Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Investigative financial analyst Tom Bergin cut his teeth investigating corporate wrongdoing. When he turned his attention to the economics profession, he learned that eight major economic theories—used by experts to shape policy across the globe—entirely lack factual basis. He joins the pod to explain how those theories wormed their way into dominant economic thinking, the evidence against them, a...

The Congressional Budget Office, the institution that furnishes cost-benefit analyses for federal legislation under consideration by Congress, has a really hard job. But some of the assumptions they rely on to predict economic consequences are just plain weird. Economist Mark Paul leads us through the strangest practices at the CBO, including their (untrue) claim that public investment is only hal...

Billionaires have looted economies, hidden from tax bills, and destabilized democracies for decades. But the subset of billionaires who make a show of pretending to be good citizens have to be the worst among them. They’re called “Davos Man'' and according to New York Times Global Economics Correspondent Peter Goodman, they’re devouring the world we live in.  Peter S. Goodman is the Global Economi...

We often discuss abortion as an issue of bodily autonomy, personal rights, and reproductive justice. Of course it’s all of those things, but it’s also an economic issue. Access (or lack thereof) to an abortion profoundly affects women’s lives by determining if, when, and under what circumstances they become mothers. Whether or not women have access to abortion can change the direction of their liv...

Nick and Goldy answer your questions! How is any form of union busting legal? Why can’t America be more like the Nordic countries? Is taxing unrealized capital gains a good idea? And more! Thanks to Brad from Pennsylvania, Larry from Boston, Julie from Arizona, Duncan from California, Zach from Minnesota, and Dave from Illinois who left the great voicemails included in this episode. If you have an...

Modern Monetary Theory is an attempt to accurately describe how government debt and complex financial systems actually work and it can help us responsibly use our resources. No one is more knowledgeable on the subject than returning guest, Professor Stephanie Kelton. On this episode, originally released in 2020, Kelton explains the myths surrounding MMT and what a new understanding of the budget c...

The United States spends far more on healthcare costs than other industrialized countries, yet we continue to have wider gaps of coverage and report worse health outcomes. California Assemblymember Ash Kalra is paving the way for a better system in his state through the California Guaranteed Health Care for All Act, which at the time of recording had been advancing through the state legislature fo...

Even in the middle of a pandemic, trickle-down politicians still love to claim that the free market is the best way to resolve human problems and that the government can't be trusted to serve the public good. But when we privatize public health, utilities, and other shared necessities, we hand over control of those public goods—the things that we all need and that we need everyone to have— to for-...

In most states, tipped workers are not subject to the minimum wage. Why? Because it’s legal to pay tipped workers a subminimum wage as low as the federal minimum of $2.13 per hour. As long as any worker in the country can be paid less than the minimum wage, the minimum wage is meaningless. Saru Jayaraman, a leader in the national fight for one fair wage, lays out the path forward.  Saru Jayaraman...

When the Federal Reserve makes money, where does it go? Turns out, the Fed’s hands are tied—it can’t do anything other than assume that the new money will trickle down into the hands of ordinary Americans through Wall Street’s coffers. And according to journalist Christopher Leonard, that’s put the United States’ economic stability at risk and accelerated income inequality.  Christopher Leonard is...

If it seems to you like the ultimate goal of the most extreme conservatives is to undermine democracy and cripple democratic institutions—well, according to historian Nancy MacLean, you’re right. This week, MacLean unpacks the meteoric rise in popularity of the radical right’s ideas, and offers a way forward for progressives, based on lessons from successful social movements throughout American hi...

The 2017 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act included a little-known provision establishing something called opportunity zones. The plan, which was lauded as a way to direct investments into under-developed communities in the U.S., created 8,764 tax havens that were almost immediately exploited by the wealthy to gobble up capital gains tax breaks. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Wessel explains how opport...

In the U.S., inequality is often framed as the 99% versus the wealthiest 1%. But that’s not quite the right matchup. While the bottom 90% has done dramatically worse over the last several decades and the top 0.1% has done dramatically better, the 9.9% in between those groups still controls more than half of the wealth in the United States. Author and philosopher Matthew Stewart thinks that the 9.9...

How can we center the role of race in our economic policy and in our politics in a way that will drive real change? Kyle Strickland, the deputy director of race and democracy at the Roosevelt Institute, explains how our leaders have fallen under the sway of racial liberalism, which focuses solely on disavowing personal bigotry and overt discrimination. In order to realize true racial and economic...

The average family earning $25,000 a year in the U.S. spends about $2,400 on financial transactions. Whether it’s the astronomical interest rates of a payday loan or the costs that come with being unbanked, the extractive practices of the financial services industry are effectively keeping the poor in poverty. Lawyer and author Mehrsa Baradaran and economic mobility expert Cate Blackford join Nick...

Until very recently, the prevailing wisdom cautioned that transitioning to a clean energy economy would be extremely expensive, and therefore only possible if undertaken slowly. New research upends that thinking—when it comes to going green, the faster we go, the cheaper it will be. University of Oxford professors Eric Beinhocker and Doyne Farmer talk with Nick about a new strategy for clean techn...

The number of unhoused Americans is at a historically high rate right now. This podcast is produced in Seattle, a city with the third highest homeless population in the U.S. Though many Seattleites identify as progressive, we can’t reach a consensus on how to help our most vulnerable populations—or even find agreement on the root causes of the housing crisis. Why are perspectives on homelessness,...

Every company you can think of has benefitted from a public investment. Whether it’s direct handouts through the tax code, government research efforts, or employee reliance on programs like EITC or TANF, taxpayers are subsidizing wildly profitable companies. David Dayen, the executive editor of The American Prospect, and Financial Times associate editor Rana Foroohar join Nick and Zach to explain...

We know that the tax system is set up to advantage people with money. And we know that in the U.S., people with money are disproportionately white. But what many people don’t realize is that the tax system actively advantages white families. Tax law professor Dorothy Brown explains how racial inequality is baked into tax policy in non-obvious ways, and how that affects wealth-building.  Dorothy A....

The opioid crisis in the United States is a textbook example of free market economics. The powerful lie, manipulate, and skirt regulations to make buckets of money, while innocent people suffer. Journalist Sam Quinones joins Goldy and Paul to unpack the economics behind the opioid crisis, and the new threat of synthetic opioids like fentanyl. Sam Quinones is a journalist best known for his reporti...

Behind every aspect of the voting system that makes it harder to vote, there’s a policy that made it that way. Andrea Hailey, the CEO of Vote.org, joins Nick and Goldy to explain how voter suppression happens, and what reforms would help ensure a truly inclusive democracy. Andrea Hailey is the CEO of Vote.org, the nation’s largest nonpartisan digital voter engagement organization.  Twitter: @Andre...

It’s been a little over a month since the unemployment benefits programs that were established by the CARES Act expired, so we’re taking a look at how well they worked. Washington Post writer Amy Goldstein and Elliott Morris, a data journalist at The Economist, deliver the facts to Jessyn and Paul.  Amy Goldstein is a staff writer at The Washington Post, where much of her work has focused on socia...

Anti-monopoly and pro-local advocate Stacy Mitchell joins the show to talk about small business, big business, and decentralizing economic power.  Stacy Mitchell is the co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. She directs ILSR’s Independent Business Initiative, which produces research and analysis and partners with a broad range of allies to design and implement policies to reverse co...

Few books have shaken the philanthropy world more than ‘Winners Take All’, Anand Giridharadas’s blistering critique of wealthy do-gooders. Global elites who ostentatiously give away hundreds of millions of dollars, he argues, are actually just preserving the status quo that grants them power in the first place. On this episode, originally recorded and released in October 2019, Anand joins Nick and...

Who are the winners and losers in our skill development system? How can we move the onus of skill further into the purview of employers and away from our education system? UNC Professor Nichola Lowe talks to Goldy about the future of “skill” as we know it in the economy, and what’s at stake if we get it wrong.  Nichola Lowe is a professor in City and Regional Planning at UNC-Chapel Hill. Her work...