Show Notes
In 1981, an estimated 44 percent of the global population lived in extreme poverty. In 2019, that number shrank to just 9 percent. We often think of poverty as a trap, but recent research shows it doesn’t have to be. The economist and co-founder of GiveDirectly, Paul Niehaus, explains how extreme poverty fell over the past 40 years and how it could be eliminated for good.
Further reading:
“How Poverty Fell,” by Vincent Armentano, Paul Niehaus, and Tom Vogl
“How Progressives Froze the American Dream,” by Yoni Appelbaum
One Illness Away: Why People Become Poor and How They Escape Poverty, by Anirudh Krishna
Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/podsub.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
More from Good on Paper
The ’90s are sometimes described as the beginning of the postfeminist era. But if feminism died 30 years ago, who killed it? The Atlantic staff writer Sophie Gilbert seeks to answer this question in her new book, Girl on Girl, and finds a likely suspect in the contemporaneous rise of internet pornography.
Women now outnumber men on U.S. college campuses. There’s a common belief that the college gender gap has led to a decrease in marriage rates for college-educated women, but the economist Benny Goldman says the data just don’t support that narrative. Instead, shifts in educational attainment and marriage rates have had a much starker effect on non-college-educated women and low-earning men.
The Framers of the U.S. Constitution designed a government that they hoped would be impervious to tyranny of the majority. What they didn’t spend much time worrying about was the reverse: a tyranny of the minority. The political scientist Steve Teles explains how very small minorities have come to dominate government and what should be done about it.
States are cracking down on online porn—but is it working? The researcher Zeve Sanderson explains how age-verification laws backfire, why teens outsmart them, and what that means for the future of internet regulation.
In the summer of 1975, white schoolchildren at some Louisville, Kentucky, public schools were faced with a choice: stay in the school system and undergo busing to integrate the schools, or leave the system entirely. A remarkable new study by the economist Ethan Kaplan shows that for students who stayed, busing had lasting effects on their political identities, making them more likely to identify as Democrats, support unions, and say that the world is not inherently fair.