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Author: Alissa Quart

Alissa Quart is the author of five books of nonfiction including the acclaimed Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream, now out in paperback, Squeezed: Why Our Families Can't Afford America and Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers. She built the non-profit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project with the late Barbara Ehrenreich: she has run it for close to a decade. She is also the author of two books of poetry Monetized and Thoughts and Prayers, and has written for many publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post and TIME. She has produced films and the show “Going for Broke,” centering on EHRP’s lower income contributors. Her awards include an Emmy, an SPJ Award, a Columbia Journalism School Alumna of the Year Award, a Nieman Fellowship, and a National Press Club commendation. She lives with her family in Brooklyn.

Culture, EHRP, Workers

Co-published with The Nation. Barbara Ehrenreich’s thesis has become even more resonant since the book’s 2001 release.

Education, Inequality, Jobs, Workers

Co-published by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Mother Jones. The wave of booing aimed at AI-pilled commencement speakers signals a sea change in public opinion.

Culture, Inequality, Living

Co-published by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Mother Jones. From ICE to Kalshi, our fear and uncertainty are increasingly monetized, weaponized, and turned against us.

Culture

Co-published by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Mother Jones. The Best Picture contenders reflect a mad world—and they’re suitably lurid, pulpy, comic, and strange.

Culture, Living

Originally published in WBUR's ideas and opinion section, Cognoscenti. Executive Director Alissa Quart explores how she and others find spiritual comfort in Tarot readings and occult rituals while surviving economic struggles under Trump 2.0.

Cities, Culture, Inequality, Living

Co-published by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Literary Hub. Alissa Quart on the lessons from Mamdani’s campaign.

Culture, Inequality, Living

Co-published by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Everything Is Political/Slow Factory. EHRP Executive director Alissa Quart analyzes how overwhelming economic insecurity, experienced by both Gen Z and Millennials, has shaped their political power and the monoculture

Families, Health, Living

Co-published by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and The Guardian. You’ve heard of caregivers in the sandwich generation. In this anti-compassion Trump 2.0 era, it’s more like a triple-decker sandwich. I experienced this first-hand.

Jobs, Living, Workers

Co-published by Economic Hardship Reporting Project and TIME. EHRP Executive Director Alissa Quart connects Labor Day sales with rampant consumerism, workplace exploitation, and American Dream mythology.

Cities, Culture, Inequality, Living

Co-published by Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Nonprofit Quarterly. The economic and cultural shocks keep on coming. Yet amid these dismal shifts, there is a bright spot—a new interest in what I call precariat power.

Culture, Inequality, Living

Co-published by Economic Hardship Reporting Project and The Guardian. Since Trump’s immigration crackdown, global perceptions of America have plummeted. Citizens and non-citizens alike are rethinking whether we still want US passports

Culture, Inequality, Living

Co-published by Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Literary Hub. Our Executive Director Alissa Quart on the social class kitsch behind one of the weirder moments in recent politics.

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