Introduction The presidential election in 2016 brought intense discussions of the “working class” as class was perceived to be important to its outcome. This marked a turn in political discourse, ...

For 24 years, Constance Franklin worked at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. As a CDC analyst, she traveled to Botswana during President George W. Bush’s administration ...

Co-published by Economic Hardship Reporting Project and The Baffler. Icy snow crusted the sidewalks outside the Bronx housing courthouse on a Thursday in late January, a bitterly cold day in a string ...

Co-published by Economic Hardship Reporting Project and The Baffler. TO EXPRESS THE AMBIENT FEELING that “things are getting worse,” there exists, of course, a meme. It plots iterations of a chart, ...

Co-published by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and The Guardian. In St Paul, Minnesota, Brittany Kubricky pulled into a school parking lot. Normally, she was there just to pick up her ...

For at least a week, I tossed and turned. I did not want to violate Jane’s wishes, but I also understood her cancer diagnosis as a vital narrative thread in her life that could not simply be bracketed ...

Co-published by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Civil Eats. On a late afternoon in early November, Xochitl Bervera launches The Roxie Girl from St. George Island into the gentle waters of ...

Co-published by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and The Cut. Kelly always loved kids. Growing up in a rural part of Texas in a conservative, Christian environment, she worked as the camp ...

Co-published by Economic Hardship Reporting Project and The Nation. It was an early summer morning, and Katy had been up for most of the night. During those hours, she had experienced what she would ...

Co-published by Economic Hardship Reporting Project, Teen Vogue and Lux Magazine. A few years ago, Sunnie Helling decided to get serious about sobriety. She moved into the Union Gospel Mission, a ...

Co-published by Economic Hardship Reporting Project and WHYY, the Commonwealth Fund, The Carter Center, and the Mesa Refuge. “I closed the door! I closed the door!” Amy Franco shouted repeatedly from ...

Co-published by Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Jacobin. Inside the factory-like environment of a fast-food kitchen, sodas should be the easiest menu item to serve. At my restaurant, a pair of ...