Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Why have wages for working Americans stagnated for decades—even as productivity, corporate profits, and the wealth of the people at the top continued to rise?

The mainstream explanations are familiar: automation, globalization, education, or simply the unavoidable forces of the market—but wage stagnation was not inevitable. It was the result of policy choices.

This week, we’re revisiting a conversation with economists Lawrence Mishel and Josh Bivens about the decisions that reshaped the American economy, weakened worker bargaining power, and made it harder for working people to claim their share of the prosperity they helped create.

As we continue sharing more about Market Humanism—the idea that markets are human-built systems shaped by rules and power—this conversation feels especially relevant. The economy we have did not emerge naturally. It was built. And that means it can be rebuilt.

This episode originally aired on June 1, 2021.

Josh Bivens is the chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute. His research focuses on macroeconomics, inequality, social insurance, public investment, and the economics of globalization.

Larry Mishel is a distinguished fellow and former president of the Economic Policy Institute. His research focuses on labor economics, wages and income distribution, industrial relations, productivity growth, and the economics of education.

Social Media:

@joshbivens-econ.bsky.social

@joshbivens_DC

@larrymishel.bsky.social

@LarryMishel

Watch Nick on The Diary of a CEO

Nick recently joined Steven Bartlett and entrepreneur Daniel Priestley for a wide-ranging debate about the wealth divide, stagnant wages, artificial intelligence, and whether capitalism can still deliver broadly shared prosperity.

Watch the conversation on The Diary of a CEO.

Further reading ⬇️

Economic Policy Institute: Identifying the Policy Levers Generating Wage Suppression and Wage Inequality

Economic Policy Institute: The Productivity–Pay Gap

Economic Policy Institute: Wage Calculator: How Much More Would You Be Making If Pay Had Kept Pace With Productivity?

Roosevelt Institute: Democratic Abundance: An Abundance That Works for Workers

Roosevelt Institute: From Safety Net to Power Base: Reimagining, Not Restoring, the US Antipoverty System

Markets Built for Humans: A Guide for Policy Professionals to the New Economics

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Substack: ⁠The Pitch⁠

For the first time in Pitchfork Economics history, Nick Hanauer is on the other side of the mic.

Goldy and Paul sit down with Nick to discuss Market Humanism: the emerging economic paradigm he and Eric Beinhocker believe can replace the trickle-down ideas that have shaped American policymaking for the past 50 years.

Why have wages stagnated while inequality soared? Why does conventional economics treat policies that help ordinary people as threats to growth? And what changes when we recognize that markets are human-built institutions—not forces of nature?

The conversation exposes the failures of the old economic model, how power shapes who gets what and why, and why a fairer economy is also a more prosperous one.

Nick Hanauer is a Seattle-based entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and civic leader dedicated to building a more inclusive and sustainable economy. He is the founder of Civic Ventures, a public policy incubator, and co-host of the podcast Pitchfork Economics. A leading voice for “middle-out” economics, his commentary has appeared in The Atlantic, Politico, Bloomberg, and The New York Times. He is the author of The Gardens of Democracy , The True Patriot, and a frequent advocate for policies that put working people at the center of economic growth.

Social Media:

@nickhanauer.bsky.social

@NickHanauer

Further reading: 

Democracy Journal - Market Humanism: A New Paradigm for a New Era

The Atlantic - The Economic Experiment That Upended Reality

Markets Built for Humans - A Guide for Policy Professionals to the New Economics

The Gardens of Democracy

The True Patriot

Corporate Bullsh*t: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power, and Wealth in America

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Substack: ⁠The Pitch⁠

This week, we’re sharing a special episode from Washington Monthly featuring Pitchfork Economics co-host Nick Hanauer and Oxford professor Eric Beinhocker in conversation with Anne Kim about Market Humanism.

For decades, American capitalism has been organized around efficiency, shareholder value, and the idea that prosperity naturally trickles down from the top. But as Nick and Eric explain, that story has failed on its own terms: inequality has exploded, workers have been squeezed, and democracy itself has become more fragile.

In this conversation, they make the case for a new economic paradigm they call market humanism: the idea that markets should be built to solve human problems, strengthen democracy, and improve people’s lives—not simply maximize returns for owners of capital.

If we want an economy that actually works, the question can’t be “How do we make markets more efficient for the wealthy?” It has to be: “How do we build markets that help people flourish?”

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Everyone wants more housing, more clean energy, more transit, more care infrastructure, and more of the things people need to live good lives. But too much of the “abundance” debate treats workers, unions, environmental review, and community voice as obstacles to building — instead of asking who has power, who benefits, and who gets left out.

This week, Goldy and Paul talk with Columbia professors Kate Andrias and Alexander Hertel-Fernandez about their Roosevelt Institute report, Democratic Abundance: An Abundance That Works for Workers. They argue that the problem isn’t too much democracy — it’s too little. If we want to build at the scale this moment demands, we need an abundance agenda that puts workers, communities, and democratic power at the center from the start.

Kate Andrias is the Patricia D. and R. Paul Yetter Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and serves as co-director of both the Columbia Law School Center for Constitutional Governance and the Columbia Labor Lab. Previously, she served as associate counsel and special assistant to President Barack Obama and as chief of staff in the White House Counsel’s Office.

Alexander Hertel-Fernandez is an associate professor and vice dean at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and serves as co-director of the Columbia Labor Lab. From 2021 to 2023, he served as a deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Labor and a senior fellow in the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

Further reading: 

Report: Democratic Abundance: An Abundance That Works for Workers

The American Political Economy: Politics, Markets, and Power

State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States and the Nation

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The AI “cloud” sounds weightless. But behind every chat bot, every prompt, and every promise of a coming AI revolution is a massive physical footprint: hyperscale data centers consuming enormous amounts of land, electricity, water, and public subsidies.

This week, Nick and Goldy talk with Tim Murphy, national correspondent at Mother Jones, about his cover story on how the American oligarchy went hyperscale in the age of AI. Murphy has been reporting from communities across the country where residents are watching enormous data centers rise in their backyards, often with little transparency, few long-term jobs, and huge demands on local infrastructure.

The result is a familiar story: public risk, private reward. Tech billionaires get the profits. Communities get higher utility costs, depleted resources, tax breaks they may never recoup, and facilities that could become tomorrow’s stranded assets when the AI bubble bursts.

AI may be new. But the economic model behind this boom is very old: extract from communities, concentrate power at the top, and call it progress.

Tim Murphy is a national correspondent at Mother Jones.

Social Media:

@timothypmurphy.bsky.social

@timothypmurphy

@motherjones.com

@MotherJones

Further reading: 

Mother Jones - How the American Oligarchy Went Hyperscale

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