The Weeds
Politics is how people achieve power. Policy is what they do with it. On The Weeds, host Jonquilyn Hill and guests break down the policies that shape our lives, from abortion to financial regulations to affirmative action to housing. Produced by Vox and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Episodes
May 30, 2024 • 2 mins
We have some exciting news to share: There are some big changes coming to this feed, and we need your help with them!
The Weeds as you know it is ending, but we’ll be back this fall with the same crew, some new artwork, and a new sound. We’ll be answering your burning questions — about politics, policy, and everything in between. So send us an email with your questions to askvox@vox.com or call us at 1-800-618-8545. Have a great ...
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May 29, 2024 • 41 mins
If you went to public school in America, you most likely got a serving of milk with your lunch. The National School Lunch Program has been in operation for decades, serving tens of millions of school-aged kids cow’s milk with their lunches. But it turns out, there’s more supply than demand: According to USDA findings in 2019, students threw away about 41 percent of the milk served in schools. So why do schools keep serving it? Toda...
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May 22, 2024 • 40 mins
Pretty much everyone is unhappy with food delivery these days. Prices are rising for customers; workers are barely making minimum wage; and restaurants feel gauged by delivery apps. Today on The Weeds: how the gig economy turned sour, and how you can still order your favorite food without feeling guilty. Vox senior reporter Whizy Kim explains.
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Food delivery fees have soared. How much of it goes to workers?
Submit your...
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May 15, 2024 • 41 mins
Do you think crime is on the rise? You aren’t the only one. According to Gallup, over 75 percent of Americans think crime is up from last year. The crime rate, though, has actually been falling. So why do so many Americans think crime is getting worse? Vox policy correspondent Abdallah Fayyad joins Weeds host Jonquilyn Hill to discuss the disconnect and what the numbers tell us.
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Lawmakers are overreacting to crime
The ...
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May 8, 2024 • 38 mins
Last week, the US Drug Enforcement Administration announced a move to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule III drug, after the Biden administration requested a review in late 2022. For decades, cannabis has been classified as Schedule I alongside drugs like heroin and LSD—and research on its effects and medical use has been limited. While rescheduling could lead to more clinical research on marijuana, the future is currently hazy. To...
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May 1, 2024 • 39 mins
Something is happening in Connecticut. Back in 2021, the state legislature passed a measure that would create something called baby bonds: trust accounts for children receiving government assistance. It’s an idea that started decades ago and was championed by Darrick Hamilton, the founding director of the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at the New School. On this week's episode of The Weeds, host Jonquilyn Hill sits ...
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April 24, 2024 • 35 mins
If you’ve never used Amazon, you almost definitely know someone who has. Amazon is pretty much everywhere. In the three decades since its founding, Amazon has grown from a small startup to a trillion-dollar company, skirting rules, taxes, and accountability along the way. Then, in 2023, the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against the company for monopolistic business practices. Reporter Dana Mattioli has covered Amazon for...
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April 17, 2024 • 32 mins
America is in the midst of a homelessness crisis. With little affordable housing and limited space at shelters, many people are instead sleeping outside. But as tent encampments become more common, particularly on the West Coast where the housing crisis is most acute, the pressure on local governments to address the problem has skyrocketed. Now, the Supreme Court has decided to weigh in. The issue at the center of it is whether cit...
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April 10, 2024 • 39 mins
Since the Dobbs decision almost two years ago, reproductive rights have been at the center of our national consciousness. Two of the latest headlines come from Florida and Arizona: a six-week abortion ban, and a total abortion ban unless the life of the pregnant person is threatened, respectively. Both states have constitutions that name-check privacy rights, but both courts found that those rights don’t extend to abortion. What do...
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April 3, 2024 • 36 mins
Earlier this year, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled frozen embryos have the same rights as children. The decision sent shockwaves throughout Alabama and raised serious questions about the future of IVF in the United States. While the Alabama legislature has since passed legislation protecting IVF in the state, that doesn’t address the big question behind the court’s decision: What does personhood mean, and what does it mean for the ...
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March 27, 2024 • 34 mins
What if you weren’t allowed to have more than $2,000 at any given time? Could you make it work? For people who receive Supplemental Security Income, this isn’t a what-if — it’s reality. SSI beneficiaries are subject to strict requirements and risk losing their benefits if they have more than $2,000 in financial assets, even if they exceed that by just a dollar. Why is the limit so low, and is anything being done to fix it? That’s t...
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March 20, 2024 • 43 mins
America is in the midst of a child care crisis. The cost of child care has skyrocketed to the point where, in some states, caring for kids in pre-k is more expensive than college tuition or a home mortgage. According to economist Kathryn Anne Edwards, it’s a market failure. So how do we fix it? That’s in today’s installment of our series exploring economic fanfiction and the stories we should be covering this election year.
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March 13, 2024 • 25 mins
Four years after a pandemic pause, some colleges and universities are again requiring applicants to submit standardized test scores. Inside Higher Ed’s Liam Knox and the University of Delaware’s Dominique Baker explain.
This episode of Today, Explained was produced by Avishay Artsy, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Rob Byers, and guest-hosted by Jonquilyn Hill. It originally ran on March 8th, 2...
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March 6, 2024 • 41 mins
2024 is a big year for elections, not just in the US but globally: More than 50 countries will be holding elections this year. With rampant disinformation and polarization in politics, fast-moving technologies like AI pose a unique threat to democracy. On a scale from 1–10, how worried should we be about AI and the election? Host Jonquilyn Hill talks to New York Times reporter Tiffany Hsu to find out.
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The Black Box: ...
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February 28, 2024 • 55 mins
Political philosopher Ingrid Robeyns believes that there should be a maximum amount of money and resources that one person can have. She tells Sean how much is too much and why limiting personal wealth benefits everyone, including the super rich. This episode of The Grey Area originally aired in January 2024.
Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area
Guest: Ingrid Robeyns. Her book is Limitarianism: The Case Against Ext...
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February 21, 2024 • 37 mins
There are a host of health disparities across the racial divide. Black people are more likely to develop chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Black people are also more likely to be diagnosed with fibroids or die from pregnancy complications. One of the factors in these disparities could be a phenomenon known as weathering — the stress of racism literally aging Black people’s bodies at a faster rate. Host Jonquilyn Hil...
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February 14, 2024 • 41 mins
Romantic relationships are in a weird place right now. Statistically things are shifting, but the numbers are particularly stark for Black Americans. In the last 50 years, the percentage of Black women who have yet to walk down the aisle has more than doubled; now 48 percent haven’t jumped the broom. Professor and author Dianne M. Stewart argues that there are policies in place keeping Black women from partnering, resulting in what...
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February 7, 2024 • 40 mins
According to the Eviction Lab, about 7.6 million Americans every year face the threat of eviction, and a disproportionate number of those threatened are Black women. This week, host Jonquilyn Hill sits down with New America senior writer and editor Julia Craven to discuss why this disparity exists and what policies could help end evictions for everybody. It’s the first of a special series this month entitled “Black women and ...” t...
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January 31, 2024 • 43 mins
It’s an election year, and there are so many different policy discussions we could be having: affordable child care, housing, health care, you name it. Based on how the campaigning has gone so far, though, it seems that hard policy debates and discussions won’t get much — if any — airtime. So, how about we have that discussion? Today on The Weeds: the economic policies we should be talking about.
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Americans’ Working Yea...
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January 24, 2024 • 40 mins
The Earth was its hottest in recorded history in 2023. Our winters are shorter, our summers hotter, and our natural disasters more extreme. It’s dark. But maybe it doesn’t have to be. Hannah Ritchie is deputy editor at Our World in Data and author of the book Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet. On this week’s episode of The Weeds, she talks with host Jonquilyn Hill about how t...
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