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
May 28, 2024 • 48 mins
This week, Nick and Goldy have a wide-ranging conversation with Jason Furman, who served as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama. Furman brings a wealth of experience to the discussion, which covers America’s post-pandemic recovery, the global inflation crisis, and reviving industrial policy. He also provides insight into the overall impact of President Biden's policies on the broader economic landscap...
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May 21, 2024 • 37 mins
This week, Nick and Goldy are joined by Whitney Airgood-Obrycki from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University to discuss the urgent issue of housing affordability in the United States. Despite its status as the wealthiest country in the world, America is grappling with a housing crisis, marked by record-high levels of homelessness and a growing number of individuals spending between 30% to 50% or more of their inc...
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May 14, 2024 • 38 mins
This week, Nick and Goldy sit down with Rohit Chopra, the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to explore the agency's efforts to lower financial costs for working Americans. From cracking down on credit card late fees to tackling medical debt on credit reports and regulating bank overdraft charges, Director Chopra sheds light on the CFPB's various initiatives to promote transparency and competition in financial pr...
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May 7, 2024 • 36 mins
Even though the American labor market is currently stronger than it has been in decades, earlier this year Big Tech companies were laying off workers at an alarming pace. Economists struggled to understand why some 25,000 tech workers were losing their jobs, even as the media panicked about whether those layoffs were a warning sign of an oncoming recession. University of Washington Professor Jeff Shulman joins us to uncover the rea...
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April 30, 2024 • 35 mins
Journalist Nick Romeo joins us to discuss his new book "The Alternative: How to Build a Just Economy." Romeo argues that the conventional economic wisdom has fostered political and economic instability, resulting in widening inequality, environmental degradation, and the exploitation of workers. He also highlights innovative solutions and success stories—including worker cooperatives, public-option marketplaces, and job guarantee p...
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April 23, 2024 • 45 mins
This week, Nick and Goldy sit down with ethics professor Ingrid Robeyns to discuss her groundbreaking new book, Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth. Robeyns challenges the idea that it’s acceptable to allow extreme wealth concentration and inequality to persist, advocating instead for a hard cap on wealth accumulation. Nick and Goldy navigate the moral and practical implications of wealth limits on society, democracy, an...
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April 16, 2024 • 31 mins
This special episode of Pitchfork Economics features a live conversation from the "Redefining the Center: How to Make Middle-Out Economics the New Mainstream" conference hosted by Democracy Journal in Washington, D.C. Heather Boushey, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, joins Nick for a wide-ranging discussion moderated by Michael Tomasky, editor of Democracy Journal. Hanauer & Boushey explore the policy initi...
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April 9, 2024 • 36 mins
In the shadows of corporate greed and exploitation lies a sinister crime that is silently perpetrated, leaving countless victims in its wake—a crime that affects millions of hardworking Americans every year and sucks billions out of our economy —Wage Theft. No industry is immune to this insidious crime, from restaurant workers to construction laborers. On this episode of Pitchfork Economics, we are joined by Terri Gerstein, Directo...
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April 2, 2024 • 35 mins
Preston Mui, Senior Economist at Employ America, recently authored a report titled "The Dream of the 90s is Alive in 2024: How Policy Can Revive Productivity Growth." The report offers a blueprint for policymakers seeking to emulate the successes of an unparalleled period of productivity in the United States. Mui joins us to examine and reflect on the policy decisions which drove the strong productivity growth of the 1990s, and he ...
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March 26, 2024 • 45 mins
Today, Arin Dube, Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, joins us to discuss his latest research, which suggests that the American labor market is undergoing a remarkable transformation. The widespread wage inequality that rapidly expanded between 1980 and 2019 is finally reversing, and American paychecks are growing again—especially at the bottom end of the income scale. In this enlightening conversatio...
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March 19, 2024 • 34 mins
In his State of the Union Address, President Biden made it clear that taxes and tax policy were his next big target for a middle-out makeover. However, we can't talk about the future of taxes without discussing the potential expiration of Trump’s’ 2017 tax law. Samantha Jacoby, a senior tax analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, joins us today to help us understand the repercussions of Trump's tax policies and the o...
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March 12, 2024 • 55 mins
Eleven years ago, Democracy Journal released a special issue on "The Middle Out Moment" that explored the implications of what was then the brand-new theory of middle-out economics. The moment may not have fully arrived back in 2013, but no doubt it's here now. So this week, Democracy Journal is publishing a follow-up edition called "The Middle Out Moment Part Two," marking the fact that what was once a new idea has now gone mainst...
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March 5, 2024 • 37 mins
The latest economic indicators show a historically strong economy. Over the past couple of years, the unemployment rate has consistently stayed below 4%, real wages have been growing faster than they have in decades, and economic growth has been strong. And yet, public opinion surveys consistently show dissatisfaction with economic conditions. Aaron Sojourner, a labor economist from the Upjohn Institute, joins us to discuss his res...
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February 27, 2024 • 41 mins
While the average American worker is subject to a progressive income tax system where tax rates increase as income rises, the wealthy often exploit a range of loopholes and deductions that significantly reduce their tax burden—sometimes to the point where the biggest corporations and one-percenters pay nothing at all. David Cay Johnston, a tax policy expert and former investigative journalist for the New York Times, joins us today ...
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February 20, 2024 • 55 mins
Ganesh Sitaraman joins us today to discuss his new book, Why Flying Is Miserable And How to Fix It. Air travel has become an increasingly frustrating experience, with countless horror stories of cancellations, delays, lost baggage, cramped seats, and poor service. For most of the 20th century flying was luxurious and fun, so it’s especially baffling that air travel is plagued by these problems in the 21st century. Sitaraman delves ...
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February 13, 2024 • 40 mins
President Biden’s economic policies mark a paradigm shift away from the trickle-down economics that have held sway over Washington DC for the past 40 years. Bidenomics recognizes that a strong and inclusive economy grows from the middle class outwards, centering working Americans and their families rather than relying on a top-down approach that benefits the wealthy first and foremost. In this episode, President Biden’s chief econo...
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February 6, 2024 • 41 mins
Over the next two decades, $30 trillion of wealth is expected to be transferred from Baby Boomers to their heirs. Journalists and financial experts have been referring to this event as the “Great Wealth Transfer,” and it's important that we understand the policies that make such a monumental transferral of generational wealth possible—not to mention the tremendous economic and societal implications of this unprecedented economic ac...
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January 30, 2024 • 37 mins
Over the past few decades, economists have gathered a lot of empirical evidence supporting the underlying truth of middle-out economics: that a thriving middle class is the cause of economic growth. Our friends at the Roosevelt Institute have produced a new report which outlines the events that led to our new understanding of how the economy really works. Suzanne Kahn, Vice President of the Think Tank at the Roosevelt Institute, jo...
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January 23, 2024 • 45 mins
A bipartisan group of lawmakers has agreed to expand the Child Tax Credit again, but it will be smaller than the pandemic-era credit was. If this version of the Child Tax Credit is passed by Congress and signed into law, it would benefit 16 million children in low-income families and lift at least half a million kids out of poverty. We thought it would be a good time to revisit this episode from 2021 with professor Wendy Bach, in w...
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January 16, 2024 • 44 mins
The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most opaque industries in America, and they take advantage of this lack of transparency by setting ever-higher prices for lifesaving prescription drugs like insulin. But provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act are curtailing the exorbitant price-gouging strategies that the pharmaceutical industry uses to pump up their profit margins at the expense of seniors and people with disabilities w...
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