KeyWords
Author
Topics
Conservative Economics Culture Education Family Financialization Globalization Industry Labor Politics Tech Understanding America
Amber Lapp
-
-
•
On the State of Neighboring
The consequences of America’s fraying social fabric in one conversation
-
•
Unemployment and the Labors of Love
As I was reading sociologist Sarah Damaske’s new book, The Tolls of Uncertainty: How Privilege and the Guilt Gap Shape Unemployment in America, I was struck by a realization: though I’ve spent a good deal of the past 11 years interviewing working-class young adults in Ohio, I have met relatively few who have received unemployment…
-
•
Honoring Motherhood with Paid Leave
Since Abigail Tucker’s book, Mom Genes: Inside the New Science of Our Ancient Maternal Instinct, was released a few days ago, I’ve been listening to the audiobook whenever I get a spare minute—while doing dishes, folding laundry, waiting in the school pickup carline, rocking the baby to sleep. My nine- and seven-year-old sons were fascinated…
-
•
Should a Child Benefit Be Based on Marital and Employment Status?
There’s something weird, and maybe even wrong, about a policy that seeks to support families, but leaves out families who have the least support and are the most disconnected from the helpful institutions of work and marriage.
-
•
Single Mothers’ Attitudes About Work and Motherhood
Gina, a single mother of three in southwestern Ohio, recently told me that being a mom saved her from despair and addiction. “It’s my life. It’s everything to me. It’s the reason I wake up every day.” Other poor and working class women I’ve interviewed hold a similarly high view of motherhood connecting it closely…
-
•
Is A Child Allowance Pro-Work for Poor Parents?
An injection of cash to poor families might be less of a handout and more of a hand up, acting as much-needed capital for families by allowing them to afford the things necessary to stay employed.
-
•
GameStop Populism
In our populist moment, the categories of left and right are losing their currency. Underlying recent events—the Capitol riot of Jan 6 (a populist political uprising) and the GameStop saga (“the first populist uprising in finance”)—is the belief that the system is rotten. It’s a belief shared by populists on both sides, even as party…
-
•
In Whom We Trust
We watched the Inauguration on a laptop at our kitchen table while two toddlers nibbled chicken quesadillas and the baby fussed intermittently.
-
•
Industrial Policy Must Account for Worker Attitudes
n a recent post about the relationship between family trends and the skills gap I noted that for some of the young adults my husband David and I interviewed in southwestern Ohio, trauma and addiction make it difficult to take advantage of the employment opportunities that do exist.