Creating a Countercyclical Welfare System
Clinton-era reforms mean that our safety net is weakest when we need it most.
Where Work Disappears and Dreams Die
In Gary, Indiana—the former “Magic City” of industrial might—jobs have left, and so has almost everything else.
Mismeasuring Poverty
The way we determine who needs help blocks many poor people from receiving the assistance they need.
The State of Poverty in America
The problem is worse than we thought, but we can solve it.
Seeing What No One Else Could See
Fifty years ago, Michael Harrington’s The Other America awoke the nation to the prevalence of poverty in its midst.
School for Success
Capital Idea, an innovative long-term job-training program in Austin, helps lift the working poor out of poverty.
The Geography of Getting By
Vendors in Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park fight for their right to sell.
The Democrats’ Demographic Dreams
Liberals are counting on population trends to doom Republicans to a long-term minority. They shouldn’t.
Pressing On the Upward Way
A profile of life in one of the country’s poorest counties
The Mother of All Girls’ Books
The secret subversiveness of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women
How the Gay-Rights Movement Won
Linda Hirshman’s new book tries to uncover how the LGBT movement accomplished so much in such a short span of time.
The Sixties at 50
Half a century later, the battles of the 1960s–and the effects of one great wrong turn by liberals of that time–are still with us.
Our Most Widely Ignored Public Intellectuals
Why don’t those in power listen to economists Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman?
