Family Values or Family Exclusion?

How right-wing policies fail working mothers

Parental entitlement policies represent a complex interplay of cultural, social, and economic priorities for far-right leaders in both Italy and the United States. On the one hand, many religiously minded conservatives uphold traditional family values, which would seem to support policies that promote marriage and the growth of families. At ...
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Family Values or Family Exclusion?

Downward Mobility as a Relative Loss in Economic Security

How economic anxiety explains voting patterns

In 2016 formerly unionized parts of the country, the "Arsenal of Democracy," now called the Rust Belt (to the dismay of people who live there), switched from voting for the Democratic Party candidate Obama (both in 2008 and 2012) to the Republican Trump. Teresa Ghilarducci and Siavash Radpour (2016) show long-term stagnation ...
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Downward Mobility as a Relative Loss in Economic Security

Social Capitalism: An Alternative to Neoliberalism

On the economic consequences of the US neoliberal period

As defined by Hagen Krämer and coauthors (2023), social capitalism constitutes a "renewed social democracy" designed to achieve growth that is both inclusive (in the sense of being consistent with an equitable wage share of income) and sustainable (in the sense that it does not foster financial imbalances). These constitute narrow definitions of inclusivity and ...
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Social Capitalism: An Alternative to Neoliberalism

The Fashion for Baiting, Brainwashing, and Bullying

How does Brandy Melville continue to tap into the most desperate impulses of being a teenage girl?

“From the beginning of the supply chain to the end, we’re all being exploited by the same system” says Chloe Asaam, who represents the Or Foundation. She’s speaking in Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion, an HBO documentary that explores the toxicity of the international brand Brandy Melville.  The ...
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The Fashion for Baiting, Brainwashing, and Bullying

Building Black Political Power in Jackson, Mississippi

Cooperation Jackson is using the strategies of just transition to foster coalitions and shape local politics

Jackson is the capital city of the state of Mississippi and was named after the seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson (who was responsible for the Trail of Tears—one of many forced relocation marches for people who were Indigenous to the land—and a slave owner). Mississippi is also ...
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Building Black Political Power in Jackson, Mississippi

Economists Should Take a Page From Student Activism

Metrics help us explain the world—and ignore our own accountability

I have always loved spring in Chicago. The Loop buzzes with music and awe-struck architecture fans, while the lake fills up with swimmers braving the sun-soaked but icy water. In the evening, the air is just crisp enough for a jacket. But spring nights in 2024 were special. There was ...
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Economists Should Take a Page From Student Activism

Behind the Balancing Act of Kamala Harris’s Industrial Policy

What should Kamala Harris learn from the complicated history of post-1970s New Liberals

Breaking with the strategic ambiguity of her presidential campaign’s early months, Vice President Kamala Harris served up a clearer distillation of her economic agenda in a speech to the Economic Club of Pittsburgh on September 25. The speech was fêted as Harris’s “pragmatic,” “moderate-friendly” pitch. Harris also, however, pointed to ...
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Behind the Balancing Act of Kamala Harris’s Industrial Policy

You Are Entitled to Live Your Own Life—If Your Employer Allows It

How the business of cobbling together a living became a new form of unpaid labor

I know someone, a nurse, who doesn’t have health insurance. His employer, a staffing agency, bounces him from assignment to assignment—sometimes with only a day’s notice. Engaged in skilled care work that is profoundly dependent on the ability to maintain human relationships, he often finds himself treated more like a ...
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You Are Entitled to Live Your Own Life—If Your Employer Allows It

Low-Paid Industries Rely on Gig Workers. Are They Actually Employees?

A new survey sheds light on the working conditions of New York City’s “independent contractors”

Ask any organizer and you’ll hear how hard it is to reach gig workers. These workers typically lack a physical place of work or regular schedule (though many work all the time), and their work is poorly measured in Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics datasets. The gig workers ...
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Low-Paid Industries Rely on Gig Workers. Are They Actually Employees?