Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

We are living through a paradigm shift from trickle-down neoliberalism to middle-out economics — a new understanding of who gets what and why. Join zillionaire class-traitor Nick Hanauer and some of the world’s leading economic and political thinkers as they explore the latest thinking on how the economy actually works.

Episodes

Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers (with Mark Blyth)

September 9, 2025 • 39 mins

Political economist Mark Blyth joins Nick and Goldy to unpack the myths and realities of rising prices, from pandemic supply shocks and corporate profiteering to central-bank missteps and decades of bad economic theory. Drawing from his new book Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers, Blyth explains why some narratives fall flat, why others reveal deeper truths about power and inequality, and what smarter, more equitable policies ...

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Back to Basics Series: Homo Economicus Must Die (with Samuel Bowles)

September 2, 2025 • 32 mins

What if the relentless drive to maximize personal gain isn't human nature, but just a flawed model we built? In this Back-to-Basics episode, behavioral economist Samuel Bowles helps us lay homo economicus—the myth of the perfectly rational, self-interested actor—six feet under. He shows how this caricature not only misrepresents human behavior, but underpins an economic system that ignores cooperation, community, and ethics. If we'...

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Back to Basics Series: Is the American Dream a Lie? (with Christian Cooper and Khiara Bridges)

August 26, 2025 • 42 mins

The promise of the American Dream—work hard, play by the rules, and you’ll get ahead—is unraveling before our eyes. In this Back-to-Basics episode, Christian H. Cooper and law professor Khiara Bridges join Nick and Goldy to posit whether economic mobility has ever truly existed, or if the system was rigged from the start. As wages stagnate, homeownership drifts out of reach, and inequality worsens, their conversation exposes how t...

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Back to Basics Series: How Monopolies Feed Plutocracy (with Matt Stoller)

August 19, 2025 • 31 mins

When a few giants dominate the economy, democracy is the first to go. In this back-to-basics episode, author and anti-monopoly expert Matt Stoller unpacks how concentrated corporate power doesn’t just warp markets—it tilts the political playing field toward plutocracy. Drawing from his book Goliath, Stoller shows how corporate giants from banks to Big Tech leverage economic dominance into political control, fueling authoritarianism...

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Back to Basics Series: Does the Market Really Pay You What You’re Worth? (with Marshall Steinbaum and Saru Jayaraman)

August 12, 2025 • 50 mins

We’ve all heard the story: In a fair market, workers are paid exactly what they’re worth. Economists even have a name for it—marginal productivity theory. It’s neat, simple…and completely wrong. In this Back-to-Basics episode, economist Marshall Steinbaum and labor leader Saru Jayaraman dismantle the myth that the market fairly rewards labor. Steinbaum reveals how this theory has been weaponized to excuse wage stagnation, justify ...

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Back to Basics Series: The Velocity of Money (with Ann Pettifor)

August 5, 2025 • 42 mins

If you’ve ever wondered why the economy feels stuck, even when it seems like there's a lot more money in the system, this episode will blow your mind. Political economist Ann Pettifor joins Nick and Goldy to explain why money isn't flowing like it used to, and why that matters. Over the last century, the velocity of money (how quickly a dollar circulates) has plummeted. Today, each dollar in circulation generates up to 70% less ec...

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Back to Basics Series: Is Economics Moral? (with Heather McGhee)

July 29, 2025 • 35 mins

For decades, orthodox economics has treated morality as irrelevant—as if economic decisions happen in a vacuum, separate from our values and social bonds. But that approach has failed spectacularly, giving cover to policies that divide and exploit us. In this episode, Heather McGhee joins Nick and Paul to argue that morality must be central to how we think about the economy. They explore how racial division has been weaponized to ...

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Back to Basics Series: Where does economic growth really come from? (with W. Brian Arthur and Cesar Hidalgo)

July 22, 2025 • 46 mins

Is economic growth just about money, trade, and GDP? Or is something deeper at play? In this episode, economist W. Brian Arthur and physicist Cesar Hidalgo join Nick and Goldy to reveal the real drivers of rising prosperity: human knowledge, know‑how, and innovation. They challenge the old assumptions of growth and argue that innovation isn't a byproduct of a strong economy—it's a cause of economic growth. Once we understand that,...

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Back to Basics Series: Is Econ 101 a Lie? (with Eric Beinhocker and James Kwak)

July 15, 2025 • 39 mins

Trickle-downers love to pretend that "Econ 101" is a convincing argument against policies like the minimum wage that invest in working Americans. But the truth is that mainstream economists are terrible at predicting how the economy will behave in the future…Is Econ 101 broken? In this key foundational episode for the podcast, we dismantle the myths of orthodox economics and expose Econ 101 for what it really is: not a science, bu...

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Back to Basics Series: What the hell are they talking about? Econ terms explained! (with Nick and Goldy)

July 8, 2025 • 14 mins

Ever find yourself halfway through a Pitchfork Economics episode thinking, “Wait… what’s a monopsony?” You’re not alone. In this listener-favorite episode, Nick and Goldy break down some of the most important—and most misunderstood—economic terms we use on the show. From ‘neoclassical’ and ‘neoliberal’ to ‘monopoly’, ‘monopsony,’ ‘stock buybacks,’ and ‘heterodox economics,’ we cut through the jargon so you can focus on what really...

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Back to Basics Series: Why do we call it Pitchfork Economics? (with Ganesh Sitaraman & Walter Scheidel)

July 1, 2025 • 33 mins

In 2014, Nick Hanauer sounded the alarm: if economic inequality kept growing, the pitchforks would come—for him, and for the rest of America’s wealthy elite. Then 2016 happened. Donald Trump was elected president on a wave of economic populism that correctly identified massive inequality as a problem, but which offered all the wrong solutions. The inaugural episode of Pitchfork Economics lays the groundwork for everything that fol...

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The Truth About Immigration and the American Worker (with Rogé Karma)

June 24, 2025 • 39 mins

Conventional wisdom says immigration drives down wages and takes jobs from American workers. But what if that story is fueled by bad economics? Journalist Rogé Karma joins Nick and Goldy to challenge the Econ 101 logic that supercharges anti-immigrant rhetoric—and to explain what the data actually shows. Drawing on research from the U.S., Denmark, and beyond, Karma makes the case that immigrants don’t steal jobs—they grow the econo...

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America Adrift: Inequality, Power, and the Fight to Fix It (with Scott Galloway)

June 17, 2025 • 45 mins

With inequality rising, housing out of reach, and young Americans falling further behind, some argue the American Dream is dead. But NYU professor Scott Galloway has a different take: America hasn’t fallen—it’s adrift. Originally recorded in late 2022, this episode features a candid conversation about what’s really hollowed out the middle class: generational wealth hoarding, runaway corporate consolidation, and a political system r...

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From Reagan to Reality: The Case Against Tax Cuts for the Rich (with Bruce Bartlett)

June 10, 2025 • 36 mins

As Republicans work at break-neck speed to push another round of massive tax cuts for the wealthy, we thought it would be a good idea to revisit our 2019 conversation with Bruce Bartlett, a Reagan policy adviser and key architect of the 1981 tax cuts. Bartlett explains how the trickle-down logic he once championed turned out to be economic snake oil, because tax breaks for the wealthy don’t grow the economy—they just grow inequalit...

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Why Gutting SNAP Makes the Economy Worse for Everyone (with Lily Roberts)

June 3, 2025 • 44 mins

The GOP’s new tax bill isn’t just a massive giveaway to the rich—it’s an all-out assault on SNAP, one of the most effective anti-poverty programs in the U.S. That’s because SNAP is more than just a program designed to end hunger. It’s also a powerful economic engine, stabilizing local economies as well as supporting retailers and farmers. Lily Roberts from the Center for American Progress joins us to break down how these proposed c...

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Good Company: Ending the Era of Shareholder Supremacy (with Lenore Palladino)

May 27, 2025 • 37 mins

What makes a company good—and who gets to decide? Economist Lenore Palladino joins Nick and Goldy to dismantle the myth of shareholder primacy and explain how our current system of corporate governance has warped innovation, deepened inequality, and undermined democracy. Drawing from her new book Good Company: Economic Policy after Shareholder Primacy, Palladino outlines a bold vision for how we can redesign the rules of the game—s...

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The Empire Strikes Back—With More Billionaire Tax Breaks (with Samantha Jacoby)

May 20, 2025 • 35 mins

With Trump’s second major tax bill clearing committee and heading to the House floor—packed, as promised, with massive giveaways to the ultra-wealthy—we’re revisiting our timely conversation with Samantha Jacoby of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Originally recorded before Trump’s reelection, this episode breaks down the real impact of the tax bill that Trump signed into law back in 2017: trillions added to the deficit,...

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Greedflation 2.0: How Tariffs Could Become an Excuse for Corporate Price Gouging (with Hal Singer)

May 13, 2025 • 44 mins

During COVID, corporations blamed supply chain shocks for rising prices while quietly raising prices higher than costs, thereby boosting their profits to record levels. We know they did this because they bragged about doing it on corporate earnings calls. Economist Hal Singer warns that Trump’s proposed tariffs could spark a repeat, giving corporations another “golden opportunity” to jack up prices under the guise of higher costs. ...

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Why Democracy Needs a New Operating System (with K. Sabeel Rahman)

May 6, 2025 • 44 mins

Decades of trickle-down thinking hollowed out our government—and now the anti-democracy crowd is finishing the job. This week, legal scholar and former Biden advisor K. Sabeel Rahman joins Nick and Goldy to talk about what happens when the rule of law becomes optional, what the Biden administration got right (and what it didn’t,) and why simply restoring the old system isn’t enough. If we want a real democracy—one that can stand up...

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Democracy in Chains (with Nancy MacLean)

April 29, 2025 • 38 mins

This week, we’re revisiting a critical conversation we had back in 2020 with author and historian Nancy MacLean, in which she exposes how today’s threats to democracy were decades in the making. Based on her groundbreaking book Democracy in Chains, MacLean traces how Nobel Prize-winning economist James Buchanan worked with billionaire donors to rig the rules of government to expand corporate power and protect extreme wealth. From p...

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Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;} Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers (with Mark Blyth)

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Back to Basics Series: Homo Economicus Must Die (with Samuel Bowles)

Back to Basics Series: Is the American Dream a Lie? (with Christian Cooper and Khiara Bridges)

Back to Basics Series: How Monopolies Feed Plutocracy (with Matt Stoller)

Back to Basics Series: Does the Market Really Pay You What You’re Worth? (with Marshall Steinbaum and Saru Jayaraman)

Back to Basics Series: The Velocity of Money (with Ann Pettifor)

Back to Basics Series: Is Economics Moral? (with Heather McGhee)

Back to Basics Series: Where does economic growth really come from? (with W. Brian Arthur and Cesar Hidalgo)

Back to Basics Series: Is Econ 101 a Lie? (with Eric Beinhocker and James Kwak)

Back to Basics Series: What the hell are they talking about? Econ terms explained! (with Nick and Goldy)

Back to Basics Series: Why do we call it Pitchfork Economics? (with Ganesh Sitaraman & Walter Scheidel)

The Truth About Immigration and the American Worker (with Rogé Karma)

America Adrift: Inequality, Power, and the Fight to Fix It (with Scott Galloway)

From Reagan to Reality: The Case Against Tax Cuts for the Rich (with Bruce Bartlett)

Why Gutting SNAP Makes the Economy Worse for Everyone (with Lily Roberts)

Good Company: Ending the Era of Shareholder Supremacy (with Lenore Palladino)

The Empire Strikes Back—With More Billionaire Tax Breaks (with Samantha Jacoby)

Greedflation 2.0: How Tariffs Could Become an Excuse for Corporate Price Gouging (with Hal Singer)

Why Democracy Needs a New Operating System (with K. Sabeel Rahman)

Democracy in Chains (with Nancy MacLean)

Popular Podcasts

Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers (with Mark Blyth)

Back to Basics Series: Homo Economicus Must Die (with Samuel Bowles)

Back to Basics Series: The Velocity of Money (with Ann Pettifor)