American Inequality

Micah Lasher is set to become the next Congressman for NY12, and he has a strong vision about what he needs to accomplish in politics. He knows that we need more housing, better healthcare, a higher minimum wage, and better schools for our children, but the ways to actual accomplish those goals require a new way of looking at things and a deep understanding of the data that reveals what might realistically work. Micah’s perspective is to look across these issues and recognize that they are part of an interconnected story on affordability, opportunity, and living up to our ideals. Let me and Micah know what you think in the comments.

[00:00 - 03:45] The Breakdown of the American Social Compact

At every critical inflection point in the economic life of everyday Americans, predictability and safety have completely evaporated. From crippling college debt and skyrocketing rent to the crushing costs of early parenthood, working families are getting relentlessly squeezed. Political parties cannot win elections without making a bold, clear argument that directly matches the massive scale of voter anxiety. The ascendant political left is succeeding because it dares to call out a broken economic compact while mainstream establishment figures hesitate. Rebuilding durable political support requires delivering audacious, structural solutions that fundamentally repair the social fabric of the nation.

[03:45 - 07:30] Transit-Oriented Development and the Abundance Agenda

Tackling the crippling cost of living demands an aggressive intersection between transit investments and housing creation. Major regional infrastructure projects like New York’s Interboro Express represent transformative leaps forward in urban transit connectivity. Unlocking housing supply around transit hubs frees working families from the heavy financial weight of car ownership while keeping them proximate to jobs. Leaders must embrace an abundance agenda that pairs direct public housing investment with massive supply expansion. By mandating upzoning around transit stations, state leaders can prevent parochial local politics from blocking affordable regional growth.

[07:30 - 11:15] Dismantling Federal Barriers to Public Housing

Decades of deliberate federal underinvestment have artificially strangled the growth of public housing across the nation. The legacy of the Faircloth Amendment effectively banned net increases in public housing, crippling federal support when families needed it most. Public housing in major metropolitan areas preserves essential socioeconomic diversity, offering hundreds of thousands of working citizens a place to live. Arbitrary federal limitations on building social infrastructure must be repealed to confront the modern affordability crisis head-on. Government must step back into the business of directly funding dignified homes for everyday workers who keep our cities running.

11:15 - 15:45] Connecting the Housing Crisis to Mental Health and Homelessness

Severe housing shortages leave vulnerable citizens completely without a seat in the brutal game of economic musical chairs. Mass homelessness is fundamentally a housing supply problem, inextricably linked to the broader affordability crisis. Decades of reckless deinstitutionalization dissolved public mental health networks without building the promised community continuum of care. Rebuilding care networks requires urgent, multi-billion-dollar state investments in psychiatric beds, supportive housing, and competitive healthcare wages. Compassionate governance requires closing the devastating gap between physical shelter and comprehensive mental health support.

[15:45 - 20:15] Pragmatic Execution and Bold Political Action

Public leaders cannot afford the luxury of doing nothing while waiting to find a way to do everything. Navigating overwhelming societal crises requires isolating discrete, actionable problems and enforcing hard policy choices with real teeth. When major hospital systems flouted orders to restore crucial psychiatric beds, enforcing unprecedented administrative fines forced rapid compliance. Sweeping legislative reforms mean little without the executive courage to pull unexamined political levers. True progress is forged by combining big policy visions with relentless, brass-tacks operational grit.

[20:15 - 24:45] Overcoming Educational Segregation and Systemic Failure

America’s public education discourse has drifted dangerously away from a coherent, inspiring theory of systemic change. Hyper-segregation continues to plague metropolitan school systems, failing children despite substantial per-pupil funding allocations. Defending a unified public school system demands confronting steep enrollment declines alongside deep-seated neighborhood divides. Targeted investments in early childhood prekindergarten and proven phonics methodologies offer transformative pathways for youth. Courageous leadership across all levels of government must boldly realign educational resources to guarantee every student a common foundation.

[24:45 - 29:30] Closing the Capital-Labor Divide and Living Wage Reform

A stagnant federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour represents an unconscionable betrayal of working Americans. For tipped workers earning a paltry $2.13 base wage, current statutory systems guarantee economic vulnerability. Indexing state minimum wages to inflation strips away political gamesmanship while ensuring working families keep pace with living costs. The widening chasm between exploding capital gains and lagging earned income forms a dangerous “alligator mouth” chart tearing at national stability. Raising the national wage floor is an indispensable moral baseline for any government committed to economic justice.

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The American housing crisis is buckling under a new weight. As soaring rents grab headlines, insurance premiums and property taxes have been slowly rising to astronomical heights, making housing affordability all but impossible. Insurers blame climate risks for heightened costs, yet new disclosures show these companies are retaining a record share of margins rather than paying out claims.

Core housing rent inflation increased thirty percent from 2018 to 2024, adding significant stress to families across the country. But new reports show insurance premiums rose 71 percent over that period, climbing more than twice as fast and contributing to thousands in annual costs. Home insurance now makes up more than 10 percent of the cost of a monthly mortgage, up from five percent twenty years ago. Those costs are typically passed from landlords onto renters.

Insurance premiums aren’t the only hidden overhead driving up non-negotiable costs. Property tax bills are now rising far faster than inflation, costing the average American an extra $4,500 per year. To combat these costs, four states have ballot initiatives this November to limit or rollback property tax expenses, adding to a group of 10 states that issued changes since last year.

Nowhere is this crisis clearer than in New York City. A recent municipal proposal from the Mayor and the New York City Economic Development Corporation revealed a startling relationship — every $100 increase in property insurance costs requires an additional $1,200 in city capital subsidies to keep public housing units affordable. In effect, the cost of covering the higher insurance prices results in a smaller pool of long-term capital available to the city. “We cannot take on the housing crisis without confronting one of the fastest-growing costs facing New Yorkers: insurance,” said Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

New York City is also losing insurance companies at an alarming rate. These companies cite rising costs from extreme weather, climate risks, and skyrocketing claims costs that make their business untenable. When Adirondack Insurance Exchange and its subsidiary Mountain Valley Indemnity left New York in 2024, spokespeople for the companies pointed to climate events as key drivers. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers lost insurance in turn.

But a new report from Vanderbilt Law School shows that insurance companies are paying out less in claims than ever before and pocketing a far greater share of premiums. Climate matters less than these companies lead us to believe.

One of the clearest ways to see this is a key metric that the insurance tracks called, The Loss Ratio. The closer the loss ratio is to 100 the fairer prices are for consumers.

But over the last two decades, loss ratios have plummeted from their historical average of 80 to just 55 in 2025. This loss ratio means home insurance companies are pocketing roughly half of the money that homeowners are paying in.

“In 2024-2025, years when the news has been riddled with stories about how climate change needs to be increasing insurance rates, we’re seeing some of the lowest loss ratios we’ve ever seen,” said Brian Shearer, the lead researcher on the Vanderbilt report. “The insurance industry is price-gouging the crisis.”

For low-income renters, the fallout from these rising costs is devastating. Average insurance rates for buildings in New York City with affordable apartments more than doubled between 2019 and 2023. Last year, average insurance costs spiked by 10.5 percent for owners of rent-stabilized apartment buildings. Landlords often pass those costs onto renters or force the city to pick up the bill.

Nearly half a million New York homeowners, or about five percent, decided to forgo carrying property insurance due to its expense. Multiple court cases have found that insurance companies have denied coverage to low-income households or price gouged others who were using vouchers.

The five biggest home-insurers didn’t pay out on 44 percent of claims resolved last year, forcing homeowners and renters to fund repairs out of their own pockets.

“I’ve found 16 private jets that the top 10 property and casualty insurers own,” said Mr. Shearer. “State Farm purchased all four of their jets in a 12-month period in 2023 and 2024, when they were also simultaneously telling states like California that if they didn’t let them increase their prices, they would leave.”

Property insurance companies received $1.03 trillion in premiums last year, the highest value ever, or more than the entire U.S. military budget.

At a time when Mr. Mamdani is trying to lower home insurance costs, he is seeking to raise property taxes on non-primary residential properties. The pied-à-terre tax would apply to 17,000 secondary homes and raise between $340-$500 million to close the budget gap and support affordable housing measures. The mayor aims to shift rising property insurance and tax burdens away from struggling families and onto high earners who can afford them.

All of this comes at a time where income inequality in NYC has reached new heights, outpacing the entire rest of the nation. Since 2019, nearly two-thirds of real income growth went to the top 1%, while median income actually fell after inflation and the bottom 90% saw essentially no real gains. Among the top 1%, non-wage income (capital gains, dividends, etc) increased from 64% of total income in 2019 to 69% in 2024. The top 0.1% (about 5,000 households) received 22% of all NYC income, approximately double what is seen nationally.

New York City cannot build its way out of a housing crisis if excessive costs are eating away at the foundation. As insurance companies use climate risk as cover to expand profit margins and as property taxes soar to fill strained municipal budgets, low-income families are left to bear the collapse. Communities need to bring these often invisible costs under control and hold the underwriters accountable to the neighborhoods they leave exposed.

INTERESTING ON THE WEB

* We’re working on a new series called Charts that Explain the World. We’ll share more soon but check out our first 2 posts - No1, No2, and No3

* American Inequality has joined Democracy Portfolios alongside Qasim Rashid, Esq. to improve coverage of equity, justice, and civic life as newsrooms shrink - Democracy Portfolios

* I sat down for an interview with the Weekly Anthropocene - interview

* New Acemoglu paper showing that when firms hire MBAs into senior managerial or CEO positions that in the next 5 year worker wages decline by 6% and the labor share falls by 5 percentage points - NBER

What I’m reading

I’ve really been enjoying Chris Kelly’s new book A Solution to Wealth Inequality. The premise of the book is that we need to convince the ultra wealthy that addressing inequality is in their interest and that demonizing them is not the way to get them to change their ways. Chris believes in the power of persuasion to get this done, and that this can be a practical and impactful way to address inequality in a time when political polarization (and highly influential moneyed interest in politics) prevail. It is a strong appeal and can be a powerful tool in the arsenal. You can check it out here.

Amanda Litman is the co-founder of Run For Something, which is the largest pro-Democracy pipeline in American politics, helping more than 280,000 people who have considered running for office. Amanda is helping to empower the next generation of leaders to advocate for issues around affordability, housing, inequality, justice, and making a real impact in communities instead of just talking about ideology.

If you know someone who should run for office or should hear more from Amanda, send them this video and tell them to join.

The Crisis of the Gerontocracy [00:00 - 06:45] American politics is currently gripped by a historical deviation where the average age of Congress is nearly 60, leaving a massive representation gap for the next generation. While previous eras saw leadership ages dip, we are now ruled by a “boomer” status quo that has dominated the presidency for nearly three decades. Run for Something is aggressively disrupting this trend by exclusively backing candidates 40 and under who are ready to trade “waiting their turn” for leading right now. These young leaders aren’t just new faces; they are the necessary response to a political system that has become a retirement home for the powerful. It is time to stop defending positions of power and start making a compelling argument for the future.

The Knowledge Gap and Modern Reality [06:45 - 11:30] There is a dangerous disconnect when the people regulating our future, like Jim Clyburn, admit they only learned about tools like ChatGPT a week ago. This isn’t just about tech; it’s about a leadership class that hasn’t paid a childcare bill or a rental deposit in over half a century. For a young parent, childcare is no longer an “issue”—it is a second mortgage payment that makes the American Dream feel like a hallucination. We don’t need moral superiority from our leaders; we need the functional competence to understand the sticker shock of modern life. When our representatives are out of touch with the basic economics of being a 20-something, the legislation they pass will never meet the moment.

Impact Over Ideology [16:20 - 24:10] The most successful candidates have realized that voters don’t go to the polls to support a rigid ideology; they vote for the person who will make their lives suck less. Most people aren’t looking for a political philosopher; they want someone who will fix the brown water in their taps and pave the potholes in their streets. High-level pundits try to “puppet master” the electorate with Mad Libs consulting, but voters are smarter than the scripts we give them. Real change happens when we stop talking about abstract “democracy” and start talking about the dignity of a well-funded school or a safe sidewalk. If you want to win, stop selling a “product” and start solving the problems people can see and feel every single day.

The Generational Housing Warfare [24:10 - 32:45] Housing has become the front line of a modern generational war, serving as the single biggest nut to crack in the affordability crisis. While millions of young renters feel locked out of generational wealth, our tax codes continue to privilege homeowners over those just trying to survive the month. We are facing a surreal reality where 19 million people live in overcrowded homes while millions of empty bedrooms sit unused in houses owned by boomers with no incentive to downsize. This isn’t just an economic hiccup; it is a systemic failure that is driving young people toward high-risk gambling and crypto out of pure desperation. To fix inequality, we must name the tension: you cannot have affordable housing while treating homes as the primary vault for generational equity.

Winning the Digital Gatekeepers [32:45 - 40:00] The next generation of voter contact isn’t happening on a doorstep; it’s happening in the quiet conversation between a voter and an AI chatbot. As people increasingly snap photos of their ballots and ask robots who to vote for, candidates must ensure their true message isn’t lost in the algorithm. Tools like Campsite are helping pro-democracy candidates fight misinformation by making sure their actual policy positions are what the “robots” ingest and repeat. AI actually loves nuance and deep-dive policy papers, forcing candidates to put more substance into the digital echo chamber. We cannot ignore these new surfaces; we have to meet voters exactly where they are getting their information, even if that place is a chat window.

Success isn’t a substitute for giving. 91% of ultra wealthy households used to donate to charity, but now only 81% do. I sat down with David Roberts to address the causes and consequences of declining philanthropy. Even in an age of tremendous wealthy accumulation, modern titans of industry seem to have traded the moral weight of their ancestors for the hollow vanity of the Forbes 400. Ultimately, the path forward requires dismantling the legal loopholes that prioritize the few over the many to ensure the American dream remains more than just a relic of the past.

* My recent article, Why Philanthropy is Silent in the Golden Age of Wealth

* David’s recent article, A Man Who Dies Rich Dies In Disgrace

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Transcription summary from NotebookLM.

0:00 - The Death of Duty

We have traded the moral weight of the first Gilded Age for a secular scorecard where wealth is the only metric that matters. Unlike Carnegie or Rockefeller, today’s titans lack the religious fervor that once commanded them to give back or face the flames of judgment. In our modern metric-oriented society, billionaires watch their ranking on the Forbes 400 like authors obsessing over subscriber counts. Wealth has become an end in itself, stripped of the historic expectation that the ultra-rich must serve as moral role models. To whom much is given, it seems, nothing is currently expected.

3:00 - Marketplaces Aren’t Miracles

Building a global marketplace or launching rockets to Mars should never be a hall pass for avoiding philanthropy. While we can applaud entrepreneurial brilliance, we must ask why that success is not twinned with behavior that serves the public good. Being a single-minded entrepreneur is one thing, but it does not automatically make someone a compass for the next generation. Wealth should not just be about personal “looks maxing” or individual attributes; it requires a sense of responsibility to the human family. True leadership demands more than just a massive payroll—it requires a soul.

4:45 - The Personal Math of Justice

Tracking your spending is not just about financial planning; it is a reflection of your values and your vision for the world. For every $2.50 spent on family, there should be a dollar dedicated to repairing the fraying edges of our society. Giving is not merely a transaction of cash; it is an investment of time, networks, and the skills built over a lifetime. This is not just charity; it is a pursuit of justice that connects us to our ancestors and our future grandchildren. When you back grassroots leaders at a local food pantry, you are not just giving money—you are fueling a more hopeful future.

11:00 - The Philanthropy Power Trap

We have entered a dangerous era where billionaires get to play God with global health and social priorities. While eradicating malaria is a triumph, the public never voted for it, and we should not rely on the whims of the ultra-wealthy to fix our world. Government triumphs like PEPFAR prove that stable, elected institutions can save millions without waiting for a donor’s permission. When the social safety net is left to private “pet causes,” we risk leaving massive holes where public funding once stood. Philanthropy is a powerful tool, but it should never be a replacement for a functioning, accountable democracy.

15:00 - Closing the Billionaire Loophole

To save the social safety net, we must dismantle the legal loopholes that allow extreme wealth to remain untaxed across generations. It is time to tax capital gains at the same rate as the hard-earned wages of every other American. Ending the “stepped-up basis” ensures that massive fortunes finally contribute to the country that made their accumulation possible. We need a federal tax system that prioritizes the many over the few to avoid a fiscal catastrophe. Paying taxes is the ultimate incentive for a society that wants to see every citizen succeed.

Question for the comments: What are some of the most frustrating parts about how government operationalizes the social safety net or nonprofits execute their missions? Is the tax system incentivizing the right actions?

I was thrilled to speak with Doug Gordon of The War on Cars to explore the intersection of transportation, urban design, and social inequality. Below is a summary of our discussion. Leave your comments below and we’ll be sure to respond.

Doug’s new book is available here

The Normalization of Car Deaths (00:00 – 05:40)

Jeremy Ney and Doug Gordon begin by discussing how car fatalities have become a “standard American unit of mortality,” a metric against which other crises like gun violence or opioid deaths are measured. Gordon highlights a problematic form of “American exceptionalism,” noting that the U.S. has twice the per capita car deaths of other developed nations. He argues that the financial barrier to full societal participation is excessively high, with a new car costing roughly $50,000 plus significant monthly expenses. This framework establishes car-related deaths as an accepted “cost of doing business,” a notion that Gordon believes must be challenged to address deeper social inequality. By treating car deaths as a fixed reality rather than a policy choice, society fails to pursue “common sense car reform”.

Parking as an Invisible Economic Force (05:40 – 12:40)

The conversation shifts to how parking requirements and zoning laws dictate the design and cost of American urban life. Drawing on the work of economist Donald Shupe, Gordon explains that mandatory parking minimums for buildings are often based on “voodoo science” rather than actual necessity. These requirements drive up housing costs for everyone and increase the price of basic goods because businesses must pay for massive, taxed parking real estate. Furthermore, this over-allocation of space for cars creates a hostile environment for walking or cycling, often forcing people into car dependency for even short trips. Gordon advocates for market-based solutions where developers, rather than government mandates, decide how much parking is truly needed.

Environmental Injustice and the “Geometry Problem” (12:40 – 20:30)

Gordon critiques the idea that electric vehicles (EVs) are a complete solution, noting that they do not solve traffic or eliminate particulate pollution from tire and brake wear. He describes transportation as a “geometry problem” where the sheer physical space cars occupy remains the primary issue in dense urban centers. This system disproportionately harms low-income and minority communities, which are frequently situated near major highways, leading to higher rates of respiratory issues like asthma. Ultimately, the speakers argue that breathing clean air should not be a “luxury item” reserved for those who can afford homes in low-traffic areas. According to Gordon, the only real solution to traffic is providing viable alternatives to driving.

Revitalizing Public Transit and the Bus Constituency (21:00 – 27:50)

The discussion highlights the potential of bus systems as a low-cost, high-reward solution to urban congestion if they are prioritized over private vehicles. While there is a debate over making buses free, Gordon emphasizes that riders often value speed and reliability over cost. He champions the idea of viewing bus riders—who are often lower-income, older, or disabled—as a vital political constituency that deserves dignity and efficient service. By implementing dedicated bus lanes and signal priority, cities can provide a genuine alternative to driving and address the fundamental inequity of a single luxury vehicle blocking a bus filled with fifty people. Gordon suggests that simply centering bus riders in political conversations is a major win for equity.

Using Friction to Transform Urban Spaces (28:00 – 38:20)

The speakers examine the city of Gent, Belgium, as a successful model for reducing traffic through the intentional use of “friction”. By dividing the city into zones and preventing drivers from using the city center as a shortcut, Gent significantly decreased pollution and reached its 2030 cycling goals years ahead of schedule. Gordon suggests that New York could adopt similar strategies, such as congestion pricing, to reclaim a “spatial dividend” for bike lanes and pedestrian plazas. This approach shifts the default from driving to more efficient modes of transport by making the choice to drive a more conscious and time-consuming decision. This helps balance the needs of the “invisible underclass” of transit users against the vocal complaints of drivers.

The Decline of Independent Mobility for Children (38:20 – 44:00)

In the final portion of the talk, the speakers reflect on the dramatic decline in children’s independent mobility over the last fifty years. Statistics show that the percentage of American children walking or biking to school has dropped from 40% in 1969 to less than 11% today. This shift is attributed to institutional changes in community design, such as urban sprawl and the placement of schools near dangerous, high-speed arterial roads. Gordon emphasizes that this is not a failure of parenting, but a result of building a world that prioritizes driver mentality and large SUVs over the safety of children. He concludes that our modern infrastructure creates “scars on communities” by failing to be cognizant of the lived environment.

14 million Americans live with serious mental illnesses, but few of their stories are told or known. Thank you to Jay and Sean for sharing their brilliant insights on lived experiences navigating housing and mental health resources in New York City and beyond. You can learn more about Fountain House here and see what NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani has to say about the impactful organization.

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0:00-6:00: Introduction to Fountain House and the Clubhouse Model Jeremy Ney introduces Jay and Sean from Fountain House, an organization founded in 1948 in New York City to support people with serious mental illness (SMI). Jay explains that the clubhouse model emerged during the deinstitutionalization movement of the 1950s when patients released from psychiatric institutions found themselves without social ties or resources. These founding members created an intentional community to overcome the exclusion often faced by those with disabilities in traditional social clubs. The model focuses on creating a sense of belonging and reintegrating individuals into society through shared social and professional support systems.

6:00-11:00: The Philosophy of Member-Led Recovery The clubhouse philosophy emphasizes an egalitarian, non-hierarchical environment where members and staff work side-by-side to manage the organization. Jay describes the “work-ordered day,” which allows members to choose tasks such as culinary work, beautification, or administration to drive their own recovery. This approach differs from clinical models that label people as “clients” and enforce a power structure through medication management and coercion. Clubhouses are intentionally understaffed so that members feel needed, encouraging them to focus on their talents rather than their diagnoses.

11:00-18:00: Barriers in Supportive Housing and Discrimination Sean shares his personal experience navigating the New York City housing system, noting that he was initially denied housing due to his sexual orientation. He explains that supportive housing is severely underfunded, with only about 20% of eligible individuals actually receiving a placement. Many applicants are rejected “out of hand” by private providers who may view them as “too disabled,” though the city fails to track this specific data. Sean highlights that these discriminatory practices often leave those approved for housing trapped on the streets or in the subway system.

18:00-25:00: Stigma and the Impact of NIMBYism The conversation addresses how “NIMBYism” and public backlash frequently block the development of housing for people with mental illness. Jay notes that this resistance is often rooted in media-driven stereotypes that falsely portray those with SMI as inherently violent or criminal. Sean cites studies showing that a majority of Americans perceive people with SMI as dangerous, which fuels a desire to exclude them from residential neighborhoods. He argues that zoning laws are effectively weaponized to keep people like him out of communities, prioritizing exclusion over addressing the housing supply.

25:00-31:00: The “Third Rail” of Advocacy and Political Invisibility Sean observes that psychiatric disability has become the “third rail” of politics, often excluded from broader homelessness advocacy to avoid “contaminating” more sympathetic groups like veterans. He critiques current policy proposals that resemble “internment camps” focused on banishment rather than integration. This invisibility leads to a lack of mass protest against the erosion of civil rights for those with mental health conditions. Jeremy notes that it is often easier for society to turn a blind eye than to tackle the intersection of healthcare and housing head-on.

31:00-39:00: The Economic Cost of Institutionalization The speakers highlight the fiscal perversity of current systems, where massive amounts of public funding are spent on jails and shelters instead of supportive housing. Sean points out that while his rental subsidy costs about $28,000 annually, a bed at Rikers Island costs an order of magnitude greater. Despite these costs, the “Housing First” model has been politically delegitimized by right-wing think tanks in favor of more expensive, supervised models. Jay adds that transitional housing often fails because case managers are frequently inept at helping clients navigate complex social service benefits.

39:00-48:00: Paths Forward and Integration Strategies For a path forward, Jay emphasizes the need to incorporate the lived experiences of those with SMI into the development of all social and health policies. Sean suggests that the Justice Department must begin prosecuting communities that violate the ADA by illegally excluding people with mental illness from residential areas. Both guests agree that deep-seated stigma can only be truly alleviated through personal contact and successful integration into neighborhoods. Jeremy concludes that while the challenge is a “heavy lift,” scaling the clubhouse model offers a proven way to reduce social costs and improve lives.

1 year ago this month, more than 8,000 government websites went dark in an effort to remove key public data and reports. In 2026, Dozens of datasets are still unavailable. I spoke with Denice Ross, the former U.S. Chief Data Scientist, about what this means for public policy in America and what we can all do to address these concerns for transparency, accountability, and effective decision making.

00:00:00 – Introduction and Early Career in New Orleans

The conversation begins with Jeremy welcoming Denise Ross, former Chief Data Scientist of the United States. Ross explains that she started her career as a web designer in the late 90s and moved to New Orleans around 2000 to help democratize data from the 2000 decennial census. Her goal was to move data from behind closed doors and into the hands of communities so they could advocate for their own destinies rather than relying on statisticians in power.

00:01:22 – Addressing Disparities Before the Storm

Ross describes the four years leading up to Hurricane Katrina, during which her team built local capacity for nonprofits and City Hall to use data for grant writing and funding. She emphasizes that while New Orleans might look like a typical city on the surface, disaggregating data by geography and demographics revealed incredible disparities. This effort was a process of “begging” people to use data in a city where decisions were traditionally made based on personal connections rather than empirical evidence.

00:02:21 – Data Needs During the Katrina Catastrophe

When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, a failure in federal infrastructure caused flooding in 80% of the city, making all existing data instantly historical. As the old ways of making decisions were no longer viable, the city was “flying blind” and needed “good intel” to handle a surge of urgent decisions. Ross explains that she worked for a local data intermediary nonprofit that was inundated with questions about population locations, where to place temporary health clinics, and which parks needed the most urgent cleanup from toxic sludge.

00:03:04 – Seeking Answers from the Census Bureau

Ross recounts her journey to Washington D.C. shortly after the storm to ask the Census Bureau for a “special count” of New Orleans’ remaining residents. She learned that while cities can pay for a special census, it is an onerous and expensive process that would not have worked because the population was changing too rapidly. Instead, the Bureau provided technical assistance for a local survey of occupied houses, which revealed that people were commuting in to work on their homes during the day but leaving at night to sleep.

00:05:24 – The Birth of Open Data Advocacy

A formative moment for Ross occurred when she realized the daytime and nighttime population survey data was not made public; instead, it was shared only as a PDF for a small list of officials. She occasionally had to obtain “black market” versions of the PDF, despite there being no logical reason to keep the data secret. This lack of transparency, occurring before the open data movement was solidified by the Obama administration, highlighted the limitations of federal statistics in rapidly changing situations.

00:06:13 – Creative Proxy Data and Private Sector Solutions

To answer urgent repopulation questions, Ross’s team turned to proxy data, including nighttime lights, traffic patterns, and utility hookups. They discovered that the most accurate proxy came from a junk mail company that purchased and improved U.S. Postal Service data to avoid mailing empty houses. By aggregating this data at the block level, they could show repopulation progress monthly, helping nonprofits identify “tipping point” blocks to avoid the “jack-o’-lantern effect” where repopulation is too scattered to support infrastructure.

00:08:06 – The Rise of “Dearly Departed Data Sets”

The discussion shifts to Ross’s current work tracking the loss of government data, which she calls “dearly departed data sets”. About a year prior to the interview, thousands of government websites went dark, leading to the removal or scrubbing of data related to DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), gender, and climate. Ross notes that while some data returned, it was often handled with “sloppy” methodology, such as changing column headers from “gender” to “sex” without updating the accompanying documentation.

00:10:55 – “Death by a Thousand Cuts”

Ross identifies a second, more subtle bucket of damage she calls “death by a thousand cuts,” which involves the loss of staffing and contracts necessary to maintain data collections. This degradation includes the termination of scientific advisory committees and a bottlenecking of government business due to new requirements for political approval for even basic contracts. This “gumming of the works” makes it difficult to track which data sets are suffering because the decline is slow and lacks flashy headlines.

00:14:37 – Specific Data Losses and Political Implications

A third category of data damage involves removing information that might suggest administration policies are failing. A primary example is the USDA food security supplement, which was canceled just as millions of Americans were losing food stamp eligibility. This data set had provided a 30-year record of whether adults and children had enough healthy food, and its loss sets a worrying precedent for canceling any data that reflects poorly on the government.

00:17:59 – Official Federal Statistics vs. Private Data

Ross addresses arguments regarding cost-cutting and the use of private sector data as a replacement for government surveys. While the private sector provided stopgap numbers during government shutdowns, those entities admitted they still depend on official federal statistics. Ross emphasizes that there is a constant tension between timeliness and quality; while private indices like the Real-Time Crime Index are useful for quick estimates, they cannot replace the robust, quality-checked data from the FBI or other federal agencies.

00:20:07 – Data Disaggregation as a Tool for Equity

A key attribute of American data is the commitment to disaggregation, which allows users to see disparities by race, income, and geography. As Chief Data Scientist, Ross worked to increase the capacity of federal agencies to slice data to see how policies were affecting different segments of the population. This “eyes wide open” approach was vital for identifying communities in the Appalachia and tribal nations that were not receiving fair distributions of investment.

00:25:33 – Risks of Obfuscating National Health Data

Ross notes a concerning trend where the CDC’s infant and maternal mortality data is no longer aggregated at the national level, existing only in disparate state reports. This change followed the firing of all 17 staff members in that office, introducing massive friction for researchers who must now manually calculate national figures. Ross argues that while states and civil society can try to act as a “heart-lung machine” to keep these collections alive, this is a function that belongs inside the federal government.

00:30:46 – The Weaponization of Shared Data

The conversation touches on the Paperwork Reduction Act and the desire for more efficient data sharing across agencies. Ross warns that this efficiency can be a double-edged sword; if data collected for Medicaid or SNAP is shared with ICE for immigration enforcement, it has a “chilling effect” on the entire ecosystem. This distrust leads to lower survey response rates and decreased participation in essential services, creating a downward cycle of under-investment in vulnerable communities.

00:33:12 – Initiatives to Safeguard Data Infrastructure

Ross describes her current initiatives, including the website EssentialData.us, which features nearly 100 use cases showing how federal data benefits everyday Americans. She also mentions DataIndex.us, a newsletter that monitors obscure websites for opportunities for public input on data changes. These efforts are designed to turn data users into data advocates, ensuring that federal data stewards receive feedback on the value of the information they maintain.

00:38:57 – Invisible Data Impact: From Bats to Peanut Butter

In her closing remarks, Ross highlights how data touches lives in unseen ways, such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission API that allows grocery stores to automatically email customers about salmonella recalls. Her favorite dataset is the North American Bat Monitoring Database, which is critical for the economy because bats provide billions of dollars in free pest control for farmers. Research shows that when bat populations decline, infant mortality rises because farmers use more pesticides, demonstrating the deep, often hidden connections between data and human health.

Thank you for tuning into my live video with Leah Libresco Sargeant and Dustin Palmer! We had a great time discussing the impact of the $6.25 billion direct cash program that is going to offer $250 to millions of children. Baby bonds, baby bonuses, and the power of cash can be instrumental in altering the course of a person’s life. Let us know your thoughts in the comments about some points that resonated with you and any other open questions you have.

American Inequality is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

INTERESTING ON THE WEB:

* 📝 Free file is gone and I’m heartbroken about it - WSJ

* 💾 These data centers are getting really, really big - Distilled Michael Thomas

* 📊 7 data-driven lessons from the 2025 elections - Strength in Numbers G. Elliott Morris

* 🥈We’re number 2 (and how we’ve lost to China) - Yale Budget Lab Paul Krugman

I recently did an interview with John Stossel to discuss whether things are tougher for young people today than they were 50 years ago. Stossel is a former Fox News, ABC, and 20/20 anchor and so I knew I would get some pointed questions, and at the very least, his famous “You’re wroooong!” On the other side of the debate from me was Norbert Michel from the Cato Institute, the conservative/libertarian think-tank founded by Charles Koch. I loved debate in high school. I would travel to DC and Philadelphia for various debate tournaments and I kept up with it in college for a bit too. Two of the most important lessons that I learned in debate were to (1) respect other people’s ideas and arguments; and (2) know what your opposition is going to say before they say it.

In this debate, I took the position that ‘yes’ the economy is worse today for young people than it was for their parents for the following reasons:

* Baby boomers had a 90% chance of earning more than their parents. Millennials had just a 50% chance.

* The average cost of college for public and private tuition is 3x higher today than in 1973

* The average millennial has 30% less wealth at age 35 than boomers at the same age

* At age 30, only 38% of college-educated millennials owned a home, which was less than the 54% of similarly educated baby boomers at the same age and also.

* The cost of childcare has more than doubled from 1985 to today even when adjusting for inflation.

And while I didn’t include it in our conversation back then, millions of Americans (many of whom are children) are going hungry as the government plays poker with their food support, and millions more still have seen their healthcare premium payments double. The current pain is very real.

But in my research I also prepped the other side of the argument. I wanted to know all the data on the ways the world had gotten better and why we should also be both hopeful about the state of the world today. There is a lot of darkness around us, and there is no doubt that we are living in an age of tremendous inequality. For half of the people in the US it feels like the American Dream is impossible to achieve. But the reason that the conversation was set up as a debate is because there have been incredible improvements in America. While my focus tends to be on the current state of the world - with a particular lens on regional divides - the historical perspective going back to the 1970s shows that we have in fact seen some tremendous gains along certain measures. America isn’t perfect, but I hope there’s a bit of brightness in here for everyone.

Environmental improvements

Environmental quality has improved tremendously thanks to the Clean Air Act — air pollution is down by 70% since 1970. Carbon monoxide levels have fallen 78%, largely due to cars and trucks making 10x improvements in pollution emotions. Even as the U.S. population has grown by 130 million people since 1970 - requiring more homes, cars, streets, and plane travel - our per capita CO2 emissions have fallen by 35.6%. In 1970, the US was producing 29 out of every 100 tons of CO2 pumped into their environment. Today, it is just 13 (largely as the US has swapped spots with China as being the world’s leading polluter).

Particulate matter 2.5 (the most important measure of pollution that tracks large particles which can get stuck in your lungs and deteriorate your health) has fallen 32.6% since 1990. Chlorofluorocarbons, a chemical often referred to as ‘the O-zone killer’, have nearly disappeared from most manufacturing processes.

Life expectancy

The very first article I wrote for the American Inequality Substack was about the 20 year gap in life expectancies across regions in the nation, and while anyone who knows my writing knows that I despise a national narrative because it masks what is happening in communities, it is still acknowledging that nearly every region has experienced huge gains in life expectancy since the 1970s. Life expectancy has increased by almost a year and a half for every decade since 1970 (which makes you wonder, by 2070 at this rate we will only be living to ~89 on average).

But there have been tremendous gains in healthcare improvements. Although healthcare costs continue to be overwhelmingly painful for Americans (and we see horrible return-on-investment for the amount we spend on healthcare without getting the corresponding improvements in health), heart disease death rates have fallen by half, stroke death rates have fallen by more than half, it turns out that the COVID19 vaccine doubled the cancer survival time of patients in a completely unexpected and amazing twist.

Many are also estimating that thanks to GLP1s like Ozempic and Wegovy, the US obesity rate is now falling for the first time ever (or at least since we started tracking it in 1980 🙂. As John Burn-Murdoch points out, “What makes this all the more remarkable is the contrast in mechanisms behind the respective declines in smoking and obesity. The former was eventually achieved through decades of campaigning, public health warnings, tax incentives and bans. With obesity, a single pharmaceutical innovation has done what those same methods have repeatedly failed to do.”

College Attendance

One of the biggest improvements since the 1970s has been college attendance, largely as more women began applying to college and more colleges began accepting women. Today ~40% of young adults have a bachelor’s degree, compared to ~10% in 1970. As I’ve previously covered in my article about male loneliness, women weren’t allowed into Yale until 1969, Brown until 1971, and Columbia until 1983. Colleges were not interested in accepting women for decades, but many of the social movements of the 1960s changed that persona, as well as the codification of Title IX. In 1970, 33.6% of women had less than a high school education. By 2016, it had fallen to just 6%.

People who go to college earn what is called ‘the college wage premium’ which means that they earn far more later in life. One government report says that men will make $900,000 more when they get a BA vs. only a high school degree and another gov report says that a BA can increase weekly median wages by 66%. At the same time, only half of all Americans say that college is only worth it now if you can go without taking out loans. With $200,000 in debt and a possible lifetime of interest on that loan, those higher wages may feel too far off for some people.

Quality of Life

In the Stossel debate, Norbert Michel explained, “Materially, we are so much better off now than we were in the 1960s and 1970s.” The median home size in 1963 was 1,365 feet but in 2023 the median is 2,286 feet. They are twice as likely to have central air, twice as likely to have a second refrigerator, and the abundance of dishwashers, washer dryers, and a range of other household appliances has made those homes much more comfortable. Those benefits have also created greater gains for women who disproportionately had many household duties fall on them.

While it may feel like the price of groceries has exploded in 1960, U.S. consumers spent an average of 17.0 percent of disposable personal income (DPI) on food. By 2019, this share had shrunk to 9.5 percent. People eat out at restaurants almost twice as often as they did in 1970 and they have the luxury of ordering food to their house more easily.

Path Forward

The Path Forward for this is pretty simple to describe, but challenging to achieve: Keep up the momentum. Our gains on climate, life expectancy, college, and quality of life feel like they are seeing cracks that we need to make sure stay closed. A new report found that climate change kills 1 person every minute globally. Measles was eliminated from the US in 2000 and is now seeing some of its highest levels in decades. 45 million Americans have $1.6 trillion in student debt. Women who have lost their right to choose and immigrants who feel threatened daily may not feel like their quality of life has improved, despite having a smartphone in their pockets. We still have a long way to go, and the further back we look, the better things might be (2025 is lightyears better than 1925) but today in America, the answer to the debate for me is clear: opportunity is out of reach.

Thanks for being a part of American Inequality. We’re grateful to have you here and hope your friends want to join too, so forward this email around.

INTERESTING ON THE WEB:

* I spoke with John Stossel about whether its harder for Americans today to rise up the economic ladder (140,000 views and counting) - LINK

* The SNAP map showing where cuts will be felt the hardest - LINK

* The US town that pays every pregnant woman $1,500 - LINK

* How cities are using data to keep tabs on bad landlords - LINK

* Does a government shutdown impact inequality? LINK

* The Impact Map highlights all the places where contracts have been frozen, funding paused, or government workers fired - LINK

Over the past five years, ICE has detained hundreds of thousands of people across America—creating an unbearable weight for immigration courts to navigate. For this article, I dug into half a million detention records to uncover where the system is buckling. I identify why courts are drowning under the heaviest backlogs in history, where communities are crammed into the most overcrowded facilities, and which detention centers are profiting from this American calamity. On October 3rd, the government announced a plan to offer $2,500 to migrant children as young as 14 if they forego their court dates and voluntarily leave the country.

American Inequality is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Southern States have Highest Numbers of ICE Detainees

ICE has detained 60,000 people in America today. 71.5% of current detainees have no criminal convictions. Texas and Louisiana have the highest number of ICE detainees - accounting for 1/3rd of the total detention population. Part of the reason these Republican-dominated states have such higher arrest numbers — particularly when measured against population — is they have a longer history of working directly with ICE, and a stronger interest in collaboration. They want to be seen as working closely with the Trump administration. Even in June when masked federal immigration agents swept through Los Angeles, California saw 3,391 undocumented immigrants arrested, only about half as many as Texas.

The IAH Secure Adult Detention Facility in Livingston, Texas has the most overcrowded ICE detention center anywhere in America. The center is 235% beyond its capacity, housing 835 detainees in a space only designed for 350. Meanwhile the Adams County Detention Facility in Natchez, Mississippi has the highest capacity of ICE detainees in America at 2,179 detainees, 197% above its capacity. 47,551 people are held across all detention facilities, but there is only capacity for 32,508. People are living in wretched, overcrowded, and stressful conditions - often sleeping on concrete benches or on the floor. This is a humanitarian crisis that the US is engineering.

Nearly 90% of people in ICE custody are held in private prisons run for profit. Two of the largest, Geo Group and CoreCivic, are working to increase their ability to meet the administration’s demand.

76% of Detainees have No Lawyer Present in Court

I think most people do not know this, but there is no right to government-funded legal representation for people facing deportation. As a result, 76.7% of people pleading their deportation cases, including those for unaccompanied minors, had no attorney present to assist in their immigration court case when a removal order was issued. 26,000 immigrant children receive government-funded legal representation, but many are representing themselves in immigration court due to a shortage of attorneys Legal representation is expensive, and people are frequently held in remote facilities far from their community. And even if they can find an attorney, they often face barriers communicating with them.

Arrests are a way to put immigrants into a criminal justice system that is stacked against them. Court dates with no defense means that there is a huge asymmetric information disadvantage in the U.S. legal system that leaves many of these asylum seekers, most of whom have no criminal convictions, facing tradeoffs that they were wholly unprepared for. Can I be granted bond? How can I request court documents? What is the deadline for appealing my case?

The Trump administration’s tactics are a direct attack on due process. The administration’s recent moves to terminate bipartisan-supported legal orientation and referrals services within detention facilities and to end legal help for immigrants with mental health conditions only exacerbate this crisis.

A Backlog of Injustice

Even with more arrests, the Trump administration is not focused on offering more court dates. They are letting the backlog run wild and just planning to expel many asylum seekers from the country or keep them in detention indefinitely.

At the end of August 2025, 3,432,519 active cases were pending before U.S. immigration courts, a 3x increase from 2019. Of that 3.4M backlog, 2.3M immigrants have already filed formal asylum applications and are now waiting for asylum hearings or decisions in Immigration Court. If the current administration, however, is holding cases - those filed applications will go unanswered for years potentially. Deportation cases fell from a high of 262,178 in December 2023, the month before President Trump took office, to 30,501 just a year and a half later. The Trump administration is keeping hundreds of thousands of people stuck without court dates or due process, effectively trapping them in the criminal justice system. Miami-Dade County, FL, has the most residents with pending Immigration Court deportation cases at 146,293.

ICE is Not Focused on Criminals, Just Creating Fear

One of the most striking data points to emerge from this entire research was that ICE is not targeting criminals or violent offenders in their raids. According to the hundreds of thousands of court records I reviewed, only 1.59% of 2025 new cases sought deportation orders based on any alleged criminal activity of the immigrant, apart from possible illegal entry. Interviews with families revealed a sense of bewilderment about why ICE decided to arrest their father or mother. There was no criminal history, they had consistently shown up to court dates and were working respectable jobs and paying taxes. The almost randomness of the attacks has been paralyzing.

But the goal is not only to arrest and deport criminals - it also to incite fear. We know that ICE is using court dates to arrest immigrants the moment right after they walk out of the courtroom. Families plead their case in front of a judge that they need asylum from the terrors and injustices they experience in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, only to be snatched up by ICE officers waiting outside the door for them when their case is quickly dismissed or rescheduled for years in the future (a common feature in a backlogged system). Then they are trapped in a new lawsuit battle over a civil immigration violation, which is based on federal immigration law, not criminal code. These charges can include being in the U.S. without legal status.

Carlos Javier Lopez Benitez is a 27-year-old immigrant from Paraguay who felt all of these injustices over the last 3 months. On July 26, he showed up for his New York City court date seeking asylum, only to have his hearing rescheduled for 2029. Carlos had crossed the southern US border in May 2023 escaping his country and was apprehended by border patrol in Arizona. He was placed in deportation proceedings and released into the United States as his case wound through the courts. He traveled to New York, where he reunited with his two sisters, who are U.S. citizens. He lived in Queens, worked in construction and did not have a criminal record, according to his family and his lawyers. Mr. Lopez Benitez showed up regularly for court dates, but on that July date, ICE was waiting for him outside. They arrested him on grounds that he was in the country illegally and they transferred him 1,600 miles away to a detention center in Houston. 2 weeks after his detention, he was transferred back to New York City and released while his deportation case proceeded.

The Path Forward

ICE is weaponizing the courts. To stop this current administration from using the justice system as a tool of control instead of a force for righteousness, here are a few things public, private, and non-profit organizations can focus on.

* Increase awareness and funds for pro-bono legal representation: In March, Trump eliminated government grants that offered more than $200M in legal services to migrants. Pro bono services are desperately needed and immigrants also must understand the organizations to engage. Studies show that immigrants with attorneys are 3.5 times more likely to be granted bond (enabling release from detention) and up to 10 times more likely to establish their right to remain in the United States than those without representation. This 152 page doc from the DOJ is the most comprehensive official resource in existence.

* End mass deportation: America has created this catastrophe. We need to end the raids, we need to end the family separation, we need to end the fear instilling assaults on communities, workers, and people who have come to America because they fear oppression and retaliation in their own countries and are seeking a better life here. This includes reducing local law enforcement deputization - a program known as 287(g) - and aggressive ICE-local partnerships that lead to broad, non-targeted arrests and community fear.

* Improve court capacity: Justice delayed is justice denied. A backlog of 3.4M cases is unacceptable. The justice system at all levels of the courts can focus on hiring and properly training the judges needed to reduce backlog, use data-driven triage to fast-track meritorious asylum claims, expand remote hearings where appropriate, and publish clearer continuance/adjournment data.

Thanks as always for reading and leave your comments below for anything that surprised you, inspired you, or you want me to respond to.