good evening, everybody. welcome to politics and prose. i am part of the event staff. before i begin i would like to remind you of a few quick thing

so please come to silenc, silenl phones and other devices. we are audio recording and video recordings that we preferred there to be no interruptions. you don't want your phone to be the one going off on c-span. second, please use the microphone during a questio then and answer portion we only have one tonight and it's over here. last please fold up your chair at the end of the event. our staff would greatly appreciate that. i am pleased to introduce alyssa for a claim to books branded, republic of outsiders, hothouse kids and monetize a volume of poetry. she writes a column for the guard began in her work appears frequently in the other publications including the atlantic, "the new york times" and venetian. in squeezed she examines the life of middle-class americans who can barely afford to raise

children. it's overwhelming to everyone except the wealthiest. she provides real solutions from the necessary policy shifts to a blueprint for helping us to see preventing and caregiving as both professionally and politically valuable. the co-author of russian roulette writes the chronicling of the plea of americans confronting the rise of the middle-class financial instability. it's journalism at its best and exploratory in this rolling and searching for answers. they will be joined in conversation by barbara and ehrenreich who founded the nonprofit for reporting on inequality. please join me in welcoming alyssa and barbara ehrenreich. [applause]

>> hello, i am barbara and i thought i'd start by introducing her little bit more. but sort of how i came to know her. i started as a than economic rem project which is this. there's more room for people up here. >> before she can along come i have to tell you we were floundering in many ways but i take a lot of the blame. i am not able to manage or figure out, you know, projects. i just like articles and essays and things like that. the idea was to be would raise

money so that we could pay low income people, journalists generally coming and there is no shortage of the low-income journalists. so, because nobody else is paying us anymore. i don't know if i should mention the atlantic. >> there's been a 50% contraction in the news room soo that is a lot of jobs that are lost so we are seeing a lot of people. but also people who will turn in the 2,000 or 3,000 piece to some well-known online site and see wsaywe can pay $75 for that. that's impossible if you worked fowere tofor weeks or months ons piece. so we thought we would come in

and say to the writer or the photojournalist we will pay you what used to be the old standard a dollar a word which was the standard. we didn't have any trouble attracting people who wanted to do this. one of them who came along as an editor was alyssa and not only was she an editor of a writer. i don't want to make this sound machiavellian but she took over the organization and no time at all she was the executive edit editor. [laughter] she had the vision, the imagination, the energy and

credible energy to work with people on their pieces. it comes that the discussion of the arp. who takes care of the immigrant nanny's children? that turned into a series and then much elongated into one of the chapters in the book about a caregiver who was separated from her son for ten years. middle-class people's kids and

what that experience was like as if it is to handle people give, and then in turn you become a caregiver for other people's children. >> so is being draine it's beinf from the poor countries to the richer countries an in the world but anyway, that is just one topic. there are so many that turn into finally chapters in this wonderful book which you will find is a pleasure to read as well as very instructive. i had a lot of questions. if anybody wants me to read i will read. you can talk as well as you can read it.

>> thank you. let's start a with why is the work of caring for others so undervalued in our culture and they mean in general, what parents do more specifically but others do and home health workers and so many other people. what is wrong with this work but it gets so little respect was paid. >> what i spend embedded in a day care facility, i don't know how many people know about that but it's the kind of growth

industry down 9% is on off hours and weekends and there's a lot odivisive ofcenters that have co fulfill this need. all these people that are working for the nannies, caregivers and many that left their kids overseas they are being paid not a lot, but part of it is devaluing of care but then it's also a part of the trip of the middle-class because the families that are paying these people they themselves are not always so wealthy, so that is what i was trying to get at in this book. i think of them as russian dolls stacked within each other that's the caregiving crisis or how little they are paid and what the quality of their lives are far within these strained middle-class moms and dads and

people in this room will be able to talk to that. so it is complicated. i think it is partially because we are afraid. we don't want them to contaminate one another so we imagine that they don't want to or don't need to be paid, they are not interested in money. it's complicated.

i founded the social science on it as a prisoner of love series and the emotional economy depends on that. one of the things that is upsetting to me is the penalties placed on women from motherhood to. your boss may be calling you and you may be shoved off to another less important department or something.

it wasn't seen as important for him to become tradition to society. now it's something that has been penalized. >> people are familiar there was a survey that found that people wanted to pay mother employees it would offer a mother's $11,000 less than childless women have been a lot less than men so around that there's become a global sociological worldview and a lot of women have experienced that but in my book i argue for the opposite of that there is another advantage which i can get into also for the focused people have told me about that existed.

so every time you get penalized there may be an advantage by an employee or doesn't know. i'm sharper and more organized. i know how to deal with other minds so maybe i'm more flexible with the people that i encounter in my daily life that i don't think that it's in the workpla workplace. >> it is a journalistic experience into the white-collar corporate jobs. >> into the white-collar jobs using her maiden name, right wax >> i changed to my maiden name

legally to. i started out with a resume telling something of the truth not that i was a writer, but that all the things these thine done, my activities etc., organizing this and organizing that, they laughed at me. any experience that you have as a parent isn't relevant to the employment. they are smarter because we are parents but we haven't done that yet. >> i would like to hear also at the end of the conversation like do women feel that they have a parent with advantage as a worker or a thinker so keep that in mind.

>> that but i was wondering whau think of this. it's never occurred to ask about this but given all the penalties on us for parenting why should we do that anymore? why are we doing it? i know many women in their 30s who are desperate to have a child before the time runs out. after reading your book, why? is it getting to be a luxury? >> certainly if you look at some of the people is less than those with one child now. there's wealthy people with many

children. >> and few are more representative of your age group with one. >> now it is one point somethi something? >> it is a question that we have to throw out there and ask in our own lives. let's not wait until we are older, but no. >> that is where your book got me thinking. another kind of question, is this new the struggles of the educated at all class that wants

to do great things? >> barbara wrote an important book in which in my interest i do want to flip this back and see a huge difference from bees accounts. it's a huge difference. they once had some stability you knew if you could get your children through college they could get a profession everything would be okay to. now those professions are crumbling. you focused in one chapter on the wall which everybody thought was the stable one of them all.

>> vers three states that don't have surplus lawyers or excess was the phrase so in all the other states there were too many to go around i talked to people that have a lot of debt and practiced as lawyers it was people that have been lawyers and they couldn't sustain it. if you think of images from the 50s and 60s it's like everybody spent the 60s and 70s to escape from this convention and then it's like can we ever be boring and have a humdrum life it's the same every day. some of this is changing how we

think at least this is what my reporting showed me changing how we think of the category middle-class. >> an >> handbook of college teaching. another admired profession at one point. you were a professor, people immediately respected q.. now as it is pointed out, much of the teaching, 70% -- >> some say 75%. i am going with 40%. i'm willing to tolerate 50%, but there's a large number of adjunct and for those who don't know, they are temporary teaching, teachers who don't have tenure, who don't have permanent positions who teach courses on course and often make $3,000 a class, and a 62% who were surveyed made $20,000 for we are talking about after graduate school they paid a lot for in the poverty line kind of

work and i documented one of them and talked to many others in her life was hard. she was on food stamps and since i've written thii pretend that g constant reports from people. they asked if they could go to the food bank at the college that was meant for the students. they said we need to go to the food bank. this is like two days ago someone was telling me this. then there's the broader questions like should any of us be doing what we love to. that is another luxury that it would seem. >> two different planes there were questions. the old jobs are not as stable anymore.

i really thought that was the realm they sold out. they have no job stability, they could be gone at any time and have to start all over at the age of 50 plus. but it leads me to a harder question here for you. i always tell younger people do what you want to do, sort of follow your passion, find out the color of your balloon or whatever -- >> parachute. [laughter] >> i knew it was something that floated. [laughter] but now after reading this i thought wow maybe that's the wrong thing to say. i can't in good conscience told him if you go get a job as an

assistant departmental manager for a corporation you will be safe. awareness makes people aware of the self blame and hatred and why it isn't working out. certificate of systematic problems in wha and what is undg this and how many administrators there are in the university system. there's nthere is no adjunct ris organizing the movement.

there is this idea that you go to the u.s. news and world report for david how little and other excessive procedure and their excessive procedure and appearances and if that was tarred and feathered. resetting pitchers on these institutions and corporate overlords they are technically nonprofit. do we put pressure on them? and once we overcome this sense that it's us on our fault isn't working out so they start doing things.

>> you make the point to the reader it's not your fault. it's not because you are stupid or not creative enough. not that you did the wrong thing. there's so much languagthere ise liberal circles and we have boot strapping on onbootstrapping ond leaning in on the author. we can consider some of the political aspects and outcomes. is there a chance of building an alliance between the professional couple and their nanny.

i wanted to show that i that ita continuum of the class and stability and what i call this shaken category of the middle-class and in many ways the terms of contingency and regular hours and the lack of security in old age and rethinking its a there ca theree organizing around these groups and the election of alexandria that is part of what really inspired me. they are kids into hipster millennialist who write a lot of debt to and latinos in the area that are voting in or out.

and yes i felt like this is potentially in a way it is still helpful to think i know occupied and function entirely but to think about having a middle precarious organizing around prick. organizing around their own instability in some ways and recognizing it and that's what i mean about this naming if you can name it as a class problem rather then you than your probln you will recognize the simulated the you might have to others and that is the point of my book. >> it will take some effort to bridge the class differences. the mothers and fathers to the people they employ.

>> we just wrote a piece together making the point if you are interested you should read that and then we talk about the organization called hand-in-hand with a small organization that i mentioned in my book as well they have parents and nannies together in the group working together to. parents don't like when their caregivers cook foo food that's aromatic in their kitchens and that kind of thing where you really have a recognition of the kind of intimacy and humanity of this relationship as well as what a decent wage is answer that is a great organization.

>> there's a lot of problems connecting across. >> we are hoping that he will have that elevated. >> we were writing about the need to movement which as we were emphasizing is really a movement of working class women because the most abused and assaulted women workers in this country are hotel housekeepers, agricultural workers was a surprise to me and cleaning people. there's been very little outreach to bring them into the need to movement. >> so we are hoping there will be more. also the recognition having your career derailed, which is what many of the higher echelon

members might be worrying about. it's not the majority of people will sold on the job, they are not thinking of a career, they are thinking i need to get paid and i don't want to be deported. i don't want to be raped or any kind of severe stuff, but we can still make connections between the two conditions. >> okay this will be the last question before i let you all go. there was an article in "the new york times" just a couple of days ago suggesting some of the frustrations and discontent that went into this phenomenon might account for the election of

cortez. if that is true, and this is an interesting way to begin to that something, but do you see some chances for alliance across that gap?

>> thank you for coming. with the federal reserve had quantitative easing which is printing money, has that helped us or with the local people? because we are just ending our wheels in the federal reserve and they are just printing money. >> there is a question that will make a stink now. but we will come up with an answer for you. give us your e-mail.

>> are fertility rate is 1.8 so we so we are in a situation of population decline. so is there anybody else aware that we are an endangered species? >> so worldwide so we have achieved population that district -- distant ancestors could not have imagined. with too many people competing for housing. but to take into account. >> and with my subjects so my book wasn't about fertility but that was my own decision

also. >> but i do think the reasons for the decline of american hotel ideas in this book. >> yes. the problem is so big and the progress we're making is is so slow we're really in trouble. we don't have a format of the economical statistics to communicate what is going on now we don't understand it so we aren't getting the solutions. we are not dealing with the distribution of wealth or the economy or the jobs of the future. so do you see any place where this is starting to take place?

planning of the economic overview of what has happened to our culture is starting to retool from what is happening to us? >> again i have seen a lot like cooperatives there is a movement to read think corporate apps like those who were that that is a collective so people who are part of the co-op can invest in the share of that. so that economy has a new ownership so that is one small thing. but some of that is more broader but two-seat closure or things like that and so i talked to a lot of people to

the universal basic income and they were and enthusiast and that is a potential solution which is probably impossible. >> can you explain what that is? >> it is an allowance for every family that is between 12,020,000 per year that is just provided to offset job losses for automation, daycare cost, many families i have spoke to better middle-class families that are spending at least 30% of their take-home pay on daycare. in new york it could be as high as 38%. so this is a problem or adjunct professors so basically like an allowance

from the government. but it is supported on the right as well that is interesting with the libertarians also. >> i am the mother of one child now 43 and has twins. one of the phenomenon and part of the reason i only had one child was so that it would not be an impediment to my career. i had a very good career. but one of the phenomenon you have not addressed at all is the rule of grandmothers and grandparents. and that's critical among 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. but i have a lot of friends who are committed to monday and wednesday or tuesday and thursday to split with the in-laws four days a week and their retirement is geared to taking care of the grandchildren. so what are the economic implications of that? part of that is certainly when i babysit for my friends babysit there is no cost involved. there is a cost to me in my life but no economic cost to my daughter and son-in-law they are a typical middle-class both professional family in this town. >> thank you for bringing that up. but i am one of those committed grandmas who was always available. [laughter] but we go unnoticed.

to the perpetuation of this class. >> maybe that's something for you to write about. >> okay. [laughter] i will take that as an assignment. >> it came out mother's day last year. >> it came out mother's day last year the joy of grandmothers or something like that. >> i think barbara's book was quite different. [laughter] >> thank you. >> my name is joe williams. >> good to see you. it is fantastic your book has come out i know you have a lot to say about the subject but when i was listening to you

thing just a few things came to mind like childcare cost roughly for a minute one -- costing about as much as college tuition depending on how many kids you have and quality of care but the workers don't make that much and they are probably right around minimum wage give or take some who gets the money? why is there such a differentiation between the childcare providers and the family has to pay? second, you talk about this a little bit but who is taking care of their kids? >> i talked about that. the people who ran that daycare that i embedded their kids were very involved in the daycare. so they were scooped into that. often that is what happens. but i talked to six or seven

other caregivers and they left their kids at home with the grandparents. again it is the grandparent with that global version. but then they are separated from their kids. usually it is local daycare's that are even cheaper i thought that would be a good story to do about the global care chain in the neighborhood. i think someone did a version talking about formal daycare's and that unless -- stable informal network then you go down the process who takes care of the nannies kids here? so you could be the right person for that. >> the other question is who is doing it right? if the united states has a

differentiation between the children or as an afterthought except cutting the check, and we don't have good family the four a lot of the support other countries give working families, what is doing it right? is there a model that have things go well? and is there a movement to try to integrate those best practices in the u.s.? to make you must be a generalist. [laughter] those are good questions. now i will lose track. what was the first one? >> i don't just want to say denmark and sweden but québec they pay between seven and $20 a week. now i forget but it is a very small amount of money.

because they tax more than they are committed to daycare services that is right across the border. and the second question? the neck we tend not to pay attention to the other countries we tend not to learn from them how could we? canadians are so totally different from american they are exotic. anyway. [laughter] so this is a tremendous american arrogance that we don't need to learn anything but the short answer is we've always had a social safety net deal with these problems so much better than we do. and all of the northern european countries for example.

>> so one short answer is 1971 nixon was going to sign and act or pass something that would get a substantial amount of child care to then he vetoed that. so actually, i love these moments in history that are more progressive than ours because people say this is impossible and then you say will this happened in 1971. >> thank you for your book and i do hope that people who are working on the structural issues will take it and look at policy and other changes. as you were talking i was thinking of the increase of what they call deficit does hair like that opioid and your comments about the internalization of people

thinking it's about them individually in their inability to transcend class or economic challenges or structures that is creating freefall. i am curious what you have seen in those conversations. are people living it rotating that problem as policy or are they internalizing it about them and their inabilities to transcend? for me this is tied to the rags to riches story that is a big force for propelling people forward that when they walk in and don't recognize it is a setup it is poisonous to believe that so what do you find?

>> a lot of people i spoke to were blaming themselves that was there refrain actually to internalize self-doubt, some of it i said this before but allies of blaming the other and then there are two sides of the same coin so what's wrong with me? i want to cancel myself out what have i done wrong? and then start talking to the subject and then splinting what happened. but yes. to wind up okay in the end this journalism is very character centered it's not forced so they feel that they

made it they are still living the american dream they are not poverty line. i don't know that is attributed to resilience or getting out of the decision fatigue that exhaustion you can't make choices. and now that affects the middle class didn't use too. if you cannot think is clearly for clear choices you cannot plan you don't know what the future will hold. so once i got into a slightly better position to make better choices and plan. >> two more questions. >> in my home country is a

there is a figure i think it is 1.3 there is an agency linked to the spanish government conducted research to find out one of the main outcomes of our economic problems there is a way they can get expectations. >> will you send this to me? >> yes. so in your research, have you found any sense of excitement? or to explain why people don't have enough time to read or why some work for many, many hours or even why they vote

for the extreme right or extreme left political parties. >> that is one of the things. >> that is what i do you see 40% of people work with nontraditional hours. but yes. that doesn't mean they are working but it is really strange and it does feed the anxiety not to have regularity. >> or if you are on call? if you get a phone call to say, now. then you can't plan anything and the people in the situation couldn't help the kids with homework so they were coming home at strange

hours so they were doing poorly in school. >> interesting. thank you. >> nickels and dimes is the first book of nonfiction i ever read. thank you. [applause] but your book was covered in the new york times if you go online it is side-by-side with another that was just coming out. >> and his thesis and have a is that there are so many people employee during who knows what and i think that is an interesting idea to explore compared to your overeducated but still poor. but i just graduated from columbia and then everybody's asking me from going into

investment banking so how do you reconcile with these people or the situation we are facing if they are overeducated and still poor but then we have a reason to write a whole book about people who are in job. >> that is part of the same thing. they pursue what they love son is bs and authentic and then so many other people just did what they had to do i don't mean alienated labor but one attempt not to be needed by meaning but you are in other ways because you have the same job that people they don't care about at all. >> and what i would say to david that almost any job you are in people have to pretend

to be busy at all times. you know that right? manual labor or whatever. that is the trick. that is what colleges should teach. [laughter] how to look busy tonight i will be here for signing. you have been an incredible audience. we are so glad and you have more information about our organization. thank you a lot. [applause] >> we have copies of squeezed and natural causes behind the register please fall to your chairs form the signing line. thank you speefive. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> i work with the alaska native science program and we feel the most important issue has to do with education and workforce development those that enjoy university are from college and also out here to provide that environment as a support center undergraduate degree all the way through middle school or high school through the university and those that help to support them socially and academically to give them the opportunity to succeed in academic life.

>> one of the issues that i feel is important is nationwide more than alaska so we try to eliminate the garbage bag issue with your removed from their kids they are given backpacks and database layer transition or transitioning out of foster car care. >> another issue important to me that seems to be coming to fruition is management from a commercial standpoint or from a tourism standpoint we've got some problems that need to be dealt with on all fronts and soon or we may suffer some severe financial consequences. >> but with my understanding of it it was a way everyone

could get profits of the oil revenue as we are a rich resource state and the way they have been handled in the i think it has been a little unfortunate that it was vetoed i think that effectively they will regret that. so we have no sales tax or no income tax so we are a very low tax state so these people pay a thousand dollars in taxes.

>> psychedelics. i have been interested in other kinds of drugs. my food work is what most people know that going back there was a long chapter in there about cannabis and my largest interests are the work is the outgrowth of a larger interest and the relationship and how we change them and they change us and how a certain class of plants evolved to gratify our desires and if you can understand something about us to look at those plants. we use plans obviously to feed ourselves, beauty, clothing all of these uses that are pretty obvious but then there is a really interesting and weird on that we use them to change the contents of our experiences of consciousness.

almost everybody today has used to plant in this way. [laughter] coffee or tea or cigarettes. it is very common and it is a curious human desire wire we happy with what we have? >> i read the book and has a prologue that you call a new door but the book is so personal maybe there was a personal quest i didn't necessarily feel in the same way. so in the book you talk about your name to open the new door. so can you talk where were you in your life or what was it that sparked this interest? >> any book you do if you put in the work and spend years

and think so hard about something so intensively that at some level it is driven by a deep desire or need but you don't always know what it is you always think you're curious. and it starts with with the trials and getting them out to people dying of cancer. that is not what i would want to do but it was helping people. and changing their outlook on their mortality completely. so i was very curious to understand that but something else was going on. so just a couple weeks ago a friend of mine said and said i am struck by the fact your

father is on every page. it took me a while but my father died in january and the soul. i was working on this, he had a terminal diagnosis of lung cancer. he didn't want to talk about his mortality or his cancer. he was one of these people perhaps generational in his late '80s but you process that to the extent that he could internally and did not share that. but i needed to and here i was with a wonderful but sad opportunity to talk to people struggling right up against the they had. so part of it i needed to have that conversation was going on with the drug trials. but in my own life as i talk

to these people straight journalism at first published in new york mom -- in the new yorker was looking at the trials for people who were dying but my conversations made me so curiou curious. i really hadn't had a psychedelic. i realized and so most of those people on the trip that became attractive to some of us are stressed or addicted or anxious but the rest of us are mildly stuck. [laughter] and we all have habits of thought and behavior we would like to change and here were people who acquired all that

one, and i will tell you how, this new perspective on the scene of their own minds that allows them to change. >> you were yearning for that influence? >> i was. i didn't think anything was broken but. >> he wondered who you could be? >> yes. that was a driving personal curiosities that but with that quest