The rising inequality and growing political instability that we see today are the direct result of decades of bad economic theory.

It's time to build our economy from the bottom up and from the middle out, not the top down.

Middle out economics is the answer. Because Wall Street didn't build this country. Great middle class built this country.

The more the middle class thrives, the better the economy is for everyone, even rich people like me.

This is Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer, a podcast about how to build the economy from the middle out.

Welcome to the show.

We've been working together for about a decade, Nick, and a lot of things have changed over the previous 10 years in terms of just the openness to ideas that, I don't know, would have been considered fringe back then that now are pretty mainstream, or at least nobody thinks it's radical to talk

about. You know, we started with the $15 minimum wage. We still don't have it federally, but

obviously in states and cities around the country, these higher minimum wages have passed and

have been really successful.

And we saw what happened over the pandemic when we had the expanded child tax credit.

And now people are running on expanding the child tax credit permanently.

That's something you wouldn't have seen a decade ago.

And, you know, maybe a sore subject for you,

because I know you're a bit of a skeptic on this. There's been a lot more conversation over the

years about a guaranteed basic income. Yeah. You know, the thing about guaranteed income is that

it's very expensive and you have to tax a lot

to do it.

But before I unleash my inner skeptic, I think we should talk to Natalie about what she thinks

because she knows far more about it than us, me.

Yeah.

And by Natalie, you mean Natalie Foster.

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