Ideas

Economics

The Aging Class

Retirement, like so much of the American economy, is a broken system that benefits private interests and exploits the most vulnerable people.

April 23, 2026 issue

Caroline Fraser

The Throwaway Planet

Three books raise political and moral questions about human consumption—and the value we place on those who clean up the waste.

April 23, 2026 issue

Yi-Ling Liu

Shenzhen Express

In Shenzhen, the successes and failures of China’s remarkable new economy are on full display.

April 9, 2026 issue

Jacob Weisberg

Tick, Tick…Boom!

Andrew Ross Sorkin’s history of the 1929 stock market crash reminds us that financial bubbles are inevitable—and that another one may be about to pop.

March 26, 2026 issue

Trevor Jackson

The Struggle for the Fed

The Fed is under attack. Can it be both protected and held accountable?

February 26, 2026 issue

Julian Gewirtz

When the Chips Are Down

President Trump’s reversal of a ban on sales of advanced semiconductors to China undercut the strategic logic behind years of American policy that was meant to keep the US ahead in the race to develop AI systems.

February 26, 2026 issue

Vanessa Ogle

Rolling with the Economic Tides

Ian Kumekawa’s Empty Vessel follows the lifespan of one barge, from bunkhouse to floating prison to barracks and back, as it traces the shadowy outer limits of the maritime economy.

February 12, 2026 issue

Jed S. Rakoff

It’s a Racket!

Cryptocurrency has largely managed to remain free of government regulation, and as a result has often become a vehicle for fraud and criminality.

December 18, 2025 issue

Too Damn High

Charlie Dulik

The Long Fight for Tenant Power

Organized tenants in the US have long debated how to meet the scale of the crises they face. Under Trump, that question is more pressing than ever.

July 22, 2025

Piper French

A Housing Crisis in Paradise

Two residential developments in Marin County have, for different reasons, met with resistance from their communities. What can they tell us about the way out of California’s housing emergency?

April 26, 2023

Caroline Fraser

No Haven

In ‘This Is All I Got,’ a report about a year in the life of a homeless single mother in New York City, Lauren Sandler finds the intractable source of homelessness in the piratical inequities of the housing market.

October 22, 2020 issue

Gabriel M. Schivone

America’s Eviction Epidemic

Across the country, millions of people are facing eviction as protections in place for the pandemic have lapsed.

September 16, 2020

E. Tammy Kim

Moms 4 Housing & the Right to a Home

In Oakland, a coordinated, grassroots response to the housing emergency is revealing new potential for inspiring change.

March 9, 2020

A postcard showing the St. Denis Hotel at Broadway and 11th Street, New York City, circa 1908

Jeremiah Moss

The Death and Life of a Great American Building

As affordable rents disappear, the mental health of New Yorkers increasingly becomes yet another tale of two cities. Imagine a future Manhattan without shrinks. What will happen to the psyche of that city?

March 7, 2018

Tara Raghuveer

How New York’s Tenants Won

To understand how Zohran Mamdani swept New York’s mayoral primary, it helps to know why the city’s tenants went on the offensive against real estate.

July 22, 2025

Alissa Quart

Anti-Rent Wars, Then and Now

Amid the 1840s economic crisis, landlords tried to drive out tenants in default. The remarkable movement that rose to challenge evictions can be a model for today’s housing activists.

October 25, 2021

The Latest

a conversation with Osita Nwanevu and Suzanne Schneider

The Neocons’ Revenge?

Trump’s war has deepened the already-widening cracks in the MAGA coalition.

March 25, 2026

David A. Bell

Who Built France?

A new history explores France’s empire from the perspective of the indigenous and enslaved people who participated, willingly or not, in its creation.

April 9, 2026 issue

Robert G. Kaiser

Post Mortem

When Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post in 2013 and promised to find inventive ways to make journalism profitable in the digital age, he seemed like a godsend. He wasn’t.

March 26, 2026 issue

Sandeep Vaheesan

Building the Electrostate

The long story of public power suggests that state ownership can in fact appeal to the broad American public.

February 26, 2026

Ian Frazier

Bang the Drumstick Slowly

About 26 billion chickens occupy Earth, but apart from the lucky ones in backyards, most are condemned to the hellscape that is industrial farming.

February 12, 2026 issue

Zephyr Teachout

Selling a Defective Dream

How did multilevel marketing schemes come to be legal, let alone so widespread? The answer has to do with how we think of workers and how we think of consumers.

December 4, 2025 issue