Annie Lowrey

“The Paycheck Protection Program created in the CARES Act did help many small businesses keep employees on their books in the early days of the pandemic. But many small firms are ailing now; the hospitality industry has been decimated; and state and local governments are shedding workers.”

“Aided by the Great Society and the New Deal, the middle class grew, everywhere from Winnetka to Orlando to Humboldt.”

“Conspiracy theories themselves are big business, of course, selling books, videos, conferences, and all kinds of merch. Then there is the economy that promotes conspiracy theories to sell goods such as supplements, survival gear, and yes, bunkers.”

“In the long run, lawmakers should keep in mind that tax rates are far from the only reason a rich person might consider flight: Decaying infrastructure and degrading public services are surely just as important.”

“The pandemic has proved true over and over again what was already well known: that income and wealth are protective when it comes to health.”

“Even very low-income communities are seeing rising rates of obesity, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease as a result. But many countries lack the tax revenue and medical infrastructure to treat such conditions, leading to a burgeoning global-health crisis.”

“Millions of Millennials and Gen Zers were never exposed to the threats of the Soviet Union; they did not live through the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev; they do not remember the Mariel boatlift or the SALT treaties or the Cuban missile crisis.”

“As a general point, the United States has an extreme budget commitment to prisons, guns, warplanes, armored vehicles, detention facilities, courts, jails, drones, and patrols - to law and order, meted out discriminately.”

“A thin safety net, an expansive security state: This is the American way. At all levels of government, the country spends roughly double on police, prisons, and courts what it spends on food stamps, welfare, and income supplements.”

“The cost-of-living crisis extends beyond housing. Health-care costs are exorbitant, too: Americans pay roughly twice as much for insurance and medical services as do citizens of other wealthy countries, but they don't have better outcomes.”

“The world is falling apart and nobody is there for you, 2020 has shown it over and over again. But American capitalism is.”

“No country save for India is expected to bear a heavier financial burden from climate change than the United States.”

“The United States needs a much more progressive tax-and-transfer infrastructure, given how dramatically inequality has increased. But not every single policy needs to be ideally progressive to achieve that goal.”

“Numerous studies have shown income inequality growing since the late 1970s. Real earnings have fallen for many families, with globalization, the decline of unions and technological innovations eroding workers' wages.”

“Climate change is killing Americans. Wildfires, heat waves, mudslides, hurricanes, and floods lead to hundreds if not thousands of deaths every year. But those are only the direct fatalities.”

“Maybe kindness is not a distraction from or orthogonal to change. Maybe it is a pathway to it.”

“Older people still see socialism and communism as dangerous, authoritarian political systems, whereas younger people are more likely to see them as economic systems, and to care far less one way or another.”

“The gig economy isn't taking over, but it has become a useful emblem of what it is like to work for a living in late-stage capitalism.”

“Americans have become more atomized by education, income, and political leanings. That polarization has meant sharply increased antipathy toward people with different beliefs.”

“Cows and other livestock account for roughly one-sixth of all greenhouse-gas emissions, and as a general point, eating meat means taxing the Earth.”