We've just seen this just steady increase in the unemployment rate for recent college guys.

It hasn't really let up.

And it's accelerated faster than the overall unemployment rate, which is unusual.

Having run for office, you remember the debate of like, you know, oh, things are better than

you think.

And there was that moment when, you know, first Trump and then Biden tried to tell people, ah, things are actually fine. You're doing well. You just don't understand how well you're doing. I was very much on the other side of that equation on. I was like, things are indeed shitty. Yes, exactly.

It is my pleasure to welcome to the podcast.

Journalist for the New York Times and author of the brand new book,

Mutiny, the Rise and Revolt of the College Educated Working Class,

Noam Shiber. Welcome, Noam. Thanks for having me. Great to be here. Holy cow, man. This book must have taken a lot of time, a lot of reporting, because you followed a group of people around

for how many years? Yeah, since 2022, from like 22 to 25. So it was three years in the making. Yeah. So

hats off to you, because this is a work of real journalism where you dug into the lives of these

very sympathetic people who will get it to. That's one reason why the book's enjoyable is,

you know, you feel like you know people like Teddy or Chaya or whomever.

But what drew you to this topic and how did you embark on what became a multi-year journey of writing this book?

Yeah.

Well, thanks again for having me and for elevating the reporting there.

It was a bit of a slog,

but a labor of love. So I cover labor and workers for the times. And beginning in the fall of

2021, Starbucks workers started to unionize, start off in Buffalo, just a couple of stores in Buffalo. I went out there to talk to

these folks. A lot of them had gone to college, but I didn't think too much of it at the time.

And then two of those three stores won their union elections in the fall of 2021. And pretty quickly,

...