Tonight you can click on the green button below. Every book that is purchased tonight will come with a signed bookplate and we urge you to support us, just buy some books. I know many of you have copies of trick mirror, but we can send it to anyone. Another way to support pnt tonight is use the donate button at the bottom of your screen. We are charging for this program but any contribution you can make so we can continue our programming is so valued bias. You can ask a question tonight by clicking on ask a question which can also be found near the bottom of your screen. You can read other peoples questions, those who answer the most. Sometimes it happens, we recommend refreshing your browser, switch over from if you need to and try head phones. Tonight we are here to talk about economic inequality in times of crisis or the only thing that matters now, no one in the world speaks truth to power like Barbara Ehrenreich. We witnessed a refusal to accept easy answers throughout her expansive career in activism. Her determination to impart social change and economic regions is distilled in had i known collected essays. Jia tolentino is an essential cultural processor for all of us through her work in trick mirror. During the Jia Tolentino covid19 crisis whoever has taken on a more active voice culminating in a piece on mutual aid in this weeks new yorker. Please help me welcome Barbara Ehrenreich and Jia Tolentino. Hi, every one, 1000 people listening. Nothing we could ever pull. We were just saying before they went live. If any of you had gotten had i known collected essays i highly recommend it. All of the things we are thinking about like how absolutely ridiculous it is there are billionaires that are frontline workers making minimum wage, all these things barbara has been writing about for decades. I interviewed her for the new yorker in the before time which feels like the before time. And it is good to be able to talk now. You and me, we are both a little biased with our brains go into this the story of labor, this is a single story of our country. We are inclined to think that way but to me, i want to ask you, do you feel like, how much do you feel class consciousness has changed, has been at the forefront in the last couple months . Not enough. I think it is you cant avoid the fact that the stimulus package is aimed toward the big corporations and the wealthy. How people are absorbing this and beginning to act on it that is the story which you did a great job in this weeks new yorker. The mutual aid associations, straight up spontaneously around the country to help with the most basic things like getting people to the doctor and stuff like that and i love that piece. In the new yorker, whatever you do. Working on that piece was interesting because it is true that the stimulus package is laughable, it is laughable. The fact that isnt the emergency sort of mandatory sick leave, corporations that exploit more than 500 people are exempt from it. There are so many ways actual legislative negotiation, who is getting help right now is a nightmare but that is what i mean, i dont know if my perspective is from speaking to organizers for the last couple months, it seems to me like so many Mutual Aid Networks are springing up because of increasingly mainstream understanding that the state is not doing its job, legislators are not doing their job, mutual aid to disadvantaged communities, amazing how mainstream this idea is that we are living in a failed state and that is very heartening but you think it is not represented . Realization there is no government when it comes to the use of arms and things like that, but we dont have that today. And prepared for people en masse and looking at 30 unemployment is the estimate, i cant even imagine that. I was not alive during the Great Depression but i heard plenty of stories and this is much more unemployment than that and of course we dont have fdr as president. So now, this, it is particularly hard to judge things about class consciousness when we cannot congregate, when we cannot see people in large numbers. A lot of my own history as an activist has been about crowds and linking arms together. And hugging. And all kinds of things that are now not advised. So it is hard to see. One of my favorite organizers called me and said how do i organize that, we can get together, people need whether it is a Mutual Aid Society or action to put pressure on elected officials, whatever, measure that. I know. You have been on the frontlines talking to people. I have been thinking how radicalizing moments begets radicalizing moments and i do think weve seen i keep trying to fight against always looking for that, trying to find it but there are certain things, certain aspects to the strikes that are going on right now that are reminiscent of the 30s, transit workers and hospital workers and warehouse workers. There is still this rising discontentment that we cant acknowledge it and be in each others presence and it is a confounding there are certain things like the fact we are staring down 30 unemployment or higher, to me how could anyone come out of this and believe Health Insurance should be based on employment, it seems impossible for anyone to come out thinking we shouldnt have universal healthcare but also are you being stupid again . We have the bright side. We are learning about having a government. I am not a statist. I have leans more and artistically or directly but this, when you realize that nobody is going to come to your aid and nothing is happening, that is when you say we have to do this and that is when we get to be getting to as a people, as a world. It was interesting for me because for people who are listening, a fundamental tension between work we are doing for each other, getting the groceries, making sure they have access to pharmacy trips or whatever there is a question are they doing what the state should be responsible for or what the state has never done for many people and not showing any interest in doing. I tend toward the status in writing the piece it was more like this is lack of political imagination. In terms of everyone commenting, nickel and dime is a formative book in terms of many of us developing a consciousness of inequality and economic oppression. We talk when we talk when i was interviewing you for the new yorker, how the media often fails at any kind of workingclass life which is why you started the reporting project which is one of my favorite things going and if anybody listening is familiar, like many of my favorite stories every year has been abbreviated to. To me i feel like economic inequality has been grounded by the media in this. Paul will always talk about we are in this together and this virus is the great equalizer when obviously it is not, black people are three times as likely to know someone who has died or whatever the statistic is or three quarters of frontline workers are low income people of color or the fact that so many lope healthcare jobs are held by women, to me the facts have been pretty clear in media coverage. I wonder what you think of that. How do you think the media has done in reporting about it . Not so bad. I am thinking seriously, mainstream, fake news, etc. The New York Times and the post have been pretty good at constantly bringing this up. That is something. Now any examples that spring to mind that you thought were like well, i think the times coverage in general is pretty good. But you are a better judge of these things. You are at their frontlines of journalism. Im in my bedroom like everyone else. Mta, the oped by the mta after the incredible oped exposing how transit workers have been treated. It got a lot of exposure, the fact there was that really great piece on healthcare workers including lower paid transporters and environmental services, like people not like doctors and nurses, people i wonder to what degree the narratives are reaching people that arent already aware. We keep trying. In our different ways. I feel very frustrated that i cannot talk directly to people. It is not that i am a show off or want to be center of attention but just to feel i dont feel a sense of a platform and a sense of people interacting with me right now. You are much more out there right now. You are right there is a way the frustration, think about the content, South Carolina protesting, the fact that it takes such extreme risk, together for the most important purpose is kind of devastating for the organizing you want us to do right now. You think about agonizing, your exhusband was involved, we talked about it in the interview and early on in new york, one of the earliest people to strike because somebody contacted coronavirus and amazon retaliated and you see the company retaliating against nurses who have spoken out about the condition. I thought of your optimism book, there was and why you, put out internal communication that was lake only put positive statements on social media, but amazon, one of the most prominent, really tried to stand down on worker organizing and has for a long time but got called out for it and the attorney general is probably going to investigate. Talk to me about what is going on in amazon right now . I cant really tell you as an insider, it is kind of amazing. It is entirely done by telephone. It is attracting a very interesting diverse mix of workers which amazon has. Different national backgrounds, it is amazing that they get along. They are very excited, leaning on the success in other spots. Amazons response to the promise or threat of reopening has been to cut pay, 17 a year 17 an hour for new workers. 2 more than as of may 1st, i am just looking this up. 17 an hour, to drawback kroger is doing that too, last 30 days. That is what is going on in general. People think about opening up or whatever again, the companies are thinking we are doing them a favor, we are giving them jobs. Giving people drugs, people give you their labor. So the pushback now coming ceos, we suffered a lot, weve seen stocks go up. The worker takes a hit. It is one of the things, amazon is getting paid sick days. Nobody seems to have paid sick days. Anymore. These are basic things for every one. To me i dont know if i am delusional here. Glaringly obvious glaring siren which is america is the richest country home world. The safety net the least safety net of any seems like how could anyone come out of this opposing universal healthcare, mandatory sick leave for every one, not just all the things we dont have. You think about the election, and cant even think about that. What has made you the maddest . What has infuriated you most about the last couple months . Unfortunately i think the attack on the workingclass in the united states, is taking people who have been underpaid and abused during their work lives for a long time and kicking them. What more can you do than die for your employer and that seems to be the new deal. You want a job, be prepared to die. I dont know where to start with this anger. How do we do this constructively . One of the things i think about, one of the things, see lowwage workers, a tendency on the part of the wealthy to dismiss for people as deserving of the status, if you make 12 an hour it is because of some moral failing to be unable to make more. It seems clear now more than ever that everything is so arbitrary, so arbitrary that i still have a job but other people cant. It is nothing to do with worth and everything to do with accident. One thing i worry about is this would cement that implicit understanding that people who have to deliver packages and check out grocery stores, that is their job, what they do and if you dont have to do it, it is for a reason rather than for no reason at all. That filled me with a lot of dread. There got to be people for whom it is clear they have to risk their lives for 13 an hour. I dont know what is going on with the consciousness of so many lawmakers. If we are looking at 30 unemployment by july that is worse than the Great Depression. This is beyond our imagining. We have no place, no way of taking care of these people medically. What are we thinking . I am always a little bit apocalyptic lady, things to read, apocalyptic novels and so on. It is right in front of us and we have to get that mutual aid philosophy that you write about in the new yorker this week. It is a general class consciousness. I dont mean to exclude too many people. People now are going to keep hard times who never imagined that coming in their lives. It was clear for me when they started saying some people could work at home, that was the clue. Who is going to work at home . The fedex delivery guy . We have to work at home. The racial disparity, a majority of asians and white people work at home and it has flipped. The thing that has made me the maddest, not the sort of macro thing we are talking about. Meatpacking plants, this is a job mostly done by immigrants, farm working conditions where you have to be close to gather. Did you see the governor of south dakota saying the outbreak among meatpacking employees due to different social things immigrants do. Is that why . The secretary said Something Like that too. You said the sort of, this idea that our legislators are implicitly blaming the lower class for the boot that has been placed on their neck. It is ridiculous. That has been a theme on the right for so long. If you are poor, if you are hardpressed economically it must be because you are doing something wrong, you are not living right, youre having too many babies, you are an addict, whatever. All these ways of shaming the poor, which make the affluent feel very good because you can say i have done everything right. I got an education. I did it right but that is all about to change. If i look even two weeks into the future i am scared. If people are shooting at each other getting into a mcdonalds dining room, if they are shooting at each other because they are told to socially distance and an adult family store, what next . We have an armed population. At least the right wing is armed. People are angry. Nobody is saying where to direct that anger. Yeah, yeah. I grew up in texas, and my mom works in a Hospital System there and as the state reopens, i dont know. To me of course you dont want to dismiss you know, the portion of people who want to reopen the economy that need money but there is to me the fact that as soon as these states reopen, okay, heres a way to cut out unemployment, cutting out having to pay unemployment to people and you think about people, service workers, nail salon workers, they have to go back to work, they wont make any money because nobody is going to come in and they cant get unemployment and that is the fix or whatever. What next . Maybe we discovered it in a good way. You know, there are traditions of mutual aid. You mentioned the history somewhat in their article. The feminists movement, quite a tradition of selfhelp and mutual aid. Around healthcare, closing our own clinics, teaching them how to do their own health. These doctors are going to remain. We need that spirit that we can do things. I feel the same way about reproductive rights. It is easier to abort a tiny fetus but you know, why arent we just saying we can take this into our own hands. I am trying to report a piece about Abortion Access because it is interesting to me because for a lot of low income women trying to get abortions always involves layers of logistical obstacles. Many people just understanding for the first time it is hard to get child care. We have to travel because travel is difficult, it is what it is like to get an abortion, talking to people about what you are saying. I talked to a woman, from texas to colorado just to get the Abortion Pill at 7 weeks and it was like she should be up to do telemedicine and get it in the mail. It is extremely safe. Things like that. The feminists roots of direct aid to each other and direct support, the state wont do it. Hard to prepping for the repeal of roe and doing the work. Travis communities, bedrock and human interaction. As you wrote, nickel and dime, so many parts in that book, the diner, someone got kicked out a temporary housing, they would be welcomed into a coworker. Mutual support to build on among workingclass and statistically people are much more philanthropic, taking a person who has no place, all of those kinds of things. That impulse, to come together. 20 minutes left. Let me pull up these questions. Last time i did this i didnt realize how many people voted for them, i will start with the ones who got the most the question we have been talking about, do you think the pandemic will change American Attitudes towards the idea of the modern welfare state . Wealth is synonymous with intelligence. That is one of the many myths. Are we reading different questions . I am not reading anything. Do you think the pandemic will change American Attitudes toward the welfare state . The Democratic Party has been pushed left, not nearly as far left as it should be, but i do think it will but maybe i am an idiot without an idea about anything. I dont think it is a good idea to make any kind of prediction. I can only say i am trying. Will the pandemic change attitudes towards the welfare state . Anything pejorative from the world of welfare. And people with low income women of color who have periods in their lives when they need hope, they need direct financial assistance, and all of us at various times were trying to buy a house or whatever. What looms before us. The next most voted on question, are you satisfied with the level of attention from the Biden Campaign on these issues . I think i was looking something up on youtube and the Biden Campaign ad popped up and i wanted to put my head through the wall. The answer is no to a degree i cant express. I will say he has gotten pushed left, his proposals are further left than i thought they would be but i cant stand it. What do you think . I dont know. It was heartbreaking when sanders dropped out although, you know, i cant get an excited or anything about biden, vote for him no matter what, all old people do is go out and vote for one reason or another. With less and less conviction, vote for a socialist for a president in the democratic primary. I love that. The primary in new york, i cant even the next question, this is a great question that you brought up, got access to Public Education and how did you put it, how is access to Public Education going to be changed for the disadvantaged. I have been thinking, one thing i have been