Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Even when our nation's prosperity was most broadly shared in the 1950s and 1960s, Black people and other communities of color were purposefully denied the shared prosperity that white families enjoyed. And because inclusion drives economic growth, excluding anyone from the economy is bad for all of us. Jeremie Greer, Liberation in a Generation’s co-director, explains how racism is profitable under...

Ten years ago, Nick was called "near insane" for saying that substantially raising the minimum wage would create jobs. In retrospect, it seems obvious: After all, if no one has any money, who will buy all the stuff? Researchers at University of California, Berkeley have found more data to support this theory in a first-of-its-kind study on the effects of the $15 minimum wage. Michael Reich, one of...

We learn in grade school that American citizens are endowed with certain inalienable rights, but basic necessities like housing and education aren’t protected by the Constitution. Imagine how different this country might be if affordable health care and guaranteed employment were included in our Bill of Rights. That’s the vision that economist Mark Paul outlines in his new book, The Ends of Freedo...

At the core of middle-out economics is the idea that the more people we include in the economy, the faster and more prosperous it grows. And this inclusionary principle isn’t something we just made up—there’s actual data to support it. Our conversation with JP Julien from McKinsey and Company outlines what inclusion can mean in the context of an economy that works for everyone. This episode origin...

We all want to live happier, more fulfilling lives and build a better future for ourselves, but can economics help to make that dream a reality? Economist and philosopher Erik Angner is so confident that economics can save the world that he wrote a whole book about it. Erik helps Nick and Goldy overcome their usual cynicism by pointing out all the amazing progress that has been made in the economi...

This week we’re continuing our exploration into the ways that higher education contributes to America’s political, cultural, and economic divisions. Goldy chats with author Will Bunch about how our leaders almost established a university education as a public good, why the so-called “knowledge economy” has caused inequality to grow, and how we can possibly fix our educational divide. Will Bunch is...

Universities across America are still teaching an outdated, neoclassical way of economic thinking. The trickle-down curriculums taught in Econ 101 classrooms aren’t just bad for students—they have had disastrous, far-reaching effects on the economy. Decades of bad education has left students adrift: A new study from Rethinking Economics reveals that the majority of college students are critical of...

As Tax Day approaches in the United States, we’re revisiting our conversation with Gabriel Zucman, the authority on wealth taxes. For the last 40 years, trickle-down politicians have slashed tax rates on the rich, benefiting the wealthy few at the expense of the American middle class. Zucman explains how the rich manage to dodge taxes, and how we can fix this broken system. This episode originally...

One in five American workers has signed a noncompete clause. The FTC believes that the elimination of these clauses would generate extra job opportunities for 30 million workers and raise wages by $300 billion—a huge win for the average American worker. Economist Evan Starr shares findings from his new report on noncompetes and their enforceability in court, which uses data from our home state of...

When did ordinary people come to believe that free market solutions are always better than government intervention? How do we create a future where markets serve democracy instead of stifling it? In this episode we’re talking about the “magic” of the marketplace and the myth that the free market is ruthlessly efficient and always knows best. The co-authors of The Big Myth explain exactly how Ameri...

Between 1870 and 2010 an unprecedented explosion of material wealth transformed the globe, but that wave of prosperity failed to create a fully functioning and equal society. How did we manage to create an economic pie large enough for everyone to share, but then fumble dividing that pie up equally? Brad DeLong explores this question in his new book, Slouching Towards Utopia, which looks at the ec...

We've released dozens of episodes exploring how to improve the lives of Americans that live in rural areas, but we don’t often discuss how cities (and the folks that live in them) are being left behind by state lawmakers and federal policies. This is a problem because cities are key to innovation and economic growth. Richard McGahey's new book explores how to overcome anti-urban bias in order to r...

A new report from the Economic Policy Institute found that anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of employers are essentially stealing thousands of dollars from their workers every year by misclassifying them as independent contractors. In addition to lower pay, those misclassified workers are also deprived of employer-provided benefits like health care and labor rights like basic safety regulations. Ret...

Goldy and Paul interview author Rick Wartzman about how America’s biggest employer (Walmart) began taking better care of its workers (by raising wages)—and why that decision might be too little, too late. According to Wartzman, Walmart has gone through a remarkable transformation, but there are limits to how much positive change this brand of socially conscious capitalism can create. Rick Wartzman...

Stock buybacks are one of the worst excesses of modern capitalism, which naturally means they're one of our favorite subjects to cover on the podcast. And since they’re in the news again, we thought it would be a good time to revisit one of our first episodes, from 2019. How much has changed over the past 4 years? President Biden’s proposal to raise taxes on buybacks to 4% is the most promising up...

In July 2021, President Biden signed an executive order directing government agencies to rewrite policies to encourage competition in the U.S. economy. Returning guest David Dayen has compiled 18 months’ worth of actions resulting from this order. After more than four decades of unrestrained corporate power, Dayen explains, competition is finally returning to the economy—and that’s good news for e...

When the Biden Administration announced last year that they would forgive up to $20,000 student loan debt per individual, millions of people celebrated—and for good reason. The student loan debt that Americans carry has ballooned to $1.8 trillion in recent decades, threatening the economic security of American households from coast to coast and up and down the income scale. Unfortunately, the Bide...

Oxford economists are currently running the world’s first Universal Job Guarantee program in Austria, and so far the results are very promising. When unemployed people have guaranteed access to training and/or a job, those people feel more in control of their lives and become more financially secure…and happier, too. The study’s co-authors join us to explain why they believe a guaranteed jobs prog...

Exactly one decade ago, activists and civic leaders launched the Fight for $15. It’s hard to recall now, but the idea was wildly controversial at the time—Forbes called Nick’s support of a $15 minimum wage “near-insane,” for example. A new report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP) examines the legacy of the movement and all that it has accomplished in the last 10 years. Two of the rep...

We can’t tear down the existing economic framework and replace it with a better one without first telling a persuasive story about how the economy actually works. And few people in the world are more compelling storytellers than science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson.  In his speculative near-future novel The Ministry for the Future, Stan explains complicated economic theories better than mos...

For most of last year economists and pundits engaged in a long, circular debate about why inflation was spiking around the world, and who was to blame for those skyrocketing prices. Economic experts at the Roosevelt Institute (including past guest Joseph Stiglitz) have finally revealed the root causes of global inflation in a new report. Stiglitz’s co-author, Ira Regmi, shares what they’ve learned...

Nick and Goldy kick off the New Year by answering more of your questions! Has there ever been a time period with strong deflation? Should folks prepare for an upcoming recession? Why aren’t we allowed to question the free market? And much more.  If you have questions for a future “Ask Me Anything” episode, leave us a voicemail at 731-388-9334. Don’t forget to follow the show wherever you listen an...

Out of all the topics we discussed in 2022 one stayed at the top of headlines all year long: abortion. We spoke to Professor Caitlin Myers in February of this year, months before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. She shared data from her research and provided examples of the causal links between abortion access and economic outcomes in women’s lives. It’s an illuminating episode, and one th...

Judging by the amount of downloads for this episode, we’d say it was our listeners’ favorite from the past year. “Did Corporate Greed Break the Supply Chain?” with Rakeen Mabud from the Groundwork Collaborative exposes how the supply chain was actually designed: not for reliably getting goods to people, but for maximizing profit. Unfortunately, that’s something many Americans came to realize in 20...

A new report from the Economic Policy Institute looks into the salary and stock packages of America’s most overcompensated corporate titans and the numbers are staggering. According to journalist Mark Kreidler, who recently covered the report for Capital + Main, CEO paychecks are a huge contributor to inequality. He joins the podcast to share why more people would do better if CEOs were paid less....