Author name: Augusta Oakey

Being poor in America comes with a steep and often hidden price tag. It’s a cruel paradox: people with the least money frequently end up paying more for basic goods and services than those who are better off. From higher interest rates and fees in banking, to inflated prices at the corner store, to costly health and transportation hurdles, the poor face a “poverty penalty” at nearly every turn. These extra burdens act like a hidden tax on low-income families, siphoning away precious dollars and making it even harder to get ahead.… Read more

For a growing number of Americans, the traditional story of the “American Dream” – a stable job, a house with a white picket fence and upward mobility – is being replaced by a very different vision. Instead of aspiring to stay rooted in the United States, some are packing up and heading overseas. In videos on TikTok and YouTube, Americans show off lives in places like Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, or Ho Chi Minh City, marveling at how far their dollars go.… Read more

Beneath the surface of Britain’s rising personal insolvencies — now hitting nearly 118,000 in 2024, a 14% surge from the year before — lies a quiet, grinding crisis: ordinary people, many of them employed, are being crushed not by reckless spending, but by the sheer arithmetic of survival. Soaring rents, mortgage payments up 40%, energy bills still punishing despite caps, and food prices that refuse to retreat have turned paychecks into ticking time bombs — 60% of those seeking debt relief through charities like StepChange are in paid work, yet their incomes can’t outrun costs, leaving 30% with monthly shortfalls averaging £532 even after budgeting.… Read more

Housing is one of humanity’s most fundamental needs – a safe shelter from the elements, a stable space for family life, and a foundation for personal dignity. Yet in much of the world today, housing is not viewed purely as a basic human right or public good. Instead, it has been transformed into a commodity – a vehicle for profit, wealth accumulation, and speculative investment. Governments and financial markets increasingly treat homes like stocks or gold, fueling a global mindset that a house isn’t just a place to live, but a way to get rich.… Read more

Technology promised to set us free, yet here we are in the 21st century still clocking roughly 40 hours a week on the job. Over a century ago, workers bled and fought to cut grueling 10–16 hour days down to an “eight-hour day” – a standard that eventually became the Monday-to-Friday, 40-hour workweek. Visionaries like economist John Maynard Keynes even predicted that by 2030, people would only need to work 15 hours per week thanks to technological progress.… Read more

In a world where nearly every developed nation treats paid parental leave as a fundamental right—Estonia offering over a year and a half, Sweden splitting 480 days between parents, even China guaranteeing at least 98 fully paid days—the United States stands alone, stubbornly clinging to a patchwork of unpaid time off and employer discretion. Rooted in a cocktail of free-market dogma, cultural myths of self-reliance, and political gridlock fueled by business lobbying, America’s refusal to mandate paid leave isn’t just an economic anomaly—it’s a social wound.… Read more

Once a symbol of the American Dream, college has transformed into a crushing lifetime financial burden for millions, with student debt soaring to $1.7 trillion—a crisis born not from greed, but from deliberate policy shifts: starting in the 1970s, states slashed funding for public universities while federal aid pivoted from grants to loans, forcing students to shoulder costs that had once been shared by society; this fiscal retreat coincided with a powerful cultural myth—that a four-year degree was the only path to success—fueling enrollment and tuition hikes as universities competed for students with amenities like lazy rivers, all financed by easy credit; meanwhile, other nations like Germany (where public colleges are tuition-free) and the UK (with income-contingent loans forgiven after 30 years) treat higher education as a public good, avoiding America’s debt trap, leaving U.S.… Read more