Whatever happened to the middle class? (with Heather Boushey and Matthew Stewart)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2018

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The American middle class is shrinking and, contrary to popular belief, globalization and automation are not to blame. Far from inevitable, skyrocketing inequality is a choice. In this episode, we look at the policy choices that have relentlessly undermined the middle class, and why we desperately need to choose a better future. Heather Boushey: Executive director and chief economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Author of Finding Time: The Economics of Work-Life Conflict. Twitter: @HBoushey Matthew Stewart: Philosopher, D.Phil from Oxford University. Author of Nature’s God and The Management Myth. Contributor to The Atlantic. Website: https://mwstewart.com/ Further reading: (1) http://evonomics.com/new-social-security-system-sharing-economy-hanauer/ (2) https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/overtime-pay-obama-congress-112954

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's more than numbers that defines the middle class.
0:05.0	I think in many ways we forgot what brought us the middle class.
0:10.0	It's that sense of security we felt taking care of and we felt confident that we could build something even better for ourselves.
0:18.0	In the 70s, close to two-thirds of people were comfortably in the middle class and by 2015 that number had dipped
0:25.8	below 50 percent few people are getting richer and most everybody else is
0:30.3	getting poorer and that just is making people both objectively less
0:35.0	economically secure but also they feel less economically secure. From the offices of Civic Ventures in downtown Seattle, this is Pitch Fork Economics with
0:51.0	Nick Hanauer, a pointed conversation about who gets what and why, with one of America's
0:56.3	most provocative capitalists. The Hi, thank you.
1:19.0	Up there?
1:20.0	Okay, should I take my shoes off? I'm Stephanie Lentz, and this is my husband, Stephen.
1:26.0	Hello.
1:27.0	Hello.
1:28.0	And we have our kiddos.
1:31.0	Danger is almost four and then our Vivian is a year and a half.
1:37.0	I'm a firefighter down in Enumclaw full-time and I mean you think you call 911 and you think are the police going to take care of it.
1:45.4	If the answer is no, then the fire department does it.
1:47.5	Right? So trees across the roadway, down power lines, grandma fell out of bed,
1:50.7	CPR, car accidents.
1:52.8	Think of a reason someone called I don't want and asked the question.
1:55.7	You'll figure out, that's what we do.
1:57.6	And I am a retired elementary school teacher
	...

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