J.C. Pan

How the consulting firm’s cost-cutting logic devoured America

In the mid-2010s, the unpaid, coffee-fetching masses appeared to be rising up. But 10 years later, there are few signs that the entry-level revolt happened at all.

The co-working company may have been doomed from the start. That didn’t matter.

Covid-19 cases are surging, but enhanced compensation for frontline workers has all but dried up. Giants like Walmart and Amazon got the reputation bump; now they’ve moved on.

The same billionaire who refashioned the American political system to suit his needs is now calling for bipartisan cooperation—on his terms.

Organizers and thinkers on where we are in the major fights of our moment—from prison abolition to climate justice and the housing crisis—and where we go next.

The wealthy have made peace with the election! Bankers are practicing positive thinking! The stock market is a living thing, and it is happy!

In California, gig economy giants won the ability to make their own laws. Money will do that for you.

While Trump made a sport of being rude and gleefully cruel, the true obscenity of his presidency was that so much of it remained business as usual.

The ongoing national nightmare makes it clear that we need to disentangle work from basic needs like health care and housing—and then do way, way less of it.

Americans are increasingly frustrated by the obligation to ride out a global disaster on their own. They have every reason to be.

In the final presidential debate, a handful of perfunctory appeals to working people got lost in a storm of personal attacks and allegations of corruption.

Can the retail and service workers who have kept the country running during the pandemic remake our politics?

The drawn-out stimulus negotiations, which have left the public hanging out to dry, represent the worst of our political system.

Poverty numbers leave out far too many who are struggling economically. Shouldn’t we reach for more than whatever rests just above abject misery?

For warehouse workers, Amazon’s brutal workload has always been dangerous. Covid makes it that much worse.

The president was sick—but strong! Actively infectious—but still man enough to debate!

What else could explain his unhinged and politically suicidal decision to kill a new stimulus right as the economy is tanking?

The first lady once again gets off light—thanks to a gullible media and an incredibly low bar set by her husband.

It’s easy to forgo a mask when you know your wealth probably insulates you from the worst effects of the pandemic.