A biography for Annie Lowreyhasn’t been written yet.
“As smoking has disappeared from television screens, planes, bars and restaurants, and other public spaces, the smoking rate has dropped to a third of its peak of 45 percent in the mid-1950s.”
“Plastic straws might be everything terrible about American consumerism, individually wrapped. But paper straws put the lie to the belief that we can consume our way out of the problems created by consumerism.”
“An explosion of meat-replacement products has followed the path set by almond milk in the past few years, not just tempeh- or seitan- or soy-based products that taste nothing like meat, but meat simulacra.”
“Fighting recessions and building public infrastructure, including care, health, and educational infrastructure - this should not be the work of citizens. When it is, let's acknowledge that's a tragedy.”
“Social networks, professional networks, offices, and schools help keep high earners in place.”
“The workforce is getting Uberized. The gig economy is taking over the world. Independent-contractor jobs are the new normal.”
“Recessions are never good for anyone. A sputtering economy means miserable financial, emotional, and physical-health consequences for everyone from infants to retirees.”
“Urbanization, falling poverty rates, and growing global trade have changed the diets and expanded the waistlines of the world's poor, with processed food and sweetened drinks becoming household staples.”
“Along with the rise of inequality, the slowdown in productivity growth, and the shrinking of the middle class, the spiraling cost of living has become a central facet of American economic life.”
“The Millennials graduated into the worst jobs market in 80 years. That did not just mean a few years of high unemployment, or a couple years living in their parents' basements. It meant a full decade of lost wages.”
“Police forces across America need root-to-stem changes - to their internal cultures, training and hiring practices, insurance, and governing regulations.”
“But for labor groups, there is no debate: Nafta hurt American jobs and household earnings.”
“Many women are the lower-earning partner in a married couple, thanks in part to forces that relegate women to less remunerative professions and pay them less for the same work.”
“The world needs to slash emissions by tens of billions of tons annually, which categorically requires government investment and government regulations.”
“So overall in the entire economy, the issue is not that health care costs are growing dramatically. The issue is that the burden placed on families is. So just between 2010 and 2016, the cost burden of family private insurance premiums jumped 28%, whereas incomes rose less than 20%.”
“Both the federal government and the states should go ahead and soak the rich to reduce inequality and raise money for health care, child care, infrastructure investment, education, decarbonization, and a thousand other priorities.”
“Lower-income immigrant families might receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes. But that mathematical equilibrium is temporary, and an artifact of the way the tax-and-transfer system is structured to help lower-income families and to support families with kids.”
“Taxes do have a clear record of curbing the consumption of, and thus the public-health impact of, tobacco and alcohol.”
“Many economists and industry experts agree that the United States faces unfair competition and artificially low prices that have damaged the domestic steel industry. But they don't agree that a tariff is the right approach for addressing the problem.”
“Products marketed as being earth-friendly are often not that earth-friendly.”