Annie Lowrey

“Americans are no less susceptible to disease, joblessness, and family changes than their peers in rich nations, but they are made more fragile by these crises. The country has a thinner safety net, fewer public goods, and less social insurance than other countries.”

“Arguably, it might prompt consumers to think about their consumption, with paper straws and reusable grocery bags and shared urban bicycles acting as a gateway to more meaningful changes.”

“Fires in California and Oregon are incinerating homes, businesses, schools, power lines, and roads. Hurricanes in the Gulf Coast are swamping mobile homes and carrying away cars and livestock. The United States faces the potential task of relocating towns and cities and fortifying others, trapped in an endless cycle of destruction and rebuilding.”

“Student loans are delaying retirements. They're suppressing the housing market. They're suffocating new business formation. They're even leading young people to delay getting married and having children.”

“The country should not have to wonder whether politicians' stock trades were corrupt. It should not have to think about politicians' portfolios at all.”

“Making a paper straw requires growing a tree, cutting it down, and pulping and pressing it into a tube. Manufacturers then use fossil fuels to ship the straws to stores and cafes. Many paper straws on the market are not even compostable or recyclable, as promised.”

“Kids of the 1980s and 1990s have had a new, huge, financially catastrophic demand on their meager post-recession earnings, too: a trillion dollars of educational debt. About a quarter of Gen Xers who went to college took out loans to do so, compared with half of Millennials.”

“In Opportunity Zones, as they are called, investors will receive huge tax breaks for building office parks, warehouses, housing, grocery stores, and the like, helping to ease poverty and end blight in distressed communities.”

“The things to watch are whether the country's borrowing costs are rising, whether its budgetary allotment for payments on the debt is increasing, and whether it is spending on good priorities. Those big, scary debt numbers are not as big and scary as they used to be.”

“Immigrant families pay taxes. They work. They start businesses. They spend money in their communities. They join native-born families in being economically productive, both paying money to the government and receiving benefits from the government.”

“Income is now more concentrated in the hands of the rich. Those well-off households tend to save and invest higher proportions of their earnings than middle-class or low-income families do.”

“Members of Congress - with or without inside information - simply should not be allowed to trade stocks.”

“Moderately priced homes might draw working families in a metro area. And having rising incomes at the top might price lower-income families out.”

“In some ways, modern life has made us unkind. That unkindness has profound personal effects. And if we can build a kinder society, that would make life better for everyone.”

“In general, more affordable housing correlates with lower income inequality.”

“Ending child poverty, stopping the opioid crisis, improving child nutrition, providing a high-quality public education to students, ending the racial wealth gap: These kinds of policies would boost the economy, too.”

“Millennials are worth less on paper than members of older generations are, and are worth less on paper than members of older generations were at the same point in their lives.”

“The U.S. has fewer, stingier, more complicated, and more conditional safety nets available to people than many other advanced economies - less generous 'automatic stabilizers,' in economic parlance.”

“Wolves want to be wolves. Servals want to be servals. Bears want to be bears. And it is impossible to be a wolf or a serval or a bear when living in a cage.”

“Long before 2020, many Americans were in the position of patching their own safety net and acting as their own city hall.”