january and february. at the same time,, conservation is kind of a taboo subject and much of alaska. a very deep red state. they are deeply suspicious of government intervention. they worry about things like federal overreach. a very popular term there. i think senator markowski has a whole section on federal overreach on her webpage. :: ::

[inaudible conversations] hello everybody. well at it -- welcome to politics & prose i am part of the staff here i would like to begin to remind you of some quick things amply silage yourself home. we are audio and video recording this event you don't want your phone to be going off on c-span. second, use our microphone we only have one it is over here. and please fold up your chairs and placed them against something solid. our staff will greatly appreciate that. i'm pleased to introduce elizabeth to politics & prose author she writes a bimonthly

column for the guardian interwork appears frequently and many other locations including the atlantic in the new york times and the nation. "squeezed" talks about americans i can barely afford to raise children and deals that parented is overwhelming to everyone but the wealthiest she provides meals allusions from policy shift to a blueprint to help us as both professionally and politically valuable. co-author right that this chronicles the plague of america the dangerous rise of financial instability and tee2's journalism that is the best exploratory and searching for answers. an important work to which attention should be paid we

will be joined in conversation author of the nickel and dime which she co- fire hounded one -- cofounded the project reporting on inequality. [applause] >> i'm barbara and i thought i would start by introducing tee5 how i came to know her. i started something called the economic hardship report which is this. there is more for people of here. for five years ago. and before alyssa came along we were floundering. in many ways and i take a lot of the blame i am not able to

manage or figure out projects i just like articles and essays. so the idea is we wanted raise money so the low income people and journalists generally because nobody else pays us anymore. i don't know if i should mention the atlantic but that is a contraction so that is a lot of jobs that are lost so we see a lot of people who need help. >> but also those that will

turn any two or 3000 then say we can pay $75 for that. that is impossible. if you work weeks or months on the peas so we thought we would say to the writer or the photojournalist we will pay you of what used to be the standard. >> that was the standard in 1995. [laughter] we didn't have any trouble attracting people who wanted to do this but one of them who came along as an editor was tee5 also a writer so alyssa i not want to make it sound machiavellian but she took

over the organization. [laughter] in no time at all and became the executive editor. >> she had vision and the energy to work with so many people. a lot of this book or most of it comes out of discussion found the hrp we would talk about that sometimes like who takes care of the immigrant nannies children while she is here working her wealthy white vote? -- white people? that turned into a series than

that elongated into a chapter of the book about a caregiver who was separated from her son from ten years in paraguay she was here taking care middle-class people's kids and what that experience is like. the global care chain that the handle that people give you leave your kids at home taking care of my family then you intern become a caregiver for other people's children. so care is drained off from the poor countries to the richer countries.

and then those turned into chapters. i have a lot of questions. you can do that pretty well. [laughter] so we heard that coming up so why is the work of caring for others so undervalued in our culture? carrying in general is what mothers do but and nurses aides.

what is wrong with this kind of work that gets so little respect or pay? >> so reporting with the nannies and embedded in a 24 hour day care facility. how 9% of caregiving is off hours and weekends. there is a lot of centers that have cropped up to fill that need. the nannies and the caregivers. and they are paid not a lot. the d valuing of care. and not so wealthy so that is

what i was trying to get at in this book. but the caregiving crisis or how little they are paid or the quality of their lives they are strained middle-class moms and dads. i'm sure so we human eyes care. and partially because we are afraid to separate love and money. so we imagine those who don't need to be paid. fool themselves and they want to think they are doing it out of the goodness of their

heart. and that was thought to be instinctual. and then we paid them a tiny bit. >> it is a prisoner of love theory that they work for very little money and is part of the emotional economy depends on that. >> what one yearbook that is very upsetting to me is what is placed on one -- women for motherhood once you are pregnant your boss may ignore

you or you are shuffled off to another department. but then when the baby comes forget about it. and at one point maybe i'm thinking of 19th century. giving birth and raising a child is mom -- was seen as important work and the contribution to society. now it has been penalized. >> maybe you are familiar with the motherhood penalty a survey that found people that wanted to pay mother employees a hypothetical wit offer $11000 less than childless women. so around that there is a whole sociological worldview

and a lot of women here have experienced that. but i argue that there is the opposite event that there is the motherhood advantage the focus that people have told me about so every time you get penalized you realize maybe that is the advantage so actually i am sharper and more organized i organize my time better. i know how to do with other minds children have radically different mind. so maybe i am more flexible with the people i encounter in the daily life. but for the most part there is not that awareness in the workplace. >> i don't think so at all. [laughter] >> as an experiment we are

looking for the white-collar corporate job. >> is its bait and switch? undercover into white caller jobs. >> i used my maiden name. i changed to my maiden name legally. [laughter] and i started off with a resume telling something of the truth. not that i was a liar but all these things i had done and my activities. ta and organizing this and that et cetera and he laughed at me. and any experience you have as a parent is not relevant to employment.

>> but i would also love to hear at the end of the conversation if women deal here they have that parenthood vantage as a worker or thinker so keep that in your mind. >> so i was wondering what you think about this. it never occurred to me to ask you this before but given all the penalties, why should we do it anymore? why? i know so many women in their 30s that are desperate to have a child before their time out or something. but why? [laughter] why? i'm a very happy mother and grandmother so i understand that side of it but if having

children is getting to be a luxury not to be the angelina jolie of the world? >> look at people who have more children is a lot more money but with all these people with wealthy children. they can afford it. >> you are a representative of your age group is one mac now it is 1.6. >> it is a question we have to throughout their. >> but it is very bleak but that is what got me thinking.

and another question. is this really new? the struggles of the educated middle class that wants to do creative things? >> it seems like the story of my life is here and i am old. >> barbara wrote an important article and my interest i do want to flip this back to you see a huge difference now from these accounts or the roles that you looked at back then? >> there is a huge difference. the educated middle class once had some stability and you knew you could get your children through college and

they could get a profession then everything would be okay. right? that was the goal. now the professions are crumbling. certainly you focus one chapter on the law. >> there are three states that have surplus lawyers. so there are too many lawyers to go around. and that is interesting to talk to people who had a lot of law school debt and in practice with lawyers they aren't just people who didn't make it but they were lawyers and could not sustain it. this is interesting the seachange the way of thinking of what a middle-class person is. images from the 50s or 60s like richard he everybody said

the 60s and 70s to escape from that trap of convention now it is ever did we get ever into the convention can we ever be boring? it's the same everyday commuting half an hour on the train not an hour and a half so this is less -- shaping what we see as the category. >> look at college teaching. another admire profession one point if you were a professor people respected you. now most of the teaching, 70%. >> some say 75% i go with 40% i could even tolerate 50% but there is a large number of adjunct and those are temporary teaching they don't have tenure or permanent

positions and they are renewable they teach course upon course tv only making $2000 per class many said the only make 20000 they are doing is poverty mine kind of fork i talked to on her life was very hard she was on food seems since i have written this am getting constant reports from people that the adjuncts asked if they could go to the food bank at the college it was meant for the students he said we need to go to the food bank also. this was two days ago. and these are the stories that should any of us be doing what we love? what does it mean to be

interested in the humanities now? can we afford that? that is another luxury. >> two points. the old boring jobs are not as stable anymore. what you mentioned bait and switch was white-collar corporate workers and i always said that was around they got it all. no. they have no job stability. they could be gone at any time. and then to start all over. but that leads me to a harder question for you. are you ready? i always tell young people. do what you want to do. follow your passion. find out the color of your

balloon or whatever. [laughter] >> and it was something that floated. [laughter] but after reading the i'm thinking that's the wrong thing to say like i cannot in good conscience say go get a job as an assistant department told manager for the corporation and you will be safe i can't say that either. so what do we say? >> i do have solutions in the book. i could get into those that we try to make people aware because that at least makes them least vulnerable to self-hatred and all the things why isn't it working for me? they are saying why didn't i keep that second job? that is what i want though

then from there start to look at more systematic problems what underlies this how many administrators are there? now the adjunct right organizing this movement one of the names is called tenured professionals there is more can tell you more. but they are organizing around this nus is and world report said okay put in how many adjuncts that teach and how low they are paid in their sense of prestige and then they are tarred and feathered. so if you start putting pressure on these institutions and the corporate overlords of the industries i know

technically they are not profits but that isn't entirely true can we put pressure on them? and once we have overcome that it is our fault it's not working out can we look out? >> that is such an important point you make again and again to the reader it's not your fault. this is not because you're stupid or not creative enough or whatever. >> or you didn't work hard enough for you did the wrong thing. there is so much that we have bootstrapping on one side and leaning in on the other. what if we have done as much as we can? >> now we have five minute so

we can consider some of the political aspects. is there a chance for holding an alliance between the squeeze professional couple and their money? because your book puts them together. >> i did that on purpose to show the continuum of class instability and then i called the shaken category of middle-class resembles that working-class in many ways and hours or lack of security and old age. why don't we start thinking about reframing that more organizing around these groups and that election of alexandria said it really inspired me and i felt this

appears to be partially what happened that this dysphoria tipster millennial's who have debt and latinos in this area voting her in and voting out. and i felt like this was potentially in a way it was so helpful that i know occupy did not function entirely but to think about having a middle proletariat and organizing around their own instability in some ways. that is what i mean if you can name it as a class problem then you will see or recognize the similarities to others and that's the point of my book.

>> it will take some effort to bridge the class differences like the wealthy employers have been seemingly wealthy. >> and to the people they emplo employ. >> we just wrote a piece together when the new york review of books if you are interested you should probably read that. talking about an organization called hand in hand it is a small organization but it is inspiring they have. and nannies together in this group working together. to have higher wages but also better household chores like cooking your food and believe it or not parents don't like

food there is aromatic in their kitchen so that kind of thing where you have a recognition of the intimacy and the humanity of this relationship as well what wages and it is a great organization. >> there is a lot of problems connecting. >> and they will be passed that element. >> we were also writing about the need to meet as they were emphasizing, really should be a working-class woman because the most abused assaulted women are hotel housekeepers, agricultural workers which surprised me. and cleaning people.

and there is very little outreach to bring them into that movement. not enough. >> we are hoping there will be more also the recognition to have a career derail which is what the higher echelon members could be worried about. not the majority people on the job are worried about. and then thinking i need to get paid i don't want to be raped. but we can still make congestion about conditions. >> i guess this is the last question that i have before i let you lose. an article in the new york times a couple days ago

suggesting that some of that kind of frustrations that went into the trump phenomenon in the election also accounts for the election in alexandria. for cortez. if that is true it is very interesting and this is an interesting way to begin to look at something. do you see some chances for alliances? >> yes. i hope so. it is a small pebble in the fight but that is what i hope they will be useful for that is one of the things i'm hoping if you go out there for policy people or organizers with me as a journalist or author i cannot.

>> does anybody want to come up to the microphone and asked the question? it could also be an answer. [laughter] >> thank you for coming. concerning the federal reserve had so much quantitative easing called printing money. has that helped us? or help the local people? because they feel we are spinning our wheels and the federal reserve is just printing money. >> i don't know. i think that is a question that will make us think. >> that we don't have that

answer. but we will come up with one. give me your e-mail. what is your name? >> according to the charitable trust our fertility rate in america is 1.8 which means we are in a situation of population decline. our people aware of this and if anybody is concerned we are in endangered species? >> i think the overall issue not about the u.s. but worldwide, we have achieved populations that our ancestors could never have imagined. some say we went too far now competing for roads and housing that this is something to take into account if they

decide that is for their children or not. >> i think my subjects said thank god i only have one and they would often make asides like that. and then they would talk about fertility but it was my own decision also to have one child. >> but i do think the reason is full of that decline with american fertility is in this book. >> yes. >> hello. the problem is so vague and the progress that we are making is so slow we are really in trouble. we don't have a format of economics or statistics to indicate what is going on now or what it was to understand it with those solutions.

we are not doing distribution of wealth or the economy or how that works or of jobs in the future. so do you see any place where this is starting to take place? the planning and the economic overflow happening to our culture is read tooling so we understand what is happening to us? they make i'm seeing a lot of smaller things. like platform cooperatives it is a movement like corporate apps but they are worker owned apps as a collective so people who are part of it can invest some of the share of that and i think that is called the gig

economy and it has created a new ownership class. that is one that i think would be very useful. some of that is broader stroke but i like to spend time at a co-op. i talked to a lot of people who were with universal basic income as an enthusiast. that was interesting to and that is a potential solution that is highly possible. >> explain what that is. it is an allowance for every family between $12,020,000 per year it is provided to offset job losses for automation, daycare costs many families i spoke to spend at least 30% of

their take-home pay on daycare. new york was 38%. or that adjunct had a disabled son and she had to care for him. so it is government. >> that it is supported on the right as well with a lot of libertarians you just not progressive. >> and the mother of one child who is 43 and has twins. part of the reason i only had one child so it would not be an impediment to my career and

i had a very good career. but one of the phenomenon you have not addressed at all is the role of grandmothers and grandparents. and that is critical with middle-class families. i said to my daughter i will help you in a pinch but i will not spend my time babysitting during my semi retirement years that i do have a lot of friends who are committed to monday and wednesday or tuesday and thursday and that retirement is geared to taking care of the grandchildren. and what are the economic implications of that? part of that is when i babysit for my friends my dash or my friends there is no cost involved there is to leave no economic cost my daughter and

son in law they are typical middle-class both professional family right in this town. >> thank you for bringing that up. i am a committed grandma who was always available. [laughter] that's we go unnoticed to the perpetuation of this class. >> maybe that's something for you to write about. >> okay. so take that as an assignment. >> mother's day last year. the joy of being a grandmother. >> i think her book was quite different. [laughter]

>> williams? [applause] this is fantastic your book is, now i know know you have a lot to say about the subject but a couple of things kept coming to mind but the first like child care cost roughly cost about as much as college tuition between 20 or $50,000 thousand dollars per year depending on the quality of care and how many kids but the workers don't make that much they are right around minimum wage give or take. who gets the money? why is this such a differentiation between the child care providers and how much the family has to pay? second, what about the providers? but who takes care of their kid kids.

>> i did talk about that. the people who ran that daycare that i was embedded their kids were very involved in daycare so they were scooped into that. that is part of what happens. but i talked to six or seven other caregivers from overseas they left their kids at home with a grandparent again it is where grandma is. but then they are separated from their kids. i think usually it is local daycare center even cheaper i thought this would be a good story for us to do about the global care chain in the neighborhood where you go down and i think somebody did a version where informal daycare and informal networks and then

you keep going down the process. and for those to be the right person for that. >> the other question is if the united states has this differentiation to take care of the children as an afterthought and then we don't have good family leave for a lot of that support that other countries give their working families, what country is doing it right? is there a model here in the u.s. that we could examine? is there a movement to integrate those best practices in the u.s. >> you must be a journalist left those are really good. so now what was the first one?

>> i don't want to say denmark and sweden that québec if they pay very small amount of money. because they are taxed more and they are committed today care services. that is right across the border. and then the second question? >> we cannot pay attention to those other countries. we have to learn from them how could be? canadians are so totally different from americans. [laughter] anyway but that is a tremendous american arrogance

that we don't need to learn anything but the short answer is that to always have a social safety and in all the northern caribbean countrie countries. >> so one short answer is in 1971 in would find an act or pass something that would give substantial amount of child care to then be towed it. so these moments in history that are more progressive than ours because they say this is impossible but then you say it happened in 1971. >> thank you for your book making those dynamics more

visible and that then to look at some policy. because as you were talking i was thinking of the increase deficit despair. and your comments about the internalization of people thinking it is about them and to transcend. and we are curious about this conversation are people locating the problem? or are they internalizing that with the ability to transcend? so this is tied to the rags to

riches story that is forced to propel people forward when that is a set up and is poisonous to believe that to a certain degree. >> a lot people that i spoke to were blaming themselves. there was this internalized and we have a lot of blaming the other. and those are two sides of the coin that was wrong. >> and then to explain so i am

just committed that they didn't really follow some of the people wind up and not living the american dream that they are on dry land. i don't know what that is attributed to but that fatigue that exhaustion when you are economically precarious. that is the middle class feel like -- view you cannot make clear choices you don't know

what the future will hold. and then to be in a slightly better position and make broader choices. >> two more questions. >> in my home country we have 1.3 and also we have problems and also linked to the scottish government and one of those may outcomes and that is way of those expectations. >> send those to me. >> yes yes yes.

>> so do you think? and they try to explain don't have time to read? they spend as much time as the kids. so that's the very best part. so that's one of the things. >> that is what you see with people working. and at night. very part time. and with that regularity.

>> and where you are on call. your hours will be. >> i wrote how those in that situation with homework they would come home at strange hour hours. that was another finding. >> your book was the first nonfiction i have ever read nickels and dimes. [applause] but your book squeezed was covered in the new york times that if you go online side-by-side and his thesis in that book is that there is so many people employed during

who knows what and there is that idea to ask lord to the overeducated i just graduated from columbia everybody says you will sellout and go into investment banking but how do you reconcile these people with this situation that are overeducated and still poor but then a reason to write a whole book about people. >> they are part of the same thing and we are often penalized for it. or those who did what they had to do her penalized in a different way that they are alienated labor.

and then to find meaning and alienated other ways? and others have jobs they don't care about at all. i've never read his book but i have read excerpts that almost any job you are in you have to pretend to be busy at all times whether manual labor or whatever. that is a trick that is what politicians should teach. how to look busy. [laughter] >> that's it. i will be here for signing you have been an incredible audience we have more information about our organization. thanks a lot. [applause] remake we have copies of the books under registers please

form a signing line. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> issue after issue i have talked about the american people despite what you see on tv we are not a divided nation many issues. people want to raise the minimum wage $15 an hour and

we admit public colleges and universities tuition free with a government that speaks to the needs of middle-class people. there are issues we are divided on the time and time again in washington and congress is leadership behold into the powerful special interest and ignoring the needs of working families. a political revolution is the primary goal. number one to develop an agenda that speaks to the needs of working families and i'm talking about the issues on that agenda. the part of that revolution is the understanding you cannot

push an agenda without elected officials ready to implement legislation if necessary. have what we are working on right now and the book i am writing is what we are doing not just me but what we have been doing since the election. personally i have been running all over this country. i have been to 28 states. mostly states by the way that donald trump one. and my message is that trump lied to the american people during his campaign when he said he'd work with working families and in fact his administration more than any administration in history of

our country is loaded with billionaires and extremely wealthy people who are pushing an agenda to benefit the rich while attacking the middle class and working families in an unprecedented way. you are not defending the working families of west virginia or kentucky or the other that voted overwhelmingly for trump when you propose to throw 32 trillion off of the healthcare they have. that is the message we are getting out you are not protecting working families when you campaign to take on the pharmaceutical industry but yet you come up with the idea about the solution to the high cost of drugs in this country to make people all over the world pay more for

drugs. people around the rest of the world pay more to lower the prescription drug cost in this country is the solution having the guts to take on the pharmaceutical industry is what has to be done. >> people across the country are not -- understanding not just that trump lied about what he proposed to do that only prescription drugs he said he would pass tax reform that would not benefit the wealthy. that is just another lie based on hundreds of other lies because the tax bill that was passed gives 83% 3% of the benefits to the top 1% over a

ten year period. what we have been doing after the election is fighting for the progressive agenda so to seem on the fringe and radical are now mainstream. where we are also winning but not as rapidly, is to see more people get involved in the political process and to your office to get involved in campaigns with the political process in general. and making progress to demand that the democratic party become a 50 state party not

just party have the west coast of the east coast and i can tell you been to kansas and kentucky and west virginia incredibly decent people are there who standing up to their special interest to the united states congress. >> good evening i'm from universal librarian here at san diego library am excited to welcome you here tonight and thankful you have made time to join a for this wonderful opening of this updated book originally published by jonas salk menu reality human revolution for sustainable future.