Lynn Parramore, Institute for New Economic Thinking

In a trend that has surprised social scientists, fathers are seeking better work/life balance and rejecting their pre-pandemic status as secondary parents – a movement that's good for moms, too.

Betsey Stevenson, economist and Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, focuses on the impact of public policies on the labor market. Former member of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers & Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, she researches women's labor market experiences, the economic forces shaping the modern family, and the potential value of subjective well-being data for public policy. She discusses with the Institute of New Economic Thinking what we've learned about what workers need during the pandemic, changing attitudes towards work, and why investing in early child care is crucial to the economy.

Lynn Parramore: We've heard a lot about shifts in the job market during the pandemic, with many people, especially women, leaving the workforce. There's been talk of a "Great Resignation" to describe a recent uptick in high levels of turnover, with women leaving at higher rates than men. What's going on? How much of this is about child care?...

It's 2021, and Black Americans still struggle harder to climb the socioeconomic ladder compared to whites. For many, the trip is now downward, a situation worsened during a pandemic that has impacted them disproportionately.

Economists William Lazonick, Philip Moss, and Joshua Weitz have been researching the key economic forces that have disadvantaged Black men for decades. In a new study focusing on those with only high school diplomas or less, they find that corporate greed - abetted by government policies designed by the wealthy – turned the dreams of once-upwardly mobile citizens into ashes.

From good times to hard times...

Wealthy predators are playing stock market games with companies needed to develop and produce clean technology

Think the government should do more to deal with climate change? You're not alone – so do most Americans, according to a 2020 Pew poll.

With Biden in the White House and Democrats controlling Congress, plans to get moving on some form of a Green New Deal could finally emerge. The Texas blackout heightened the sense of urgency, and everybody's talking about upgrading the power grid, renewable energy, and what it will take to have a greener, cleaner future. Meanwhile, the climate change-denying political right is determined to crush any proposals before they have a chance. ...

Long before the virus, many Americans were sinking under waves of despair. Without transformative policies, that despair, with the added fuel of the pandemic, may turn into a tsunami. The aftermath could leave communities under rubble for decades to come.

Just in the 21st century, Americans have been threatened by everything from foreign and domestic terrorism to an increasingly aggressive and militarized police. Unable to count on jobs, adequate safety nets, or health care, they have watched the affluent make a killing on Wall Street. They have been spoken down to by politicians and the media, sensing that unless they are rich, the political system will ignore their voices. As research has shown time and time again, they were right.

Accused of being bitterly divided, when Americans agreed on something, like a single national program to provide health care coverage run by the government, their preferences were dismissed by their representatives (including the new president) as radical or impossible. Things that make life worthwhile and bearable, like an affordable education or a dignified retirement, grew increasingly out of reach. The middle class was turning into a relic. The people watched America devolve into what looked like a third-world country, with two separate economies in which experiences, prospects and even life spans diverged....

Mounting delays, technical glitches, scheduling snafus. Companies, countries, and coalitions jockeying for position. The vaccine rollout we've all been waiting for is underway, featuring sky-high stakes and mind-bending complexities that seasoned experts struggle to comprehend.

Economist and business historian William Lazonick has spent a career studying how corporations function and analyzing their interaction with state and society. His critique of the shareholder value regime that swept American business culture in the 1980s — the idea that corporations should be run primarily to enrich stock traders — illuminated widespread misunderstanding of the role large firms play in the economy. His work reveals how dysfunctional business models drive instability and inequality.

Lazonick, critical of the rise of a financialized pharmaceutical industry business model that puts profits ahead of human life, has warned that companies fixated on manipulating stock prices in order to funnel money to shareholders are no longer focused on making the drugs people need at prices they can afford. As he sees it, these firms have morphed from socially useful and innovative enterprises into predatory, scofflaw monopolies that restrict the output of medicines and push prices out of reach....