America has never been wealthier—so why does it feel so hard to get by? 

New York Times economics reporter Talmon Joseph Smith joins Nick and Goldy this week to unpack the growing gap between economic headlines and the lived reality of most Americans. With nearly $200 trillion in national wealth and half the country holding just a sliver of it, they explore why GDP and aggregate growth keep telling a story working families don’t recognize—and what that disconnect means for our economy and our politics.

Talmon Joseph Smith is an economics reporter currently covering labor markets, inequality, and political economy. His recent work at The New York Times has focused on the tension between headline economic indicators and lived economic reality. His forthcoming book, Clout and Capital, examines how power, influence, and wealth shape economic outcomes in America.

Social Media: 

@talsmith.bsky.social

@talmonsmith

Further reading: 

America Has Never Been Wealthier. Here’s Why It Doesn’t Feel That Way.

Michael W. Green - How a Broken Benchmark Quietly Broke America

Read more from Talmon Joseph Smith

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Extreme inequality and democratic decline aren’t separate crises—they’re the same crisis. This week, Osita Nwanevu joins Paul and Goldy to explain how America’s constitutional design, corporate power, and decades of upward redistribution have eroded both political and economic freedom. He outlines what real democratic governance would mean inside government and at work, why the concentration of wealth threatens stability, and how a long-term movement for a more representative system could finally deliver the policies most Americans want.

Osita Nwanevu is a journalist and political writer whose work focuses on democracy, governance, and the intersection of politics and power in America. His reporting and essays have appeared in The New Republic, The New Yorker, Slate, and The New York Times. He is the author of The Right of the People, a sweeping examination of why American democracy is faltering and what it would take to build a more just, inclusive, and genuinely democratic society.

Further reading: 

The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New 

American Founding

By the Workers, for the Workers: Building Economic Democracy

https://www.ositanwanevu.com/

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This week, Paul and Goldy look back at the most notable economics books of the year. They discuss Ezra Klein and David Thompson’s Abundance, Cory Doctorow’s blistering Enshittification, Thomas Piketty’s new works on inequality, Diane Coyle’s fresh take on GDP, and the overlooked history behind the Garland Fund. Whether you’re hunting for a holiday gift for the wonk in the family or looking to understand the ideas driving today’s political economy, this episode is full of must-reads. 

Must-Read Economics Books 2025

Abundance by Ezra Klein and David Thompson

Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It by Cory Doctorow

Equality Is a Struggle by Thomas Piketty

Nature, Culture, and Inequality by Thomas Piketty

Equality: What It Means and Why It Matters by Thomas Piketty and Michael J. Sandel

The Measure of Progress: Counting What Really Matters by Diane Coyle

The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America by John Fabian Witt

Honorable Mention

Ricardo’s Dream: How Economists Forgot the Real World and Led Us Astray By Nat Dyer 

Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies by Cesar Hidalgo 

Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America by Robert Reisch 

Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist Liz Pelly 

Other Books Mentioned in Episode

Homelessness is a Housing Problem by Greg Colburn & Clayton Page Aldern

Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress--And How to Bring It Back by Marc Dunkelman

Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty

The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government by Nick Hanauer & Eric Liu 

Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx 

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Econ 101 shapes how millions of people understand the economy—but what if the textbooks are teaching a worldview that’s outdated, oversimplified, and in some cases flat-out wrong? 

This week, Nick and Goldy talk with economists Wendy Carlin and Suresh Naidu, leaders of CORE Econ, the global project rewriting introductory economics to reflect the real world. They explain why the old curriculum failed during the 2008 financial crisis, how CORE foregrounds issues students actually care about—inequality, climate change, and the future of work—and why teaching economics without talking about innovation or power is like teaching physics without gravity.

If you’ve ever walked out of an Econ 101 class thinking, “That can’t be how the economy really works,” this episode is your vindication—and your alternative.

Suresh Naidu is a professor of economics and international and public affairs at Columbia University, known for his work on labor markets, political economy, and power in the economy. He is a key contributor to CORE Econ, helping shape its emphasis on real-world data, inequality, and institutions.

Wendy Carlin is a professor of economics at University College London and one of the world’s leading experts in economic education and the future of macroeconomic policy. She is the co-founder and director of CORE Econ, the global curriculum reform project now used in universities across more than 60 countries.

Social Media:

@coreeconteam

@columbia_econ

Further reading: 

CORE - Economics for a changing world

About Core Econ

CORE (Curriculum Open-access Resources in Economics) Econ

CORE Econ’s vision is that a radically transformed economics education can contribute to a more just, sustainable, and democratic world in which future citizens are empowered by a new economics to understand and debate how best to address pressing societal problems.

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Law professor Mehrsa Baradaran joins Nick and Goldy to reveal how neoliberalism wasn’t just a misguided economic theory—it was a “quiet coup” that rewired our laws, courts, and institutions to elevate capital above democracy. Drawing from her new book The Quiet Coup, Professor Baradaran explains how this ideology became like the air we breathe: a pervasive worldview that shapes our politics, our markets, and even the way we understand ourselves. They explore how elite power captured the machinery of government, why the market has become a runaway algorithm fueling inequality, and what it will take to break free from an ideology so deeply embedded we mistake it for common sense.

Mehrsa Baradaran is a professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, and one of the nation’s leading experts on banking law, inequality, and the racial wealth gap. She is the author of The Quiet Coup: Neoliberalism and the Looting of America, The Color of Money, and How the Other Half Banks. Her research traces how financial policy, legal structures, and political power shape inequality in the United States.

Social Media:

@mehrsab.bsky.social

Mehrsabaradaran

@MehrsaBaradaran

Further reading: 

The Quiet Coup: Neoliberalism and the Looting of America

The Color of Money

How the Other Half Banks

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For nearly a century, GDP has been the world’s go-to measure of economic success—but what if it’s been telling us the wrong story? It treats cigarette sales and cancer treatments as equally “good” for the economy, while caring for your kids, volunteering, or creating art don’t count at all. This week, economist Diane Coyle joins Nick and Goldy to discuss her new book, The Measure of Progress, and explain why GDP increasingly fails to capture the reality of modern economies—and how we can measure real progress instead.

Diane Coyle is the Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. She is also the Research Director at the Bennett School of Public Policy, a member of the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy Council, and author of the new book, The Measure of Progress: Counting What Really Matters.

Social Media:

@dianecoyle1859.bsky.social

@DianeCoyle1859

Further reading: 

The Measure of Progress: Counting What Really Matters

Beyond GDP? Welfare across Countries and Time

The Economics of Care with Nancy Folbre

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Actor and author Ben McKenzie didn’t set out to become one of crypto’s fiercest critics—but when the pandemic hit and Hollywood shut down, his curiosity turned into a full-blown investigation. The result was the bestselling book, Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud, a blistering exposé of the crypto craze as “casino capitalism” at its dumbest.

In this episode, McKenzie joins Nick and Goldy to explain how the industry turned hype and libertarian fantasy into a trillion-dollar bubble, why the true believers won’t let go, and how fake “innovation” and corporate lobbying are putting the entire financial system at risk. They dig into the cult psychology of crypto, the rise of legalized gambling as an addiction economy, and why letting corporations issue their own “money” could end in disaster.

Ben McKenzie is an actor, author, and director best known for his roles on The O.C., Southland, and Gotham. He holds a degree in economics and foreign affairs from the University of Virginia. McKenzie has become one of the most prominent critics of the cryptocurrency industry, co-authoring the book Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud with journalist Jacob Silverman.

The premiere of Everyone is Lying to You For Money is on Sunday, November 16, 2025, in New York City. Get tickets at DOCNYC.net.

Social Media:

@benmckenzie.bsky.social

mrbenmckenzie

@ben_mckenzie

Further reading: 

Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud

When Prophecy Fails

Mistakes Were Made (but Not By Me)

New York Magazine: ⁠Congress Just Injected Crypto Directly Into the Most Stable Part of the Economy What could go wrong?

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Corporations are on track to spend more than $1.3 trillion on stock buybacks this year—money that could have gone toward higher wages, innovation, or community investment. That’s the real-life Trillion Dollar Heist at the center of our new comic from Civic Ventures, which follows Marta, a janitor who interrupts a corporate board meeting just as executives plot their next billion-dollar buyback spree.

This week, we’re resharing our 2019 conversation with Senator Cory Booker, who explains how stock buybacks went from illegal market manipulation to one of the biggest drivers of inequality. 

Read the Trillion Dollar Heist Comic: https://bindings.app/read/7mINYO2H

This episode originally aired February 26, 2019. 

Senator Cory Booker is a Democratic lawmaker from New Jersey who has served in the U.S. Senate since 2013. A Rhodes Scholar and Yale Law graduate, he began his career on the Newark City Council before serving as mayor from 2006 to 2013. In the Senate, Booker has focused on criminal justice reform, economic opportunity, climate action, and protecting civil and LGBTQ+ rights.

Social Media:

Marta 

Paul Constant 

Sarah Star Litt

Alan Robinson 

Pippa Bowland

AndWorld Design

Mary P. Traverse

Further reading: 

Trillion Dollar Heist Comic

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In the final episode of our Trade series, Nick and Goldy talk with Thea Lee, former Deputy Undersecretary for International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Labor, to challenge the core assumption behind decades of U.S. trade policy: That trade is about efficiency, not power.

Lee explains how past trade deals were written to protect capital while ignoring worker exploitation abroad—a model that suppressed wages overseas and undercut American workers at home. She also makes the case that worker-centered trade isn’t hypothetical anymore by pointing to the US–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), where labor rights were finally enforced with the same seriousness as intellectual property, resulting in real wage gains and democratic union elections in Mexico.

This conversation lays out the choice clearly: Trade can strengthen middle classes, democracy, and supply chain resilience, or it can deepen inequality and instability. This episode makes the argument for choosing the first option on purpose, not by accident.

Thea Lee is an economist and longtime advocate of pro-worker trade policy who most recently served as Deputy Undersecretary for International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Labor,  where she focused on global labor protections, including enforcing labor rights under trade agreements and combating forced and child labor worldwide.

Todd Tucker is a political scientist, author, and the Director of Industrial Policy and Trade at the Roosevelt Institute and Roosevelt Forward, where he leads work on how national and global institutions shape economic transformation. He’s the author of Judge Knot: Politics and Development in International Investment Law.

Social Media:

@theameilee.bsky.social

@TheaMeiLee

@toddntucker.com

@toddntucker

Further reading: 

The New US Trade Agenda: Institutionalizing Middle-Out Economics in Foreign Commercial Policy

Judge Knot: Politics and Development in International Investment Law

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In the sixth episode of our trade series, Pitchfork Economics producer Freddy Doss talks with Mexican economist Juan Carlos Moreno-Brid about how NAFTA — and now the USMCA — reshaped Mexico’s economy in ways that those of us north of the Rio Grande almost never hear about. Yes, exports skyrocketed. But wages stagnated, domestic industry hollowed out, and Mexico became structurally dependent on the United States — even as political rhetoric in the U.S. grew more hostile toward Mexican workers. Moreno-Brid explains why the promised “shared prosperity” never arrived, why Mexico got stuck in an export-without-development trap, and what a truly fair and resilient U.S.–Mexico trade relationship would actually require. It’s a perspective rarely heard in Washington, and an essential one for understanding the real stakes of North American trade.

Juan Carlos Moreno-Brid is a professor of economics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and one of Latin America’s leading experts on trade, industrial policy, and economic development. A former Deputy Director of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) office in Mexico, he has spent decades analyzing the impacts of NAFTA and Mexico’s transition to an export-led model. His research focuses on inequality, industrialization, and the structural challenges facing emerging economies.

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