It isn’t just the ceremony. Tickets for individual events remain widely available, even for traditionally popular competitions like figure skating, hockey and speed skating. Many of those seats cost hundreds of euros as well. A single evening of skating for in-person viewers can rival the price of a weekend getaway to Walt Disney World. For families, students or average sports fans, attending in person quickly becomes unrealistic.

As a culture, we’re used to tickets for major events being costly. Sports finals from the World Series to the Final Four to this weekend’s Super Bowl always feature high ticket prices, which makes seeing these games as more of a once-in-a-lifetime experience than a regular part of a fan’s life. This explains why ratings for viewing the events online or on television are as high as the ticket prices. “Normal people” can’t afford such luxuries beyond their own living room.

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But this wasn’t always the image of the Games. The Olympics built their cultural power on accessibility, on packed arenas filled with locals, tourists, and everyday fans swept up in a shared moment. Today, that atmosphere is harder to manufacture when so many seats are priced out of reach.

Organizers often point out that large blocks of tickets go to sponsors, partners and hospitality packages before the public ever gets a chance, which is an extremely common practice in major sporting events for the last few decades. What remains is sold at premium rates, aimed largely at wealthy visitors. The result is a two-tier system: a global audience watching from home, and a smaller, more exclusive crowd inside the venue.

High prices also reshape the resale market. Instead of fans scrambling for sold-out events, third-party sites are filled with unsold listings that few people can afford. In some cases, organizers have even turned to late discounts and promotions to avoid visibly empty sections on camera.

Winter Olympics already face challenges like smaller audiences, colder destinations, and fewer headline stars than the summer games. Pricing regular fans out only deepens that problem.

On television, the ceremonies will still sparkle. The performances will impress. The symbolism will be carefully staged. But behind the spectacle is a quieter reality: the Olympics are becoming something you mostly watch, not something you experience.

And that shift says a lot about what global sports culture has become.

The post The Olympics are pricing out their own audience appeared first on Salon.com.

More than 90,000 people are incarcerated in private prisons across the United States, where the purpose of holding them is dominated by an incentive to maximize profit, as with any successful business. Many more people live in federal and state prisons where private contractors often source the food and medical care, or receive easy labor from its inhabitants. The more people Immigration and Customs Enforcement puts behind bars, the better for private prison corporations like GEO Group and CoreCivic — which is why, according to critics, they’ve been eagerly cheering on the Trump deportation agenda.

Among detained persons as a whole, 90,000 is about 8 percent of the total prison population. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, that number jumps to 90 percent among non-citizen immigrants detained by the Department of Homeland Security.

“It is possible that because of fluctuations in how many people are in prison, the government doesn’t want to tie itself to those facilities and those beds and the costs of all that without knowing what the actual prison population is going to be,” said Andrea Pitzer, a journalist and author of a book about concentration camp regimes around the world. “Private prisons are a way for the government to outsource some immediate costs and pay for beds over time.”

Of course, for-profit prison companies aren’t taking the load simply out of charity. Before agreeing to detain people for the government, those companies typically sign contracts with ICE that include “guaranteed minimums” where the government pays for all beds, full or empty. That, combined with congressional appropriations bills that often mandate ICE to maintain around 34,000 detention beds every single day, adds more motivation for ICE field directors to round up as many immigrants as they can, lest they appear ineffective and Congress strips away their funding.

Both Republican and Democratic leaders have largely accommodated this carceral logic. While Congress and state legislatures have passed reform to soften criminal sentencing laws, immigration detention remains, technically, a civil jurisdiction and outside their scope. Inside the facilities, the distinction is meaningless. In private prisons across the country, detained persons are herded through secure checkpoints, forced to wear color-coded uniforms, and locked in cells. CoreCivic facilities in Tennessee have come under repeated scrutiny for allegedly allowing violent threats and extortion to run rampant, with guards accused of being unable or unwilling to stop them. In 2023, after officials at GEO Group-operated Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center ignored a recommendation for his release, immigrant Ernesto Rocha-Cuadra was found dead after repeated allegations of physical abuse, medical neglect, and solitary confinement.

But these stories of abuse and neglect usually only see the light of day under extreme circumstances. The primary difference between public and private prisons, experts told Salon, is that private prisons operate in an even more impenetrable black box than public prisons. Kristie Puckett, a lobbyist who pushes against mass incarceration and the barriers for reentry into society, said that private prisons have “long found success hiding information” about their treatment of people detained in their facilities.

“Private prison companies can justify their non-transparency by saying it’s a proprietor to sensitive information and trade secrets, so it’s harder to get those public records,” she continued. “It’s much harder to enter those facilities to monitor conditions, and when abuse happens, when the company faces a lawsuit, they tend to settle those quietly rather than create any meaningful systemic change. If they decided to just terminate the contract in a certain jurisdiction and walk away from the problem, they can do that rather than fix the problem across the system.”

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Unlike people held under criminal jurisdiction, detained immigrants lack a public defender or any insight into how long they must stay. The opacity can be useful for those at the top: it limits liability and protects the bottom line. Because operational costs eat into a company’s profit, prison managers use the logic of efficiency to lower wages for guards, reduce medical staff, reduce the nutritional content and edibility of meals, and put off the maintenance of facilities. Private prison companies have repeatedly thwarted attempts to break this cycle at the state level. When California attempted to ban for-profit prisons with Assembly Bill 32, the Trump administration and GEO Group sued, successfully arguing in federal court that the state could not interfere with federal “intergovernmental immunity.” GEO Group did not immediately respond to Salon’s request for comment.

Brian Todd, a public affairs manager at CoreCivic, emphasized that the company does not enforce immigration laws, arrest anyone or have any input on an individual’s deportation or release.

“Our responsibility is to care for each person respectfully and humanely while they receive the legal due process that they are entitled to,” Todd told Salon in an email. “Our facilities are subject to multiple layers of oversight and are monitored very closely by our government partners to ensure full compliance with policies and procedures, including any applicable detention standards. We also have our own detailed Human Rights Policy that clearly outlines our commitments regarding detainee rights and treatment, including legal rights, safety and security, healthcare, visitation and standards of living.  We don’t cut corners on care, staff, or training, which meets, and in many cases exceeds, our government partners’ standards.”

Todd added that CoreCivic maintains “an open line of communication” with DHS and ICE officials about “the resources we can make available, beyond those we currently provide, and that “our facilities are contractually required to uphold rigorous federal immigration detention standards, which is a higher standard than some other facilities are required to meet.”

Under a longstanding policy, the company does not “lobby for or against policies or legislation that would determine the basis for or duration of an individual’s incarceration or detention,” Todd noted. According to CoreCivic’s 2023 Political Activity and Lobbying Report, it does “educate federal, state and local officials on the benefits of partnership corrections,” and “make political contributions where allowed by law and where
management has determined that such contributions will be an effective use of the funds.” Critics say that those activities essentially have the same effect. And CoreCivic leaders are certainly conscious of the link between increased detention and shareholder profits, having declared as much in quarterly financial reports.

“The private prison industry and the federal government are feeding off each other,” Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director at the Detention Watch Center, told Salon. “The government wants to detain more people so it contracts more private prisons, and the companies that own private prisons or are contracted to work in state and federal prisons lobby for long prison sentences, against parole reform, and for building more prisons.”

It’s clear the Trump administration is still expanding its mass detention project, which equals profits for those in this industry. In December 2025, the administration signed a $140 million contract with Boeing to buy planes for deportations. Thousands more ICE and Border Patrol agents are being recruited, with others offered $50,000 signing bonuses to come out of retirement. And $45 billion in taxpayer money has been earmarked for the construction of even more detention centers, thanks to a budget reconciliation bill passed last summer. Given how few companies exist in this industry, analysts predict most of them will likely be run by GEO Group and CoreCivic.

Under public pressure, the Biden administration ordered the phasing out of private prison contracts under the Department of Justice’s Federal Bureau of Prisons, but allowed the Department of Homeland Security to continue outsourcing incarceration to corporate giants like GEO Group and CoreCivic. Groups like those have eagerly embraced the Trump administration’s mass incarceration of immigrants, pouring money into pro-Trump Super PACs during his three election campaigns and working closely with federal officials on building a “much more aggressive” policy framework.

Smelling opportunity and anticipating an escalation in anti-immigrant raids, private prison companies quickly converted facilities that had held people charged under criminal law into mass indefinite holding centers for immigrants even before Trump started his second term. After President Joe Biden’s executive order, GEO Group rushed to convert Moshannon Valley Processing Center from a private prison to an immigration detention facility, now the largest immigration facility in the Northeast. According to a 2024 report from Temple University, GEO Group earns $3.4 million each month from this facility alone.

On earnings calls, prison executives have described upticks in border crossings not as a humanitarian reality or even a problem in need of fixing, but as “tailwinds” for their business. In the same way that the dehumanization of whole groups of people as a “problem” has been used to justify an authoritarian state, its need to imprison them has been used to justify the existence of private prisons. Critics charge this is treating people’s liberties as mere commodities.

“An alliance of an unethical, immoral governance, with business who both see opportunity in stripping people’s rights — literally hooking business in and contractors to be providing those [prison] beds — is one of the recipes for how you get to police states and authoritarian regimes,” Pitzer said. “And even if there’s impetus for reform, the outsourcing of repression, the existence of prison infrastructure that can be activated or converted, makes it much harder to reform and much harder to get rid of entirely.”

The post Private prisons are cashing in on Trump’s ICE crackdown. They’re just getting started appeared first on Salon.com.

Trump offered attendees to sign painting if they wanted. Proceeds from the auction were designated for charitable causes, including St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Palm Beach County sheriff’s office. Photographs from the event show Trump standing alongside the artist and the winning bidder as the crowd applauded the high-stakes sale.

The auction represents a continuation of Trump’s longstanding blending of politics, spectacle and religious imagery. Past events have featured Bibles, religious-themed campaign materials and other collectibles, signaling the former president’s ability to dominate media attention with objects that straddle faith and branding.

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Observers note that such auctions highlight the unique intersection of celebrity, religion and fundraising in modern American politics. The live-painting aspect in particular amplified the performative nature of the event, turning the creation of a single artwork into a spectacle and signaling Trump’s ongoing engagement with loyal supporters through symbolic gestures.

While critics have questioned the commercialization of religious imagery in political contexts, supporters view the auction as a celebration of shared faith and culture. For Trump, the event underscores his enduring media influence and his ability to command attention across multiple platforms, even outside traditional governance settings.

The post $2.75M for Jesus: Trump auctions live-painted portrait appeared first on Salon.com.

“It’s caused a great amount of uncertainty,” Lilienthal told Salon in a phone interview. “It has definitely upped the anxiety levels around here, the stress levels … It’s been a real burden on pretty much everything right now.”

During the 43-day long government shutdown, Democrats kept pushing to include an extension of the Obamacare subsidies in a spending package to reopen the government. However, eight Democrats sided with Republicans to end the record-breaking shutdown. President Donald Trump signed the spending bill into law without the health care measures, leaving potentially millions to go without health care in 2026 or face astronomical costs. An estimated 24.3 million Americans are insured through ACA plans and an estimated 92 percent receive some form of subsidy, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The ACA subsidies will end in December. 31, 2025, though some lawmakers are looking for solutions.

Lilienthal isn’t alone in his anxiety, and it’s not just the loss of ACA subsidies if nothing changes. This week, a new West Health-Gallup study found that Americans are going into 2026 more anxious about health care costs than in previous years. The survey, which has been conducted annually since 2021, was based on roughly 20,000 people across the country who were surveyed between June and August of this year, before the government shutdown. They were asked 27 questions about their health care experiences. Almost 50 percent of adults surveyed said they were worried they wouldn’t be able to afford health care in 2026. In the survey, one in five adults said that someone in their household was unable to afford a prescription in the past three months. An estimated 30 percent of those surveyed said a household member had skipped medical treatment due to cost being a barrier.

Alaina Shearer, an owner of a boutique ad agency called Good Now, told Salon that while she won’t be directly affected by ACA subsidies as she doesn’t receive them, she is considering going without health care for the first time in her adult life. Currently, the plan she is on for a family of four will increase from $1,295 a month to $1,695 in 2026 — but the coverage they have is not great. In fact, the deductible is $20,000, which means they have to pay for prescriptions and every medical screening. She estimates that they pay an average of $400 a month for copays and prescriptions. The “better” plan she is considering for next year, with a $7,000 deductible, is $2,300 each month.

“I have been exploring, asking my local son’s doctor, like, what would it be if we just come in on a cash basis?” she said. “But if an emergency happens, or one of us gets diagnosed with cancer or something, it’s terrifying to think about what would happen.”

Shearer has owned her business since 2009. Back then, she paid $350 for her family’s health insurance.

“It’s hard not to think of myself as failing my family and my kids,” Shearer said. “We’ve never gone without health insurance, the thought of that alone just makes me feel like I’m failing my family somehow — but then I remind myself, this is bigger than us.”

The United States is the only high-income country that doesn’t have universal health care. While high-income countries tend to spend more per person on health care than lower-income countries, the U.S. spends far more per person on health care. And yet, it has the lowest life expectancy among large, wealthy countries.

Munira Z. Gunja, a senior researcher in the Commonwealth Fund’s Promoting International Learning and Exchange program, told Salon in a phone interview that health care is so expensive in the United States for a variety of reasons.

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“The price of services in hospitals can be really, really high,” she said. “For insurance companies, there’s a whole spectrum of services where other people will profit, and the consumer may not see better health outcomes.”

In 2023, an estimated 8 percent of Americans lacked health insurance. Deborah Kevin, a 62-year-old based in Baltimore, Maryland, and a small business owner of Highlander Press, told Salon that going without health care at her age isn’t really optional — but she’s not sure how she’s going to afford next year’s increase. Currently, she pays $365 per month for health insurance through Blue Cross/Blue Shield for her and her husband. It comes with a $6,100 annual deductible. Without ACA subsidies, her premium will jump to nearly $1,600 a month in 2026.

“This increase makes us question what kind of care we’ll actually be able to afford,” Kevin said. “Do we downgrade our coverage and risk higher out-of-pocket expenses if something goes wrong? Do we absorb the cost and slash other areas of our budget?”

Figuring out how to absorb these costs has led to “more than a few sleepless nights,” she said.

“There’s a quiet kind of stress that comes with running your own company: you carry the weight, alone, of every decision — how to care for your clients, your team, your family and yourself,” Kevin said. “This health insurance increase makes that weight even heavier.”

The post Health care costs are skyrocketing. Americans are starting to panic appeared first on Salon.com.

The pandemic-era tax credits for Americans who get coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace originally expired at the end of 2025. The fight over extending these subsidies was the center of the 43-day government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, but eight Democratic senators defected and voted on a continuing resolution without the subsidy extension.

Most Republican lawmakers that voted for the bill aren’t completely on-board. Instead, they argue getting something on the table to amend later is better than nothing. Rep. Mike Lawler of New York said he hopes the Senate will “put forth a reform package that can pass Congress and become law.”

The defecting lawmakers are making it heard that their decision wasn’t taken lightly. “I just want to make this abundantly clear: This is a Democratic piece of legislation. It is absolutely horrific. Now, it is the best alternative to what we have at the moment,” said Rep. Max Miller of Ohio told the Washington Post.

Many of these representatives work in competitive districts, and, ahead of the 2026 midterms, can’t risk the votes of constituents on the ACA marketplace. “Philosophically, I completely disagree with this,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin said to the New York Times. “But I’m not going to leave millions of Americans who truly need health care insurance in the lurch.”

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“House Democrats have made clear that we will find bipartisan common ground with any of our Republican colleagues in order to address the affordability issues that are making life more expensive,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said.

The viability of the bill in the Senate is unclear, with a previous bill failing to meet the filibuster threshold. “We’ve had that vote, as you know, already,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said. “But we’ll see what happens from the working group, and if they can come up with something that has reforms. And we’ll go from there.”

The post House passes bill to renew health care subsidies with rogue Republican support appeared first on Salon.com.

In the Age of Trump, it’s almost as if the American people are contestants on a dystopian gameshow, competing for prizes. As the host, Donald Trump puts his arm around the contestant’s shoulder, points to a box on the stage and bellows, “Show me the money!” Here is a hint: You most certainly do not want what is in that box.

The newest prize Trump is dangling before the American people is a $2,000 tariff dividend check.

“People that are against Tariffs are FOOLS!” he said in a Nov. 9 Truth Social post. “A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.”

A week later, he told reporters, “We’re going to be issuing dividends later on, somewhere prior to, you know, probably the middle of next year, a little bit later than that. Thousands of dollars for individuals of moderate income, middle income.” 

Trump has been making these promises for weeks. He’s now attaching a timeline to them. Tellingly, Trump’s tariff rebate checks will be doled out just before the 2026 midterms — and will almost certainly feature his face and signature, along with an accompanying letter of congratulations. But promises are one thing; economic reality is another.

To little effect, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has tried to walk back and qualify Trump’s promises of checks, which would likely require congressional approval. There is also growing concern and opposition among Senate Republicans, who prefer the money be used to reduce the federal deficit. 

Economists have warned that Trump’s tariffs have not raised enough money to fund his promised checks. The non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that there may only be enough money to pay for about half of the 600 billion dollars that would be needed for his scheme.

The tariff check is only the first shiny prize in Trump’s game show. He is also promising other forms of free money.

Instead of extending the tax subsidies that have helped tens of millions of Americans to purchase health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, Republicans now want to give cash payments directly to the public so that they can buy their own health insurance — policies that would likely have very high deductibles and offer thin benefits. 

The real goal is to gut the Affordable Care Act.

As part of the “Big Vile Bill” that he signed into law in July, Trump and MAGA Republicans created their own version of baby bonds, which they have dubbed “Trump Accounts,” where parents can invest up to $5,000 a year into a tax-free investment account for their children until they reach 18 years of age. The federal government will provide the initial $1,000 grant for children born after Dec. 31, 2024, and before Jan. 1, 2029. These accounts stand to primarily benefit wealthy families, who have more disposable income to contribute to such plans, as well as other methods of leveraging them for maximum gain.

These spectacles and political gameshow-like ploys and shiny objects distract from the brutal economic realities facing everyday Americans.

Chuck Collins, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., and author of the new book “Burned by Billionaires: How Concentrated Wealth and Power are Ruining Our Lives and Planet,” explained that Trump’s tariff checks are just another example of him as the ultimate showman. 

“Facing mounting challenges and plummeting popularity, Trump is serving up distracting, alluring prizes and ‘tariff dividend checks’ in true carnival barker fashion,” he said. “While the stock market booms for the wealthy, U.S. working families are still suffering from stagnant wages, layoffs, and rising costs for groceries, housing, health care and other basics.”

Collins pointed out that with millions of families living paycheck to paycheck, the “billionaires [and] thousandaires” should be assuming more of the burden. “After nine months of economic chaos and pro-billionaire government policies,” he noted, “what our country truly needs is a steady and predictable economic policy, a restoration of progressive taxes on the extremely wealthy, and protections against political grifting and self-dealing.” 

Public opinion polls support Collins’ position. A majority of Americans favor policies that raise the minimum wage, strengthen the middle class, protect unions, address the housing crisis, expand access to affordable healthcare and make the rich and corporations pay their fair share of taxes.

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Trump’s free money is not an act of benevolence or generosity; it is a product of a culture of cruelty and hollowed-out American democracy that rests upon a much deeper moral crisis.

“Trump’s game show-style giveaways…are not policy responses,” Henry Giroux, a social theorist, said. “What masquerades as generosity is simply gangster capitalism transformed into the politics of disposability in its purest form: The state is hollowed out, social rights vanish and people are thrown back onto the market, grateful for whatever crumbs of short-term relief fall from above.”

The long-term damage wrought by Trump’s game show politics, Giroux said, will be lasting. “They teach Americans to see themselves not as citizens entitled to social protections, but as contestants in a cruel lottery where survival hinges on loyalty to the leader rather than the strength of democratic institutions.”

Voters across the country are demanding meaningful change, but party leaders seem unable or unwilling to respond to their cries. Democrats, in response to the administration’s shock-and-awe assault, are now trying to craft a winning political strategy centered on “affordability.”

But Norman Solomon, co-founder of RootsAction and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, is not convinced that affordability will address the deeper systemic and institutional forces that are causing so much economic pain.

“What’s needed — and missing — is a coherent response from Democratic politicians,” he said. “What we mostly get instead is partisan sniping. Few prominent Democrats on the national stage are willing to clearly denounce the culprits for the reality that rents and so much else are too damn high — because corporations get away with routine price-gouging while the government does nothing to stop it.”

Since at least the 1980s, the American people have been conditioned to accept a neoliberal gangster-capitalist regime of permanent economic precarity and extreme wealth as normal, the price of liberty and freedom. In reality, this destruction of the American Dream and middle class was not preordained or somehow natural. It was a choice made by policymakers and other elites.

“No humane society forces its citizens to drown themselves in debt just to pay for the basics, and no humane society tells people that they will never be able to have a decent middle-class lifestyle no matter how hard they work,” explained A. Mechele Dickerson, University of Texas Law School professor and author of the new book “The Middle-Class New Deal.”

The crisis is dire: The average American does not have $1,000 for an emergency. Ultimately, when asked to choose between a so-called democracy where they don’t feel very free and the prospect of getting thousands of dollars in supposedly free money from Donald Trump, too many Americans will likely choose the second option.

Put another way: Trump is basically trying to buy votes.

His calculation is a sound one: Research suggests that many low-information and independent voters backed Trump in 2024, at least in part, because they believed a rumor that he would give them an additional stimulus check.

Given the worsening economy and how the American Dream is now a luxury that is out of reach for most Americans, Donald Trump’s newest hustle may yet prove successful.

In that scenario, he won’t need to lie, cheat or steal to win a third term in office.

Instead, Donald Trump will simply promise to make it rain money if his contestants put him back in the White House.

The post Trump’s $2,000 tariff checks are his latest hustle appeared first on Salon.com.

The 25-year run of “Dykes to Watch Out For” followed a group of Sapphic pals and partners whose relationship and interactions seemed to reflect an author in conversation with several possible selves, squabbling and brooding over whose worldview was the right one. Mo, the strip’s main character, was Bechdel’s closest avatar, a self-serious proto-doomer whose fealty to living correctly both as a human and a lesbian put her at perpetual odds with herself, her friends and the world. Like “Where’s Waldo?” by way of the Vermont Country Store, Mo railed and wailed and gnashed her teeth through the strips, turning every engagement with commerce or politics or popular culture (yep, that Bechdel) into a referendum on her own ethical rightness.

With “Spent,” Bechdel circles back to DTWOF with an officially autofictional twist: It follows a graphic novelist named Alison Bechdel whose bestselling autobiography about growing up with a taxidermist father, “Death and Taxidermy,” has been turned into an Emmy-winning TV show that goes alarmingly off-book with every new season. (“Fun Home,” Bechdel’s first graphic memoir, entwines her own coming-out story with the suicide of her closeted father, a funeral director.) From her home in Vermont, where she and her sunny, self-sufficient life partner, Holly, run a pygmy-goat sanctuary, Alison stews over what she knows is the highest-class of problems: She hates what’s happened to her emotionally nuanced and highly personal book, but she’s also grown used to a life of farmers-market fleur de sel and creme fraiche — and goat chow doesn’t buy itself.

Alison Bechdel’s “Spent” (HarperCollins ). Alison’s next book, about her own fraught relationship to money, isn’t even outlined but is already on the market. When Alison hears the amount media conglomerate Megalopub has proposed to pay for it, the guilt sends her into an agitated writer’s block shot through with guilt and self-righteousness, made worse by daily bouts of bingeing the news. Holly’s sudden social-media fame as a wood-splitting DIY farm fatale sends Alison into full freakout mode: Maybe she shouldn’t hole up in her studio and write the next book. Maybe she has a duty to use her financial privilege for good — say, in the form of an anticapitalist reality TV show in which she guides consumers away from the jam-packed marketplace of modern life and toward minimal, mindful consumption.

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The consumer critique of “Spent” is one that punches primarily sideways, highlighting how readily Alison betrays her own high ethical and political standards and how reflexively she uses an intellectual gloss to rationalize the betrayals. A gag early in the book has Alison step outside to take in the fresh autumn air and promptly trip over a pile of newly delivered Amazon parcels; as she considers a single toilet brush, “Spent”’s narrator intones, “Where had [Alison’s] youthful idealism gone? Precisely when had her moral erosion begun?” The question brings to mind not only the idealistic young queers of DTWOF, but also the real-life young bookstore employee who, when told that the strip had been adapted as an Audible series with a cast of modern lesbian icons, said she wasn’t planning to listen because “Audible is owned by Amazon . . . I don’t really mess with Amazon. I think that a lot of queer people relate to that.”

Running queasily through the book is Alison’s realization that the more stuff you have, the more you must do to maintain that stuff — and the more that maintenance becomes the work of your life. Holly’s online fame, for instance, results in daily FedEx deliveries from companies seeking a shoutout in her videos, but also leads to a growing preoccupation with monitoring her engagement numbers. Bechdel contrasts the Alisons of present and past by bringing back some of the old DTWOF crew, still loyal to the work of social justice and still living communally — a challenge, thanks to remote work and a couple that’s becoming a throuple. Materially, the housemates’ lives lack the expansiveness and bougie decadence of Alison and Holly’s, but there’s a warmth to the visual depiction of their homey chaos that doesn’t extend to the static artist, pictured alone in a yawning studio space, doomscrolling under the taxidermied head of an enormous moose.

This would all be meta enough, but “Spent’ throws yet another mirror into the mix with Alison’s resentful, Trump-pilled sister, Sheila. Also an artist — her medium is seeds — Sheila has written a counter-memoir that tells her own story of death and taxidermy and demands that Alison edit it. Sheila’s memories are so different from her own that Alison is certain the memoir is bogus; the idea that her sister’s story could simply be different than hers doesn’t seem to cross her mind. Arriving in Los Angeles to pitch the half-baked reality show, she takes the opportunity to lobby “Death and Taxidermy”’s showrunner, unsuccessfully, to rethink the cannibalism and dragons now written into it. (“Alison, it’s called magical realism! And you know as well as I do that when you signed that contract, you gave me the right to use, change, rearrange, adapt, translate, add to, subtract from, and interpolate into the book any elements whatsoever.”)

The struggle to decide just how much of one’s ideals and principles should be compromised in the name of money is up there with the marriage plot and man against nature in eternal literary and pop cultural themes. Both Bechdel and Alison know that they are ideological relics living in a future where selling out has taken on a sepia-toned sentimentality and dodging the tentacles of commerce is a losing game. They also know that the artist, musician, activist or politician who relinquishes their soul to the highest bidder has never been a villain; a righteous refusal to sell out is a stance only made possible by privilege.

By the end of the book, Alison has given up both her distracted attempts to read Marx’s “Capital” and her ego-driven belief that she can somehow stop the Earth from becoming a planet-sized shopping destination. “Spent”’s takeaway isn’t that she, and we, shouldn’t even try; the book’s ending instead suggests that Alison needed that journey to the belly of the showbiz beast to redirect her anxious mind — and that she needs her community so she can stay out of her own head and in the imperfect but joyous life she’s created.

The audiobook edition of Alison Bechdel’s “Spent” comes out on July 15.

The post Alison Bechdel faces her sellout fears appeared first on Salon.com.

“We find that in counties with the largest Medicaid losses, there were the sharpest declines in voter turnout in the gubernatorial election following the cuts,” Jamila Michener, who co-authored the research, told Salon. Specifically, counties with larger Medicaid enrollment declines saw larger decreases in voter turnout between 2002 and 2006.

“The main takeaway is that large-scale loss of public benefits can be demobilizing, just as large-scale gains can be mobilizing,” said Michener, who is an associate professor of government at Cornell University, where she studies poverty, racial inequality and public policy.

Today, the United States is in the middle of a crisis as a result of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. The ongoing shutdown meant SNAP benefits were bound to lapse. Most recently, the Trump administration said it would partially fund the federal assistance program following a court order. Still, this would leave millions of low-income Americans without their full food assistance benefits.

Research published on Nov. 7 in the journal Pediatrics showed even children with SNAP benefits are food insecure — particularly those who are older, with public or no insurance, with special health care needs, and from lower-income households. Partially-funded assistance will be harmful for many families. And it’s not just SNAP that’s faced an uncertain future. Since the Trump Administration has taken office, other publicly funded programs like Medicaid have been on shaky ground as well.

Michener said that losing food benefits is not only a crisis in itself, but it can lead to other crises. For example, if a family has to re-route money that would have been used to pay rent or insurance to pay for food, that could risk a family facing eviction or losing health insurance.

“Crises tend to cascade and compound,” Michener said. “As this happens, people are less likely to vote.”

There are important exceptions, she said. For example, when there’s a personal crisis, it can boost political participation “in the context of high political saliency and clarity of perceived responsibility,” citing research in the journal Political Behavior.

Indeed, some crises — like natural disasters — can mobilize people to take action in the immediate aftermath. Sociologists refer to a community coming together in the wake of a crisis as “bounded solidarity” because people are bound by the crisis. Alejandro Portes, a prominent sociologist at Princeton University, first introduced the term in a paper published in The Annual Review of Sociology in 1998.

“It is a source of social capital that is elicited by providing people feeling a sense of communality or loyalty with others in their own particular community,” he told me in a phone interview for my book “Your Brain on Altruism.” It briefly causes people to see themselves as a collective, not as individuals and can create a different kind of solidarity than what exists in non-crisis times. But that usually fades over time.

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It’s possible, Michener said, that a looming loss of SNAP benefits could have actually motivated people to vote in the Nov. 4 elections because the full effects hadn’t been felt yet.

“A direct loss of resources can sometimes dampen political participation, but since most people haven’t felt those losses for very long at this point, that is not likely for yesterday’s election,” Michener told Salon, after the election. “Instead, the threat of losing food support creates a crisis for many people, and the salience of the issue could have motivated them to vote in response.”

But overall, chipping away at public benefits harms democracy and can lead to a decline in voter turnout.

“Public benefit losses politically demobilize and demoralize low-income Americans — the very people who already struggle to have voice and influence in politics, and the people who have the most at stake in holding elected officials accountable,” Michener said. “This puts all of democracy on shakier ground; no matter which party ‘wins,’ democracy loses.”

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A refusal to fund SNAP benefits, despite court orders, leaving 42 million Americans hungry; a desire to get unhoused people out of sight and out of mind; a likely 53% income tax increase for people who make $15,000 or less; a willy-nilly tariff policy that raises prices for all American consumers, costing the average household thousands a year — just for starters, as U.S. trading partners organize to cut America out of the equation as much as possible.

I’m old enough to remember Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, and I can tell you that those Christian-like efforts have been turned on their head to become Donald Trump’s anti-Christian War on the Poor.

It reminds one of how Charles Dickens, in response to Britain’s 19th-century Poor Law, an amendment to earlier poor laws, that required the poor to live in purposely unpleasant workhouses, wrote “Oliver Twist.”

Trump’s Big Brutal Bill amounted to nothing more than the rich taking more from the poor and working class. Republicans will never stop insisting, against all evidence, that giving tax breaks to the wealthy and big corporations results in economic growth, when what actually helps the economy is to help poor and working people (perhaps especially the working poor). Each dollar of SNAP benefits distributed is worth $1.50 to $1.80 to the economy, helping not only employees at grocery stores but also rippling along the food distribution supply chain to truckers, warehouse workers and farmers.

But Trump and MAGA know nothing about any multiplier effect; they know only how to divide. Remember, Trump only recently learned the words “groceries” and “affordability,” so with him it’s best to stick with Gilded Age–era economic terms. After all, “tariff” remains the most beautiful word in Trump’s paltry lexicon (along with “frankly” and “me”).

If members of the Trump administration were led by open minds instead of the rigid ideology spelled out in Project 2025, they might understand that SNAP benefits as economic boosters and a bulwark against recession. But, as financial and economics writer Morgan Harman notes in a succinct essay, the benefits of feeding the hungry go far beyond the obvious immediate economic ones:

When children eat adequately, they perform better in school. When working families don’t choose between food and rent, they maintain stable housing and employment. When seniors afford proper nutrition, they face fewer health crises. These human outcomes have economic dimensions, but they matter first because they’re the right thing to do.

In the aftermath of the murder of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska, by a homeless and mentally ill man in Charlotte, North Carolina, “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade mused that mentally ill unhoused people should be euthanized if they refuse treatment. (He apologized, but faced on consequences either at Fox News or in society.)

How about the Republicans’ cuts to Medicaid, amounting $1 trillion over the next decade? Medicaid is the federal-state health insurance plan for some 70 million Americans. The defunding will result in hundreds of rural hospitals and clinics closing, hurting everyone, including Trump supporters.

The Republican budget also ties Medicaid benefits to harsher work requirements and does not extend the tax credits for people purchasing health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. The longest government shutdown in history, with Trump refusing any negotiations with Democrats, essentially happened so Republicans could ensure that millions of Americans would no longer be able to afford health insurance.

We ought to call those Medicare cuts the Unaffordable Care Act.

Should I list a few more examples of Trump policies that will hurt poor and lower-income Americans?

How about cutting housing assistance to low- and moderate-income families? And eliminating federal support for pre-schools, after-school programs and literacy programs. Killing the jobs created, mostly in rural areas, by the Biden administration’s Infrastructure Act. Gutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created to protect people like you and me from the predatory practices of banks and other financial service companies.

If Trump really thought he might have a chance to get into heaven, he should just read that paragraph again. Truly, the only question he might legitimately have about his fate after shuffling off this mortal coil is which of Dante’s circles of hell he has rightfully earned.

The same flint-hearted philosophies that underwrote the English Poor Law are at work in this country under the Trump administration.

That takes us back to John Dickens, financially ruined by lack of work, who ended up with his family at Marshalsea debtors’ prison, while his 12-year-old son Charles was forced to work in a rat-infested boot-blacking warehouse, an experience that haunted him for the rest of his life. What would Dickens have made of Trump’s recent Gatsby–themed party at Mar-a-Lago while 42 million Americans were cut off from food assistance? Or his statement earlier this month that he didn’t “want to hear about the affordability”?

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Republicans love Christmas more than, well, seemingly anything. They’ve been howling about people saying “Happy holidays” and “Season’s greetings” for decades. Well, perhaps that saying inside a phony gold–encrusted White House Christmas card this year: ought to have a Dickensian touch: “Don’t Talk to Me About Affordability! You’re All Bob Cratchit to Me!”

As Adam Serwer famously wrote in the Atlantic during Trump’s first interminable term, the organizing principle behind the entire MAGA movement is cruelty and hatred of others. There have been numerous variations on “the cruelty is the point” since then, but Serwer’s take remains the original.

We can’t afford to forget the recently-concluded government shutdown amid an onslaught of other news, nor can we forget who played politics with hunger and air traffic safety in America, or who continues working overtime to subvert the rule of law and to crush all economic classes below their multi-millionaire and billionaire bros.

This is indeed a war on the poor, but with Trump’s endless bullying of our historic allies and his illogical trade wars, it’s also a war on the future of all Americans, for generations to come.

Autocrats don’t want healthy, educated citizens who can stand up to them. They want illiterate, groveling serfs, who live in fear and don’t stick around too long. Dickens knew all about that kind of Christian.

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America has long followed suit, featuring the faces of our leaders on our currency, but with an important caveat: They had to be long out of power and in their graves. No monarchy or dictatorship for us; we were hostile to the idea of minting the portrait of a living leader for the very reason Caesar thought it was such a clever idea. Our Constitution meant to ensure that no one person in American life would ever have sole unlimited power. 

In 1877, Congress even passed a law prohibiting it, which says that “only the portrait of deceased individuals may occur on the United States currency and securities.” Even coins that will be minted for the 250th anniversary of the nation have a special section in the code which states, “No coin issued under this subsection may bear the image of a living former or current President, or of any deceased former President during the 2-year period following the date of the death of that President.”

But that was before we had our own Orange Caesar, who believes he can rule by fiat, supported by Republicans in Congress, and then allow the Supreme Court to sort it out, usually in his favor. 

On Oct. 3 it was reported that the Treasury has designed and prepared to mint a new $1 coin with President Donald Trump’s face in honor of the country’s 250th celebration in 2026. The founders would be so proud to know that we made it that far before we finally succumbed to tyranny.

The front of the coin will feature Trump in profile, with his trademark 1967 Las Vegas lounge act hairstyle delineated in fine detail. The back will depict the famous fist pump pose from his 2024 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, along with the words “fight, fight, fight.” 

When images of the new coin were shared on X, U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach replied, “No fake news here. These first drafts honoring America’s 250th Birthday and @POTUS are real. Looking forward to sharing more soon, once the obstructionist shutdown of the United States government is over.” In true Trumpist fashion, there is every reason to believe the administration will go ahead and mint the coins. By the time it’s litigated, the money will already be in circulation — and that will be that.

This is hardly the most important example from the lengthy list of Trump’s abuses of power. But symbols matter, and this one cuts to the very heart of who he is — and what he fancies himself to be. An emperor or king who rules not by the consent of the governed, but by divine right. 

His princely ambitions are hardly new revelations; the signs are everywhere. Trump has decorated the White House to conjure his low-rent version of a European palace, complete with portraits of himself and gilded fixtures — that some intrepid internet sleuths suspect were sourced not from some continental antiques dealer but from the aisles of Home Depot. (As it turns out, there’s one just over three miles away from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.) Work has commenced on a $200 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom, the first known new construction to expand the White House’s footprint since President Theodore Roosevelt had the West Wing added in 1902 and his successor, President William Howard Taft, doubled it in size. Trump has called himself “THE KING” on social media, and in February he even posted on X, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”

This much is clear: The president has no respect for the American anti-monarchical tradition and style, and he seems to lack any real understanding that it’s our fundamental reason for being. 

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The real problem, of course, is that Trump is abusing his power in a manner that is tearing this country apart. His despotic dismissals of the rule of law, in ways both large and small, are creating what many in the GOP have long fantasized: An imperial presidency. This Trumpist fulfillment is largely enabled by a supine Republican Congress and a Supreme Court that is seemingly eager to codify it. He is using every back door, loophole and extreme interpretation of the law to expand executive power and smother the system of checks and balances. And it’s working.

Federal troops are wreaking havoc in the streets, people are being abducted and sent to prison camps — or disappeared entirely — and the military is executing orders to murder foreign civilians on the high seas. The administration is slashing vital services, firing thousands of federal workers and using the power of the state to intimidate and blackmail private institutions from universities to law firms to corporations, and otherwise running roughshod over every aspect of American society. The world economy is dizzy from Trump’s incoherent tariff scheme, while at home he has seized the power of the purse from the Congress to spend the country’s money any way he chooses. He may even succeed in controlling the money supply and the economy if the Supreme Court signs off on it (and if he decides to abide by their decision). So far, little has stopped his quest for possessing the unfettered power of an anointed king. 

The recent state visit to the U.K. where Trump and his entourage once again behaved like crass tourists, actually exposed the plight of the real modern monarch. At the behest of the government seeking to appease the president’s need for flattery, the British royal family was forced to pretend they were happy to host yet another over-the-top extravaganza for a man who bragged he could have succeeded in seducing Prince William’s mother Diana before her death in 1997. On this visit — having taken the measure of the man in the past and realizing his need for the imperial treatment — they deployed the famed Irish and Scottish state coaches to treat Trump to a carriage procession through the grounds of Windsor Castle.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla didn’t do this because they wanted to. (Trump’s anti-climate change agenda is anathema to the famously green king, who reportedly raised the issue with the president both in private and during his remarks at the state banquet. Nevertheless, Charles apparently played “a critical role” in Trump’s shift in favor of Ukraine in its war with Russia, which he announced a few days after returning from the U.K.) The royals were used by the British government as props to curry favor with the man who has an unquenchable thirst for boot-licking from famous, wealthy people. That’s one of their jobs in 2025.

British currency still has the king’s face on it. But over there, long after successive monarchs surrendered their absolute power, it has come to represent tradition, national unity and stability. Over here, it means a return to the tyranny we once fought against. In a way, after 250 years, perhaps they won the war after all.

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The coastal summer vacation has long been a staple of middle-class Americana, but what happens when the tourists go home? What happens when the middle class isn’t so middle anymore, and the people who make those postcard-perfect towns run are left counting the dollars in their wallets — or the cans in their cupboards?

Across the country, the communities that thrive in July are tightening their belts by November. From the South Carolina Lowcountry to the Jersey Shore to the islands of Massachusetts, food banks are seeing year-round workers — teachers, servers, landscapers, fishermen — lining up for help in numbers not seen since the pandemic. The difference now, many say, is that the problem isn’t temporary anymore. 

And with the passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” it’s about to get worse.

The so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” — formally known as HR-1, the federal reconciliation package passed earlier this year — was pitched by lawmakers as a way to “restore fiscal sanity” and “reward work.” But beneath that language, the bill slashed hundreds of millions in funding for the country’s food assistance programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the USDA’s Emergency Food Assistance Program. For the nation’s 200-plus food banks, it’s been described as a perfect storm: federal cuts colliding with a government shutdown, inflation and a cost-of-living crisis that hasn’t let up.

“This isn’t something we can just backfill,” said Cindy Huddleston, a senior policy analyst with the Florida Policy Institute. “Where are they going to get this, potentially more than $1 billion a year to be able to support [SNAP]? Unless the state steps in — and we’ve seen no plan for that — food banks are going to be left picking up the pieces.”

And Huddleston isn’t confident that food banks and other community groups could even afford to pick up that slack. 

Florida’s challenges, she added, are especially sharp in coastal counties, where the cost of a meal is already 47% more than what SNAP allows. “People were already stretching their benefits to the end of the month. Now, they simply won’t make it,” says Huddleston.  

SNAP is an optional program, and there is some worry across Florida that the state could potentially back out completely. Florida was one of 15 states that chose not to participate in SunBucks, a new federal summer meals program designed to help low-income families feed their children when school is out. “That was $120 per child that could have gone directly to families,” Huddleston said. “Instead, the state turned it down.”

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There are nearly one million children in Florida receiving SNAP benefits. Officials argued that existing programs already filled the gap, but Huddleston said that’s misleading. “Most of those programs require transportation, and a lot of families can’t get to a feeding site every day. It’s really only able to serve a small percentage,” she said. “[SunBucks] would have brought hundreds of millions [of dollars] to the state to feed millions of children.”  

Regardless, Huddleston says Florida backing out of SNAP is a worst case scenario and she’s “cautiously optimistic” that lawmakers will realize the importance of these programs. 

“The value of the program and the long term effects, you really can’t understate those things,” she says, “We’re worried because we haven’t seen any planning, and the planning has to begin now. It needed to begin yesterday.”

When the season ends, so do paychecks 

For Nick Osborne, CEO of the Lowcountry Food Bank in South Carolina, the challenge isn’t just size — it’s diversity. His network spans 10 coastal counties, serving both rural and urban communities across the Lowcountry.

Osborne says the landscape of Lowcountry has changed a lot in the past five years with many, often wealthy, people from the North moving down South for lower cost of living. 

“In many senses, that’s brought wealth into the area but it’s also created some displacement,” says Osborne, “House prices, cost of living have gone up especially along the coast in more sort-of touristy places, so that’s created a dynamic as well and put pressure on people living there.” 

One of the biggest issues facing the Lowcountry Food Bank is the vast differences between their service areas. 

“During the height of the tourism season, there are a lot of people that are dependent on the hospitality industry, but then in the off season that then creates a challenge because obviously those jobs are no longer there so you see a fluctuation trend in terms of food insecurity,” says Osborne, “If you go to the southern part of our service area, which is more rural, that’s more sort of generational poverty but they’ve also got seasonality with the farming system.”

He says the Gullah Farm Community has a deep-rooted history of farming on the Southern Coast, and they’re being heavily impacted not just by farming cycles, but also by developers trying to build on their lands. When harvests slow, so do paychecks — leaving agricultural workers just as vulnerable as those who depend on tourism.

In Horry County, which includes Myrtle Beach, he said the food bank sees a clear pattern: when the tourist season ends, need spikes. “During the summer, food insecurity is around 11%,” Osborne said. “In the off-season, that can climb closer to 20%.”

The Lowcountry Food Bank’s response has been to meet communities where they are, literally: mobile distribution sites, refrigerated trucks, and partnerships with local farms help get food into areas where traditional pantries are out of reach. But Osborne said those efforts can’t fully make up for the loss of federal aid. “When SNAP is cut, we see an immediate increase in demand,” he said. “Us at the Food Bank, we have to fill that gap, in a context where costs are already going up and the resource access we have is getting lower.”

New Jersey’s shoreline: Living at the edge of wealth 

At the Community Food Bank of New Jersey (CFBNJ), CEO Elizabeth McCarthy said that as soon as the summer crowds leave, the phones start ringing. “We see an uptick at all of our pantries,” she says, “Anywhere from 10 to 20% increase very quickly after the season ends.”

New Jersey is home to some of the wealthiest zip codes in the country — and some of the hungriest.  

Over 1 million people in New Jersey report being food insecure, and many of them live in food deserts, an area with limited access to affordable, nutritious food. There are 50 food desert communities across New Jersey, including densely populated cities like Trenton and Atlantic City. McCarthy says Atlantic City doesn’t even have a “full grocery store,” most residents rely on bodegas or smaller markets for grocery shopping. Earlier this year, a $30 million grant program was approved by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority to combat food insecurity, but will it be enough to combat an exponentially increasing issue or will it just be another Band-Aid on these evolving problems? 

The food bank puts a lot of resources into mobile pantries or farm-to-pantry initiatives that get fresh produce into these food desert communities. With the proposed HR-1 cuts not only are these programs at risk, but the small businesses where SNAP users currently shop will be impacted as well. SNAP users are crucial for the small-business economy. For every dollar spent with SNAP benefits, the USDA says the U.S. gross domestic product increases by $1.54. That increase could support nearly 14,000 additional jobs annually. 

“I think we’re going to see, especially smaller grocery stores, or grocery stores that are in areas with a concentrated level of poverty, we will see places closing down,” says McCarthy. 

Food insecurity in New Jersey has increased 65% since the height of the Covid pandemic. Of the over a million people who are food insecure, 45% are above the SNAP threshold and may not qualify for benefits. 

“They’re consistently facing, kind of the lack of predictability of their work and therefore their income, so for a lot of people, that also affects where they can live.”

McCarthy says it’s a very “transient population” in the beach towns, especially the south shore. A lot of people live in motels throughout the year, but when rates go up in the summer, they can’t afford it anymore. Many are forced to move to the streets until the rates go down again.

Ali Stefanik, Assistant Director of neighbor experience at CFBNJ, oversees all the direct services out of Egg Harbor Township, which covers Atlantic County, Cape May County, and Cumberland County. 

She said the shift has been striking. “We’re starting to see families or populations who’ve never needed help before,” she said. “People who own seasonal restaurants or work on farms — they had a decent summer, but not enough to carry them through the winter.”

“We have seen skyrocketing numbers of ALICE households across all three of our counties, and this is true of most coastal communities I’ve talked to,” says Stefanik, “Poverty, by federal definitions, might be declining but ALICE households are growing and it’s in two directions.” 

ALICE stands for “Asset-Limited, Income-Constrained, Employed.” These are families who work full-time but still can’t afford basic expenses like food and housing.

Stefanik says individuals and families are climbing just slightly out of the federal poverty level into ALICE status, and large numbers are falling from “not wealthy, but comfortable” into the ALICE threshold. 

Less and less people can afford to go out, which is making the New Jersey summers end sooner, heavily affecting the seasonal economy. “They’re paying all their employees, they paid their bills, but are they going to have enough money to feed their families until they can open again? This is what we’re starting to see more and more,” she says. 

Like coastal South Carolina, New Jersey has an extremely varied population — from dense urban centers to vast rural farmlands — in a very small land area. The seasonal workers are some of the most at-risk with the HR-1 bill because new work requirements may make them ineligible for benefits in the off-season. 

“Other states have this too, but for us, it’s such a concentrated area. We have incredibly rural areas. We have lots of suburban areas. We have very densely populated urban areas,” says McCarthy, “We need lots of different responses to the problem, there is no one size fits all for what we have.”

At the same time, the cost of running food banks has skyrocketed. McCarthy says their federal food allotment is down 35%. “We’re really looking internally to see if there is anything we can do to become more efficient, to make sure that we’re operating as close to the margin as we can and just put our funds toward purchasing food.”

McCarthy says they’ve told partners that they won’t cut any food distribution for now, but as demand starts increasing, there’s an increased pressure and need to purchase more food to meet that demand. The food bank might not be able to raise the funds to cover that gap. 

Stefanik says the current distribution at the food bank is around 90 million meals annually across the state. If the HR-1 cuts proceed, that distribution budget would have to double to 180 million meals.

“There’s no way we can do that,” she says, “We’re really well supported, our supporters are incredibly generous, but there’s no way we can come up with another 90 million.”

Unfortunately, that means either less food for the people they’re serving or less reach for some harder to access communities. CFBNJ puts a lot of work into reaching as many people as possible through programs like mobile pantries, refrigerated lockers, and even home delivery. These programs may have to stop or be dramatically reduced soon. 

“Realistically, we’re never going to recover if these SNAP changes stay the same as they are in the bill right now,” says Stefanik, “We’re just gonna get worse and worse and it’s gonna be harder for us to bounce back.” 

“Lunch for two at a deli costs $75” 

On Nantucket, where the median home price hovers around $2.3 million, even teachers, nurses and Coast Guard members struggle to afford groceries. Nearly half of the island’s public school students qualify for free or reduced lunch, and the local food pantry reports record demand every fall.

A recent Boston Magazine story described the contradiction well: “It’s a place where lunch for two at a deli costs $75, yet residents working two or three jobs still can’t make ends meet.”

That same paradox plays out in coastal communities nationwide. Tourists see abundance — the beach houses, the boutiques, the seafood shacks — but the year-round population lives in an entirely different economy.

“New Jersey is thought of as a wealthy state, people don’t always expect that there’s food insecurity,” says McCarthy, “I think people don’t understand just how many people live close to the edge and can’t withstand an emergency.” 

Priced out of paradise 

On the opposite ocean, there’s another island struggling with an affordability crisis. In Maui, the housing market is so inflated that even lifelong locals are being pushed off the island. “You’ve got billion-dollar homes right next to older, local homes,” said Brandi Saragosa, chief operating officer of the Maui Food Bank. “We call it ‘being priced out of paradise.’”

For Saragosa, the phrase isn’t a slogan — it’s lived experience. She and her three sisters once shared a six-bedroom house with their families, a multigenerational solution to Maui’s steep housing costs. “It’s just getting too expensive,” she said. “Minimum wage is now $12, but to buy a two-bedroom home is $900,000.”

When Covid hit, and again after the 2023 Maui wildfires, everything changed. “Everyone was unemployed because tourism is the main money generator for our islands,” she said, “You saw food banks having to feed the need, which felt impossible. We saw lines as long as 700 cars per distribution in each district.”

That sudden spike forced many residents to confront just how fragile the island’s food system had become. “It was alarming, but I think our community needed to see that and realize that we need to start looking inward.” 

Saragosa says that Hawaii’s food is 80 to 85% imported goods. This is a stat she personally has worked tirelessly to change. “We’re refocusing our energy to help sustain local farmers.” Saragosa said. They’ve created budgets and programs specifically to get local food into the food banks. Last fiscal year, they were able to send $1.1 million back to local growers. 

If Hawaii is less reliant on imports, that helps fuel the local economy, encourage local farming and growing, and protects the community when natural disasters could potentially destroy critical ports.

That strategy — keeping food and money local — has become central to the food bank’s philosophy. “We try to keep our money on island,” she said. “I truly believe it’s the high cost of living and the locals are being priced out of a place they’ve lived for generations.”

When the fires struck, food banks across the state had to join forces. “To take care of that scale, it was way too big for us,” she said. “You saw people using personal boats coming across the water to bring fuel and supplies. And that was all uncoordinated, it was just a rise of people helping the community.” 

She says that the unwavering community support and rise in awareness is part of what makes Hawaii so special, however, families still aren’t recovered. Many are still living in temporary housing sites. The food bank has developed mobile pantry programs to serve those groups, but this isn’t a viable long term solution. “We’re challenged with how we’re going to keep up this pace for a long time, because we don’t see anything changing legislatively,” she said, “This is a problem that’s not going to go away, but get worse.” 

Even a big Band-Aid can’t stop the bleeding 

Saragosa’s concern echoes what many food bank leaders across the country are saying: the crisis isn’t just about hunger, but policy. “Any cuts are not good.” She says a large percentage of Maui Food Bank’s distribution is from The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). “My first thought is how do we make up for that?” 

In response, the food bank has begun inviting local and state officials to see the problem firsthand. “The best way you can show anyone anything is to let them experience it,” she said. “Invite them to see our distributors, meet those families. If someone’s willing to take the time to do that, they will feel something, because that’s what we feel every day for these families.”

Maui’s government has shown interest — creating a Farm to Food Bank Fund — but Saragosa said the program’s reach falls far short. “The amount at the end of the day,” she said. “It’s only enough for us to source for maybe two days.”

That’s why she and her team have begun engaging in policy discussions through groups like the Hawaii Food Alliance. “We’re at these tables and discussions because we need to start making a change at that level — at least our state government level, and even our federal level — but at this point it doesn’t look very promising.”

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Saragosa said it feels daunting but necessary. “It feels like such a huge job, it’s overwhelming, but we’ve got to start with policy. We want to implement policies that truly help now and the next generation.”

The bank has recently launched educational programs to teach residents about business, local food systems, career paths, and how to become farmers themselves.

“We’re thinking of ourselves as this really big Band-Aid,” she said, “but we need to do more to stop the bleeding.”

A national reckoning for food banks 

Across the country, people are worried about what HR-1 cuts will do to their state’s already vulnerable communities. 

In Florida, Huddleston says she’s most worried for the immigrant community, many of whom are employed in agricultural hotspots like Miami Dade and Palm Beach. The expanded SNAP work requirements put all farmers who experience periods of unemployment between growing seasons at. 

“We rely on them, especially these local communities and their local economies, to get this job done. So we need to make sure that they don’t lose their food assistance,” she said. 

Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released a memo saying that states had until November 1 to start enacting the new SNAP work requirements. In a statement on October 4, The Food Resource and Action Center called this mandate “unreasonable,” saying, “All of this will lead to unnecessary chaos and confusion in the midst of widespread uncertainty, record inflation, and a government shutdown.”

On top of losing their food assistance, Huddleston says that many legal immigrants are worried about losing their immigration status as well, especially after the chaos following changes to H1-B visas earlier this month.  

In New Jersey, McCarthy worries about balancing the state’s wealthy reputation with the reality of the situation. They need to continue meeting all vulnerable groups in the ways that are best for them and do their best to decrease hunger and food insecurity while simultaneously dealing with tighter budgets, rising costs, and fewer resources. 

“It’s definitely harder to figure out the best responses [in a transient community],” says McCarthy, “Especially, if someone has diabetes or high blood pressure, that moving around and living in different places definitely has an impact on health.”

CFBNJ recently conducted a study tracking patients with diabetes and found that once they learned about food and how to eat for their disease, their missed work days dramatically decreased.  

“[If the cuts proceed as planned], people won’t be as healthy,” McCarthy said. “This program has been evaluated. It’s proven to work, and when people aren’t healthy, they can’t go to school or they can’t focus in school, for kids, or they can’t go to work.”

CFBNJ has already had to eliminate its nutrition education program due to funding losses, laying off about 30 staff members.

“Their job was to be in the community teaching people how to eat healthy food,” she said. “It was a great program. It was not only beneficial to those people’s lives that they were healthier, but even financially. I mean, the health care costs that you save down the road has been proven time and time again.”

Food insecurity rarely exists in isolation, McCarthy said. What pantries need now is a more “holistic response.” When food banks can pair families with social workers, she said, more than half of participants are off pantry lines within four to six months.

“If someone can actually meet with a family to help understand why they’re at the pantry and help them navigate that, we really see a difference,” she said. “Getting people food for today is incredibly important, but really looking at those longer term solutions is what we all need in the long run.”

Down the shore, Stefanik’s biggest concern is the rising cost of living and limited housing.

“In the summer, a lot of places will add a tourist tax. There’s no ‘locals discount’ at the grocery store,” she said. “And then wages aren’t keeping up with the costs, and the third thing that’s pretty unique about living down here is not just the cost of housing, but the fact that there’s no housing available.”

She said being able to rise out of the ALICE threshold often comes down to salaries, stability, and wage growth. Many residents in New Jersey’s southern counties are hourly workers, and even with a high minimum wage, the cost of living remains out of reach.

“The majority of properties sit empty for most of the year. The locals can’t secure housing to begin with, and then if they can, the cost to do so is like one of the highest in the country right now,” said Stefanik. “The ability to break into home ownership is almost impossible in the communities that we serve.”

The problem extends beyond New Jersey, she said—across nearly every coastal town, wealth and hardship exist side by side.

“When people think of someone living in poverty, most of us can imagine that, but when you think of an ALICE household — above the threshold but not comfortable — you want to paint a picture of a person that’s not like you because it feels safer, but that’s almost the entire population of people we’re serving,” said Stefanik.

She said one unexpected car repair or hospital bill can easily push families over the edge.

“You look at a place like New Jersey, and our tax dollars are so high, we’re being taxed at such a high rate, like is that really the best that we can do? And why is that the best that we’re doing for our people?” she said.

When crisis becomes the status quo 

In theory, food banks are built to respond to crisis — hurricanes, floods, pandemics. But in many of these places, crisis has become the status quo. Osborne said that in South Carolina, they’re already operating at their limits. “We’re distributing millions of pounds of food every year,” he said. “We’re serving more people than ever before, and it’s still not enough.”

In coastal communities around the country, the refrain is the same: private charity can’t replace public infrastructure. And while communities are adapting — through mobile pantries, food lockers, and expanded delivery programs — innovation can only go so far when the underlying problem is affordability and bad policy.

The story unfolding in America’s coastal towns isn’t just about hunger; it’s about the erosion of stability. The middle-class families who once filled hotels, rental homes, restaurants, and ice cream stands each summer are shrinking in number, while the workers who make those vacations possible can no longer afford to live where they work.

It’s a quiet crisis — one that surfaces every fall when the beaches clear and the storefronts board up. These are communities built on the idea of plenty, now confronting what scarcity really looks like.

For the families lining up at food banks from Hilton Head to Cape May to Maui, the promise of the American coastal dream feels increasingly out of reach. And unless something changes in Washington, the off-season may become the only season that matters.

Update: An earlier version of this story stated that, if the HR-1 cuts proceed, the Community Food Bank of New Jersey would need to double their distribution budget to $180 million; the CFBNJ would actually need to double their distribution budget to cover 180 million meals. The story has been updated to reflect this change. 

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Since its inception in 1978, Ben & Jerry’s has made a name for itself as more than just an ice cream brand. Social justice has long been at the forefront of the brand’s foundation, beginning in the late 1980s with the creation of its Peace Pop and the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation. Under the agreement with Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s would operate as an independent subsidiary, meaning the brand’s employees would be protected and its commitment to social justice would persevere. “Shareholders will be rewarded,” Ben & Jerry’s said in a statement to The New York Times. “Ben & Jerry’s employees will be protected; the current social mission of Ben & Jerry’s will be encouraged and well-funded, which will lead to improved performance in this area, and an opportunity has been offered for Ben & Jerry’s to contribute to Unilever’s social practices worldwide.”

Unilever also agreed to commit 7.5% of Ben & Jerry’s profits to a foundation and not to reduce jobs or change how the ice cream is made. Furthermore, the company agreed to annually contribute $5 million to the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation, create a $5 million fund to help minority-owned businesses and others in poor neighborhoods and distribute $5 million to employees in six months, Perry D. Odak, former chief executive of Ben & Jerry’s, told the Times.

A few months after the merger was finalized, Ben Cohen, co-founder of the brand, expressed concern over the brand’s potential loss of its mission at the hands of Unilever. “Ben & Jerry’s will become just another brand like any other soulless, heartless, spiritless brand out there — that’s my concern,” Cohen told the Associated Press.

“The only way the social mission of Ben & Jerry’s and the heart and soul of the company will be maintained is to have a CEO running the company who has a deep understanding of our values-led social business philosophy, who [has] experience with the company and with how that worked in practice,” Cohen said.

Promises originally made by Unilever were also, seemingly, being broken. Unilever had backed out of creating the $5 million fund, a decision that upset Cohen. And agreements for Unilever to continue encouraging Ben & Jerry’s social agenda weren’t actually legally binding — a shocking revelation that Cohen said he had only learned after the sale.

Tensions between Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever reportedly peaked in 2021, when the former announced that it would no longer sell its ice cream in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), which included the West Bank and East Jerusalem, because “it is inconsistent with our values.” The following year, Ben & Jerry’s sued Unilever for breaching its 2000 merger agreement and allowing for the marketing and sales of the brand’s ice cream in Israel. In 2024, Ben & Jerry’s filed yet another suit, claiming that Unilever “threatened to dismantle its board and sue its members” if the brand spoke out in support of Palestine, CNN reported.

“Ben & Jerry’s has on four occasions attempted to publicly speak out in support of peace and human rights,” according to the lawsuit. “Unilever has silenced each of these efforts.” In an email statement sent to CNN, Unilever rejected “the claims made by B&J’s social mission board” and vowed to “defend our case very strongly.”

Ben & Jerry’s rift with its parent company persisted in 2025. In January, the brand amended its 2024 lawsuit against Unilever, alleging that Peter ter Kulve, president of Unilever’s ice cream division, “unilaterally barred Ben & Jerry’s” from posting a statement on abortion, climate change, minimum wages and universal healthcare because it mentioned Donald Trump.

“According to Mr. ter Kelve, despite four decades of progressive social activism — and years of challenging the Trump administration’s policies specifically — criticizing Trump was now too taboo for the brand synonymous with ‘Peace, Love, and Ice Cream,’” the lawsuit read, per CNN.

Two months later, Ben & Jerry’s accused Unilever of unlawfully ousting its CEO David Stever over his support of the brand’s political activism. The proposed amended complaint specified that “Unilever’s motive for removing Mr. Stever is his commitment to Ben & Jerry’s Social Mission and Essential Brand Integrity…rather than any genuine concerns regarding his performance history,” according to Eater.

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In an open letter addressed to the Magnum Ice Cream Company, which is being spun off from Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s urged the board to allow its brand to once again operate as an independently owned company.

“Today, as we watch Ben & Jerry’s formally become part of The Magnum Ice Cream Company as part of the Unilever de-merger, we feel compelled to speak out — as concerned individuals, rather than Ben & Jerry’s employees,” the brand wrote. “We are deeply concerned that the commitments made to us, our employees, and our customers are being eroded.

“For several years now the voice of Ben & Jerry’s has been silenced by Unilever, particularly when the brand has tried to speak out about social justice and unjust wars. That is not the Ben & Jerry’s that we founded, or the one that we envisioned when we agreed to join Unilever 25 years ago.”

Unilever, in response, said Ben & Jerry’s is a “proud part” of the Magnum Ice Cream Company — and not for sale.

Years of public disputes between Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever ultimately led to Jerry Greenfield’s resignation. “It’s with a broken heart that I’ve decided I can no longer, in good conscience, and after 47 years, remain an employee of Ben & Jerry’s,” Greenfield wrote in an open letter posted Tuesday night by Cohen. “I am resigning from the company Ben and I started back in 1978. This is one of the hardest and most painful decisions I’ve ever made.”

“It was always about more than just ice cream; it was a way to spread love and invite others into the fight for equity, justice and a better world.”

Despite Greenfield’s departure, Ben & Jerry’s spirit remains unbroken. Their latest mission? To free Ben & Jerry’s from Magnum with help from its loyal ice cream lovers.

“Ben & Jerry’s cannot thrive under an organization that stifles its values and that buckles under political pressure,” the brand wrote in a statement on its website. “An independent Ben & Jerry’s will allow it to go back to its roots as a company driven by values, authenticity, and a belief that business has to be about more than just profitability.”

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With a mostly clean getaway and no breaks in the case at press time, the heist of eight gem-laden pieces dating from the 19th century — including tiaras and brooches worn by Empress Eugénie, a sapphire tiara and necklace worn by Queen Hortense and Queen Marie-Amélie — has become a kind of void into which America’s 24-hour news cycle has been dumping every bit of speculation it can scare up. There are rumors of an inside job, theories about a connection to recent heists elsewhere in Paris, comments about the aptness of crown jewels being stolen on #NoKings weekend, snark about the thieves fumbling a ninth piece from the haul, Empress Eugénie’s crown, and plenty of chatter about who was behind the heist and what might happen to the estimated $102 million in big-ass gems. In the absence of facts, leads and clues, the comment sections of news reports and social-media posts were soon brimming with theories and conjecture. By Tuesday, some outlets were thirstily chasing down former art and jewel thieves in to get their expert insights on the mystery.

ABC News called on Myles Conner, the serial art thief who in 1975 walked out of  Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts with a Rembrandt painting, intending to use it to bargain a lighter sentence on a previous art theft. Connor — who went to prison for several years but somehow ended up with a cash reward for returning the painting — apparently takes a dim view of the Louvre incident, calling the pieces “an immense collection of irreplaceable artifacts” with immeasurable value, and predicting that whomever absconded with them “[W]ill be vilified by the entire country because they are national treasures.”

CNN, meanwhile, checked in with Larry Lawton, a former jewel thief who complimented the thieves’ planning and use of equipment and said he was sure that they’d had some help on the inside. Lawton, a onetime Gambino associate who robbed jewelry stores along the Atlantic coast in the 1980s and ’90s before going to prison and subsequently launching a career as a motivational speaker, criticized the thieves’ “amateur move” of dropping one of the pieces — a crown, no less — during their getaway, bragging that in his illustrious career (“25 jewelry stores, $18 million dollars”) he would never have made such a gaffe.

But as we all wait for something concrete to emerge, reactions to the event have illuminated something of a shifting valence of heist narratives in the American cultural imagination. Much of this has to do with efforts by museums and other cultural institutions to be transparent about the cultural stewardship that in many cases has made them active accomplices to ongoing colonialist plunder and violence; it’s no longer possible to refer to crown jewels, for instance, without confronting the imperialist exploitation that produced their precious gems.

France’s legacy on this front is particularly bad: The country’s museums have a long and infamous history of hoarding artifacts and antiquities from its former African colonies; they have also been compelled to return numerous artworks that were looted from Jewish owners during the Nazi occupation of France. In 2021, French President Emmanuel Macron tasked Jean-Luc Martinez, the former director of the Louvre, with writing a report outlining criteria for the restitution of African artworks. Martinez stepped down from his position at the Louvre that same year when it came to light that he was involved in concealing the origin of artifacts smuggled from Egypt during the Arab Spring and subsequently purchased for the Louvre’s outpost in Abu Dhabi. (He was charged in 2023 with complicity in fraud.)

(DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images) French police officers patrol in front of the Louvre Museum after it was robbed, with the Louvre Pyramid designed by Ieoh Ming Pei in the background, in Paris on October 19, 2025.

Meanwhile, even the fictional allure of the gentleman thief established over the decades in films from “The Thomas Crown Affair” and “Topkapi” to “The Italian Job” and “Gambit” has waned a bit. Audiences have always been encouraged to identify with these men, who aren’t common criminals but cultured rogues able to pull off daring heists because they’re already at ease in rarefied spaces and able to blend in with, outsmart and occasionally romance those standing in their way. Michael B. Jordan, who is currently directing and starring in a third remake of “The Thomas Crown Affair,” has said that the film “isn’t just another remake,” which is probably just as well: At a time when wealth inequality is endemic and rich men who think the rules don’t apply to them excruciatingly common, a disaffected billionaire stealing for kicks isn’t going to seem as charming as he once did.

Which is not to suggest that Jordan’s Thomas Crown needs to resemble Killmonger, the revolutionary he played in 2018’s “Black Panther,” first seen reclaiming a Wakandan artifact from a London museum. But some of the comments on news stories about the Louvre robbery suggest that people will be a lot more inclined to cheer if it turns out to be something more than a mercenarily motivated event. Sure, a lot of our most enduring heist narratives center dapper, witty, but ultimately self-dealing thieves — but there are also plenty whose portrayal of crimes committed in the name of rectifying corporate malfeasance, historical evil or institutional corruption feel like they match the moment a bit better, from “Tower Heist” to “Inside Man” to TNT cult-favorite “Leverage.”

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“Heist narratives really hold our ambivalence about wealth and the wealthy,” says Aya De Leon, a UC Berkeley writing professor who is both the poet laureate of Berkeley and a prolific writer of novels in which heists are a form of social justice exacted by women of color on behalf of their communities. “They are simultaneously odes to the wealthy and a middle finger to the wealthy. A heist is immediate wealth distribution; the wealth flows down like a waterfall.” This particular heist is one that doesn’t strike De Leon as likely to have the Robin Hood trajectories of her own novels, but she does connect France’s colonial history to what she sees as a “deep arrogance” on the part of the Louvre regarding the lack of security in the Apollo gallery from which the jewels were taken. “It’s a real sense of entitlement,” she says. “Like, ‘These are our jewels, this is our heritage, of course these belong in our museum, and no one will try and take them from us.’ But they are the product of colonial empires. They were already stolen property. The idea that they [might be] dismantled and the jewels cut down and sold — there’s a symbolism to that.”

The embarrassment evinced in the response from French officials suggests that they see that symbolism too. The heist at the Louvre comes after a string of other museum ransackings in the country: Last month, at Paris’ Museum of Natural History, where thieves made off with roughly $700,000 worth of gold nuggets, and, in a separate incident, a museum in Limoges was infiltrated by thieves who escaped with between $7 and $9 million in fine porcelain. Like other former colonial powers, France has argued that looted art and artifacts should remain under their stewardship for reasons of safety and security; the fact that the pieces stolen this weekend were neither safe nor secure — and also not privately insured — blows a hole in that justification. This, too, is arrogance: The idea that historic preservation is best left to wealthy nations that make money putting the spoils of their imperial conquests on display has already aged poorly. The failures of security exposed by Sunday’s events just make that defense that much more hollow.

Eventually, maybe, we’ll find out what and who were behind the Louvre heist, but I wouldn’t count on a righteous or feel-good explanation; more likely, it’s simply an event motivated by greed, maybe on the part of the crew that executed it and maybe on the part of the person who ordered and bankrolled it. In the meantime, Kelly Reichardt’s brand-new film, “The Mastermind,” offers up a new riff on the museum job in which the thief isn’t dapper and the motive isn’t righteous. If there were ever a time when it feels not just timely but necessary to strip heists of their glamour, now feels right.

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The study, which my colleague Mohammad Atari and I published in the research journal PNAS Nexus in June 2025, examined survey data from more than 4,300 people across 20 countries. We found that while most people around the world do not strongly condemn having “too much money,” there are striking cultural differences.

In wealthy, more economically equal countries such as Switzerland and Belgium, people were more likely to say that having too much money is immoral. In countries that are poorer and more unequal, such as Peru or Nigeria, people tended to view wealth accumulation as more acceptable.

Beyond economics, we found that judgments about excessive wealth are also shaped by deeper moral intuitions. Our study drew on moral foundations theory, which proposes that people’s sense of right and wrong is built on six core values – care, equality, proportionality, loyalty, authority and purity. We found that people who highly value equality and purity were more likely to see excessive wealth as wrong.

The equality result was expected, but the role of purity was more surprising. Purity is usually associated with ideas about cleanliness, sanctity or avoiding contamination – so finding that it is associated with negative views about wealth gives new meaning to the phrase “filthy rich.”

As a social psychologist who studies morality, culture and technology, I’m interested in how these kinds of judgments differ across groups and societies. Social and institutional systems interact with individual moral beliefs, shaping how people view culture war issues such as wealth and inequality − and, in turn, how they engage with the policies and conflicts that emerge around them.

Why it matters

Billionaires wield growing influence in politics, technology and global development. The richest 1% of people on Earth own more wealth than 95% of people combined, according to Oxfam, an organization focused on fighting poverty.

Efforts to address inequality by taxing or regulating the rich may, however, rest on a mistaken assumption — that the public generally condemns extreme wealth. If most people instead view amassing wealth as morally justifiable, such reforms could face limited support.

Our findings suggest that in countries where inequality is highly visible and persistent, people may adapt by morally justifying their structural economic system, arguing that it is fair and legitimate. In wealthier, more equal societies, people appear more sensitive to the potential harms of excess.

While our study shows that most people around the world do not view excessive wealth as morally wrong, those in wealthier and more equal countries are far more likely to condemn it.

That contrast raises a sharper question: When people in privileged societies denounce and attempt to limit billionaires, are they shining a light on global injustice − or projecting their own sense of guilt? Are they projecting a moral principle shaped by their own prosperity onto poorer countries, where wealth may represent survival, progress or even hope?

What still isn’t known

One open question: How do these views change over time? Do attitudes shift when societies become wealthier or more equal? Are young people more likely than older generations to condemn billionaires? Our study offers a snapshot, but long-term research could reveal whether moral judgments track broader economic or cultural changes.

Another uncertainty is the unexpected role of purity. Why would a value tied to cleanliness and sanctity shape how people judge billionaires? Our follow-up study found that purity concerns extended beyond money to other forms of “excess,” such as disapproving of having “too much” ambition, sex or fun. This suggests that people may see excess itself – not just inequality – as corrupting.

What’s next

We’re continuing to study how cultural values, social systems and moral intuitions shape people’s judgments of fairness and excess – from views of wealth and ambition to knowledge and AI computing power.

Understanding these gut-level, moral reactions within larger social systems matters for debates about inequality. But it can also help explain how people evaluate technologies, leaders and institutions that accumulate disproportionate, excessive power or influence.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

Jackson Trager, Ph.D. Candidate in Psychology, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Each Google search returns a lengthy AI summary before providing links to relevant search results. Chatbots pop up as soon as you go online to make flight reservations or pay a credit card bill. Start writing an email and an AI prompt appears right in the middle of a sentence: Hi! Looks like you’re writing an email! Can I help? Hmmm? What about now?

A world in which we can use AI is quickly becoming one in which we have little choice in the matter, and apparently, women in particular need to step it up. The language used in recent reports like “Women are avoiding AI. Will their careers suffer?” and “Women are lagging behind on AI but they can catch up” are instructive: “Falling behind” men in AI adoption, women are “reluctant” to get on board and “in denial” about AI’s “all-consuming importance.” But the encouragement toward more widespread adoption ignores one reason women might be side-eyeing AI omnipresence: The virtual revolution has repeatedly made them targets of real-world aggression.

Caution ≠ technophobia

The recent reporting on women and AI starts from the thesis that women aren’t using AI at the same rates as men are, and that is bad. But why is it bad? There’s no indication that women are refusing to comply with the mandated use of AI tools; they’re just slower to choose them. In not specifying what men are accomplishing with AI that women aren’t, these pieces can only imply that AI is important because a lot of men are using it. But a narrative in which women must catch up to men or lose out serves a specific purpose: It reifies existing stereotypes about women as not naturally interested in STEM fields.

Dr. Kerry McInerney, an AI ethicist at the University of Cambridge who co-hosts the podcast “The Good Robot,” points out that this narrative also conflates caution and technophobia. “Critically questioning technology is not the same as being anti-technology,” she says. “Because of a wide range of gender stereotypes we consume from childhood on, it might be that there is a gendered reluctance to adopt these tools when they’re very new.” But, she says, this doesn’t mean it’s forever: Smart home devices are among the products that quickly become normalized for people of all genders.

The inconvenient corollary to warnings about not prioritizing AI is that the jobs most likely to be replaced by automation are ones disproportionately held by women: cashiers, secretaries, bookkeepers and more. McInerney worries that not acknowledging this will make women scapegoats: “‘You weren’t fast enough adopters, so you’re going to be the first to get pushed out.’”

Developments in generative AI are so hyped because the apogee of everything we were promised by Omni magazine and “The Jetsons” is finally coming true: Robot maids! Wearable tech! Cars that drive by themselves! Kind of! But, again, viewing buzzy new tools with caution isn’t necessarily about not understanding them — it’s often about envisioning exactly the ways they might be used and misused. “There is a politics of expertise [that focuses] on computer-science people who are really smart and who are going to fix societal problems through technological advancements, and the rest of us just don’t have the knowledge to weigh in on those conversations,” is how McInerney sums it up. This makes it easy to tune out or dismiss anyone outside that cohort with ethical or environmental concerns, in particular.

And AI hype can create an anxiety that not following each new development means you can’t have valid opinions on the larger context of that technology. “We don’t expect people to know every single thing about their car to be able to drive it,” McInerney points out. “We expect that there are enough consumer protections that you’re not going to get given a terrible dud car to drive. So why are we allowing terrible dud AI into the market and saying, “The problem is you for not knowing enough about it?”

All AI is not good AI

The question “Why aren’t women as excited about an AI-powered world as men?” starts from the assumption that the rapid development and rollout of new tools and applications represent technological progress and thus are a net good. But tools are only as good as the humans who use them, and so far, the humans doing so haven’t inspired a ton of confidence.

AI for hiring and recruiting, for instance, has a history of overt discrimination. In 2018, Amazon thought it had a potential killer app in an experimental recruiting tool that scanned resumés and surfaced top candidates. But because the model was trained on job-applicant data that skewed heavily male, it ended up downgrading resumés that referenced women’s colleges, teams, or activities. More recently, applicant-ranking models tested by the University of Washington revealed that LLMs given names and resumes of both white and Black applicants “favored white-associated names 85% of the time, female-associated names only 11% of the time, and never favored Black male-associated names over white male-associated names.”

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Efforts to redress bias that AI learns from the Internet, meanwhile, are piecemeal and usually undertaken in response to high-profile blunders like Amazon’s — an approach that does little to change baked-in biases. When McInerney and her podcast co-host, Dr. Eleanor Drage, discuss ways AI might more accurately represent a range of users, she says, they inevitably bump up against the fact that developers and users don’t necessarily want the same thing. Fixes to existing systems, she notes, “might not scale and might not fit certain commercial imperatives. That, to me, feels like a fundamental tension.”

Finally, a resistance to jumping headfirst onto the AI bandwagon is a logical result of an environment in which almost any emerging technology can become a conduit for misogyny. Hacked and leaked photos, rape and death threats, stalking, doxing and deepfake pornography have all disproportionately targeted women: A 2021 Pew Research Center study titled “The State of Online Harassment” found, among other things, that 33% of women under 35 reported experiences of online sexual harassment, compared to 11% men. This obviously hasn’t driven women offline or kept them from using AI. Men have repeatedly weaponized tech tools against women and girls — why would they be enthusiastic about more of the same?

Move fast, ignore ethics

One area in which people of all genders have readily adopted AI is in companionship: AI chatbots are an ever-growing market, with at least 100 apps that let users create friends, sex partners and companions with AI. The platform Replika took off during the global COVID lockdown and now boasts more than 10 million users. The United States provides about a quarter of the monthly traffic to Character.ai, another platform that claims 20 million monthly users. The subreddit MyBoyfriendisAI (despite the name, it welcomes anyone with an AI companion) is filled with guides to building AI chums, posts from people navigating polyamory with both AI and real-world partners and users sharing their AI companions’ opinions on “The White Lotus.”

But there’s a specific strain of AI boosterism that sees virtual girlfriends as a balm for America’s male loneliness epidemic, and men seem to agree; according to a 2024 analysis of companion apps and their users, the app AI Girlfriend has been downloaded seven times more than AI Boyfriend. But constantly available, always agreeable dream girls are also easy targets, and there’s unsettling evidence that men’s interactions with them are less about easing loneliness and more about taking out real-world anger on female stand-ins.

Chatbots are among the many thorny ethical topics that tend to be drowned out by innovation-focused AI discourse. There’s gold in those chatbot hills, and little interest in pausing to consider if a world in which actual humans will eventually be treated as faulty chatbots is one we really want to live in. AI ethics came to the fore in 2020 when Timnit Gebru, who co-led Google’s Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team, was fired after she refused to retract an academic paper on bias in large language models; her co-leader, Margaret Mitchell, was fired shortly afterward as she attempted to compile evidence of discrimination by the company. It was a bad look for Google, but one that echoed a long American tradition of dismissing women who speak up as hysterical and overreacting. What made this case particularly striking, says McInerney, is that when the offending paper was eventually published, it wasn’t even that controversial.

Just as a wary approach to AI is conflated with overall technophobia, AI ethics is often viewed as a muzzle on innovation. And the tech industry’s track record is an excellent argument for why not to uncritically embrace the next new thing. Companies like Facebook have not just waved away ethical considerations but deliberately shredded them with no consequences. The impacts of AI stand to be even more destructive. “We’re portraying any use of AI as this great and enriching thing when we have a lot of evidence that many forms of AI are not individually or societally good,” says McInerney. We might want to instead worry less about who is being overly cautious about AI, and more about what the reckless scramble toward an automated future has already cost us.

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These waivers exclude foods such as candy, soda, and other high-sugar or low nutrition items from what SNAP recipients can buy. The USDA says the state-specific waivers are part of President Donald Trump’s larger initiative to “Make America Healthy Again.”

“America’s governors have proudly answered the call to innovate by improving nutrition programs, ensuring better choices while respecting the generosity of the American taxpayer,” said USDA secretary Brooke Rollins at a June 10 press conference. 

Arkansas’ SNAP waiver, the most restrictive, excludes candy, soda, low- and no-calorie soda, fruit and vegetable drinks containing less than 50% real juice, and other drinks considered unhealthy. Whoever is determining the “other drinks considered unhealthy” has yet to be announced. This goes into effect July 1, 2026. 

Idaho and Utah will both ban soda and soft drinks starting January 1, 2026. Idaho’s waiver will also ban candy. 

“This approval sends a clear message: President Trump and his administration are tackling America’s chronic disease epidemic, and Arkansas stands with him in that fight,” said Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “Arkansas leads the nation in getting unhealthy, ultra-processed foods off food stamps and helping our most vulnerable citizens lead healthier lives.”

Similar waivers have already been approved in Indiana, Iowa, and Nebraska. It has been reported that Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia are also considering or have already requested their own waivers. 

Some experts question whether policing shoppers’ grocery carts will actually lead to healthier purchases. In a 2016 study, USDA reported that 20% of SNAP spending went to unhealthy food and beverages. This is on par with non-SNAP families who spent 19.7% of their food budget on “junk food,” according to the same study. Researchers concluded that—no matter what way you split it—differences in SNAP and non-SNAP household purchases were fairly inconsequential. 

In a June 6 blog post, FMI-The Food Industry Association executives Elizabeth Tansing and Peter Matz indicated “differing state-by-state rules will require new compliance programs, staff training and monthly point-of-sale software updates as new food products coming into the marketplace will need to be evaluated for compliance.”

They continued: “These added burdens could lead to checkout delays, higher costs and customer confusion.” 

Retailers now face major logistical hurdles: determining what qualifies, how to flag new products and navigating multi-state compliance. 

You have to wonder: why are the majority of these SNAP waiver requests coming from Republican-led states? While both parties have championed public health initiatives in the past, critics point out that recent efforts to reshape SNAP have been largely partisan — and often advanced by leaders whose broader policy records don’t reflect strong support for low-income communities. If improving Americans’ health is truly a bipartisan priority, some argue, perhaps the issue isn’t what SNAP users are buying — but how the system supports them in the first place.

The post Food stamps, redefined by red states appeared first on Salon.com.

Well, at least for the most part.

According to one DoorDash customer, her Starbucks coffee order was declined by her driver, who argued that a $3.50 tip wasn’t enough to cover traveling two blocks to pick up and deliver her coffee. Screenshots of the heated exchange were posted to Reddit on July 15 by the woman’s husband, user u/Tikkity_Tok23.

A message from the Dasher, whose name is shown as “Goga,” read: “I’m not going to serve homeless people in this rain. Cancel the order. I won’t bring it to you. If you don’t have money, you should make coffee at home.”

The woman responded: “Homeless people? What the f***? I am reporting you to DoorDash.”

The driver replied, “Accordingly, you have to pay if you want your order to be delivered, or you will suffer from hunger,” to which the woman wrote: “How can someone homeless order from DoorDash? It was already paid — you can’t order if you don’t pay first. You should not have accepted the order if you didn’t want to deliver it.”

The driver then said, “There are too many bad orders coming in every day. I’m not going to bring that. $3 is ridiculous.”

“This is crazy. Taking bad orders out on a customer that actually tipped almost 40% for a two blocks away travel time is unacceptable,” wrote the woman’s husband on Reddit. “We are not the type to report or get people in trouble but this guy gets everything he deserves.”

This isn’t the first time ordering coffee on DoorDash has spurred a heated discussion on Reddit. It’s been a contentious topic amongst Dashers and consumers alike, with some users saying it’s OK to do so, while others believe it’s lazy consumer behavior. The debate has yet to be settled, which once again begs the question: Is it truly that absurd to order one coffee on DoorDash?

Ordering one coffee might seem absurd to some — but in the age of hyper-personalized convenience, it’s hardly the most extreme ask. DoorDash is designed to deliver food, regardless of size or value, and it’s not uncommon for customers to request everything from a single Hi-C orange to a handful of McDonald’s dipping sauces. A coffee? Practically reasonable by comparison.

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There’s also the issue of what an appropriate tip is for such small orders. In 2023, Business Insider interviewed 10 Dashers based in New York City, asking them what they believed was a reasonable amount for tipping. In one instance, Business Insider used DoorDash to order a breakfast sandwich and an iced coffee from Starbucks, tipping $2.50 — or 17 percent — on a total of $14.65 with tax and service fees. In a second order for an egg wrap and an iced matcha drink, a $2.50 tip — or a little over 14 percent — was given on a total that came to $17.43. The tip for the first order was described as “good” by the delivery driver because it was a “small order,” while the tip for the subsequent order was deemed not enough by the driver, who requested a five or six-dollar tip.

The general consensus amongst the drivers was that tipping should be based on the size of the order, with weather and distance being additional factors. A decent tip is between 15 to 20 percent of the total bill. In a 2019 blog post, Grubhub suggested customers tip 20 percent, which is the “standard cost,” and said to never tip less than five dollars.

However, that’s subjective because in the case of the recent Starbucks coffee drama, a $3.50 tip falls below the five-dollar benchmark but is still over 20 percent of the total bill. It’s a more than sufficient tip that the driver could have simply accepted or declined. Because that same level of autonomy that’s granted to customers is also granted to drivers. In the same way that customers can order what they please, drivers can also be selective about their deliveries based on the tip amount.

Newsweek reported that the Dasher has since been banned while the incident is being investigated.

In a separate incident, DoorDash fired a delivery driver for cursing at a woman who tipped him five dollars on a $20 order.

A growing tension between convenience culture and human labor is at the heart of this particular drama — and so many others like it. Delivery apps promise frictionless service, but the realities behind that promise are anything but seamless. Whether it’s a coffee, a combo meal or a bag of groceries, each order invites a quiet negotiation: What’s fair? What’s worth it? And who gets to decide?

The post Tacky or justified? The 1-coffee delivery tip debate is on appeared first on Salon.com.

So what does it mean when brands like these — companies with deep roots and cultural weight — start pulling up stakes and heading for redder pastures?

Lately, a number of major food and restaurant brands have been relocating or expanding their headquarters to conservative-leaning states like Texas and Tennessee. Yum! Brands — the parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell — recently opened a second HQ in Plano. In-N-Out, long a symbol of California cool, is building an East Coast territory out of Tennessee.

Even celebrity chefs like Gordon Ramsay are planting flags in Texas.

It’s easy to write this off as tax math — and yes, lower corporate taxes and friendlier regulatory environments are part of the draw (KFC, after all, isn’t leaving a blue state — just trading one shade of red for another.). But so is a broader realignment: of brand identity, political alignment and where power is pooling in post-pandemic America.

If the breakup between Kentucky and KFC had a mood, it was one of quiet disappointment — a long relationship ending with minimal drama and a few earnest press statements. When Yum! Brands announced it was relocating its KFC headquarters from Louisville to Plano, Texas, local leaders were quick to voice regret, but not rage.

“I am disappointed by this decision and believe the company’s founder would be, too,” Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said in a statement. “This company’s name starts with Kentucky, and it has marketed our state’s heritage and culture in the sale of its product.” Louisville’s mayor, Craig Greenberg, echoed the sentiment, calling the brand “synonymous with Kentucky.”

Yum’s CEO, David Gibbs, offered the usual corporate boilerplate: the move would support “sustainable growth” and better serve customers, employees, and shareholders. No one threw punches. It was, as corporate divorces go, relatively clean.

But in California, the tone has been a little different.

Lynsi Snyder — In-N-Out’s president and the granddaughter of its founders — has been far more direct about why the company is shifting some of its operations east. On a recent episode of The Relatable Podcast, Snyder said that doing business in California had simply become too difficult. “There’s a lot of great things about California,” she said. “But raising a family is not easy here. Doing business is not easy here.”

In 2024, In-N-Out announced plans to open a second headquarters in Tennessee. Its Irvine, California office will shutter by 2030, and Snyder said that pandemic-era tensions helped cement the decision. During COVID-19, several In-N-Out locations clashed with local health officials over mask and vaccine requirements. “There were so many pressures and hoops we were having to jump through,” Snyder said. “You’ve got to do this. You have to have this plastic thing between us and our customers. It was really terrible.”

Two locations were temporarily closed by California officials for refusing to enforce vaccine mandates. Snyder said she has no regrets. “We were shut down for a brief moment, but it’s worth it. A lot of people were charged by that move.”

Shortly after, she said she realized she needed to move (though has since clarified in a statement that she is “very proud of where In-N-Out started. Anyone who knows me knows how often I talk about our beginnings and how our customers here in California helped bring us to where we are today.”)

Of course, this isn’t a trend unique to the restaurant industry. Over the last decade, California has watched a steady stream of businesses — from tech giants to logistics firms — pack up and head for redder pastures. Elon Musk moved Tesla’s headquarters to Austin. Oracle, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Charles Schwab followed. And while motivations range from taxes to cultural alignment, the bumper-sticker warning “Don’t California My Texas” has emerged as a kind of protective spell.

It makes sense that restaurants — already operating on razor-thin margins — would be especially vulnerable to that same gravitational pull. A headquarters relocation is cheaper than building a factory. And for brands still recovering from pandemic-era whiplash, red states offer something undeniably appealing: lower costs, looser rules and an eager welcome.

Texas leads that charge. The state has no corporate income tax, relatively low commercial property taxes and a regulatory environment that’s famously hands-off. Add to that a sprawling transportation network, fast-growing cities and generous incentive packages — tax abatements, relocation grants, expedited permitting — and it’s little wonder that companies from multiple sectors now treat Texas as a default destination.

Tennessee offers a similar pitch, but with a slightly softer delivery. There’s no state income tax, a modest corporate tax rate and a low cost of living that makes it easy to recruit and retain workers. As a right-to-work state, Tennessee also appeals to companies looking to avoid union entanglements. In recent years, it has quietly lured a roster of major players — from Ford’s electric vehicle campus to In-N-Out’s new eastern headquarters — with a cocktail of tax incentives, cheap land, and logistical ease.

At first glance, it might not seem like a big deal where the people in suits make decisions about burger pricing or fried chicken innovation. Whether a new menu item gets greenlit from Louisville or Plano doesn’t exactly stir the national soul. Headquarters are, more often than not, just beige office parks where people say things like “synergy” and “Q4 snack innovation.”

But we’re living in a moment where fast food is doing a strange kind of double duty — not just feeding us, but telegraphing tribal affiliations. Donald Trump campaigned from a McDonald’s drive-thru. RFK Jr. more recently stood in a Steak ’n Shake proclaiming that the fries had been “RFK-ed,” now cooked in beef tallow, making them patriotic again — or at least palatable to a certain slice of the electorate.

So sure, these corporate moves might not mean much. Not yet. They may be just another round of tax-friendly relocations and sunbelt sprawl.

But in a country where what you eat, where it’s made and how it’s fried can become a political statement, it’s worth paying attention to where the brands are going — and what kind of story they’re trying to tell when they get there.

The post When fast food runs to red states appeared first on Salon.com.

Last fall, the fast-food giant landed in hot water after a deadly E. coli outbreak was traced back to fresh, slivered onions served on its Quarter Pounder hamburgers. As a result, McDonald’s suffered from significant declines in sales and customer visits, forcing the company to do damage control by launching a new Chicken Big Mac, providing more than $60 million to franchisees in affected states and spending an additional $35 million on marketing to promote deals such as its $5 value meal.

Then, in January, McDonald’s made the decision to scale back some of its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, following in the footsteps of several corporations that rolled back their programs in the wake of Donald Trump’s election. The company said it’s retiring its specific diversity goals, including pausing external surveys that measure corporate diversity and requiring suppliers to commit to certain DEI pledges. McDonald’s also changed the name of its diversity team to the Global Inclusion Team.

In the wake of its recent headlines, McDonald’s has now become the target of an ongoing boycott initiated by The People’s Union USA, a grassroots advocacy group. The union’s founder, John Schwarz, explained in an Instagram post that the union is demanding “fair taxes, an end to price gouging, real equality, and corporate accountability.”

The boycott began on June 24 and is expected to continue until next Monday, June 30.

“This is about more than burgers and fries, this is about power,” The People’s Union USA wrote on Instagram. “When we unite and hit corporations in their wallets, they listen…This is a show of strength, solidarity and people powered change. Let them feel it. Let them hear us.”

Earlier this month, Schwarz provided a list of reasons for the boycott, saying McDonald’s is guilty of “exploiting tax loopholes,” engaging in “price gouging while wages stay low,” “suppressing workers’ rights and union efforts,” “supporting political figures who threaten democracy,” “practicing performative DEI with no meaningful change” and “prioritizing profit over people, community and truth.”

Schwarz isn’t alone in his criticisms of the fast-food chain. Last October, Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Ron Wyden of Oregon slammed McDonald’s for substantially hiking up menu prices.

“Earlier this year, McDonald’s USA President Joe Erlinger tried to blame the company’s menu price increases on inflationary pressures and input costs, but the data tells another story,” read a letter written by the three senators and addressed to the company’s corporate leadership. “McDonald’s operating profit margins were 52% in the same year, the highest of the ten largest publicly traded fast food companies.”

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“Corporate profits must not come at the expense of people’s ability to put food on the table,” the letter added.

In statements to NBC News, Casey further accused McDonald’s of “textbook greedflation,” and Warren said McDonald’s is “squeezing customers to make massive profits, paying out billions to wealthy shareholders, and then turning around and blaming inflation for high costs.”

As for whether the ongoing McDonald’s boycott will have a significant impact remains unclear at this time. The People’s Union USA previously called for boycotts of other major corporations, including Amazon, Nestlé, Walmart, General Mills and Target.

“The truth is, McDonald’s built a global empire off low-wage labor, clever accounting, and aggressive lobbying,” Schwarz told Newsweek. “They report record profits, nearly $9 billion this year, while many of their workers still can’t afford basic healthcare or rent. That’s not opportunity. That’s exploitation dressed up as service. This boycott isn’t about fast food. It’s about accountability. The People’s Union USA stands for the growing number of Americans done tolerating corporate greed, inequality, and empty promises.”

In response to the boycott, McDonald’s told Newsweek, “We welcome honest dialogue with the communities we serve, but we’re disappointed to see these misleading claims that distort our values and misrepresent our actions. Our focus remains on serving our customers and communities. We’re here and ready to serve.”

McDonald’s issued a similar statement to CNN, saying, “The McDonald’s System also generates billions in federal, state and local taxes annually, and we’ll continue to pay our fair share.”

The post The people’s beef with McDonald’s: Why activists are calling for a nationwide boycott appeared first on Salon.com.

Most of the things you pay for are negotiable. Don’t say no for someone — the worst thing is that they say no for themselves.

I have successfully negotiated everything from monthly bills like my cell phone, internet, car insurance and credit cards. You can negotiate the cost of nearly anything — and you should. Here are some of those things, as well as how to negotiate to lower your household bills.

1. Cell phones

I have a calendar reminder to call my cell phone provider every year when my contract is due for renewal. I trick myself into doing it days before so I don’t let it automatically renew at a much higher rate than the previous year.

With a few different competitor offers, I’ll call my provider and let them know I want to cancel my service and switch because I found an offer at a much lower rate. They almost always lower their rate even more than the competitor for another year. I have never switched to another provider, but I do prepare for it.

I have been doing this for about a decade and regularly ask about other deals and discounts during my call. Representatives see if I qualify for anything else by asking about data usage to see if I’m on the right plan, or if I can bundle anything to save. I discovered I could get a discount with AARP on my last call. I wasn’t an AARP member, but since anyone can join at any age, I did it to save on cell phone activation fees and get a discount on each line on my plan.

2. Cable and internet

Like cell phones, call your cable or internet providers to see if you qualify for any deals after the introductory rate ends. Internet offers might be tricky since you could switch to another provider at a cheaper rate, but it depends on where you live and what you qualify for.

Cable might not be worth keeping, especially if you decide to stream exclusively. You can ditch cable altogether unless you bundle cable with something else to save on total costs.

Negotiation involves always believing that you might have to move somewhere else, even if it never happens.

3. Car insurance

Car insurance options are in abundance: Shop around and get quotes from different companies to discover the best offers available. See if you qualify for discounts and deals, like safe driving, multiple cars and good students. If you work for a particular organization or have a specific affiliation, such as the military, it might also help you qualify for extra discounts.

Ask your insurance company if there are any bundling options available, like combining it with renters or homeowners insurance. Sometimes, paying in full also gets you a discount.

If you’re using all your available discounts, ask about getting higher deductibles. Increasing your deductible, or what you pay when you file a claim before insurance kicks in, means you’ll lower monthly premium costs. Just remember that you’re on the hook for higher out-of-pocket costs.

4. Credit card interest rates

Credit card debt is a significant burden for Americans. According to the latest data from the Federal Reserve, credit card balances are now collectively at $1.14 trillion.

Credit card interest rates are some of the highest around. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, they have nearly doubled, averaging close to 23% in the last decade. Luckily, these rates aren’t set in stone forever.

Most credit card APRs are variable, not fixed, which means they can change from one month to the next. Try talking to the issuer you have had an account with the longest. It also helps if you have a strong track record of on-time bill pay and at least making minimum payments. You can also try the one that charges the highest APR.

Ask your issuer if they would consider reducing the rate since you’re a loyal customer and have proven you’re responsible with credit and payments. Be flexible, ask about removing fees or making lower rates temporary for a set amount of months while you pay off your balance.

If you can’t get a lower rate or have trouble compromising, consider a balance transfer credit card with a 0% APR for a set amount of months, usually ranging from nine to 21. You’ll move over what you can — not all cards approve the entire balance — and rather than rack up additional interest charges, you’ll get to pay off your principal balance every month. Just make sure you do it before the promotional offer ends and interest charges kick in.

5. Subscription services

Most people grossly underestimate the cost of streaming services. A C+R Research analysis found that we think we’re paying around $86 a month, but it’s actually about $219 monthly.

You can use a bill negotiation service to lower your subscription costs on your behalf, but these companies take a cut of whatever they save you. So if you’re trying to maximize savings, you may want to handle business yourself.

Simply calling and asking how to lower your bill is a good first step. Be kind and respectful without being pushy. Ask if you qualify for discounts or see if you qualify for deals. Depending on the service and when your rates are set to change, you can do this once or twice a year. Regular attention lets you see which subscriptions are worth keeping — and which ones you should ditch.

Don’t be afraid to contact all your providers and negotiate rates and terms to lower payments.

The post 5 things you can negotiate to save money on household bills appeared first on Salon.com.

Shoppers plan to shell out an average of $199.38 per person, nearly $10 more than in 2024, with the 35–44 age group leading the charge at an average of $278.90.

Father's Day gifting is evolving: while 58% of consumers still buy greeting cards, many are opting for more meaningful presents. 55% will purchase clothing, 53% special outings, and 50% gift cards.

Experience-driven gifts continue to gain momentum:

• 43% plan subscription boxes (up from 34% in 2019)
• 30% intend to give experiences like concert tickets (up from 23% in 2019)

“As consumers prioritize Father’s Day gifts that are unique or create special memories, categories such as special outings and personal care items have seen an increase in popularity this year,” said Phil Rist, EVP of Strategy at Prosper. “A special outing offers an opportunity to create new memories and celebrate together, while a personal care item allows dad to feel pampered.”

Online shopping continues to lead, with 41% of purchases made digitally. Department stores follow at 35%, discount and specialty stores at 23–22%, and 19% shop in local or small businesses.

“Americans are embracing meaningful traditions and holidays, and this Father’s Day, spending on gifts and other holiday items is expected to reach record levels,” said Katherine Cullen, VP of Industry and Consumer Insights at NRF. “As consumers look to recognize the father figures in their lives, retailers are prepared with gift ideas, special deals and convenient shopping options to help customers find the right gifts.”

Held on Sunday, June 15, Father’s Day 2025 will likely mark a milestone for both heartfelt celebrations and retail success.

The post Father’s Day hits record sales high appeared first on Salon.com.

According to Resume Now’s new Ghostworking Report, 58% of employees say they regularly pretend to be working. Another 34% do so occasionally. These aren’t isolated moments of distraction — they’re reflections of a deeper disconnect between employees and the environments they work in. From walking around with a notebook to keep up appearances, to scheduling fake meetings for a break from endless tasks, workers are finding quiet ways to reclaim time and preserve energy in a system that demands constant visibility.

Even more telling: 92% of employees have searched for a new job during work hours. That statistic doesn’t point to laziness. In reality, it signals dissatisfaction, disconnection and a lack of trust that the current job will offer growth, recognition or long-term stability.

The real cost of looking busy

Many workplaces still treat productivity as something that can be observed, tracked or measured by activity rather than results. If you’re responding to messages quickly, present in every meeting and online all day, you’re seen as productive — even if that time is filled with shallow tasks or redundant check-ins.

For employees, this creates pressure to constantly perform. It’s not just about doing the work anymore; it’s about proving that you’re working. When that kind of validation becomes more important than impact, people burn out. The day becomes a performance. And eventually, employees begin ghostworking just to survive it.

This performative culture exists both remotely and in-office, with 47% of employees saying they waste more time working from home and 37% reporting that they waste more in the office. The problem isn’t where people work. It’s how they’re expected to operate under systems that prioritize face time and control over trust and purpose.

Ghostworking isn’t the problem — it’s the signal

The Ghostworking Report highlights the strategies workers use to manage this constant pressure:

• 23% have walked around the office with a notebook to appear busy
• 22% have typed randomly to look engaged
• 15% have held a phone to their ear without being on a call
• 12% have scheduled fake meetings to avoid real work

While these might be viewed as signs of disengagement, they’re actually adaptations. Workers are managing unreasonable expectations, burnout and unclear priorities the only way they can: by creating pockets of mental space within rigid structures.

Most striking of all, nearly one in four employees have edited their resumes on the clock, and about 20% have taken recruiter calls during work hours. These actions make it clear that ghostworking isn’t about avoiding effort — it’s about planning an exit from roles that no longer serve their well-being or goals.

Monitoring and oversight miss the mark

In response to perceived drops in productivity, many employers turn to surveillance. Strategies like screen tracking, mouse monitoring and requiring activity logs are on the rise in many workplaces. Our survey found that 69% of employees say they would be more productive if their screen time were monitored, but this doesn’t reflect enthusiasm for oversight. It reflects fear. Workers understand the expectations placed on them and know how to play the game. But that doesn’t mean the game is working.

Surveillance may create short-term bursts of activity, but it rarely leads to meaningful, sustainable performance. It can also erode trust and increase stress, making it even more likely that employees disengage emotionally, even if they’re technically present.

If companies want to improve focus and reduce ghostworking, the solution isn’t to watch harder. It’s to listen more.

What workers need to re-engage

At its core, ghostworking is a response to misalignment. When workers understand their role, feel connected to their team and see how their work matters, they rarely pretend to be busy. They don’t need to.

To reduce ghostworking, employers should consider shifting the way work is structured and experienced. But this shift should be driven by a desire to support employees, not to extract more from them.

Here are four strategies that start with listening and end with shared trust:

Clarify roles and remove roadblocks. Many workers waste time not because they want to, but because priorities are unclear or processes are broken. Give employees clear goals and invite them to shape how those goals are reached. When people have ownership, they take initiative.

Address what’s draining, not just what’s time-consuming. Disengagement often stems from constant interruptions, unnecessary meetings and performative tasks. Invite workers to share what parts of their day feel energizing versus what feels like noise. Then act on that feedback. When employees have input into how time is spent, they’re more likely to stay focused and fulfilled.

Focus on outcomes, not optics. Trust employees to manage their schedules and workflows. Measuring performance based on output, rather than activity logs or availability, gives workers the autonomy they need to do their best work without needing to “look busy” all day. As more roles prove effective outside traditional office settings, it’s worth recognizing that productivity isn’t tied to physical presence. Being in an office doesn’t automatically mean work is getting done.

Foster psychological safety. Employees need to know they can speak up without fear. Create space for open conversations about burnout, bandwidth and barriers to focus. When people feel heard, they’re far more likely to re-engage with the work itself.

These are not simply productivity hacks. They’re structural and cultural shifts that show employees that their worth goes beyond the work they produce.

If you’re ghostworking, you’re not alone

f you’ve found yourself pretending to work, zoning out or job-searching during the day, take a moment to reflect without judgment. Are you overwhelmed? Underchallenged? Disconnected from your team or unsure of what success looks like?

Sometimes ghostworking is a response to burnout. Other times it’s a signal that you’ve outgrown your role or that the workplace isn’t providing the support or flexibility you need.

Start by identifying what’s missing. Is it recognition? Is it alignment with your values? Is it room to grow?

Then, when you’re ready, take small steps toward change:

• Have an honest conversation with your manager about what’s draining your energy.
• Reconnect with tasks or projects that align with your strengths.
• Quietly begin exploring roles that better fit your goals and needs.

There’s no shame in needing more from your workday. And there’s power in recognizing when it’s time to advocate for yourself or plan your next move.

Ghostworking doesn’t reflect a failure of work ethic. It reflects a failure of workplaces to provide clarity, autonomy and purpose.

When we treat it as a red flag instead of a flaw, we open the door to better conversations about what workers need to thrive. We start to rebuild trust. And we move away from a culture of scrutinizing and pressuring toward one where people are supported, valued and empowered to show up fully, not just pretend.

The post People are pretending to work — but watching them more makes things worse appeared first on Salon.com.

But one thing you might not have admired? Their bank account.

Being a drag queen — even being a famous drag queen — may not pay the bills. And there are a lot of bills to pay. 

“People do drag because people love drag,” Indianapolis-based drag king Damien Belmont said. “Nobody's getting rich doing drag. That's the unfortunate reality, but it's reality all the same.”

What is the cost?

Like any other kind of artist, the costs associated with being a drag queen may seem minimal if you’re not in the biz. But for those working regularly, there are huge costs associated with it.

Denver-based Jessica L'Whor, a full-time drag queen and performer, breaks down the makeup costs:

• Makeup: Between $50 – $100 every 2-3 months
• Skincare products: About $50 per month
• Costume commissions: Sporadic, but averages between $625 and $1,250 per month
• Wigs: Each wig costs between $20 and $700
• Wig restyling: Between $50 and $200 depending on various factors
• Gas: Varies depending on how far you have to travel for a gig

“It all adds up,” L'Whor said.

What’s even more surprising is how much — or perhaps more accurately, how little — drag queens make per gig. On average, L'Whor says that clubs pay between $75 and $200 per gig. And while patrons can tip, those amounts also vary. If it’s a slow night or people are feeling frugal, tips can be minimal. That’s another major reason why many drag queens only rely on their art as a side hustle.

“I’d say 25% of drag queens make a full-time living,” said drag queen Dixie Krystals.

Belmont said he doesn’t know any drag queen or king who makes a living based solely on their performances.

“In fact, most of us are lucky if we kind of break even when it comes to expenses,” Belmont said.  “It gets really expensive really quickly, especially if you’re not resourceful.”

What’s hurting drag queens?

Between 2002 and 2023, more than 45% of gay clubs closed in the U.S. These clubs are the lifeblood for drag queens — every time a gay or queer club or bar closes, queens inevitably lose out. 

High food prices and housing costs mean consumers have less to spend at bars. That means less money for tickets to drag shows, for tipping queens and for drinks. 

Also, “going out” culture has changed. Gen Z has been hailed as the first generation to drink more responsibly, but spending less money on alcohol hurts the nightlife business. The fewer people there are at a show, the less money is spent on the queens.

The cost of RuPaul’s “Drag Race"

OK, so being a local drag queen doesn’t pay much. But surely being a drag queen and a TV star must pay more, right? Not necessarily.

Since 2009, “RuPaul’s Drag Race” has been hailed as one of the best reality shows around. It’s also been a proving ground for drag queens not only in America, but all over the world.

However, with the 10th season of “RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars” airing now, some critics are noticing that "Drag Race" alumni aren't as profitable as they used to be.

Many queens spend thousands of dollars on their outfits just to appear on the show. And if they aren’t a winner or a fan favorite, they may “never earn that money back, leaving them financially devastated," according to one queen. 

Several have said they’re not pulling in as much as they expected, even after appearing on the show and progressing through the various rounds. Season 15 contestant Salina EsTitties said many “Drag Race” alumni are not raking it in, especially not after recent economic changes.

These struggles have been coming to a head for years. Ever since “Drag Race” became a mainstay, queens have been spending more money, often taking out huge loans to cover what their savings can’t. Most recently, season 17 contestant Lexi Love said she took out a second mortgage to pay for her outfits for the show.

So whether you’re a local drag queen performing at a club a few times a month or a reality TV star, the cost of drag weighs on everyone.

The post “Nobody’s getting rich doing drag”: It costs to be a queen appeared first on Salon.com.

As of 2024, almost half of Republican men and one-third of Republican women believed that “women should return to their traditional roles in society,” a cultural prescription that’s doubled in popularity since just 2022, in part due to the grim outlooks of disillusioned young people. This vision was particularly seductive for young men, who voted for Trump in record numbers: Gen Z men report regressive gender views (like “a man who stays home with his children is less of a man”) at more than twice the rate of their baby boomer counterparts. This context makes otherwise unobjectionable family-friendly proposals — like that of a $5,000 baby bonus — seem more sinister, meager attempts at restoring the single-earner, single-caregiver family structure associated with a bygone era of American prosperity and dominance. 

In the world that Reaganomics built and over which 14 billionaires now run roughshod, it’s certainly an alluring theory. Wouldn’t it be convenient for those struggling in the tightening fingertrap of modern life if embracing the supposedly natural traits downstream of one’s reproductive system was enough to raise wages and make housing affordable? But we shouldn’t forget why we left the so-called “traditional” family structure behind in the first place. 

The last time gender’s cold war erupted into a battle fought on such explicit terms was around 50 years ago. Two years after Silvia Federici published her seminal work "Wages Against Housework," a woman named Terry Martin Hekker took to the op-ed pages of The New York Times to bemoan the state of homemaking — not because she wasn’t being compensated for her time and labor, as second-wave feminists like Federici suggested she ought to be, but because she felt too few women were choosing to do it anyway. Examining household income trends, she muses, “I calculate I am less than eight years away from being the last housewife in the country.” Betty Friedan, avert your eyes.

Hekker, the author of the 1980 book "Ever Since Adam and Eve: The Satisfactions of Housewifery and Motherhood in ‘an Age of Do-Your-Own-Thing,’" was the ur-tradwife. Her writing adopted the defensive, defiant tone that will be familiar to anyone who’s had the displeasure of viewing the infamous "Ballerina Farm" response to the Times of London article about the modern “queen of the tradwives.” (The more things change..) Of course, Hekker may not have realized at the time that many of her housewife contemporaries were entering the workforce not because they had read a time-machine-faxed advance copy of "Lean In," but because inflation was creeping higher and their families needed another paycheck. In short, for reasons people have always worked: for money.

In the piece, Hekker alternates between playful and indignant. Her argument — that the “do your own thing” mantra of the women’s movement should extend to homemakers, a group she saw as at risk of becoming “extinct” — seems fair enough, though at times it’s plain that Hekker believes being a stay-at-home mother is not only her thing, but the right thing. Putting the ambitions of her peers in scare-quotes in one particularly biting parenthetical, she writes, “[There’s no getting even for] years of fetching other women’s children after they’d thrown up in the lunchroom, because I have nothing better to do, or probably there is nothing I do better, while their mothers have ‘careers.’ (Is clerking in a drug store a bona fide career?).”

Speaking of her foremothers, she writes, “They took pride in a clean, comfortable home and satisfaction in serving a good meal because no one had explained to them that the only work worth doing is that for which you get paid.” On this, it’s hard to argue: Care work, the work that makes all other work possible, is invaluable — though it certainly isn’t valued. But the harsh reality of spending decades out of the workforce in our current paradigm — which, as Hekker rightly argued in 1977 and which remains true today, views work only as that for which you can be paid — is zeroes in the Social Security records, little or no retirement savings of one’s own and a slim chance of being able to find meaningful employment later, should one need it. While married women over 65 are about as likely to be poor as married men, divorced women are 56% more likely to live in poverty than their counterparts. (A 2024 Social Security office analysis projects that offering credits to caregivers would increase the monthly benefit of a quarter of the population living in poverty by 14%, a modest but important step in the right direction.)

Hekker wrote this op-ed in 1977, a time when the U.S. economy had stalled. Now — 40 years deep in the great neoliberal experiment, in which wages have long grown stagnant, most federal spending has accumulated in sky-high asset prices and labor protections have become so brittle there’s hardly anything left to weaken — it’s never been more popular to wonder whether the promise of trickle-down, hustle-bustle economics was a trap (it was!). But rather than yearning for the strong unions, high corporate and marginal tax rates and illegal stock buybacks of yesteryear, many cling instead to the ahistorical, rosy image popularized by 1950s nostalgia porn, that which Hekker valorizes in her piece: the superiority of the “traditional,” single-income family, in which a (male) breadwinner works for a family wage, and a (female) caretaker manages life at home. This is the image cosplayed today by many-an-alt-right grifter on social media, propped up by the bounty of Amazon storefronts and AdSense (did their patron saint Betty Draper have affiliate links, too?).

This conflation of gender orthodoxy with American prosperity is popular for a frustratingly simple reason: A politics which refuses to engage with a rigorous economic analysis in the face of parabolic wealth and income inequality has no choice but to attribute the creeping void of American precarity to cultural explanations instead. In other words: Do the gender roles again, a growing contingent of Americans seems to believe, and the prosperity will return! In this accounting, feminism made women selfish and undesirable, men no longer exhibit sufficient “masculine energy,” and the result is .. wage stagnation? 

But gender role orthodoxy as a solution to economic problems confronts the same shortcoming today it’s always faced: Dependence on the long-term, unwavering benevolence of another person is an abjectly risky financial strategy. Even Reagan, who, as governor of California, signed into law the first “no-fault divorce” statute in the country, knew trapping people in marriages was a bad idea. Widespread adoption of such unilateral divorce laws saw a drop in the female suicide rate of 20%. So set aside the fantasy that cultural capitulation to this “traditional” vision would fix the nation’s economic issues (it wouldn’t), and you’re still left with a proposition that balances the heavy burden of long-term security for roughly half the population on the temperamental, one-legged stool of another person’s affection. This is a lesson Terry Martin Hekker learned the hard way. 

In 2006, she returned to the pages of the Gray Lady to write a follow-up called “Paradise Lost (Domestic Division)” in which she provided a somber update. After her original column had experienced the 1970s version of virality, she wrote a book and toured the country “lecturing” to “rapt audiences” about “the rewards of homemaking and housewifery,” enacting a less overtly political but equally ironic interpretation of the Phyllis Schlafly playbook. “So I was predictably stunned and devastated,” she revealed, “when, on our 40th wedding anniversary, my husband presented me with a divorce,” trading her in for a “sleeker model.” She wasn’t alone. “There were many other confused women of my age and circumstance who’d been married just as long, sharing my situation.” But “divorced” wasn’t the right word for how she felt — “canceled” was more fitting, as it described what happened to her credit cards, health insurance and finally her checking account. Her ex-husband took his younger girlfriend to Cancún. She became eligible for SNAP benefits and published a second title: "Disregard First Book."

The collective longing for a sturdier system, currently molting in tradwife TikToks and behind the paywall of Andrew Tate’s Hustlers University, is supported by a scaffolding of legitimate critique. When the U.S. moved to a dual-earner economy, it did virtually nothing to address the question of caregiving, a critical component of any functioning society. In the absence of a robust, systemic approach to care as a public good (save for the dangling carrot of a one-time $5,000 baby bonus), we shouldn’t forget the real, if imperfect, protections available to us. 

For people who want to have children and continue to participate in the labor market, this might look like using a high-yield savings or money market account to begin saving for the climbing expense of child care before a child is born, to defray some of the unmanageable costs. And for those who think they may want to work inside their homes and provide this care themselves, it means building terms around spousal support into a prenuptial agreement that outline what happens if your marriage (and, by extension, source of income) goes away someday — like how much money you’ll receive, and for how long, while you look for employment again. 

These steps — as well as those which can help women earn more money without working harder than they already are — are the focus of my new book, "Rich Girl Nation." But if there’s anything this state of affairs should teach us in the meantime, it’s that the game of inventing cultural explanations for material shortcomings will always assign the shortest sticks to those least able to demand long ones. That is a feature, not a bug, of the far-right’s vision for women’s futures. Forgive us if we don’t want to play along.

The post The “traditional family” financial structure is back, thanks to Gen Z appeared first on Salon.com.

“The survey results don't surprise me at all,” Lauren Schneider, a 31-year-old working in public relations in State College, Pennsylvania, told Salon. “Most companies offer benefits that look impressive on paper, but don't address real daily stress.”

Schneider works for an online employee benefits platform, describing her benefits as, no surprise, “genuinely great”: one of the more lavish perks is a $1,000 monthly stipend that employees can apply to the company’s health insurance, or take as a lump sum to use “however we want.” She joined the company three years ago, after nearly a dozen jobs in broadcast journalism, social media and corporate communication. “I made no money and had no benefits,” she said. “It took a long time to get to this point."

In her previous roles, she said, “Companies still had the same (attitude) of, ‘OK, here’s your 10 days off. Maybe you’ll get to use them — that’s on you — but if you take time off, we’ll make you feel bad about it anyways. And here’s your health insurance, and that comes out of your paycheck. So, congratulations.”

Companies, and the people they employ, have rarely been more disconnected on the benefits of benefits. In 2023, benefits satisfaction among U.S. workers hit a 10-year low, with just 61% of American workers saying they’re happy with their benefits. Also that year, the insurance giant MetLife surveyed nearly 6,000 benefits administrators and full-time employees, finding that the gap between companies’ perception of employee satisfaction, and true employee satisfaction, had swelled from 3% to a whopping 22% in the last five years. The following year, the hiring website Indeed published a report on what it called an “undeniable trend” in its surveys and research. 

“The Great Resignation may be over, but the record number of people quitting their jobs in 2021 and 2022 has been replaced by a gap between what job seekers want and what employers provide,” the report states. It goes on to say that such discrepancies “have surfaced so frequently in Indeed’s surveys and research that it’s become an undeniable trend we’re calling the Great Disconnect — a chasm between job seekers and employers as they find themselves at odds over remote work, pay, diversity and inclusion, and more.”

If you're feeling a knee-jerk reaction to blame younger workers for expecting too much from their jobs, consider that over the past 20 years, the average benefits package has changed significantly. Companies across the board have been beefing up softer perks like professional development and wellness incentives, while cutting more costly — and valuable — financial benefits. Between 1996 and 2016, employees have lost out on substantial financial perks, with benefits like relocation assistance, mortgage assistance, employee credit union membership, pensions, stock purchase plans and health care premium flexible spending accounts offered less frequently. That’s according to a 2016 report from the Society for Human Resource Management that measures how corporate benefits have changed over the last 20 years.

The SHRM report also found that professional development and wellness benefits are more common today, but noted that some wellness benefits are being phased out: onsite flu vaccinations, health coaching and access to a 24-hour health care line are less common today, compared to increases in perks like a standing desk, company fitness competitions and nap rooms.

In the Prudential report, employers and employees were given a list of workplace benefits and asked whether each benefit was “expected” in a benefits package. Employers were in agreement on needing to provide some benefits, like dental insurance, which 70% of executives said was expected, or vision insurance, which 66% said would belong in the package. But just 33% of employers thought company-matched retirement saving plans would be expected, compared to 45% of employees. For a health savings account, 33% of employers said they’d expect to provide it, compared to 41% of workers who said they’d expect to receive it. 

Conversations with my mostly millennial friends revealed a mixed bag of benefits satisfaction, and what each of them expects from their employer. A friend in his early thirties, who I’ll call Alex, lives in Chicago and works in digital media. He said he’s largely satisfied with his benefits, but was quick to note that, “a lot of the great benefits that I have come from my union, and the protections it offers me.” Before his current job, he worked at an events company, where benefits were standard — health insurance, a 401(k) account and two weeks’ vacation — but regularly worked 60 or more hours per week, without overtime pay. At the law firm before that, he only received basic health benefits. 

Another friend, Veronica, 33, described the benefits she gets at a civil engineering firm in Houston as “better than the jobs I had right out of college, but by no means progressive.” The company offers flexible leave, a stock purchase plan, retirement savings, employee discounts, vaccinations and more. Her company would likely describe itself as being on “the cutting-edge of benefits,” she said. “But ultimately, I think what they cover should be standard.” In one jarring moment of corporate detachment, the company’s website lists one benefit as “exposure to world-class projects,” which give individuals the opportunity to “keep your mind stimulated.”

And Chris, 32, described his benefits as being “pretty good, actually.” Chris works in customer service at a publicly traded tech company in New York; his benefits include full-coverage health insurance through a major provider, a monthly meal stipend, gym membership reimbursement, subway credits and a subscription to the Calm app. 

When I asked him how many times he’d used Calm, he grimaced. “Once,” he said. “I logged in, connected to my account and never went back to it.”

The post “Made no money, had no benefits”: Companies are selling people on cheaper perks appeared first on Salon.com.

In addition to the newsletter, Ehrenkranz also runs a Discord community, which offers its members additional ways to connect, support each other and navigate the uncharted waters of unemployment during the second Trump term. This community is private for paid readers at the monthly fee of $5. 

While the particular kind of financial strain and psychological pressures that characterize unemployment have been around as long as there have been jobs, the scale of layoffs, the transformative nature of AI that is upending entire industries, stubborn inflation, economic uncertainty and new ways social media is connecting people again post-pandemic makes 2025 a unique time to be navigating the ever-shifting job market.

“This moment feels heavier,” Ehrenkranz told Salon. “People aren’t just getting laid off — they’re getting ghosted, strung along, maybe even experiencing their second or third or fifth layoff in their career.”

Magenta Fox, one of the members of the community Ehrenkranz created, has been laid off since 2023. Fox says this period of unemployment is “vastly different” from the other times she was looking for work, in 2009 and during 2016-2018.

“With this search, I’ve paid for resume rewrites and interview coaching— something I’ve never done at any point in my career,” Fox said. “And it seems like there’s no end in sight. At least with the Great Recession it seemed like there was an effort in Washington to try to make things better.”

This time around, Fox found her interactions with recruiters more cutthroat. 

“I’ve had recruiters no-show on calls and write rude emails— something I’ve never gotten from anyone, recruiter or no, in my professional life, ever,” she said.

The uptick in ghosting behavior from recruiters adds to the mental health toll job hunting can take.

“The psychological effect was really enormous,” said New York-based Dio Martins, who has been recently laid off and has just landed a new remote opportunity. 

Martins found networking and connecting with friends helpful in his job search.

“It’s incredible how helpful a little text message can be to someone, just reminding you that you’re not alone, and to keep trying things,” he said. 

As of late May 2025, U.S. employers cut nearly half a million jobs, which is a 93% jump compared to the same period last year. 

So far, 2025 has been a brutal year for US employees. Major U.S. employers like Chevron, JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Blue Origin, Estée Lauder, Kohl’s, Southwest Airlines, Walmart and Business Insider have announced major layoffs ranging from hundreds to thousands of jobs. 

Inspired by communities like Rachel Karten's Link in Bio Discord and Julia Harrison's Saloon Substack, Ehrenkranz wanted to remove the stigma from being unemployed and create a nurturing environment for those looking to get back on their feet.

“I noticed a lot of readers were using the Substack Chat to share their stories and ask for advice, and so I wanted to create a space that had more layers to it for people experiencing job loss to connect,” Ehrenkranz said. “The intention behind the Discord, similar to the overall mission, is for people to feel less alone and to destigmatize layoffs. And also to have some fun and maybe make some friends.”

Over time, she noticed that members started using the Discord as a way to deal with the day-to-day pressures of job searching, both online and in person.

“I've seen people in the Discord share advice on how to post about their layoff on LinkedIn without it feeling cringe, how to wear their hair in a Zoom job interview, how to respond to a hiring manager that ghosted them after several rounds of interviews, and how to tweak their resume so it doesn't get trashed by ATS software,” she said. “I've also increasingly seen folks trying to meet up outside of the Discord, whether it's in a vent session on Google Meet or grabbing drinks during the week.”

Ultimately, the mental health break and human connection is what online communities like Laid Off offer its members: without the gloss or pretenses of traditional social media or the unproductive bureaucracy of an unemployment office.

“In this economy, finding full-time employment is like finding a needle in a haystack,” said 25-year-old Niya Doyle, one of the people Ehrenkranz profiled for her newsletter. Doyle made a TikTok about how she was laid off, one of many who turned to social media to seek solace from others going through the same experience.

“I just saw a lot of my FYP even before I got laid off,” she said. “I guess it makes it feel like you're not alone. It's comforting.”

Whether it’s Substack comments, Reddit forums, Discord communities or TikTok posts detailing their layoff experiences, more job seekers are finding comfort in numbers on social media, making their isolating experience of a layoff a little bit more palatable. 

“They’re the co-workers I wish I had, in a way,” Fox said about the Laid Off community. “We exchange tips and share rejection stories. I feel like I can go there to vent without being seen as a bummer.” 

Correction: Magenta Fox entered the job market in 2009 and was employed from 2016 to 2018. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that she was laid off during those years. 

The post “Amen” at the end of the long day: Finding community and solace online after a layoff appeared first on Salon.com.

However, for regular Americans who are politically independent and make around or below median income, the status of the economy is a much less important question than long-running trends of economic well-being. From the perspective of most Americans, either a recession is coming or has already started, because the running consensus for normal people is that the economy is bad —and maybe more importantly, has been bad for a while.

Nearly all long-run economic polling data or qualitative study on economic well-being conclude that most Americans exist in a nearly permanent state of economic dissatisfaction, though not always in an outright crisis. For most people, the economy is primarily characterized by some mix of low wages, costly bills and a dwindling supply of good jobs and opportunities.

A chorus of survey data consistently reports that Americans view the economy as getting continuously worse, with those findings often extending as far back as the data sets have existed. There is no shortage of alarming statistics to validate those concerns: Wages have been mostly stagnant, the cost of living continues to rise, small businesses are disappearing, medical debt is increasing, the median age of homebuyers continues to rise and higher education now often requires mortgage-level debt. For those without savings, retiring comfortably seems tenuous, with many seniors choosing to work part-time and younger families delaying parenthood due to economic concerns. And this is without any mention of the more recent and specific concerns like the rising gig economy or the effects of technological advancements.

While some statistics paint a more optimistic picture — especially when the data is carefully selected and narrowly framed — it is important to centerpiece that most people evaluate the economy in broad, intuitive terms. For many, questions about the economy are much less about the exact statistics that a field expert will focus on, like the year-over-year marginal changes in log-scaled disposable income, and much more about fundamental questions: Is this the life that I hoped for? Am I better off than my forefathers? Can I comfortably afford a home, a family and the dreams of my children? Is the future getting brighter or darker? The well-being of the economy is evaluated holistically and continuously over the life cycle, not quarterly and technical.

The economic well-being of ordinary people ought to be a central concern of the economics profession. Yet, despite the importance of this issue, there is no universally accepted metric that fully captures its complexity, and in practice many economists are often much more focused on narrow questions that can infer causation, publish well and advance tenure. While many assume economists are primarily focused on addressing these holistic affordability challenges, the reality is that this area often remains underexplored. Many economists continue to rely on topline macroeconomic indicators, despite privately acknowledging that affordability challenges — such as high rent, expensive child care and rising daily costs —remain central personal concerns.

The economy is often assessed at the aggregate level, with statistics like gross domestic product, instead of a distributional focus that characterizes the experience at the low-end or for the broad swath of people in the middle of the income distribution. Though hard to define, economic well-being should at least measure whether individuals of average incomes can afford to live securely, purchase homes, raise families and retire with dignity. 

The recent interest in recessions, and by extension most contemporary economic evaluations, is informed by some degree of partisanship, but most Americans are somewhat independent and their concerns over affordability are longstanding. For normal people, the prospect of a recession is secondary to questions over personal finance. For most families, the state of the economy is not captured in GDP figures or trade deficit data; it is a more sentimental understanding, more related to the trade-off between rising grocery prices and piano lessons for your kid. It is your wife having to take up a second shift to pay for daycare, the inability of your mother to retire and the degree of stress about the order in which a family pays bills to avoid late charges.

Economists and policymakers need to appreciate that most Americans have long concluded that wages are too low, bills are too high and good jobs are too hard to find. Whether there is a recession misses the larger point: The economy is bad.

The post Wake me up when we’re not in a recession — the economy has felt broken for decades appeared first on Salon.com.

Grede’s views on work-life balance do not reflect the reality for most employees and what they expect from their organizations. According to Ranstad’s most recent workmonitor report, work-life balance surpassed pay as a top motivator for employees in 2025. Employees don’t want to spend every waking hour at work — they want to have hobbies, spend time with friends and family and finally enjoy that vacation they’ve dreamed about, all without feeling guilty that they’re not working enough or fear of a bad performance review.  

To make that magic balance happen, it is both the employee’s and employer’s responsibility, and employees have a right to ask about it before they commit to a job. Let’s break that down.

Employers take responsibility through the culture they create

Culture captures everything that is normal and expected of employees in an organization. And it’s created by the policies the organizations implement, the behaviors that leaders model and the things that employees are rewarded (or punished) for. If leaders consistently stay in the office past 6 or 7 p.m., employees are more likely to do the same. If the employee that is available via email 24/7 gets the promotion or yearly bonus, other employees copy that. This creates a culture of work-life imbalance where employees are expected to and rewarded for letting work dominate their lives.  

Organizations must actively create a culture of work-life balance. Policies such as flexible working arrangements and limiting after-hours communication, and holding leaders accountable for sticking to those policies, contribute to the culture. Flexible working policies allow employees to get their job done but in a way that suits them and their needs outside of work. Further, a recent study found that monitoring email after hours is a main contributor to a lack of work-life balance. A California lawmaker introduced a bill that would make it a finable offense for managers to contact employees after hours. Just a note: While the law might force work-life balance, research suggests that policies like these are more powerful when the organization implements them voluntarily. 

Employees aren’t looking for organizations to figure out how to pick their kids up from soccer or how to get to a doctor’s appointment, as Grede suggests in the interview. Instead, they are looking for a culture with reasonable expectations and the flexibility that makes getting those things done easier. And it’s the employer’s responsibility to create that culture.  

Employees have a right to ask about work-life balance 

We often think that interviews are solely for the organization to pick the best candidate for the job. But organizations are just as much in the hot seat as prospective employees are. Interviews offer an opportunity for applicants to ask the company hard-hitting questions — to understand the culture, the expectations of the job and whether the company’s values align with their own. Asking about work-life balance in an interview is not only appropriate but can save time and resources down the line for both parties. 

In that same Randstad workmonitor report, almost half (48%) of the more than 26,000 respondents said they would pass on a job offer if their personal values didn’t align with the organization’s. Fit between the employee and the organization is a key driver of both employee job satisfaction and turnover later on. Not everyone defines success as a straight shot to the top of the corporate hierarchy, as Grede implies. Some employees define success as a fulfilling career or one that allows them to pursue other passions. And they want to find an organization that allows them to achieve their own version of success.  

Prospective employees use interviews to learn about the expectations of a job. It is a major red flag if the hiring manager doesn’t answer the question rather than if the candidate asks it. If the values don’t align, it saves all parties the headache for candidates to self-select out of the application process at the interview stage. 

There’s nothing “wrong with” employees who want work-life balance, as Grede claims. It’s natural to want to enjoy all that life has to offer beyond the confines of the office. Employers have a responsibility to promote work-lifebalance for employees, particularly if they want to retain top talent. And employees are entitled to learn that information so they can find an organization that feels like home.

The post Millionaire CEO’s rejection of work-life balance exposes the problem with hustle culture appeared first on Salon.com.

Many are starting as early as ages three or four, motivated by a growing recognition that financial literacy is too important to leave to chance to schools.

This shift comes at a time when systems like Social Security and Medicaid are under threat, and when parents are determined to help their children avoid repeating their own financial mistakes. 

Even as schools expand financial literacy offerings, parents are still stepping in to help navigate and fill the gaps left by traditional classroom programs.

Since 2020, the number of states requiring public high school students to take a personal finance course has more than tripled from eight to 27, which means nearly two in three U.S. high schoolers will acquire basic financial knowledge before graduation. 

Many states have now incorporated financial literacy requirements into public education curricula, which financial planner Hersh Kumbhani calls “a huge win.” 

State government financial education resources for young children include Money Smart Wisconsin’s statewide activities, New York’s Office of Financial Empowerment initiatives, California’s K-12 Financial Literacy Initiative and Iowa’s Jump$tart Coalition programs — all providing free lessons, events and programs to teach kids basic money skills.

According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s 2016 report, "Building Blocks to Help Youth Achieve Financial Capability," middle childhood — ages 6 to 12 — is a critical period when children develop foundational knowledge and habits that shape their future financial behaviors, making early education essential for building lifelong financial capability.

Joline Godfrey, founder and CEO of Bounce10, a financial parenting membership platform, has seen this trend firsthand. 

“Financial education for kids sort of got started back in the 1990s, when during the Clinton years people were looking at the whole Welfare to Work movement, and it was seen as yet another strategy for getting mothers off welfare and back to work and then getting kids prepared,” Godfrey said. “People didn't understand the developmental approach to financial education, so they would start in the teen years, and by that time kids' habits were already pretty well baked.”

Her financial education startup, Bounce 10, is focused on kids as young as four years old.

“Because I'm trained developmentally, I thought we need to be getting to these children earlier and normalizing the acquisition of values of language and skill building in a way that they don't then reject down the line, when people make it very boring and dull,” she said.

Other paid financial education resources for kids such as KidVestors, goHenry and FamZoo also offer subscription-based platforms, apps or programs with interactive lessons and parental controls, typically charging monthly or annual fees for access to their financial literacy tools and services.

While the perfect age for financial education depends on whom you ask, many financial educators emphasize the importance of real-world learning at home. 

“A lot of this impact can come from parents just talking about money openly with their children,” he said. “In many families and cultures, money is a taboo topic. I believe children learn a lot from open conversation. Humanizing a message makes it more relatable and therefore more powerful.”

And you don’t need to pay hundreds of dollars for access to financial information; a lot of it is readily available. Recent financial literacy programs and resources for young children include FDIC’s Money Smart for Young People, the American Library Association’s Thinking Money for Kids Program Kits, the American Bankers Association’s Teach Children to Save initiative and Ally’s Adventures with Money.

“With the proliferation and advancement in technology, there are a lot of places where parents can go for financial information — blogs, social media, community organizations and financial advisers,” Kumbhani said. “While having access to these outlets is overall a good thing, I would advise parents to make sure that the sources are reputable and that the education is applicable to their own unique situation. Because personal finance is just that — personal.”

The post Toddler finance: Parents are starting money lessons before kindergarten appeared first on Salon.com.

When stock markets tank, investors tend to move their money into bonds since these investments are less risky and can help soften the blow to their portfolios. This is why historically, when equities lose value, bonds would hold their value or even rise in value. 

In early April, though, that didn’t happen. Following President Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs, stocks and bonds sold off simultaneously. Although markets recovered somewhat after Trump’s 90-day pause on the tariffs, the recent fluctuations have left investors wondering if bonds still deserve a spot in their portfolios. 

Should you invest in bonds?

Despite the bumpy start to the year, financial experts remain pretty optimistic about bonds. 

“This might be one of the most compelling times since 2007 to invest in bonds,” said Pawan Jain, a certified financial planner and associate professor of finance, insurance and real estate at Virginia Commonwealth University. "After years of rising interest rates, yields are finally attractive across many bond types, and with the Federal Reserve expected to pause or begin cutting rates, investors could benefit from both steady income and potential price gains."

David Johnston, managing partner of Amwell Ridge Wealth Management and a certified financial planner, said the overall outlook for yields is attractive. “Even if bond prices bounce around in the coming weeks, yields are still looking pretty solid compared to the last 20 years,” he said. That means there are some good chances to earn income across the bond market. “Plus, starting yields are now so much higher than even just a few years ago, and starting yields are usually the best indicator of future performance.” 

Before diving into the risks of investing in bonds, it's helpful to understand how bond prices and yields are connected. In short, bond prices and yields move in opposite directions. Generally, if you already own a bond, you want yields to fall because bond prices rise when yields drop, making your bond more valuable. But if you’re looking to buy a bond, you want yields to be high, so you lock in a better income stream at a lower price.

That said, bonds aren’t completely risk-free. Usually, the higher the yield a bond offers, the more risk you’re taking on. On the other hand, lower yields typically mean the bond is a safer investment.

Best types of bonds to invest in 

If you’re thinking about adding bonds to your portfolio this year, experts say to consider the following:

Municipal bonds. These bonds are issued by state or local governments to fund public projects like roads or water systems. Marc Lichtenfeld, chief income strategist at The Oxford Club, believes that municipal bonds are solid options for higher earners or people living in high-tax states. 

Municipal bonds are federally tax-free. And in some cases, they’re also free from state and local taxes. That means you may never owe income taxes on the payments you receive from the bond's issuer. "Some municipal bonds are yielding about the same as Treasuries, but because of their tax-exempt status, their tax-equivalent yield can be over 7%," said Lichtenfeld. "You’d have to earn more than 7% on a taxable bond just to match that."

Short-duration corporate bonds. These bonds are another investment worth looking into. According to Johnston, these shorter maturities help protect against interest rate swings while still offering attractive yields.

With so much uncertainty around the U.S. tariffs, interest rates and broader geopolitical tensions, having flexibility is important. Short-term bonds make it simpler to adjust your portfolio if things change. 

U.S. Treasuries. If you're looking for safety, experts say U.S. Treasuries are still one of the best options. They offer strong liquidity and minimal credit risk, even though they briefly dipped alongside stocks during the latest sell-off.

What to consider before putting your money in bonds 

Make sure you’re aware of a couple of things before adding bonds to your portfolio. 

Don’t try to time the market. "Things are so unpredictable right now," said Lichtenfeld. "It's impossible to have any idea where things are headed. Buy bonds to protect your principal and generate income, not to guess where interest rates are going next."

While many expect the Fed to pause or even cut rates, there’s always a chance rates could move unexpectedly, especially with global trade tensions heating up. 

Keep bond maturities short. If you’re thinking about buying bonds now, Lichtenfeld suggests keeping your bond maturities shorter, around five years or less. "I wouldn’t want to own long-term bonds at this point," Lichtenfeld said. He explained that shorter maturities offer more flexibility if interest rates change and can help protect against larger price drops.

Build a bond ladder for stability. If you want to reduce portfolio risk and earn a steady income, you may want to build a bond ladder. The idea is you buy a series of bonds that mature in consecutive calendar years, so you have bonds regularly coming due and the ability to reinvest at new rates over time. 

Suppose you have $50,000 to invest in bonds. You could buy five different bonds, each with a face value of $10,000, and each would have a different maturity, ranging from one to five years or more. This is a good way to spread out risk, especially in an unpredictable environment.

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