Cancer research costs too much but we have the money to run Venezuela

I wrote for @economichardship.bsky.social @literaryhub.bsky.social about the meaning of @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social and Wilson elections. The precarious middle class: not mere neurotics on their daybeds with @inetoxford.bsky.social @epi.org and others @maiasz.bsky.social

I’m part of the triple-decker sandwich generation. You probably are as well - Alissa Quart www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

My latest piece for @theguardian.com on the sandwich generation, of which I am one, and how we became the triple sandwich generation in Trump 2.0 www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i... @jillgrinberglit.bsky.social @economichardship.bsky.social @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social link in comments

🥗 This is the urgent reality that @alissaquart.bsky.social’s incredible books woke me up to, and it’s the reality we all must confront to progress as a nqtion, a people, a community. One where all of us can survive and thrive, and we leave NOBODY behind! www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

I have not seen ANYONE mention that as a factor in the election. You have to be certified shit for brains if you don't think the labor market matters to people.

And the issue is not just getting a job. It's getting a decent job. The plunge in job switching means many fewer people feel they can leave a job they don't like.

I wrote about my late friend and brilliant poet Cole for @poetrysociety.org She was really one of a kind. Also about bygone literary scenes and nature as mutual aid @maiasz.bsky.social @poetrydaily.bsky.social @poetrysociety.org.uk @poetshouse.bsky.social @pw.org poetrysociety.org/poems-essays...

Great to be on WHYY for an hour (!) talking about the squeezed middle class in the Trump 2.0 era (federal worker lay offs, defunding of PBS, med research etcetera). Plus: jokes & Bourdieu... @whyy.org @economichardship.bsky.social @jillgrinberglit.bsky.social @deniseoswald.bsky.social

Right. Zohran explicitly links his economic populism w/his attack on Trump's authoritarian abuses, which also hurt working people. Some commentators are trying to only elevate the former, to push Dems away from taking on Trump frontally, but they're (deliberately?) missing the real innovation here:

You can't really call yourself a reporter til you've gone on a 2-week school trip (called "Introduction to Travel Journalism") to Orlando that includes tickets to 7 theme parks, and "beverage coolers." www.cjr.org/laurels-and-...

George Soros has done as much as anyone to strengthen democratic freedoms in the United States—democratic freedoms that are important to the right as well as the left. It’s those freedoms that are the real target of this outrageous attack. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/u...

Excited about next week’s nearly daylong @economichardship.bsky.social event at @columbiajournalism.bsky.social starring @jeffsharlet.bsky.social , @hamiltonnolan.bsky.social , @lizafeatherstone.bsky.social Ray Suarez and others!

It is the dystopian safety net, as @alissaquart.bsky.social has written. But necessary so often. Thank you Leran! 💕

I loathe that we need GoFundMe campaigns for this type of thing, but Randy is a real one. Kind, dedicated, smart, funny, and deeply a good person. If you have a few dollars or well wishes please send them his way

If you, like me, are the parent of a neuro-atypical child dreading this autism press conference, please remember: These are the people hurting our kids. Not us. They are the ones stigmatizing and pathologizing them. They are the ones peddling untested science. And we should be very, very angry.

"Tasteless" does not even begin to describe what is happening here.

Ghouls

🥗 Latest SNAP data (through 6-2025): doi.org/10.7910/DVN/...

Nice personal news to share among all of this political misery. Just sold my new book Terra Infirma to @pantheonbooks.bsky.social & editor @deniseoswald.bsky.social, Squeezed's editor. Thanks @jillgrinberglit.bsky.social and @economichardship.bsky.social Read about it in @publisherswkly.bsky.social

Oof we've got a lot of work to do to counter these persistent myths about poverty. Right @alissaquart.bsky.social?

It has been three years and one day since Barbara Ehrenreich left us. She meant a great deal to me personally and professionally, as a literary and political figure & weirdly, as a metaphysical guide. Here we are after a book event I did with BE in Vogue. @economichardship.bsky.social @ips-dc.org

My latest story for @timemagazine.bsky.social on Labor Day, Labor Day Sales and the American Dream. A very personal essay time.com/7313480/labo... @eccobooks.bsky.social @economichardship.bsky.social @jillgrinberglit.bsky.social @maiasz.bsky.social @maassp.bsky.social @economichardship.bsky.social

God, "Magnolia" is so freaking good. One of the great movies about seemingly disconnected lives in Los Angeles, what Alissa Quart described as "hyperlink cinema." That millennial anxiety about how we're all simultaneous separate and intertwined, and how that breaks us.

🥗 Really thought-provoking essay by @alissaquart.bsky.social on “citizenship insecurity”. What is America anymore? When is it ok/imperative to expand citizenship options? When is it time to leave America? Answers change based on privilege. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

My new piece on what I call "citizen insecurity" in @theguardian.com @economichardship.bsky.social @jillgrinberglit.bsky.social

fabulous piece by @lisquart about the dislocation so many of us feel as the U.S. abandons any pretense of even having democratic ideals.... www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

For any of you still on here, this is my piece about my mother, art, affordability and mortality in @nytimes.com @nytopinion.nytimes.com @hyperallergic.com @mollyjongfast.bsky.social @artforum.com @artnews.com.web.brid.gy @anya1anya.bsky.social

Beautiful tribute/ layered musing on creativity and life by @alissaquart.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/o...

Ford Foundation Makes Landmark Contribution to Economic Hardship Reporting Project for Social Justice Storytelling#USA#Brooklyn#Ford_Foundation#EHRP#Building_Institutions

Amazing news I can now share! Our organization @economichardship.bsky.social just received at $1.65 million BUILD grant @fordfoundation.org for five years. Thanks so much (esp. Lolly Bowean)! Appreciate u @deborahjianlee.bsky.social! @insidephilanthropy.com @npquarterly.bsky.social

Amazing news I can now share! Our organization @economichardship.bsky.social just received at $1.65 million BUILD grant @fordfoundation.org for five years. Thanks so much (esp. Lolly Bowean)! Appreciate u @deborahjianlee.bsky.social! @insidephilanthropy.com @npquarterly.bsky.social

The way people are losing their fucking minds over a proposal for a publicly owned grocery store should give you some insight into how a proposal for public libraries would be greeted today if they didn't already exist.

Bombing Iran. Cuomo still fooling NYC. Then this beautiful literary magazine arrives and I went to my friend's stoop sale and worked on poetry with my friend @celinasu.bsky.social and the day was a little better.

My brilliant and complicated teacher Cole Heinowitz has died. I'll never forget her. www.thedailycatch.org/articles/bar...

You can’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and there are no bootstraps. Or boots. Poverty is systemic and the blame belongs with the system, not the individual. Read @alissaquart.bsky.social and you’ll never see poverty the same way again.

Honored to be talking to Joan Williams-- a heroine-- at on June 12 at 7 a @92ndstreety.bsky.social Streaming, so listen in! We are discussing her new book Outclassed and social class in media and on the Left and probably Bootstrapped. And @economichardship.bsky.social

I wrote for #LitHub and @economichardship.bsky.social about the bizarre kitsch of Trump and Vance going about dolls. Social class kitsch. They have taken a real issue-- kid consumerism-- and turned it into sexist gibberish. #branded

Hey there! Poem page with @celinasu.bsky.social in @currentaffairs.bsky.social @economichardship.bsky.social Check it out @poetrydaily.bsky.social @poetrysociety.bsky.social @poetrysociety.org

Journalism and Sovereignty compete and the latter wins...thank goodness no one named their horse Oligarchy. #kentuckyderby #journalism

I should have mentioned that the writer's name is Alissa Quart and the book is called Bootstrapped. I listened to it on Audible.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. “Deserve” needs to be abolished alongside “resilient”. They’re toxic and bound up with the structural barriers and limitations of the social safety net and our treatment of people in poverty.

Why I’m Replacing Doomscrolling With Poetry by Alissa Quart I have, though, found a reprieve from my anxious inattention: poetry. More specifically, the poetry of survival—verse written in the shadow of political extremity. I have noticed this is true for others I know. buff.ly/HcJ3qrx

Poetry seems like a much healthier pastime than doomscrolling. Thought provoking essay from @alissaquart.bsky.social.

I write about how the poetry of survival is helping me live right now in particular #torydent and others, in Time Magazine time.com/7267756/repl... @economichardship.bsky.social @poetrydaily.bsky.social @ofpoetrypodcast.bsky.social @poetrysociety.bsky.social @kathapollitt.bsky.social

Funny story -- Horatio Alger was a pedo. He was kicked out of his church (quietly). And then wrote book after book about older men grooming younger men. Another fun fact I learned from @alissaquart.bsky.social's Bootstrapped.

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who's running for mayor, just released a comprehensive workers' rights platform, the first such platform in a city mayoral race in decades www.thenation.com/article/poli...