The federal Paycheck Protection Program, part of the 2020 CARES Act, was designed to help small businesses, especially those in underserved or rural markets, weather the pandemic. To date, the program has injected more than $770 billion into businesses, making it one of the biggest financial bailouts since the Great Depression. But many small businesses […]
Understanding India’s COVID Crisis
India has reported more than 300,000 daily COVID-19 cases for three consecutive weeks. “People are dying due to lack of oxygen, and the cost of cremation has gone up so much that families are dumping bodies in the rivers,” explains journalist Satya Sivaraman. Today, he and professor Sirisha Naidu join us to talk about the […]
Internet Access and the Digital Divide
As with many other social and economic problems, the pandemic has only deepened the digital divide. “Unlike in other wealthy nations, the federal government has imposed no cost controls to make broadband more affordable,” writes Will Carless in a recent article for Reveal. “The result: massive inequality in one of the modern world’s most basic […]
Disaster Capitalism and Lessons from Post-Katrina New Orleans
Disaster capitalism describes the process of private industries springing up to profit from large-scale crises, according to Naomi Klein, who popularized the term in her influential 2007 book The Shock Doctrine. Is this what we’re seeing now with the coronavirus pandemic? To explore this question, Ali spends the hour with Vincanne Adams, professor of medical […]
Rebroadcast: The Case for Universal Basic Income with Annie Lowrey
This show was originally broadcast on October 23, 2019. The universal basic income (UBI) movement is gaining momentum in the United States, where cities like Stockton, California have implemented pilot programs and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang ran on a platform heavily based on principles of UBI, including the idea of giving every American a […]
The Case for Universal Basic Income with Annie Lowrey
The universal basic income (UBI) movement is gaining momentum in the United States, where cities like Stockton, California have implemented pilot programs and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang is running on a platform heavily based on principles of UBI, including the idea of giving every American a “freedom dividend” of $1,000 per month. On today’s […]
