Senior Advisor for Strategic Initiatives at the National Education Association (NEA), and Western Regional Director at EMILY’s List. She has led campaigns and civic engagement efforts in dozens of states across the country.
Twitter: @curibeca
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Enjoy the full conversation with historian Nancy MacLean, with an extra twelve minutes that didn’t make it into this week’s episode.
Nancy MacLean is an award-winning scholar of the twentieth-century U.S. and the William H. Chafe Distinguished Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University. Her book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, was a New York Times bestseller and finalist for the National Book Award, and The Nation magazine named it the “Most Valuable Book” of the year.
Twitter: @NancyMacLean5
If it seems to you like the ultimate goal of the most extreme conservatives is to undermine democracy and cripple democratic institutions—well, according to historian Nancy MacLean, you’re right. This week, MacLean unpacks the meteoric rise in popularity of the radical right’s ideas, and offers a way forward for progressives, based on lessons from successful social movements throughout American history.
Nancy MacLean is an award-winning scholar of the twentieth-century U.S. and the William H. Chafe Distinguished Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University. Her book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, was a New York Times bestseller and finalist for the National Book Award, and The Nation magazine named it the “Most Valuable Book” of the year.
Twitter: @NancyMacLean5
Democracy in Chains: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781101980965
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The foundational metaphor of neoliberalism is that a rising tide lifts all boats. But, like many other assumptions in economic thought, that idea willfully ignores racism. Economist Joelle Gamble joins Jessyn and Nick to explain that when economists fail to scrutinize theories through the lens of race, they perpetuate racist outcomes. Plus, The Sadie Collective co-founder Fanta Traore describes how the economics field can take deliberate measures to address the exclusion of Black economists.
Joelle Gamble is a principal with the reimagining capitalism team at Omidyar Network, where she focuses on topics related to building the power of working people and shaping a new economic paradigm. Joelle writes on topics of race, labor, and technology, and sits on the board of directors of the Roosevelt Institute.
Twitter: @joelle_gamble @OmidyarNetwork
Fanta Traore is a Senior Research Assistant at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the co-founder and COO of The Sadie Collective.
Twitter: @TheFantaTraore @SadieCollective
Further reading: How economic assumptions uphold racist systems: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/how-economic-assumptions-uphold-racist-systems
An Open Letter to Economic Institutions In The Face of #BlackLivesMatter: https://medium.com/@sadiecollective/open-letter-to-economics-blm-5b38100e59b5
What the Big New Study About Race and Mobility Doesn’t Tell Us: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/what-the-big-new-study-about-race-and-mobility-doesnt-tell-us/
Neoliberalism and Race: https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/53/neoliberalism-and-race/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Our global system is fragile because we made decisions that made it that way. Where did we go wrong? This week, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman joins Nick and Goldy to suggest that greed and unfettered globalization are to blame for our vulnerable system, and to discuss what we need to do to get back on track.
Thomas Friedman is a New York Times columnist, the author of six bestselling books, and a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner.
Twitter: @tomfriedman
Further reading: How We Broke the World: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-globalization.html
America, We Break It, It’s Gone: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/opinion/trump-george-floyd-america.html
Let’s Change Our Motto to ‘Out of Many, We’: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/opinion/trump-united-states.html
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Modern Monetary Theory is an attempt to accurately describe how government debt and complex financial systems actually work. MMT can help us responsibly use our resources, and no one is more knowledgeable on the subject than our returning guest this week, Professor Stephanie Kelton. As Congressional debates over the need for a new stimulus package heat up, Kelton explains the myths surrounding MMT and what a new understanding of the budget could do for our economy.
Stephanie Kelton is a Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Stony Brook University. She is the leading expert on Modern Monetary Theory. Her new book, The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy, shows how to break free of flawed deficit thinking.
Twitter: @StephanieKelton
Further reading: The Deficit Myth: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781541736184
Learn To Love Trillion-Dollar Deficits: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/opinion/us-deficit-coronavirus.html
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The fundamentals of economic thought are built on the idea that humans are fundamentally self-interested. But, according to historian Rutger Bregman, that’s a misconception — in fact, humans are fundamentally good, and if we want to realistically address our greatest challenges, we need to reconsider our view of our own human nature.
Rutger Bregman is a historian. He has published four books on history, philosophy, and economics, including Utopia for Realists and his latest book, Humankind: A Hopeful History.
Twitter: @rcbregman
Further reading: Humankind: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780316418539
The neoliberal era is ending. What comes next? https://thecorrespondent.com/466/the-neoliberal-era-is-ending-what-comes-next/61655148676-a00ee89a
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
COVID-19 has exposed the limits of the pharmaceutical market model. This week, patent law expert Tahir Amin joins the show to explain why vaccine development needs new incentives.
Tahir Amin is an attorney dedicated to reshaping patent law to better serve the public. He is the Co-Founder and Co-ED of the Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge (I-MAK), a global nonprofit organization of attorneys, scientists, and health experts working on systemic changes to intellectual property and the political economy of pharmaceutical innovation.
Twitter: @realtahiramin
Further reading: Covid-19 has exposed the limits of the pharmaceutical market model: https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/19/covid-19-exposed-limits-drug-development-model/
No vaccine in sight: https://newrepublic.com/article/157594/no-coronavirus-vaccine-big-pharma-drug-patent-system
Democrats punt on drug-pricing overhaul in virus relief measure: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/democrats-punt-on-drug-pricing-overhaul-in-virus-relief-measure
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Budgets are a reflection of our values, and the money we budget for the police is no exception. Our state and local budgets for what we call “safety” are not getting outcomes that reflect our morals. Seattle-area King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay joins Nick and Jessyn to lay out five policies elected officials should be pledging to support right now to re-imagine public safety.
Girmay Zahilay is a member of the King County Council from District 2. He is an attorney, non-profit founder, and organizer.
Twitter: @GirmayZahilay
Further reading: City council will consider defunding Seattle Police: https://crosscut.com/2020/06/city-council-will-consider-defunding-seattle-police
Washington state’s other epidemic: Mass incarceration: https://crosscut.com/2020/03/washington-states-other-epidemic-mass-incarceration
Defund the police? Here’s what that really means: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/07/defund-police-heres-what-that-really-means/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
This week, we are participating in #PodcastBlackout to amplify the seriousness of the need for action to address institutional racism and police violence. After a brief note from Nick, this episode will air 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence. Below, we've included organizations that are doing the anti-racist work to reform power structures in this country — we hope that you'll turn your attention to them.
8 Minutes and 46 Seconds: How George Floyd Was Killed in Police Custody: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd-investigation.html
Donate to, follow, support, and learn from: Black Lives Matter: https://blacklivesmatter.com/
Campaign Zero (police accountability): https://www.joincampaignzero.org/
The Bail Project: https://bailproject.org/
National Bail Fund Network (find bail funds in your area): https://www.communityjusticeexchange.org/nbfn-directory
NAACP Legal Defense Fund: https://www.naacpldf.org/
Know Your Rights Camp Covid-19 Relief Fund: https://www.knowyourrightscamp.com/covid19
Fair Fight (organizing against voter suppression): https://fairfight.com/
The Innocence Project: https://www.innocenceproject.org/
ACLU: https://www.aclu.org/
George Floyd Memorial Fund: https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd
Justice for Ahmaud Arbery Fundraiser: https://www.gofundme.com/f/i-run-with-maud
Justice for Breonna Taylor Petition and Fundraiser: https://www.change.org/p/andy-beshear-justice-for-breonna-taylor
Why are rich corporations getting more stimulus money from the government, and getting it faster, than small businesses and individuals? Matt Stoller returns to the show to explain how recovery funds are distributed: Money isn’t neutral, and how money travels matters.
Matt Stoller is the author of BIG, a newsletter about monopoly and finance, and the Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project. His recent book, ‘Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy’, examines how concentrated financial power and consumerism transformed American politics.
Twitter: @matthewstoller
Further reading: Subscribe to BIG: https://mattstoller.substack.com/welcome
The Cantillon Effect: Why Wall Street gets a bailout and you don’t: https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/the-cantillon-effect-why-wall-street
Congress “CARES” for Wealthy with COVID-19 Tax Policy Provisions: https://itep.org/congress-cares-for-wealthy-with-covid-19-tax-policy-provisions/
The Relief Package Ushers in Trump’s Planned Economy: https://www.wired.com/story/the-relief-package-ushers-in-trumps-planned-economy/
End Shareholder Primacy Once and For All: http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/lenore-palladino-end-shareholder-primacy-once-and-all
We All Have a Stake in the Stock Market, Right? Guess Again: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/economy/stocks-economy.html
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
One of the central theories of classical economics is that markets respond quickly and efficiently to changes in demand. But the pandemic clearly demonstrates that the markets aren’t the efficient adapters that classic economists believe them to be. Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz explains why the tendency to believe in the market is one of the most deeply rooted trickle-down myths, and why government intervention is the best way forward through this economic downturn.
Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel laureate economist and a professor at Columbia University. He is also the co-chair of the High-Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress at the OECD, and the Chief Economist of the Roosevelt Institute. In 2011, Stiglitz was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Known for his pioneering work on asymmetric information, Stiglitz focuses on income distribution, risk, corporate governance, public policy, macroeconomics, and globalization. His most recent book, People, Power, and Profits, was just released in paperback.
Twitter: @JosephEStiglitz
Further reading: People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781324004219
Four Priorities for Pandemic Relief Efforts: https://rooseveltinstitute.org/four-priorities-for-covid19-pandemic-relief-efforts/
Why Our Affluent Society Is Facing Shortages in the Face of the Coronavirus Pandemic: https://time.com/5811505/affluent-society-shortages-coronavirus-pandemic/
Deficit Lessons for the Pandemic From the 2008 Crisis: https://prospect.org/economy/deficit-lessons-pandemic-2008-crisis/
How the Economy Will Look After the Coronavirus Pandemic: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/15/how-the-economy-will-look-after-the-coronavirus-pandemic/
Top economist: US coronavirus response is like ‘third world’ country: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/22/top-economist-us-coronavirus-response-like-third-world-country-joseph-stiglitz-donald-trump
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Paul is joined this week by radio host Thom Hartmann to introduce Thom’s most recent book, ‘The Hidden History of the War on Voting: Who Stole Your Vote and How to Get It Back’. In this poignant interview, Thom explains the strategies and tactics that elites have long employed to disenfranchise American citizens and suppress votes.
Thom Hartmann is a progressive national and internationally syndicated talk show host. Talkers magazine named him America's most important progressive host and has named his show one of the top ten talk radio shows in the country every year for over a decade. A four-time recipient of the Project Censored Award, Hartmann is also a New York Times bestselling author of twenty-six books, translated into multiple languages.
Twitter: @Thom_Hartmann
Further reading: The Hidden History of the War on Voting: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781523087785?aff=penguinrandom
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The burdens of this pandemic are not borne equally. Economists Heather Boushey and Michelle Holder join the show this week to expose how the coronavirus is exacerbating the already-deep inequalities in our society.
Heather Boushey is the President & CEO and co-founder of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. She is one of the nation’s most influential voices on economic policy and a leading economist who focuses on the intersection between economic inequality, growth, and public policy. Her latest book is Unbound: How Economic Inequality Constricts Our Economy and What We Can Do About It.
Twitter: @HBoushey
Michelle Holder is an Assistant Professor of Economics at John Jay College, City University of New York. Prior to joining the John Jay faculty, she worked professionally as an economist for over a decade in both the nonprofit and government sectors. Her research focuses on blacks and women in the American labor market, and her economic policy reports have been covered by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Amsterdam News, and El Diario. Her first book African American Men and the Labor Market during the Great Recession was released from Palgrave Macmillan in 2017. Michelle’s educational background includes master’s and doctoral degrees in economics from the New School for Social Research in NYC, and a Bachelor’s degree in economics from Fordham University.
Twitter: @mlholder999
Further reading: Unbound: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674919310
The coronavirus recession and economic inequality: a roadmap to recovery and long-term structural change: https://equitablegrowth.org/the-coronavirus-recession-and-economic-inequality-a-roadmap-to-recovery-and-long-term-structural-change/
The “Double Gap” and the Bottom Line: https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/RI_DoubleGap_Report_202003.pdf
Before COVID-19, corporate America shortchanged black women $50 billion annually: Why all women should care: https://msmagazine.com/2020/04/07/before-covid-19-corporate-america-shortchanged-black-women-50-billion-annually-why-all-women-should-care/
Inequality and poverty were destroying America well before Covid-19: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/inequality-and-poverty-were-destroying-america-well-before-covid-19/
Our uniquely American virus: https://prospect.org/coronavirus/our-uniquely-american-virus/
Black Americans face alarming rates of coronavirus infection in some states: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/us/coronavirus-race.html
The coronavirus pandemic and the racial wealth gap: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2020/03/19/481962/coronavirus-pandemic-racial-wealth-gap/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
When revenues and expenses don’t add up in times of crisis, governments often turn to budget cuts and other austerity measures to balance their accounts. But economists widely agree that the most valuable lesson from the Great Recession is that austerity made the recession worse and slowed down recovery. Mike Konczal joins the show this week to explain why, in a recession, stimulus is particularly powerful and austerity is particularly harmful.
Mike Konczal is the Director of Progressive Thought at the Roosevelt Institute, where he works on financial reform, unemployment, inequality, and a progressive vision of the economy. He is a columnist at Vox, a contributor to The Nation, and a contributing editor at Dissent.
Twitter: @rortybomb @rooseveltinst
Further reading: A forward-thinking policy response to the coronavirus recession: https://rooseveltinstitute.org/forward-thinking-policy-response-coronavirus-recession/
The stimulus plan that we need now: https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/coronavirus-stimulus/
With a uniquely fragile economy, stimulus is not enough: https://bostonreview.net/class-inequality-politics/mike-konczal-felicia-wong-uniquely-fragile-economy-stimulus-not-enough
Portugal dared to cast aside austerity. It’s having a major revival: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/22/business/portugal-economy-austerity.html
Worst recovery in postwar era largely explained by cuts in government spending: https://www.epi.org/blog/worst-recovery-in-post-war-era-largely-explained-by-cuts-in-government-spending/
What have we learned about austerity since the Great Recession? https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2014/05/30/90621/what-have-we-learned-about-austerity-since-the-great-recession/
The United States is not ready for a recession, but it can be: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2019/09/27/475075/united-states-not-ready-recession-can/
Austerity is hammering state economies: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2012/06/21/11672/austerity-is-hammering-state-economies/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Prolific voice actor Jennifer Hale joins Paul and Stephen to discuss her work in two very different fields: the video game industry, which largely isn't unionized, and the animated film industry, which enjoys strong union protections.
Jennifer Hale is a voice actress known for her work in video game series including Baldur’s Gate, Mass Effect, Halo, World of Warcraft, Spider Man, and many more. In 2013, she was recognized by Guinness World Records as the most prolific female video game voice actor.
Twitter: @jhaletweets
Further reading: As video games make billions, the workers behind them say it’s time to unionize: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-video-game-union-movement-20190412-story.html
Game makers stare down major union drive: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/video-game-makers-stare-down-major-union-drive-1269510
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Pathogens are inevitable—but the scale of disaster accompanying this pandemic was not. Ronald Klain, President Obama’s Ebola czar, joins Nick and Goldy to discuss why the extent of economic collapse and deaths we’ve seen from COVID-19 is borne of government unpreparedness and leadership failure, not fate.
Ronald Klain is a lawyer who served as the White House Ebola response coordinator for President Obama. He has held a wide variety of legal and policy positions in government, including his service as chief of staff to VPs Biden and Gore, chief of staff to the attorney general, associate counsel to the president, and chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is currently an advisor to the Biden 2020 campaign.
Twitter: @RonaldKlain
Further reading: Confronting the Pandemic Threat: https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/40/confronting-the-pandemic-threat/ We’re past ‘if’ on the coronavirus. We’re on to ‘how bad will it be?’: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-coronavirus-has-landed-in-the-us-heres-how-we-can-reduce-the-risk/2020/01/22/afebe9ee-3d53-11ea-baca-eb7ace0a3455_story.html Trump says US has coronavirus ‘completely under control’ as Washington state confirms first case outside of Asia: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-coronavirus-china-wuhan-disease-outbreak-airport-screening-travel-a9296926.html Obama’s ebola czar on what strong federal response looks like: https://www.wired.com/story/ebola-czar-ron-klain-federal-coronavirus-response/ The huge cost of waiting to contain the pandemic: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/opinion/covid-social-distancing.html
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
What does the future of American sports look like? Okay, okay—we know this is out of our wheelhouse. But this week, we’re examining how the global pandemic has affected one very specific corner of the economy: professional sports leagues. Expert Andrew Brandt lays out the scale of losses due to cancellations in an industry that generates $80 billion a year just in direct revenue for North American leagues—plus several hundreds of billions more in indirect revenue for ancillary businesses (like the folks who staff the arenas).
Andrew Brandt is Professor of Practice and Executive Director of the Moorad Center for the Study of Sports Law at Villanova Law School. A contributor to ESPN and Sports Illustrated, he is also the host of the ‘Business of Sports’ podcast.
Twitter: @AndrewBrandt
Clips from CBS Evening News, NBC Sports, and ABC News.
Further reading: The Coronavirus’s Economic Effect On Sports Could Be Staggering: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-coronaviruss-economic-effect-on-sports-could-be-staggering/
Nearly 75% of Americans Wouldn’t Attend Games If No COVID-19 Vaccine Is Developed, Poll Says: https://www.si.com/sports-illustrated/2020/04/09/poll-sports-coronavirus-return
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
How does our response to the coronavirus pandemic compare to our response 100 years ago, when what is commonly known as the “Spanish Flu” swept through America? Historian Nancy Bristow helps Annie understand the lessons American society learned from the 1918 influenza epidemic, and what we haven’t yet gotten right.
Nancy Bristow is the History Department Chair at the University of Puget Sound, where she teaches twentieth-century American history with an emphasis on race, gender, and social change. She is the author of ‘American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic’.
Twitter: @univpugetsound @NancyKBristow
Further reading: American Pandemic on Bookshop.org, an independent site that’s raising money for independent bookstores that are closed during the pandemic: https://bookshop.org/books/american-pandemic-the-lost-worlds-of-the-1918-influenza-epidemic/9780190238551
Or on IndieBound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780190238551
Cities that went all in on social distancing in 1918 emerged stronger for it: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/03/upshot/coronavirus-cities-social-distancing-better-employment.html
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) is big—but not big enough to protect working people. Economist Heidi Shierholz joins the show to explain where CARES falls short, and to recommend the safeguards we need to include in future bailout packages.
Heidi Shierholz is a Senior Economist and Director of Policy at the Economic Policy Institute. Her team monitors wage and employment policies coming out of Congress and the administration, and advances a worker-first policy agenda. Twitter: @hshierholz @EconomicPolicy
(News clip from FOX 17 VXMI)
Further reading: Despite some good provisions, the CARES Act has glaring flaws and falls short of fully protecting workers during the coronavirus crisis: https://www.epi.org/blog/despite-some-good-provisions-the-cares-act-has-glaring-flaws-and-falls-short-of-fully-protecting-workers-during-the-coronavirus-crisis/
A widening toll on jobs: ‘This thing is going to come for us all’: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/business/economy/coronavirus-unemployment-claims.html
Does the stimulus package pass the test? https://civicskunk.works/does-the-stimulus-package-pass-the-test-a070bf4922dc
3.5 million workers likely lost their employer-provided health insurance in the past two weeks: https://www.epi.org/blog/3-5-million-workers-likely-lost-their-employer-provided-health-insurance-in-the-past-two-weeks/
Nearly 20 million workers will likely be laid off or furloughed by July: https://www.epi.org/blog/nearly-20-million-jobs-lost-by-july-due-to-the-coronavirus/
The CARES Act’s aid to state and local governments isn’t enough to shield vital public services from the coronavirus shock: https://www.epi.org/blog/the-cares-acts-aid-to-state-and-local-governments-isnt-enough-to-shield-vital-public-services-from-the-coronavirus-shock-lessons-from-the-great-recession-tell-us-why/
States get billions in record stimulus - but say it’s not enough: https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2020/03/26/states-get-billions-in-record-stimulus-but-say-its-not-enough-1269230
Here are safeguards needed in bailout packages to protect working people and fight corporate greed: https://www.epi.org/blog/any-industry-bailout-package-must-include-meaningful-protections-for-working-people-and-guardrails-against-corporate-greed/
A portrait of disaster: https://www.epi.org/press/a-portrait-of-disaster-initial-ui-claims-jump-from-211000-to-6-6-million-in-three-weeks/
Policymakers twice missed the chance to avert widespread job loss, now they should act to avoid more layoffs: https://www.epi.org/blog/policymakers-twice-missed-the-chance-to-avert-widespread-job-loss-now-they-should-act-to-avoid-more-layoffs/
Congress “CARES” for wealthy with COVID-19 tax policy provisions: https://itep.org/congress-cares-for-wealthy-with-covid-19-tax-policy-provisions/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
How bad will this recession be? Why is Congress bailing out big corporations that had record profits last year? What would happen if stock buybacks were permanently eliminated? This week, Nick and Goldy answer your questions about the economy in the time of COVID-19.
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
In his latest book, Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argues that economics has been eaten from within by bad assumptions he calls “zombie ideas.” You’ve encountered these zombies before: the idea that cutting taxes creates growth, or that providing healthcare for an entire country is too expensive. This week, Krugman joins Nick and Goldy in the fight to win economic models back from the neoclassical undead.
Paul Krugman is a professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University, Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, and an op-ed columnist for The New York Times. In 2008, he was the recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade theory. He is the author or editor of 23 books, including the recently published Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future.
Twitter: @paulkrugman Arguing with Zombies: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/625526/arguing-with-zombies-by-paul-krugman/9781324005018
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
As the world shelters in place from the coronavirus pandemic, an economic crisis is growing. This week, Nick and Goldy pull the curtain back on why trickle-down has made us extra vulnerable to disasters like COVID-19. Our focus always, but especially now, should be on building a more resilient and inclusive economy that can actively protect people from ruin and tragedy. The only limit to our ability to address this crisis is our imagination and our willingness to act.
Further reading: Hurricanes hit the poor the hardest: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2017/09/18/hurricanes-hit-the-poor-the-hardest/
Insult to Injury: Natural Disasters and Residents’ Financial Health: https://www.urban.org/research/publication/insult-injury-natural-disasters-and-residents-financial-health
How natural disasters can increase inequality: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/how-natural-disasters-can-increase-inequality
Poverty and Death: Disaster and Mortality 1996-2015: https://reliefweb.int/report/world/poverty-death-disaster-and-mortality-1996-2015
Poll: Nearly 1 in 5 Households Have Lost Work Because of Pandemic: https://www.npr.org/2020/03/17/817158521/poll-nearly-1-in-5-households-have-lost-work-because-of-pandemic
Mnuchin warns senators of 20% US unemployment without coronavirus rescue, source says: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/18/mnuchin-warns-senators-of-20percent-us-unemployment-without-coronavirus-rescue-source-says.html
Coronavirus shock will likely claim 3 million jobs by summer: https://www.epi.org/blog/coronavirus-shock-will-likely-claim-3-million-jobs-by-summer/
News clips from CBS News and ABC News
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
A budget is a moral document that reflects what we value and prioritize. But to most people, the budget-making process is convoluted and confusing. Budget expert Bob Greenstein joins Nick and Jasmin this week to explain how a budget is made, and how these mind-bogglingly huge numbers impact everyday life.
Bob Greenstein is the Founder and President of the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research and policy institute that analyzes federal budget priorities. Greenstein is considered an expert on the federal budget and a range of domestic policy issues, including anti-poverty programs and various aspects of tax and health care policy.
Twitter: @GreensteinCBPP @CenterOnBudget
Further reading: Trump’s budget will wreak havoc on the American economy: https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/20/perspectives/trump-budget-economy/index.html
2021 Trump Budget Would Increase Hardship and Inequality: https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/2021-trump-budget-would-increase-hardship-and-inequality
News clips from PBS NewsHour and Bloomberg Politics.
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Why is right now the easiest time in modern history for the wealthy to get away with whatever they want? HuffPost reporter and fellow Seattleite Michael Hobbes joins Zach in the studio for a deep dive into his most recent article about white collar crime. Michael Hobbes covers the new economy for HuffPost and is the co-host of the podcast “You’re Wrong About”. Twitter: @RottenInDenmark @HuffPost Further reading: The Golden Age of White Collar Crime: https://www.huffpost.com/highline/article/white-collar-crime/ Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Pretend every economic problem we’ve ever discussed on this podcast has magically been solved. What’s next? What are the economic problems that we’ll face a decade from now? This week, Nick and Goldy are joined by futurist Kevin Kelly for a conversation based on a voicemail left by Pitchfork Economics listener Cody from Florida. Thanks, Cody!
You can call and leave us a voicemail, too—in fact, we would love it if you did! Our number is (731) 388-9334.
Kevin Kelly is Senior Maverick and co-founder at Wired. He has written for The New York Times, The Economist, Science, Time, and The Wall Street Journal among many other publications. His most recent book, The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future, is a New York Times Bestseller.
Twitter: @kevin2kelly
Further reading:
The Inevitable: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780525428084
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
You can’t talk about philanthropy without mentioning Darren Walker. As the president of the Ford Foundation, Walker has been charged with reimagining one of the largest philanthropic endowments in the world. This week he joins Nick and Jessyn in a conversation about transforming philanthropy to meet the challenges of structural inequality.
Darren Walker is president of the Ford Foundation. He chaired the philanthropy committee that brought a resolution to the city of Detroit’s historic bankruptcy and is co-founder and chair of the US Impact Investing Alliance. Before joining Ford, Darren was vice president at the Rockefeller Foundation.
Twitter: @darrenwalker @FordFoundation
Further reading:
From Generosity to Justice: https://www.fordfoundation.org/ideas/ford-forum/the-future-of-philanthropy/from-generosity-to-justice/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Democracy in Chains is required reading around the Civic Ventures office, and Paul is happy to explain why it’s earned must-read status. Listen, be convinced, go read!
Democracy in Chains: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781101980965
Paul’s twitter: @paulconstant
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
We’re continuing the conversation about reimagining capitalism this week with Professor Steve Keen, one of the biggest names in alternative economics. What would society look like if we stopped believing in long-held economic fictions like meritocracy and the equilibrium system?
Steve Keen has spent his career working to develop an alternative, realistic economics. He is the author of Debunking Economics and the designer of Minsky, an open source dynamic modelling program that makes it possible for anyone to build and understand monetary models of the economy. He was one of the first economists to correctly predict the 2008 financial crisis and its causes.
Twitter: @ProfSteveKeen
Steve Keen’s work is funded through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ProfSteveKeen
Make sure you check out Majority.FM’s AM Quickie, the morning news podcast for progressives in the know: amquickie.com
Further reading:
Debunking Economics: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10303367-debunking-economics---revised-and-expanded-edition
Minsky download: https://sourceforge.net/projects/minsky/
Inequality, Debt, and Credit Stagnation: https://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2016/07/05/inequality-debt-and-credit-stagnation/
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
On Tuesday’s episode, Anu Partanen mentioned the Finnish civil war, which divided the country between elite land-owners and the working class. That’s right up our pitchforks alley - so we called an expert, Finnish professor Tuomas Tepora, for a history lesson.
Tuomas Tepora is a lecturer in history at the University of Helsinki. His research deals with a wide variety of topics related to the cultural history of war and the history of emotions.
Twitter: @TTepora
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Contrary to popular belief, Nordic countries aren’t actually socialist! No, friends, the Nords are capitalists—but they pull it off much better than we do. To help re-imagine American capitalism, writers Anu Partanen and Trevor Corson join us this week all the way from Finland.
Anu Partanen is a journalist and the author of The Nordic Theory of Everything. The book debunks some of the most common myths about Nordic societies and discusses what the United States might be able to borrow from aspects of Nordic success in the twenty-first century. She has written for The New York Times and The Atlantic.
Twitter: @anupartanen
Trevor Corson is an award-winning author and editor. His articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and many more.
Twitter: @TrevorCorson
Further reading:
The Nordic Theory of Everything: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062316547
Finland Is a Capitalist Paradise: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/07/opinion/sunday/finland-socialism-capitalism.html
What Americans Don’t Get About Nordic Countries: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/bernie-sanders-nordic-countries/473385/
Capitalism Redefined: https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/31/capitalism-redefined/
Safe, happy and free: does Finland have all the answers? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/12/safe-happy-and-free-does-finland-have-all-the-answers
Make sure you check out Majority.FM’s AM Quickie, the morning news podcast for progressives in the know: amquickie.com
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Goldy’s in the studio today answering your questions! Up for debate this time: What’s the line between needing to budget more and just not making enough money? Will raising the minimum wage hurt small, rural businesses? And how is public opinion about the difference between worker and CEO pay changing?
Find Goldy on Twitter: @GoldyHA
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The average family earning $25,000 a year in the U.S. spends about $2,400 on financial transactions. Whether it’s the astronomical interest rates of a payday loan or the costs that come with being unbanked, the extractive practices of the financial services industry are effectively keeping the poor in poverty. Lawyer and author Mehrsa Baradaran and economic mobility expert Cate Blackford join Nick and Steph this week to explain why banking while poor is so expensive, and what states can do to rein in the people who profit from it.
Mehrsa Baradaran is a professor of law at UC Irvine. She writes about banking law, financial inclusion, inequality, and the racial wealth gap. Her scholarship includes the books How the Other Half Banks and The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap.
Twitter: @MehrsaBaradaran
Cate Blackford is the Director of Outreach and Donor Development at the Bell Policy Center, where she leads the Financial Equity Coalition to eradicate systemic discrimination and hold financial predators accountable. She was the Co-Chair of the 2018 Proposition 111 campaign in CO to limit the interest lenders could charge on payday loans and eliminate fees from payday lending products, which passed with 75% of the vote.
Twitter: @catetiller @BellPolicy
Further reading:
How the Other Half Banks: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674983960
The Color of Money: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674237476
If the U.S. Government Treated Poor People as Well as It Treats Banks: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/if-the-us-government-treated-poor-people-as-well-as-it-treats-banks/410614/
CO’s Prop 111 explained: https://coloradosun.com/2018/10/22/proposition-111-colorado-2018-explained/
Briefed by the Bell - Predatory Economy: https://www.bellpolicy.org/2018/09/10/predatory-economy/
How Do Payday Loans Work? https://www.incharge.org/debt-relief/how-payday-loans-work/
Make sure you check out Majority.FM’s AM Quickie, the morning news podcast for progressives in the know: amquickie.com
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Democrats used to be known as the party of the working people—so how did they get so off track? Who took over the party, and why? Author and professor James Kwak joins Nick and Paul in a blistering analysis of the decline of the Democratic Party, and explains how we can get it back on track.
News clips credit: C-SPAN, ProfGP, CNN
James Kwak is a professor at the UConn School of Law and the chair of the board of the Southern Center for Human Rights. He is the author or co-author of 13 Bankers, White House Burning, and Economism. His latest book, Take Back Our Party: Restoring the Democratic Legacy, is available for free online at The American Prospect.
Twitter: @jamesykwak
Read Take Back Our Party on The American Prospect:
Introduction - Restoring the Democratic Legacy: https://prospect.org/politics/take-back-our-party-restoring-the-democratic-legacy/
Chapter 1 - Their Democratic Party: https://prospect.org/takebackourparty/chapter-1-their-democratic-party/
Chapter 2 - Bad Policy: https://prospect.org/takebackourparty/chapter-2-bad-policy/
Chapter 3 - Bad Politics: https://prospect.org/takebackourparty/chapter-3-bad-politics/
Chapter 4 - Our Democratic Party: https://prospect.org/takebackourparty/chapter-4-our-democratic-party/
You’re probably aware of the term ‘NIMBY’, which refers to the folks who show up at their neighborhood meetings to fight development. The ‘Not In My Backyard’ argument is pervasive in urban and rural areas alike, and it’s notorious for impeding much-needed housing reform. This week, Paul recommends ‘Neighborhood Defenders: Participatory Politics and America’s Housing Crisis’, a book that dives into the NIMBY mind and explains the connections between these neighborhood defenders and America’s growing housing crisis.
Paul’s twitter: @paulconstant
Neighborhood Defenders: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/neighborhood-defenders/0677F4F75667B490CBC7A98396DD527A
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Every company you can think of has benefitted from a public investment. Whether it’s direct handouts through the tax code, government research efforts, or employee reliance on programs like EITC or TANF, taxpayers are subsidizing wildly profitable companies. David Dayen, the executive editor of The American Prospect, and Financial Times associate editor Rana Foroohar join Nick and Zach to explain how we let corporate parasites get so out of control—and what we can do about it.
News clips credit: CNBC, KING 5, NPR, Democracy Now!
Rana Foroohar is Global Business Columnist and an Associate Editor at the Financial Times. She is also CNN’s global economic analyst. She is the author of Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business and Don’t Be Evil: How Big Tech Betrayed Its Founding Principles and All of Us.
Twitter: @RanaForoohar / @FT / @CNN
David Dayen is the executive editor of The American Prospect. His work has appeared in The Intercept, The New Republic, HuffPost, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and more. His is the author of Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street’s Great Foreclosure Fraud.
Twitter: @ddayen / @theprospect
Further reading:
Confronting the parasite economy: https://prospect.org/labor/confronting-parasite-economy/
Makers and Takers: https://www.ranaforoohar.com/makersandtakers
How to Cure Corporate America’s Selfishness: https://newrepublic.com/article/150695/cure-corporate-americas-selfishness
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Up this week in listener questions: How much should you tip when you’re using a company credit card? What’s the difference between democratic socialism and the ideas we talk about? Who holds our national debt, and what does that even mean? And more!
Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
This fall, Naomi Klein joined the show to warn that economic orthodoxy may be the downfall of significant efforts against climate change like the Green New Deal and other big, sweeping reforms we need to combat it. Enjoy our full, unedited conversation with her.
Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author. She is Senior Correspondent for The Intercept, a Puffin Writing Fellow at Type Media Center, and the inaugural Gloria Steinem Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University. Her most recent book, ‘On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal’, published worldwide in September, was an instant New York Times bestseller and a #1 Canadian bestseller.
Twitter: @NaomiAKlein
Our website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Our twitter: @PitchforkEcon Our instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
The American pharmaceutical industry is rigged to make a handful people fabulously wealthy while everyone else gets screwed over. Because of intricate patent laws, we pay double what people in 29 other rich countries pay. Experts and change-makers Priti Krishtel and John Arnold join Nick and Jasmin to explain how we got into this mess (Monopolies! Patent law!), and what we can do about it.
Priti Krishtel is the Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of I-MAK, a global organization that works to increase access to lifesaving medicine. A 15-year veteran of the global access to medicines movement, she helped lead the movement to a pivotal moment in treatment access history with the passage of a health-friendly patent law.
Twitter: @pritikrishtel @IMAKglobal
John Arnold is a former hedge fund manager who, with his wife Laura, now focuses on advocacy through their organization Arnold Ventures. Arnold Ventures has distributed more than $175 million in grants to over 80 healthcare nonprofit organizations, universities, and institutes with the ultimate goal to lower healthcare spending without compromising quality.
Twitter: @JohnArnoldFndtn
Further reading:
It’s Time for Pharmaceutical Companies to Have Their Tobacco Moment: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/24/opinion/drug-prices-congress.html
A Humira Prescription Costs $38,000 A Year Because Our Patent System Is Being Abused: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/opinion-humira-costs-patents_n_5bd0c893e4b0a8f17ef3961f
How Big Pharma Reaps Profits While Hurting Everyday Americans: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/2019/08/30/473911/big-pharma-reaps-profits-hurting-everyday-americans/
Comprehensive Reform to Lower Prescription Drug Prices: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/healthcare/news/2019/01/29/465621/comprehensive-reform-lower-prescription-drug-prices/
A Supreme Court victory for lowering drug prices: https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/385326-why-scotus-ruling-in-oil-states-v-greenes-energy-group-is-a-win-for-working
How a billionaire couple greased the skids for Nancy Pelosi’s drug pricing bill: https://www.statnews.com/2019/11/26/laura-john-arnold-billionaire-greased-the-skids-for-drug-pricing-bill/
Billionaire Philanthropist John Arnold On Drug Prices: Congress Needs to Act: https://www.forbes.com/sites/denizcam/2018/11/29/billionaire-philanthropist-john-arnold-on-drug-prices-the-congress-needs-to-act/#b6097ee57a25
Millions in U.S. Lost Someone Who Couldn’t Afford Treatment: https://news.gallup.com/poll/268094/millions-lost-someone-couldn-afford-treatment.aspx
Our website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Our twitter: @PitchforkEcon Our instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Nick and Goldy are back to answer more of your voicemails! They’re tackling questions about housing, what our economic theory is actually called, portable benefits for gig economy workers, and more. Enjoy, and happy new year!
Resources: https://www.core-econ.org/
TED Talk reading list: https://www.ted.com/talks/nick_hanauer_the_dirty_secret_of_capitalism_and_a_new_way_forward/reading-list?language=en
TED Talk references: https://www.ted.com/talks/nick_hanauer_the_dirty_secret_of_capitalism_and_a_new_way_forward/footnotes?language=en
Our website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Our twitter: @PitchforkEcon Our instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Our resident book nerd Paul Constant is back with another book recommendation. This week, it’s ‘Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy.” Check it out for a greater understanding of how our biases shape the seemingly impartial numbers we use to measure the world.
Paul’s twitter: @paulconstant
Weapons of Math Destruction: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780553418811
Our website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Our twitter: @PitchforkEcon Our instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
What is the “trick” in “trickle down” economics? It’s how wealthy elites and their neoliberal lackeys convince you that what’s good for them (tax cuts, deregulation, etc.) is good for you… and that policies like the minimum wage, overtime, and paid sick leave will ruin the economy. Economics is a story we tell ourselves to help explain who gets what, and why. In this episode, which we’re re-issuing for the holidays because it’s just so dang good, we explore how to tell a better story.
Yuval Noah Harari is the author of international bestsellers: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. He is a professor in the Department of History at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Twitter: @yuvalharari Facebook: @Prof.Yuval.Noah.Harari Instagram: @yuval_noah_harari
Molly Crockett is the director of the Crockett Lab and an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Yale University. She is also a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics.
Twitter: @mollycrockett
Further reading: A threat, not a theory: https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/41/a-threat-not-a-theory/
To my fellow plutocrats: you can cure Trumpism: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/18/to-my-fellow-plutocrats-you-can-cure-trumpism-215347
Our website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Our twitter: @PitchforkEcon Our instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
In nations around the world, people are protesting economic inequality and taking to the streets in political frustration. We said it here first: The pitchforks are coming. This week, Cesar Hidalgo joins Nick and Paul to discuss the unrest in Chile and explain how his political organizing app is helping protestors prioritize the policies they want government to address.
The texture piece is courtesy of Gustavo de la Piedra, a listener from Santiago, Chile. The news clips are sourced from the news station France 24.
Cesar Hidalgo is a Chilean-Spanish physicist, author, and entrepreneur. He currently holds an ANITI (Artificial and Natural Intelligence Toulouse Institute) Chair at the University of Toulouse, an Honorary Professorship at the University of Manchester, and a Visiting Professorship at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. From 2010 to 2019, Hidalgo led MIT’s Collective Learning group. He is known for the creation of the field of Economic Complexity, which uses disaggregate data and network methods to explain and predict economic development dynamics, for his work on the creation of data visualization and distribution systems, and for advancing ideas on the use of Artificial Intelligence in democracy.
Twitter: @cesifoti
Further reading:
The pitchforks are coming... for us plutocrats: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014
‘Chile Woke Up’: Dictatorship’s Legacy of Inequality Triggers Mass Protests: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/world/americas/chile-protests.html
Global protests share themes of economic anger and political hopelessness: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/10/25/global-wave-protests-share-themes-economic-anger-political-hopelessness/
Chile announces $5.5 billion economic recovery plan as protests bite: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/03/chile-announces-5point5-billion-economic-recovery-plan.html
Earlier this week, we examined whether journalists live up to their responsibility to discuss economic issues fairly and intelligently. Here, we continue that conversation with Charles Mudede, a local economics reporter here in Seattle. Charles joins Paul to examine the ways that media has let economics down, as well as the deep economic implications of films like Alien and Pretty in Pink.
Charles Mudede writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger, Seattle’s alternative biweekly newspaper. He is also a filmmaker.
Twitter: @mudede
Further reading:
A Note on the Movie ‘Alien’ and Self-Checkout Machines: https://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2015/02/13/21707530/the-future-of-work-in-the-21st-century-self-checkout-in-a-no-service-economy
Piketty Gives Good Economics: https://www.thestranger.com/seattle/piketty-gives-good-economics/Content?oid=19281392
And viewing:
Charles Mudede, “Adventures with Thomas Piketty”: https://vimeo.com/channels/smokefarmsymposium/108752151
Our website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Our twitter: @PitchforkEcon Our instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
Most people understand the economy through the news—how it’s doing, what the new laws are, and what experts predict for the future. For better or for worse, that means journalists largely dictate our common knowledge of economics issues. What’s the media’s responsibility as they cover the economy? Media Matters senior fellow Matt Gertz joins Steph and Paul to ponder the question: does economics have a media problem?
Matt Gertz is a senior fellow at Media Matters, a progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Matt’s work focuses on the relationship between Fox News and the Trump administration, news coverage of politics and elections, and media ethics. His writing on the Trump-Fox feedback loop has appeared in The Daily Beast, HuffPost, and Politico Magazine, and he has discussed his analysis on MSNBC, NPR, and Comedy Central.
Twitter: @MattGertz
Further reading:
Media Matters website: https://www.mediamatters.org/ Who Fact-Checks the Fact-Checkers? https://civicskunk.works/who-fact-checks-the-fact-checkers-da45dc63e00c
How local ‘fake news’ websites spread ‘conservative propaganda’ in the US: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/19/locality-labs-fake-news-local-sites-newspapers
Study: Major media outlets show improvement at debunking Trump misinformation on Twitter: https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/study-major-media-outlets-show-improvement-debunking-trump-misinformation-twitter
Our website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Our twitter: @PitchforkEcon Our instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
In his new book ‘Goliath’, author Matt Stoller explains how the 2016 election heralded the return of authoritarianism and populism to American politics, due largely to concentrated financial power and rampant consumerism. This week, Matt joins Nick and Goldy for a conversation about creating a new democracy.
Matt Stoller is the author of ‘Goliath: The Hundred-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy’ and a fellow at the Open Markets Institute. He is a former policy advisor to the Senate Budget Committee, and also worked for a member of the Financial Services Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives during the financial crisis.
Twitter: @matthewstoller
Further reading:
Goliath: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Goliath/Matt-Stoller/9781501183089
How Democrats Killed Their Populist Soul: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/how-democrats-killed-their-populist-soul/504710/
Tech Companies Are Destroying Democracy and the Free Press: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/opinion/tech-monopoly-democracy-journalism.html
Boeing’s travails show what’s wrong with modern capitalism: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/11/boeing-capitalism-deregulation
George Monbiot joined us on our ‘How neoliberalism happened’ episode last month. Enjoy our full, unedited conversation with him!
George Monbiot writes a weekly column for The Guardian and is the author of a number of books, most recently ‘Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis’. As an investigative journalist and self-described “professional troublemaker,” George uncovers the complicated truths behind the world’s most persistent problems.
Twitter: @GeorgeMonbiot
Tax rates on the wealthy have steadily eroded in the United States over the last forty years, leaving us with an upside-down tax code that benefits the rich. And it’s surprisingly easy for powerful people to evade the taxes that they do owe, which inevitably inspires another round of harsh budget cuts from conservative lawmakers. Gabriel Zucman, the authority on wealth taxes, joins us this week to explain how the rich dodge taxes, and how we can fix the tax system.
Gabriel Zucman is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on the accumulation, distribution, and preservation of wealth, with a global and historical perspective. He is the author of ‘The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens’, and the co-author, with Emmanuel Saez, of the new book ‘The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay’.
Twitter: @gabriel_zucman
Further reading:
The Triumph of Injustice: https://wwnorton.com/books/the-triumph-of-injustice
The Wealth Detective Who Finds the Hidden Money of the Super Rich: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-05-23/the-wealth-detective-who-finds-the-hidden-money-of-the-super-rich
We’ve heard all about economic man, but what happened to economic woman? Women are noticeably absent in theoretical economic models and—perhaps not so coincidentally—they're also massively underrepresented in the field of economics itself. This week, we’re joined by journalist Katrine Marçal and economists Dr. Lisa Cook and Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman in an examination of why women are excluded from economics, and what we can do about it.
Katrine Marçal is a journalist for Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s most prestigious daily newspaper. Her book Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? was shortlisted for the August Prize in 2012 and has been translated into 19 languages.
Twitter: @katrinemarcal
Dr. Lisa D. Cook is an Associate Professor of Economics and International Relations at Michigan State University. Among her current research interests are economic growth and development, financial institutions and markets, innovation, and economic history. As a Senior Economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers during the 2011-2012 academic year, Dr. Cook worked on the euro zone, financial instruments, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
Twitter: @drlisadcook
Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman is a Research Scholar in Economics at Harvard University working at the Blair Economics Lab, a Visiting Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a pre-doctoral trainee of the NYU/Schmidt Futures Program. She is the co-founder and CEO of The Sadie Collective, a group that supports greater representation of black women in economics and related fields.
Twitter: @itsafronomics
Further reading:
Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781681771427
Opinion: It Was a Mistake for Me to Choose This Field: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/opinion/economics-black-women.html
The Sadie Collective: https://www.sadiecollective.org/our-mission.html
Why are there so few women economists? https://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2019/article/why-are-there-so-few-women-economists
Women’s Economic Agenda: https://www.epi.org/womens-agenda/
It’s three answers to three voicemails! Nick and Goldy field questions about self-interest in Congress, CEO accountability to shareholders, and if inflation is inevitable when you raise the minimum wage.
‘Chicago School’ is a descriptor often used to signify conventional economic thinking. This week, our friend Luigi Zingales, a finance professor at the Chicago Booth School of Business, joins Nick and Goldy to find out where they agree—and where they disagree. They discuss wealth taxes, health care, student loan forgiveness, shareholder value maximization, the Green New Deal, and more.
Luigi Zingales is a Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance and the Director of the Stigler Center at the Chicago Booth School of Business. He is the author of two books: ‘Saving Capitalism from Capitalists’, with Raghuram G. Rajan, and ‘A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity’. Luigi is also the co-host of the podcast ‘Capitalisn’t’.
Twitter: @zingales @zingales_it
A Capitalism for the People: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780465085958
Nick pitches a big idea to the mayor of Boise and political commentator E. J. Dionne: a suite of progressive labor standards that would hold large employers to higher standards nationwide. Is this the way to bring progressive, inclusive economic growth to rural America?
Dave Bieter is the Mayor of Boise, Idaho. Now serving his fourth term, he is the longest serving Mayor in Boise’s history.
Twitter: @MayorBieter
E. J. Dionne writes about politics in a twice-weekly column for The Washington Post. He is also a government professor at Georgetown University, a visiting professor at Harvard University, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a frequent commentator on politics for NPR and MSNBC. He is a New York Times bestselling author, and his newest book ‘Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country’ is out next year.
Twitter: @EJDionne
Further reading:
Progressive Labor Standards: https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/51/progressive-labor-standards/
We asked our guests and listeners: what’s the spookiest, sneakiest, and scariest trickle-down trick? Find out what’s making Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, Professor Stephanie Kelton, author Matt Stoller, and more good witches and wizards quake in their boots this Halloween.
Trickle-down economics would have you believe that the rich are job creators—the more money they have to invest in creating jobs, the better the economy is for everybody. This lie has had catastrophic effects: the top 0.1% of Americans now own more wealth than the bottom 90% of Americans combined. Class traitor Abigail Disney and tax expert Chye-Ching Huang are on this week to make the case for taxing the rich.
Abigail Disney is a documentary filmmaker, philanthropist, and social activist. She is the granddaughter of Roy Disney, the co-founder of the Walt Disney Company.
Twitter: @abigaildisney
Chye-Ching Huang is the Director of Federal Fiscal Policy at the Center on Budget Policy Priorities, where she focuses on the fiscal and economic effects of federal tax and budget policy. She rejoined the Center in 2011 after working as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Auckland, where she taught tax law and conducted research in tax law and policy.
Twitter: @dashching CenteronBudget
Further reading:
For the first time in history, U.S. billionaires paid a lower tax rate than the working class last year: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/08/first-time-history-us-billionaires-paid-lower-tax-rate-than-working-class-last-year/
In Open Letter, Billionaires Co-Sign New Wealth Tax Proposal: ‘Revenue Should Come From the Most Financially Fortunate’: https://time.com/5613228/billionaires-calling-for-wealth-taxes/
Want to grow the economy? Tax rich people like me: https://www.businessinsider.com/nick-hanauer-defends-wealth-tax-grow-economy-create-jobs-2019-7
Disney Heiress Calls for Wealth Tax: ‘We Have To Draw A Line’: https://www.npr.org/2019/06/28/736993245/disney-heiress-calls-for-wealth-tax-we-have-to-draw-a-line
Tax Code Can Do More to Narrow Racial Gaps in Income and Wealth: https://www.cbpp.org/blog/tax-code-can-do-more-to-narrow-racial-gaps-in-income-and-wealth
Wealth tax explainer: Why Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and billionaires like George Soros alike are calling for a specialized tax on the ultra-wealthy: https://www.businessinsider.com/wealth-tax-definition-explained-elizabeth-warren-2019-7
Fundamentally Flawed 2017 Tax Law Largely Leaves Low- and Moderate-Income Americans Behind: https://www.cbpp.org/federal-tax/fundamentally-flawed-2017-tax-law-largely-leaves-low-and-moderate-income-americans
The Rich Can’t Get Richer Forever, Can They? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/02/the-rich-cant-get-richer-forever-can-they
The Disney heiress who’s begging for a wealth tax says income inequality has created a ‘superclass’ in the US -- and it’s putting the American dream at risk: https://www.businessinsider.com/abigail-disney-income-inequality-american-dream-wealth-tax-2019-6
How the Federal Tax Code Can Better Advance Racial Equity: https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/how-the-federal-tax-code-can-better-advance-racial-equity
The only thing holding us back from big, bold, progressive change is ourselves. When critics wonder if we can afford to pay for the Green New Deal, they couch their concerns in the language of neoliberal economics: they say that investing in the middle class, raising wages, and doing too much too quickly will ruin the economy. This week, Naomi Klein and J.W. Mason join us to explain why the economic status quo is the greatest barrier to the Green New Deal becoming a reality, and how we actually can afford to change our economy so drastically.
Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author. She is Senior Correspondent for The Intercept, a Puffin Writing Fellow at Type Media Center, and the inaugural Gloria Steinem Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University. Her most recent book, ‘On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal’, published worldwide in September, was an instant New York Times bestseller and a #1 Canadian bestseller.
Twitter: @NoamiAKlein
J.W. Mason is a Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, where he works on the Financialization Project, and an assistant professor of economics at John Jay College, CUNY. His current research focuses on the history and political economy of credit, including the evolution of household debt and changing role of financial markets in business investment. He also works on the history of economic thought, particularly the development of macroeconomics over the twentieth century.
Twitter: @JWMason1
Further reading and resources:
On Fire: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781982129910
Can We Afford a Green New Deal? http://jwmason.org/slackwire/can-we-afford-a-green-new-deal/
Decarbonizing the US Economy: Pathways Toward a Green New Deal: https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Roosevelt-Institute_Green-New-Deal_Digital-Final.pdf
A Message from the Future with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9uTH0iprVQ
With a Green New Deal, Here’s What the World Could Look Like for the Next Generation: https://theintercept.com/2018/12/05/green-new-deal-proposal-impacts/
Be still, our hearts—it’s another book review, straight from the glittering literary mind of Paul Constant. This week, Paul recommends the New York Times Bestseller ‘Kochland’ by Christopher Leonard, a deeply reported investigation of Koch Industries’ secretive corporate power, smarmy public influence, and weird libertarian agenda. Plus: literal back-stabbing! Kochland: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781476775388 Twitter: @paulconstant Paul’s website, The Seattle Review of Books: https://seattlereviewofbooks.com/
In the 1990s and early 2000s, free trade was considered an unalloyed good. But now, policymakers and economists agree that global trade creates winners and losers—and they acknowledge that we've never really tried to fairly compensate the losers. Economist Dean Baker and Seattle Port Commissioner Ryan Calkins help us try to imagine a more equitable way forward on international trade. Dean Baker is a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, an organization he co-founded in 1999. His areas of research include housing, consumer prices, intellectual property, trade, employment, Social Security, and Medicare. He is the author of several books, including ‘Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer,’ and his blog, ‘Beat the Press,’ provides commentary on economic reporting. He is currently a visiting professor at the University of Utah. Twitter: DeanBaker13 Ryan Calkins is a Port of Seattle Commissioner specializing in sustainable economic development, ensuring that our region's prosperity is shared among all of our communities. Commissioner Calkins also works as a nonprofit professional at Ventures, a charitable organization that supports low income entrepreneurs who are starting and growing businesses in the Puget Sound Area. Twitter: @ryancalkinsSEA
It’s trendy to mock the malicious pervasiveness of neoliberalism now, but have you ever wondered what its origins are? This week, George Monbiot and Binyamin Appelbaum join the show to uncover just where the dominant economic theory of our time came from and how it took hold. George Monbiot writes a weekly column for The Guardian and is the author of a number of books, most recently ‘Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis’. As an investigative journalist and self-described “professional troublemaker,” George uncovers the complicated truths behind the world’s most persistent problems. Twitter: @GeorgeMonbiot Binyamin Appelbaum writes about economics and business for the editorial page of The New York Times. From 2010 to 2019, he was a Washington correspondent for the Times, covering economic policy in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis. His new book, ‘The Economists’ Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society’ is a Wall Street Journal Business Bestseller. Twitter: @BCAppelbaum Further reading: Out of the Wreckage: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781786632890 The Economists’ Hour: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780316512329 Neoliberalism - the ideology at the root of all our problems: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot Games Economists Play: http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/marshall-steinbaum-games-economists-play
As we reimagine the rules of our political and economic institutions, it is essential that racial justice be centered in the conversation. Darrick Hamilton explains how neoliberalism exploits existing structures of racism and power in America, and shares his optimism for a course-correction that will promote broadly shared prosperity. Darrick Hamilton is the Executive Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University, and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. As a stratification economist, his research focuses on the causes, consequences, and remedies of racial and ethnic inequality in economic and health outcomes, which includes an examination of the intersections of identity, racism, colorism, and socioeconomic outcomes. Twitter: @DarrickHamilton Further reading: New Rules for the 21st Century: Corporate Power, Public Power, and the Future of the American Economy: https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Roosevelt-Institute_2021-Report_Digital-copy.pdf
Few books have shaken the philanthropy world more than ‘Winners Take All’, Anand Giridharadas’s blistering critique of wealthy do-gooders. Global elites who ostentatiously give away hundreds of millions of dollars, he argues, are actually just preserving the status quo that grants them power in the first place. This week, Anand joins Nick and Goldy to explain how do-gooding perpetuates inequality. Anand Giridharadas is a writer. His most recent book, ‘Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World,’ is a national bestseller. He is an editor-at-large for TIME, an on-air political analyst for MSNBC, and a visiting scholar at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. Twitter: @AnandWrites Further reading: Winners Take All: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/539747/winners-take-all-by-anand-giridharadas/9780451493248 Beware Rich People Who Say They Want to Change the World: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/opinion/sunday/wealth-philanthropy-fake-change.html
Food labor expert Saru Jayaraman joined us earlier this month to expose the lie of marginal productivity, and to reveal how it’s used to take advantage of workers. For the sake of time, we cut a fascinating tangent on the minimum wage and the restaurant industry from that episode, but it’s so insightful we just had to share it with you. Catch it here, with Saru and Goldy’s full conversation. Saru Jayaraman is the Co-Founder and President of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United) and Director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. Saru authored ‘Behind the Kitchen Door’, a national bestseller, and her most recent book is ‘Forked: A New Standard for American Dining.’ Twitter: @SaruJayaraman Saru Jayaraman: How Restaurant Workers Are Inheriting a Legacy of Slavery in the U.S.: https://bioneers.org/saru-jayaraman-restaurant-workers-inheriting-legacy-slavery-u-s-ztvz1712/
In an effort to rethink the conversation around poverty, author Chris Arnade’s new book, ‘Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America’, pushes aside decades of academic detachment, instead encouraging those who have been left out of prosperity to describe their own experiences. This week, Chris joins Goldy for a wide-ranging conversation about poverty, addiction, and inequality. Chris Arnade is a writer and photographer covering addiction and poverty in America. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and the Washington Post, among many others. Twitter: @Chris_arnade Further reading: Our forgotten towns: struggle, resilience, love and respect in ‘back-row America’: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/05/america-dignity-chris-arnade-book-extract-poverty Dignity on IndieBound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780525534730
Everyone’s favorite human library, Paul Constant, is back with a review of ‘Janesville, An American Story’ by Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist Amy Goldstein. Pair with a Wisconsin-brewed beer. Buy Janesville on IndieBound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781501102233
In July, Nick took the stage at TEDSummit in Edinburgh, Scotland to make the case for a new economics that recognizes people, not capital, as the driver of economic growth. The talk, released by TED last week, explains why unchecked greed will inevitably lead to the collapse of society. In this episode, Nick takes us behind the scenes of the making of the speech and shares his hopes for its impact, and TED Business Curator Corey Hajim gives us insight into the making of a TED conference. To hear Nick's full speech, visit the links below. Video of Nick’s TED Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/nick_hanauer_the_dirty_secret_of_capitalism_and_a_new_way_forward Audio of Nick’s talk on the TED Talks Daily podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5mZWVkYnVybmVyLmNvbS9URURUYWxrc19hdWRpbw&episode=ZW4uYXVkaW8udGFsay50ZWQuY29tOjQ4NTQ1&hl=en&ep=6&at=1568658932671 Twitter: @NickHanauer
The theory of marginal product of labor says that every worker is paid exactly what they’re worth—the value that their labor generates. Employers cite marginal productivity to legitimize paying the lowest wages possible, but it’s just another trickle-down scam. Economist Marshall Steinbaum and food labor expert Saru Jayaraman join us this week to expose the lie of marginal productivity and show how it’s been used to exploit workers for centuries. Marshall Steinbaum is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Utah and a Senior Fellow of Higher Education Finance at the Jain Family Institute. He studies market power in labor markets and its policy implications. He was previously a Senior Economist and Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, and a Research Economist at the Center for Equitable Growth. Twitter: @Econ_Marshall Saru Jayaraman is the Co-Founder and President of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United) and Director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. Saru authored ‘Behind the Kitchen Door’, a national bestseller, and her most recent book is ‘Forked: A New Standard for American Dining.’ Twitter: @SaruJayaraman Further reading No, Productivity Does Not Explain Income: https://evonomics.com/no-productivity-does-not-explain-income/ ROC United Diners’ Guide App: https://rocunited.org/diners-guide/ Saru Jayaraman: How Restaurant Workers Are Inheriting a Legacy of Slavery in the U.S.: https://bioneers.org/saru-jayaraman-restaurant-workers-inheriting-legacy-slavery-u-s-ztvz1712/ Evidence and Analysis of Monopsony Power, Including But Not Limited To, In Labor Markets: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2018/08/ftc-2018-0054-d-0006-151013.pdf Antitrust and Labor Market Power: https://econfip.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Antitrust-and-Labor-Market-Power.pdf Why Are Economists Giving Piketty the Cold Shoulder? http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/marshall-steinbaum-why-are-economists-giving-piketty-cold-shoulder
It’s that time again—Nick and Goldy are answering your messages. This week, Dale from Washington D.C. wonders if rent control is a symptom of low wages or a safeguard from hardship, and Warren calls in all the way from Toronto to ask how capitalism can measure growth in a way that won’t destroy the planet. Fun! Enjoy. Twitter: @NickHanauer, @GoldyHA
Not all minimum-wage studies are equal. Some of the most headline-grabbing negative reports on the effects of the minimum wage were commissioned and promoted by right-wing organizations looking to legitimize trickle-down policies that hurt workers. How can you spot studies that aren’t worth their salt? Economist Ben Zipperer joins Nick and Jasmin to reveal some of the tricks that economists pull, and to help us understand how some studies can conclude that raising wages will kill jobs—even though, as we know, the opposite is true. Ben Zipperer is an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. His areas of expertise include the minimum wage, inequality, and low-wage labor markets. He has published research in the Industrial and Labor Relations Review and has been quoted in outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, and the BBC. Twitter: @benzipperer, @EconomicPolicy Further reading: Gradually raising the minimum wage to $15 would be good for workers, good for businesses, and good for the economy: https://www.epi.org/publication/minimum-wage-testimony-feb-2019/ Six reasons not to put too much weight on the new study of Seattle’s minimum wage: https://www.epi.org/blog/six-reasons-not-to-put-too-much-weight-on-the-new-study-of-seattles-minimum-wage/ Studies mentioned in the episode: New EPI study: The Effect of Minimum Wages on Low-Wage Jobs: Evidence from the United States Using a Bunching Estimator: https://www.nber.org/papers/w25434 Card and Krueger: Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania: http://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/njmin-aer.pdf University of Washington study - Minimum Wage Increases, Wages, and Low-Wage Employment: Evidence from Seattle: https://www.nber.org/papers/w23532
Under a Federal Jobs Guarantee, rather than distributing unemployment checks, the government would give a living-wage job to everyone that needs one. It’s a concept that’s been gaining popularity recently, and it’s often pitted against universal basic income. For the second episode in this two-part series exploring both ideas, expert Pavlina Tcherneva and Representative Ro Khanna join Nick and Paul to make the case for a Job Guarantee. Pavlina Tcherneva is an Associate Professor of Economics at Bard College and a Research Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute. Her research on the job guarantee has informed the proposals of several members of congress, and she has collaborated with governments around the world on designing and evaluating employment programs. Twitter: @ptcherneva Ro Khanna is the U.S. Representative from California’s 17th congressional district. He sits on the House Budget, Armed Services, and Oversight and Reform committees and is first vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He also serves as an Assistant Whip for the Democratic Caucus. In 2018, he introduced legislation to ensure that every jobless worker in the country is given the opportunity to earn a living. Twitter: @RoKhanna Further reading: Ro Khanna Has an Ambitious Plan to Put the Unemployed to Work. Just Don’t Call It a Job Guarantee. https://slate.com/business/2018/07/ro-khanna-has-an-ambitious-plan-to-help-the-unemployed-just-dont-call-it-a-job-guarantee.html Trump’s bait and switch: job creation in the midst of welfare state sabotage: http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue78/Tcherneva78.pdf 4 big questions about job guarantees: https://www.vox.com/2018/4/27/17281676/job-guarantee-design-bad-jobs-labor-market-federal-reserve The Federal Job Guarantee - A Policy to Achieve Permanent Full Employment: https://www.cbpp.org/research/full-employment/the-federal-job-guarantee-a-policy-to-achieve-permanent-full-employment Unemployment: The Silent Epidemic: http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_895.pdf The Job Guarantee: Design, Jobs, and Implementation: http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_902.pdf
We love books here at Civic Ventures, and writer, book reviewer, and former bookseller Paul Constant is the first person on the team that we go to for recommendations. Today, we’re excited to share his thoughts about ‘Listen, Liberal’ by Thomas Frank in his first book review for the podcast! According to Paul, ‘Listen, Liberal’ just might have the power to make Democrats relevant again. So cozy up, press play, and let Paul tell you about a book. Pair with a cup of tea. Listen, Liberal: http://listenliberal.com/ Twitter: @paulconstant Paul’s website, The Seattle Review of Books: https://seattlereviewofbooks.com/
You can’t throw a rock without hitting a wandering conversation about Universal Basic Income these days—but in our office, we’re still skeptical. For the first in a two-episode series exploring guaranteed income and its sister idea, guaranteed jobs, UBI expert Scott Santens and Sukhi Samra, the executive director of a real-life UBI experiment in California, join Nick and Paul to make the case for a universal basic income. Scott Santens is a prominent UBI advocate with a crowdfunded income via Patreon. As a writer and blogger, his pieces advocating for basic income have appeared in The Huffington Post, The Boston Globe, TechCrunch, Vox, the World Economic Forum, and Politico. He is on the board of directors of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network, a founding member of the Economic Security Project, an advisor to the Universal Income Project, a founding committee member of Basic Income Action, and founder of the BIG Patreon Creator Pledge. Twitter: @scottsantens Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scottsantens Sukhi Samra is the Executive Director of the Stockton Empowerment Demonstration (SEED), a pilot program to test a universal basic income in Stockton, CA. SEED is the country’s first-ever city-led Guaranteed Income Initiative. Twitter: @stocktondemo Further reading: Our Vision for SEED: A Discussion Paper: https://www.stocktondemonstration.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/SEED-Discussion-Paper.pdf What would a universal basic income mean for America? Stockton thinks it has the answer: https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-pol-ca-basic-income-stockton-reparations-20190415-story.html The Progressive Case for Replacing the Welfare State with Basic Income: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-progressive-case-for_b_12236546
There are nearly 60 million gig economy workers in the U.S. workforce, yet benefits like health care, retirement, and paid leave are still tied to traditional salaried jobs. It is essential that we adopt new policies guaranteeing all workers the basic level of economic security necessary to sustain and grow the American middle class—and with it, the economy as a whole. This week, Senator Mark Warner and SEIU 775 Benefits Group Executive Director Abby Solomon imagine what a shared security system designed to fit modern flexible employment realities might look like. Senator Mark Warner is the senior U.S. Senator from Virginia. He serves on the Senate Finance, Banking, Budget, and Rules Committees as well as the Select Committee on Intelligence, where he is the Vice Chairman. From 2002 to 2006, he served as Governor of Virginia. Senator Warner spent 20 years as a successful technology and business leader in Virginia before entering public office. Twitter: @MarkWarner Abby Solomon is the Executive Director of SEIU 775 Benefits Group, overseeing trusts for training, health, and retirement benefits for Washington state’s Home Care Aide workforce. The Benefits Group provides portable benefits to 50,000 home care workers. Previously, Abby was the Director of Home Care Campaigns at SEIU, where she led national advocacy campaigns representing 1.9 million workers and 100+ occupational fields throughout the United States and Canada. Twitter: @SEIU775BG Further reading: Shared Security, Shared Growth: https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/37/shared-security-shared-growth/ Portable Benefits for an Insecure Workforce: https://prospect.org/article/portable-benefits-insecure-workforce Building a portable benefits system for today’s world: http://seiu775.org/building-a-portable-benefits-system-for-todays-world/
Like many rich Americans, Nick used to think that focusing their philanthropic efforts in the country’s education system could heal many of our biggest problems. But in The Atlantic last month, he admitted he was wrong—better schools won’t fix America unless we fix inequality first. He’s joined this week by Diane Ravitch, a giant in the education policy world who also changed her mind about what works and what doesn’t. Can these two converts from the theory of educationism find a new way to expand educational opportunity in America while also combating runaway income inequality? Diane Ravitch is a Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education. She is the Founder and President of the Network for Public Education. From 1991 to 1993, she was Assistant Secretary of Education under President George H.W. Bush, where she led the federal effort to promote the creation of voluntary state and national academic standards. In her book ‘The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education’, Ravitch examines her career in education reform and repudiates positions that she once staunchly advocated. Twitter: @DianeRavitch Further reading: Better Schools Won’t Fix America: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/education-isnt-enough/590611/
With every technological advancement since the dawn of time, conventional wisdom has warned that technology and automation kills jobs. But robots aren’t the root cause of our problems. Although technology has always changed the nature of work, this week's guests Heidi Shierholz and Daron Acemoglu argue that there is no evidence that it has led or will lead to overall increased joblessness, unemployment, or wage stagnation. Heidi Shierholz is a Senior Economist and the Director of Policy at the Economic Policy Institute. She was a Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor under President Obama from 2014 to 2017. Her research and insights on labor and employment policy, the effects of automation on the labor market, wage stagnation, inequality, and many other topics routinely shape policy proposals and inform economic news coverage. Twitter: @hshierholz Daron Acemoglu is a Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the co-author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling book ‘Why Nations Fail’, with James A. Robinson. In 2005, he received the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded to economists under forty judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge. Twitter: @DrDaronAcemoglu Further reading: The zombie robot argument lurches on (EPI): https://www.epi.org/publication/the-zombie-robot-argument-lurches-on-there-is-no-evidence-that-automation-leads-to-joblessness-or-inequality/ How robots became a scapegoat for the destruction of the working class (The Week): https://theweek.com/articles/837759/how-robots-became-scapegoat-destruction-working-class Automation, Job Loss, and the Welfare State (Council on Foreign Relations): https://www.cfr.org/event/automation-job-loss-and-welfare-state Robots, or automation, are not the problem (EPI): https://www.epi.org/publication/robots-or-automation-are-not-the-problem-too-little-worker-power-is/ Robots kill jobs. But they create jobs, too. (Brookings): https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/03/18/robots-kill-jobs-but-they-create-jobs-too/ Where Do Good Jobs Come From? (Project Syndicate): https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/automation-vs-job-creation-by-daron-acemoglu-2019-04?barrier=accesspaylog The Revolution Need Not Be Automated (Project Syndicate): https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ai-automation-labor-productivity-by-daron-acemoglu-and-pascual-restrepo-2019-03?barrier=accesspaylog
The second round of presidential debates are quickly approaching. The debates move fast, and we know there’s a lot to sift through—so allow us to make it easier on you! In this pre-debates briefing, Nick and Zach lay out exactly what kind of economics talk you should be listening for ahead of next Tuesday and Wednesday’s festivities. Further reading: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/06/26/democratic-debate-economy-middle-class-analysis-growth-227217
Medicare for All is the most ambitious health care proposal on the table right now, and the Bernie Sanders campaign is ground zero for making it a reality. In the second episode of a two-part series on health care, former Ohio State Senator and Sanders’ campaign co-chair Nina Turner explains why widely available and affordable high-quality health care would be revolutionary for the United States. Nina Turner was an Ohio State Senator from 2008 until 2014. In 2017, Turner became president of Our Revolution, a progressive political action organization spun out of Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, and she is currently the national co-chair of Sanders’ 2020 campaign. Her podcast, We The People with Nina Turner, is available everywhere podcasts are posted. Twitter: @ninaturner Instagram: @ninaturnerohio Further reading: https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/25/health/what-does-medicare-for-all-mean/index.html https://www.vogue.com/article/sen-nina-turner-universal-programs-opinion
We’re revisiting a timeless topic: monopolies! Expert Barry Lynn shares his thoughts on market concentration, the dangers of industrial monopolies like Boeing, and what ‘reigning in’ companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon actually means. Barry Lynn is the Executive Director of the Open Markets Institute. Previously, he spent 15 years at the New America Foundation researching and writing about monopoly power. He is the author of ‘Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction’ and ‘End of the Line: The Rise and Coming Fall of the Global Corporation’. Twitter: @openmarkets Further reading: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/antimonopoly-big-business/514358/ https://openmarketsinstitute.org/op-eds-and-articles/why-competition-matters/ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/26/google-and-facebook-are-strangling-the-free-press-to-death-democracy-is-the-loser https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/02/facebook-google-monopoly-companies
When it comes to health care, every country in the world is running their own version of the same experiment—and the results vary widely in terms of cost and patient outcomes. In the first episode of a two-part exploration of health care, author T. R. Reid takes Nick and Stephanie on a tour of medical systems around the world. T. R. Reid is the author of the bestselling books ‘The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care’ and ‘A Fine Mess—A Global Quest for a Fairer, Simpler, and More Efficient Tax Code’. He has become one of the nation’s best-known reporters through his books and articles, his documentary films, his reporting for the Washington Post, and his frequent commentary on NPR’s Morning Edition. Twitter: @therealtrreid Further reading: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6402544-the-healing-of-america
Not so long ago, economic growth was shared widely among Americans thanks to a suite of policies that boosted the bargaining power of workers. In recent years, employer power has increased while worker powers have been significantly eroded—and as a result, income inequality has grown at record rates. Experts David Rolf and Larry Mishel explain how this collapse of worker power came to be, and offer solutions that will tilt the scales of power back in the right direction. David Rolf is a labor leader, organizer, writer, and speaker working to build the next American labor movement. He is the founder and President Emeritus of SEIU 775 and a former Vice President of SEIU International. He led campaigns that helped organize hundreds of thousands of minimum-wage home care workers, and helped lead the nation’s first two successful campaigns for $15 minimum wages in SeaTac and Seattle. Twitter: @DavidMRolf Larry Mishel is a distinguished fellow at the Economic Policy Institute after serving as president from 2002-2017, where he has helped build it into the nation’s premier research organization focused on U.S. living standards and labor markets. Mishel has co-authored all 12 editions of ‘The State of Working America’, and has written extensively on wage and job quality trends in the United States. Twitter: @LarryMishel Further reading: https://tcf.org/content/report/roadmap-rebuilding-worker-power/?session=1 https://www.epi.org/publication/what-labor-market-changes-have-generated-inequality-and-wage-suppression-employer-power-is-significant-but-largely-constant-whereas-workers-power-has-been-eroded-by-policy-actions/ https://psmag.com/economics/what-caused-the-decline-of-unions-in-america
In March of this year, Washington state Governor Jay Inslee announced he is running for president on a platform of combating climate change. He has already succeeded in centering the political conversation around this central crisis of our time. We spoke with the governor for our April episode about the economics of climate change; here is our full unedited conversation. Jay Inslee first got into public service to fight for a new public high school in his community. He then went on to serve in the state legislature and in 1992 was elected to represent the 4th Congressional District in rural Eastern Washington. He later moved back to the Seattle area and was elected to Congress in 1998 where he served until 2012. In 2012 he was elected Washington's 23rd governor and is currently serving in his second term. Twitter: @JayInslee Links: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/5/4/18527458/climate-change-jay-inslee-for-president-2020 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/01/us/politics/jay-inslee-on-the-issues.html
Rutger Bregman, who The Guardian has called “the Dutch wunderkind of new ideas”, joins us this week to daydream a better future. Bregman won international fame by taking on everyone from Tucker Carlson to the wealthy elites at Davos on the topic of income inequality, and here he lays out a positive economic vision using the pillars of his book ‘Utopia for Realists’: a universal basic income, open borders, and a 15-hour workweek. Rutger Bregman is a Dutch historian and author. He has published four books on history, philosophy, and economics. His book ‘History of Progress’ was awarded the Belgian Liberales prize for best nonfiction book of 2013, and the Dutch edition of ‘Utopia for Realists’ became a national bestseller and sparked a basic income movement that made international headlines. The book has been translated into 31 languages. Bregman has twice been nominated for the prestigious European Press Prize for his journalism work at The Correspondent. Twitter: @rcbregman Further reading: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/18/solution-everything-working-less-work-pressure https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/26/rutger-bregman-utopia-for-realists-interview-universal-basic-income https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/02/20/dutch-professor-exposes-tucker-carlsons-fraud/?utm_term=.a252dc0fa581 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/01/rutger-bregman-world-economic-forum-davos-speech-tax-billionaires-capitalism https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1090045108064579584
Classical economics argues that the economy is an equilibrium system—that for every winner there must be a loser. In this episode, author and professor David Sloan Wilson joins Nick live on stage at Town Hall Seattle to argue that economies are actually evolutionary systems—and once we shed the winner-take-all philosophy that has dominated Econ 101 classes for a century, we can change economic policy for the better. David Sloan Wilson is an American evolutionary biologist, a Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences and Anthropology at Binghamton University, and co-founder of the Evolution Institute. In addition to his latest book ‘This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution’, he has also written ‘Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society’, and ‘Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin’s Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives’. Twitter: @David_S_Wilson Further reading: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/246844/this-view-of-life-by-david-sloan-wilson/9781101870204/ http://evonomics.com/the-new-invisible-hand-david-sloan-wilson/ http://evonomics.com/complexity-economics-shows-us-that-laissez-faire-fail-nickhanauer/
This episode was first released in March, but so much has happened since then in the world of overtime that we thought we’d repost this episode with a new intro. Since this originally aired, Washington state has proposed a new overtime threshold that would expand overtime pay to 250,000+ workers. Since overtime laws haven’t been updated since 1976, this is a big deal! So brush up on your OT knowledge with this episode, featuring Sharon Block and Chris Lu. Sharon Block is the Executive Director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. For twenty years, she held key labor policy positions across the legislative and executive branches of the federal government, including head of the policy office at the Department of Labor. Twitter: @sharblock Chris Lu was the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Labor in the Obama Administration from 2014 to 2017. He also served as Assistant to the President and White House Cabinet Secretary under Obama from 2009 to 2013. He is a Practitioner Senior Fellow at the UVA Miller Center. Twitter: @ChrisLu44 Further reading: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/06/05/40402423/hundreds-of-thousands-of-workers-will-be-newly-eligible-for-overtime-in-washington-state https://www.businessinsider.com/overtime-pay-is-a-fundamental-right-nick-hanauer-2019-6?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=topbar&utm_term=desktop&referrer=twitter https://crooked.com/articles/beat-trump-overtime-pay/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/overtime-pay-obama-congress-112954
Zach speaks with Connie Razza, the author of ‘Break glass in case of emergency’, a strategy memo recently published by the Economic Policy Institute for winning a robust and just recovery from the next recession. Connie explains what policy proposals and political infrastructure will successfully orient our recovery from the next recession toward economic outcomes that reduce, rather than boost, wealth inequality around racial and gender lines. Connie M. Razza is the Chief of Campaigns and Policy at the Center for Popular Democracy, where she oversees CPD’s broad-ranging campaigns for economic justice and a robust, inclusive democracy, as well as the organization’s research efforts. Connie was previously Vice President of Policy and Research at Demos, and she has worked for economic and racial justice for nearly a quarter century as a union activist, organizer, researcher, policy analyst, and strategist. Twitter: @ConnieRazza https://www.epi.org/publication/break-glass-in-case-of-emergency-strategy-memo-for-winning-a-robust-and-just-recovery-from-the-next-recession/
We couldn’t contain our favorite listener voicemails in one Ask Nick Anything episode, so we made two! Why does the middle class pay an income tax? Are unions cool? Nick and Trae answer eight more questions in this follow-up to last week’s must-listen episode. Trae Crowder is a comedian and co-author of ‘The Liberal Redneck Manifesto: Draggin’ Dixie Outta the Dark’. Trae has earned national attention for his “Liberal Redneck” series of viral videos. He has been performing his particular brand of Southern-friend intellectual comedy in the Southeast for the past six years, and is now on the WellRED Comedy Tour with fellow comedians and writing partners Drew Morgan and Corey Ryan Forrester. Twitter: @traecrowder Instagram: @officialtraecrowder
Nick spoke with Congressmember Pramila Jayapal in December 2018 about the fight for a $15 minimum wage, what Representative Jayapal has changed his mind on, and how Democrats can tell better stories. Here’s their full conversation in Congresswoman Jayapal’s offices in Washington D.C. An edited version of this conversation appeared in the episode, "Should Democrats appeal to the center by moving hard left?", linked below. http://www.pitchforkeconomics.com/episode/should-democrats-appeal-to-the-center-by-moving-hard-left-with-congresswoman-pramila-jayapal/
You’ve been flooding Nick’s voicemail for months, and the time is finally here! Comedian Trae Crowder joins Nick to answer your questions in this freewheeling Ask Me Anything session. What does John Hickenlooper think about Nick’s net worth? How can we help people see that a $15 minimum wage is good for everyone? We answer these questions and more! Trae Crowder is a comedian and co-author of ‘The Liberal Redneck Manifesto: Draggin’ Dixie Outta the Dark’. Trae has earned national attention for his “Liberal Redneck” series of viral videos. He has been performing his particular brand of Southern-friend intellectual comedy in the Southeast for the past six years, and is now on the WellRED Comedy Tour with fellow comedians and writing partners Drew Morgan and Corey Ryan Forrester. Twitter: @traecrowder Instagram: @officialtraecrowder
Washington state lost 440,000 acres in almost two thousand wildfires last year﹣a record high. Once the most beautiful month in Washington’s year, August is now marred by hazy, smoky skies that drive everyone indoors while our small and underfunded team of wildland firefighters work around the clock to save lives, property, and public lands. It’s not just a Washington problem, either: wildfires are burning more acreage than ever before across the country. Luckily, this is a problem we can actually do something about! In this bonus episode, Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz sits down with Nick to explain the ins and outs of forest health, fighting for funding to give wildfire fighters the resources they need, and her fleet of Vietnam-era helicopters. Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz protects and manages nearly six million acres of public lands in Washington. She is leading the push to make Washington’s lands more resilient in the face of climate change, and as the leader of the state’s largest wildfire fighting force, she has pushed for new strategies, innovations, and resources to protect communities. Commissioner Franz’s 20-year Forest Health Strategic Plan will make more than one million acres of forest healthier and more resistant to wildfires. Twitter: @Hilary_FranzCPL HuffPost: Controlled Burns Lower Wildfire Risks. These Western States Struggle To Set More Of Them. http://bit.ly/huffpowildfire Crosscut: A bold plan to curb wildfires, create jobs and build affordable housing http://bit.ly/CrosscutDNRplan
It’s not just economic inequality, the gap between rich and poor people, that’s growing wider in America. Spatial inequality, the gap between rich and poor places, is growing too. The most obvious example of spatial inequality is the decline of rural areas and the rise of cities. Can rural America be saved? And is urban America obligated to do the saving? Journalist Eduardo Porter and author Sarah Smarsh weigh in. Eduardo Porter is an economics reporter for the business section of The New York Times, where he was the Economic Scene columnist from 2012 to 2018. He is the author of ‘The Price of Everything’ and is working on an upcoming book called ‘American Poison’. Twitter: @portereduardo Sarah Smarsh is the author of ‘Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth’, which became an instant New York Times bestseller and was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award. She has covered socioeconomic class, politics, and public policy for The Guardian, The New York Times, and many other publications. Twitter: @Sarah_Smarsh The Hard Truths of Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/14/opinion/rural-america-trump-decline.html Country pride: What I learned growing up in rural America: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/06/country-pride-kansas-rural-america-sarah-smarsh America’s Worsening Geographic Inequality: https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/10/americas-worsening-geographic-inequality/573061/ The Contribution of National Income Inequality to Regional Economic Divergence: https://academic.oup.com/sf/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/sf/soz013/5418441 The Economic Innovation Group’s 2018 Distressed Communities Index: https://eig.org/dci
Homo economicus is the figurative human being used in economic modeling. But the term defines human nature as perfectly rational, perfectly logical, and always self-interested. Does that sound like any real humans you know? Nope, we didn’t think so either. So we invited Professor Samuel Bowles to join Nick and Goldy in throwing a funeral for homo economicus, and all the flawed economic thinking that he’s inspired over the years. Samuel Bowles is a Research Professor at the Santa Fe Institute where he heads the Behavioral Sciences Program. His work on cultural evolution have challenged the conventional economic assumption that people are motivated entirely by self-interest. His most recent books are ‘The Moral Economy: Why good laws are no substitute for good citizens’ and ‘A Cooperative Species: Human reciprocity and its revolution’. ‘Spock goes shopping’ was based on a thought experiment in Eric Beinhocker’s book ‘The Origin of Wealth’: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781422121030 https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/homo-economicus-must-die/ https://www.core-econ.org/ https://yalebooksblog.co.uk/2016/10/11/the-moral-economy-homo-economicus-becomes-human/
Our friends at the Tax March, a national progressive tax awareness coalition, just launched a new campaign called “Tax the Rich” which urges every Democrat in Congress and every presidential candidate to support taxing the country’s wealthiest people. Zach talked to the Executive Director of Tax March, Maura Quint, about the launch of the campaign, Tax March’s plan for the 2020 election, and why higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy is both good policy and good politics. Plus, Annie explains marginal tax rates and capital gains. Maura Quint is the Executive Director of Tax March. Twitter: @behindyourback https://taxmarch.org/ https://www.vox.com/2019/3/19/18240377/estate-tax-wealth-tax-70-percent-warren-sanders-aoc https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/7/18171975/tax-bracket-marginal-cartoon-ocasio-cortez-70-percent
All the economic and social policy that we discuss on this podcast won’t matter if we don’t address climate change. Governor Jay Inslee and Professor Fadhel Kaboub join Nick and Goldy to explain that if we don’t get climate right… well, the pitchforks are coming. Jay Inslee is the Governor of Washington state. In March of this year, he announced he is running for president on a platform of combating climate change. Twitter: @JayInslee Fadhel Kaboub is President of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity, and Associate Professor of economics at Denison University. His research focuses on the political economy of the Middle East, and the fiscal and monetary policy dimensions of job creation programs. Twitter: @FadhelKaboub
Is government debt real? Is anything real? Professor Stephanie Kelton gives Nick and Goldy a master class on the hottest idea in economics right now: Modern Monetary Theory. Stephanie Kelton is a professor of public policy and economics at Stony Brook University and a senior economic adviser to Bernie Sanders’s 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. She was the chief economist on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee in 2015 and in 2016, POLITICO named her one of the 50 people most influencing the public debate in America. Her forthcoming book, ‘The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of a New Economy’ will be published by Public Affairs in 2020. Twitter: @StephanieKelton Further reading: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/16/18251646/modern-monetary-theory-new-moment-explained https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/opinion/deficit-tax-cuts-trump.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/01/bernie-sanders-economic-advisor-stephanie-kelton-on-mmt-and-2020-race.html https://www.thenation.com/article/the-rock-star-appeal-of-modern-monetary-theory/
For too long, pundits and politicians have talked about the political center as a perfect balance between conservatives and liberals. But this quest for some sort of mythical middle ground between left and right has only succeeded in elevating the interests of the top one percent over everyone else. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal joins Nick to propose a new way of thinking about centrism: a framework of wildly popular policies that directly and significantly improve the lives of the vast majority of Americans who have been left out of economic growth. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal is the U.S. Representative from Washington’s 7th congressional district, which includes most of Seattle. She is the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Congress. Twitter: @PramilaJayapal Further reading: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/14/democrats-must-reclaim-the-center-by-moving-hard-left-219354 https://cpc-grijalva.house.gov/
We spoke to Senator Cory Booker about stock buybacks and his Workers Dividend Act in February. We hope you enjoy the full, unedited conversation! Cory Booker is the U.S. Senator from New Jersey and a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. Twitter: @CoryBooker
For all our talk about family values, the U.S. is actually the worst place to raise a family in the developed world. Anne-Marie Slaughter and Katie Hamm join Nick and Jessyn to explain how our family policies got stuck in the last century, and what we should do about it. Anne-Marie Slaughter is the President and CEO of New America, a think and action tank dedicated to renewing America in the Digital Age. She is also a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, and from 2009-2011 she served as director of Policy Planning for the U.S. Department of State—the first woman to hold that position. Twitter: @SlaughterAM Katie Hamm is the Vice President for Early Childhood Policy at the Center for American Progress, where she leads CAP’s work on policies impacting young children from birth to five. Twitter: @DCHammslice Kristine Reeves is a member of the Washington House of Representatives representing the 30th legislative district. She is also the Director of Economic Development for the Military and Defense sector for the state of Washington. Twitter: @KMReevesWA Further reading: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-cant-have-it-all/309020/ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/early-childhood/reports/2017/09/07/438428/blueprint-child-care-reform/ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/early-childhood/news/2017/10/31/441825/the-cost-of-inaction-on-universal-preschool/ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/24/upshot/americans-love-families-american-policies-dont.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fclaire-cain-miller
We’ve established that trickle-down economics and neoliberalism are failed philosophies. But we haven’t yet explored whether economics should be moral - should it reflect our behaviors and preferences, or is it a science that lives separately from our societal norms and values? Heather McGhee joins Nick and Paul to argue that an inclusive economy is not only possible, but imperative to growth. Heather McGhee was the President of Demos from 2014-2018, where she is now a Distinguished Senior Fellow. She’s finishing a major book about the personal, economic, and societal costs of racism to everyone in America—including white people. A recognized thought leader on the national stage, Heather serves as a contributor to NBC News and frequently appears on shows such as Meet the Press. Her opinions, writing, and research have appeared in numerous outlets, including The New York Times, The Nation, and The Hill. Twitter: @hmcghee Further reading: https://www.demos.org/issue/economy-opportunity https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/the-moral-burden-on-economists
You’ve definitely heard of the Green New Deal by now, right? Zach and Annie talk it up in this bonus episode and explain why the economic bill of rights component is so important.
In 2009, President Obama signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law, thereby ensuring that women across the United States were finally paid the same as men. Just kidding! Women still only make 80% of what their male counterparts do. What is this bullshit? Why hasn’t pay equity been achieved yet? Economist Julie Nelson and journalist Claire Cain Miller join Nick and Steph to explain why this problem is so damn persistent, and to offer solutions for how we can fully include women in the economy. Julie Nelson is a professor of economics and department chair at the University of Massachusetts Boston, most known for her application of feminist theory to economics. She is the author of ‘Economics for Humans’ and ‘Feminism, Objectivity, and Economics’. Twitter: @julie_nelson Claire Cain Miller is a correspondent for The New York Times, where she writes about gender, families, and the future of work for The Upshot, a Times site for analysis of policy and economics. She was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. Twitter: @clairecm Further reading http://evonomics.com/yes-economics-problem-women/ http://evonomics.com/pretending-hard-science-ethics-free-julie-nelson/ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/upshot/the-gender-pay-gap-is-largely-because-of-motherhood.html https://hbr.org/2018/01/when-more-women-join-the-workforce-wages-rise-including-for-men
We at Pitchfork Economics were saddened to learn of the passing of the brilliant economist Alan Krueger last weekend. We were fortunate to speak with him last year - here’s the full conversation.
Here are two phrases that should be oxymorons, but aren’t: ‘working poor’ and ‘poverty-level jobs.’ Writer and anti-poverty advocate Hanna Brooks Olsen joins Nick and Goldy to explore how the intense burdens of poverty make it nearly impossible to even think about climbing the economic ladder. Felicia Wong is the President and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, a think tank that seeks to re-imagine the social and economic policies of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt for the 21st century. Twitter: @FeliciaWongRI @rooseveltinst Hanna Brooks Olsen is a writer and policy consultant. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, the Nation, Salon, the New York Daily News, the Huffington Post, and Democracy. Twitter: @mshannabrooks Further reading: https://medium.com/@mshannabrooks/but-seriously-lets-talk-about-millennial-poverty-526066ad9adb https://aspe.hhs.gov/system/files/pdf/154286/50YearTrends.pdf
The overtime threshold used to be the minimum wage for the middle class—but where did it go? Labor experts Sharon Block and Chris Lu join Nick and Jasmin to explain why the overtime threshold, which used to cover 65 percent of workers, today covers only 7 percent. That’s craziness! And surprise, surprise—employers love to claim that forcing you to work for free is in your own best interest. But are they telling the truth? Sharon Block is the Executive Director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. For twenty years, she held key labor policy positions across the legislative and executive branches of the federal government, including head of the policy office at the Department of Labor. Twitter: @sharblock Chris Lu was the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Labor in the Obama Administration from 2014 to 2017. He also served as Assistant to the President and White House Cabinet Secretary under Obama from 2009 to 2013. He is a Practitioner Senior Fellow at the UVA Miller Center. Twitter: @ChrisLu44 Further reading: https://crooked.com/articles/beat-trump-overtime-pay/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/overtime-pay-obama-congress-112954
Ever been in the middle of a Pitchfork Economics pod ep and thought, “WTF are they talking about?” If so, this might help - we define some complex terms that get thrown around a lot (neoclassical, neoliberal, heterodoxy, monopoly, monopsony, and stock buybacks) because we want this to be a fun and informative pod, not, like, a painful and confusing pod. Twitter: @NickHanauer @GoldyHA
Monopoly and its equally evil twin monopsony are destroying competition, depressing wages, and slowing economic growth. Is market concentration an inevitable outcome of capitalism, or is there a smarter solution? Jared Bernstein: Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, former Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to VP Biden and Executive Director of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class, and author of ‘The Reconnection Agenda: Reuniting Growth and Prosperity’. Twitter: @econjared Jonathan Tepper: Founder of Variant Perception, a macroeconomic research group that caters to asset managers. Author of ‘The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition’, ‘Endgame: The End of the Debt Supercycle’, and ‘Code Red’, a book on unconventional monetary policy. Twitter: @jtepper2 Further reading: https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/51/progressive-labor-standards/
Senator Cory Booker explains the problem with stock buybacks, walks us through his Workers Dividend Act, and offers Goldy some much-needed counseling. Cory Booker is the U.S. Senator from New Jersey and a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. Twitter: @CoryBooker Further reading: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/6/17083398/booker-buyback-populist https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/kill-stock-buyback-to-save-the-american-economy/385259/
Nick, Goldy, and their guests William Lazonick and Lenore Palladino explain why "shareholder value maximization" is the world's dumbest idea. William Lazonick: Professor of economics at University of Massachusetts Lowell, visiting Professor at University of Ljubljana, professeur associé at Institut Mines-Télécom in Paris, and professorial research associate, SOAS, University of London. His book ‘Sustainable Prosperity in the New Economy? Business Organization and High-Tech Employment in the United States’ won the 2010 Schumpeter Prize, and he has written extensively on corporate profits. Twitter: @Lazonick Lenore Palladino: Senior Economist and Policy Counsel at the Roosevelt Institute, where she brings expertise to Roosevelt’s work on inequality and finance. Her research and writing focuses on financial reform, financial taxation, labor rights, and financial crises. Her publications have appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, State Tax Notes, and other venues. Twitter: @lenorepalladino Further reading: https://www.brookings.edu/research/stock-buybacks-from-retain-and-reinvest-to-downsize-and-distribute/ https://hbr.org/2014/09/profits-without-prosperity/ http://rooseveltinstitute.org/ending-shareholder-primacy-corporate-governance/ http://rooseveltinstitute.org/rewriting-rules-take-aim-stock-buybacks-and-force-companies-invest-their-workers-stop-walmart-act/ http://rooseveltinstitute.org/what-wells-fargos-40-6-billion-stock-buybacks-could-have-meant-its-employees-and-customers/ http://rooseveltinstitute.org/towards-accountable-capitalism/
When we talked with historian Yuval Harari, the best-selling author of Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, the conversation was so wide-ranging and so smart that we just couldn't bear to leave any of it behind on the cutting room floor. So here's the full, unedited interview on a range of topics including why our society has fallen so hard for the myth of trickle-down economics.
Trickle-downers always argue that raising the minimum wage inevitably kills jobs. But the empirical evidence from Seattle, Los Angeles, and elsewhere prove otherwise. Experts, including Mayor Garcetti of LA, discuss how our economic understanding has changed, and why changing the public perception around the minimum wage has been so difficult. Eric Garcetti: Mayor of Los Angeles since 2013. Former member of the LA City Council, serving as council president from 2006 to 2012. Twitter: @ericgarcetti Alan Krueger: Bendheim Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton. Former Chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and a member of the Cabinet from 2011 to 2013. Co-author of ‘Myth of Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage’ and ‘Inequality in America: What Role for Human Capital Policies?’. Twitter: @Alan_Krueger Richard Kirsch: Director of Our Story at the Hub for American Narratives. Led development of Progressive Economic Narrative Project and has done extensive training with organizational leaders and elected officials on delivering powerful narratives. Twitter: @_RichardKirsch Further reading: Raising the Minimum Wage Is Good for Everyone Seattle’s $15 Minimum Wage Experiment Is a Success
Deregulation for the powerful is a central tenet of the trickle-down myth, embraced by Democrats and Republican alike. Government regulations, we’re told, are costly and inefficient intrusions that slow grow and kill jobs. But Robert Reich explains that when thoughtfully applied, regulations are absolutely essential to growing a safe, secure, and broadly prosperous economy. Robert Reich: Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. Served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Author of fifteen books, including ‘The Common Good’. Co-creator of the documentaries ‘Inequality for All’ and ‘Saving Capitalism’. Twitter: @RBReich Facebook: Robert Reich Further reading: Robert B. Reich: How Trump's war on regulation is trickle-down economics
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz says he’s seriously considering running for President. Nick Hanauer, who knows Schultz, says that businesspeople often make terrible politicians.
Since forever, Republicans have insisted that cutting taxes on wealthy corporations and individuals would grow the economy, create jobs, and lift wages. But it never does. As an early architect of what became “Reaganomics,” Bruce Bartlett was there at the birth of this GOP tax myth. He joins the podcast to help set the record straight. Bruce Bartlett: American historian who helped draft the Kemp-Roth tax bill that formed the basis of President Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts. Served as domestic policy adviser for Reagan, in the Treasury for George H.W. Bush, and in senior roles for other American politicians. Former Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. Twitter: @BruceBartlett Further reading: Want to Expand the Economy? Tax the Rich! https://prospect.org/article/want-expand-economy-tax-rich I helped create the GOP tax myth. Trump is wrong: Tax cuts don’t equal growth. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/09/28/i-helped-create-the-gop-tax-myth-trump-is-wrong-tax-cuts-dont-equal-growth/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4344a80a6efc
Is the American Dream dead? Is economic mobility a myth? The foundational promise of America is that anyone, if they work hard and play by the rules, can enjoy a secure, middle-class life. Christian Cooper and Khiara Bridges join us to discuss the prevailing narrative that we each control our own economic destiny. Christian Cooper: Derivatives trader and author. Frequent commentator in the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Financial Times, and Bloomberg News. Director of Banking for a New Beginning, a public/private partnership between The Aspen Institute and the US Department of State. Member of the roundtables at the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies. Twitter: @christiancooper Khiara Bridges: Associate Dean for Equity, Justice, and Engagement at the Boston University School of Law, specializing in the intersectionality of race, reproductive justice, and law. Professor of Law and Professor of Anthropology at Boston University. Author of The Poverty of Privacy Rights and Reproducing Race: An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization. Further reading: Why Poverty Is Like a Disease: http://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/why-poverty-is-like-a-disease Excavating Race-Based Disadvantage Among Class-Privileged People of Color: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3143892 Income Mobility Charts: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/27/upshot/make-your-own-mobility-animation.html Divided We Fall: https://newrepublic.com/article/141644/divided-fall-trump-symptom-constitutional-crisis-inequality Raj Chetty in 14 charts: Big findings on opportunity and mobility we should all know: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2018/01/11/raj-chetty-in-14-charts-big-findings-on-opportunity-and-mobility-we-should-know/
As newly elected Democrats across the country enter their respective capitol buildings for the first time, Civic Ventures president Zach Silk and former Washington State legislator (and Civic Ventures senior VP) Jessyn Farrell offer advice for what they should prioritize – and it starts with economic policies that help the broad majority. Further reading: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/14/democrats-must-reclaim-the-center-by-moving-hard-left-219354
Is economic growth all about money, trade, and GDP, or are healthy economies built on a different foundation? In this episode, economist W. Brian Arthur and MIT physicist Cesar Hidalgo explain why human knowledge, knowhow, and innovation are the best measures of rising prosperity and future economic growth. Guest Bios W. Brian Arthur: Economist credited with developing the modern approach to increasing returns, and one of the pioneers of the science of complexity. Author of three books including The Nature of Technology: What it Is and How it Evolves. External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Cesar Hidalgo: Physicist, writer, and entrepreneur. Associate Professor at MIT, and Director of the Collective Learning group at the MIT Media Lab. Co-founder of Datawheel, a company that specializes in digital transformation solutions for governments and large companies. Author of Why Information Grows and co-author of The Atlas of Economic Complexity. Twitter: @cesifoti Further reading: Complexity Economics: a different framework for economic thought: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftuvalu.santafe.edu%2F~wbarthur%2FPapers%2FComp.Econ.SFI.pdf Economic Complexity: From useless to keystone: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchidalgo.com%2Fs%2Fnphys4337.pdf Complexity Economics Shows Us Why Laissez-Faire Economics Always Fails: http://evonomics.com/complexity-economics-shows-us-that-laissez-faire-fail-nickhanauer/
Pop quiz: What does “GDP” stand for? And now, quickly: what the hell does “gross domestic product” even mean? It turns out, the way we measure the economy changes the way we manage the economy, so if we want to broadly improve the lives of all Americans we need to measure the things that really matter. Diane Coyle: Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. Former advisor to the UK treasury. Author of numerous books, most recently GDP: A Brief But Affectionate History, The Economics of Enough, and The Soulful Science. Founder of the consultancy Enlightenment Economics, specializing in the economics of new technologies. Twitter: @DianeCoyle1859 Further reading: (1) https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/the-kennedy-family/robert-f-kennedy/robert-f-kennedy-speeches/remarks-at-the-university-of-kansas-march-18-1968 (2) https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/31/capitalism-redefined/
The American middle class is shrinking and, contrary to popular belief, globalization and automation are not to blame. Far from inevitable, skyrocketing inequality is a choice. In this episode, we look at the policy choices that have relentlessly undermined the middle class, and why we desperately need to choose a better future. Heather Boushey: Executive director and chief economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Author of Finding Time: The Economics of Work-Life Conflict.
Twitter: @HBoushey Matthew Stewart: Philosopher, D.Phil from Oxford University. Author of Nature’s God and The Management Myth. Contributor to The Atlantic. Website: https://mwstewart.com/ Further reading: (1) http://evonomics.com/new-social-security-system-sharing-economy-hanauer/ (2) https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/overtime-pay-obama-congress-112954
Civic Ventures president Zach Silk joins us for a quick explainer on how Republicans sold their trickle-down tax cuts as a great deal for the middle class—and how angry suburban voters punished them for their lies. Further reading: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/04/10/donald-trump-gop-tax-cuts-wont-deliver-big-raise-column/471188002/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/11/republican-tax-cut-for-rich-economy-215696
What is the “trick” in “trickle down” economics? It’s how wealthy elites and their neoliberal lackeys convince you that what’s good for them (tax cuts, deregulation, etc.) is good for you… and that policies like the minimum wage, overtime, and paid sick leave will ruin the economy. Economics is a story we tell ourselves to help explain who gets what, and why. In this episode we explore how to tell a better story. Yuval Harari: Author of international bestsellers: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. Professor in the Department of History at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. PhD from the University of Oxford. Twitter: @harari_yuval Facebook: @Prof.Yuval.Noah.Harari Instagram: @yuval_noah_harari Molly Crockett: Director of the Crockett Lab, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Yale University, and Distinguished Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics. PhD in Experimental Psychology from the University of Cambridge. Twitter: @mollycrockett Further reading: (1) https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/41/a-threat-not-a-theory/ (2) https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/18/to-my-fellow-plutocrats-you-can-cure-trumpism-215347
What is “Econ 101,” and why do economists always get things wrong? In this episode we dismantle orthodox economics, exploring where it comes from, why it's wrong, and how “It’s Econ 101!” became a cynical rallying cry in defense of the status quo. Guests Eric Beinhocker (The Origin of Wealth) and James Kwak (Economism) explain that, far from a science, Econ 101 is really just a story we tell ourselves to justify who gets what and why. And it’s time to tell a different story. Eric Beinhocker: Professor of Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. Executive Director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School. Author of The Origin of Wealth. Twitter: @ericbeinhocker James Kwak: Professor of Law at the Connecticut School of Law. Co-founder of the economics blog “The Baseline Scenario”, a commentary on developments in the global economy, law, and public policy. Author of Economism: Bad Economics and the Rise of Inequality. Columnist for The Atlantic. Twitter: @jamesykwak Further reading: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/economism-and-the-minimum-wage/513155/
In 2014, venture capitalist Nick Hanauer warned his fellow plutocrats that our growing crisis of economic inequality would lead to an uprising or a dictatorship. Two years later, angry voters elected Donald Trump. In this inaugural episode of Pitchfork Economics, we explore why the pitchforks are coming, who they’re coming for, and how the stories we tell about the economy can change the economy itself. ShownotesThe Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014 Twitter: @nickhanauer Facebook: @CivicSkunkWorks @NickHanauer Medium: https://civicskunk.works/ Ganesh Sitaraman: Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School and Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Co-founder and Director of Policy for the Great Democracy Initiative. Policy Director to Elizabeth Warren, 2011-2013. Author of The Crisis of the Middle Class Constitution: Law in the Age of Small Wars, named one of the New York Times’ 100 notable books of 2017. Twitter: @ganeshsitaraman Walter Scheidel: Historian at Stanford. The most frequently cited active-duty Roman historian adjusted for age in the Western Hemisphere, Scheidel is the author or (co-)editor of 20 books, including The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality. Twitter: @walterscheidel
Any society that allows itself to become radically unequal eventually collapses into an uprising or a police state—or both. Join venture capitalist Nick Hanauer and some of the world’s leading economic and political thinkers in an exploration of who gets what and why. Turns out, everything you learned about economics is wrong. And if we don’t do something about rising inequality, the pitchforks are coming.