Going for Broke
14 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 year ago - ★★★★★ - 55 ratingsGoing for Broke is a co-production of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and PRX’s "To The Best of Our Knowledge" at Wisconsin Public Radio. The three-part series hosted by broadcaster Ray Suarez centers on Americans who have lived on the edge. They share their sometimes startling economic experiences and also insight into our society as a whole. Each hour also includes some of our country’s top thinkers on income inequality, among them the legendary writer Barbara Ehrenreich, author of the classic “Nickel and Dimed,” who passed away in September 2022. In each episode we ask: what would result if we put more care into how we dealt with housing or mental health crises or our workplaces? Going for Broke explores these questions, moving from powerful personal accounts to visionary solutions.
Learn more about this season of the series at ttbook.org/goingforbroke
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Episodes
Introducing Other People’s Pockets: Ray Suarez on Aging and Work
April 05, 2023 09:00 - 43 minutes - 30.1 MBIn this special episode, we’re sharing a conversation Ray had on the new podcast, Other People’s Pockets. On Other People’s Pockets, journalist Maya Lau asks people from all walks of life to get radically transparent about their personal finances in order to learn more about who we are and level the financial playing field along the way. Ray and Maya chat about how Ray found it difficult to find desirable jobs the older he gets … and he’s not afraid to admit he’s angry about it. If you lik...
Anne Strainchamps and Ray Suarez talk about reporting on poverty and why the care economy matters
November 26, 2022 11:00 - 14 minutes - 10.2 MBThe hosts of "Going for Broke" discuss reporting on poverty and how to give economic insight a tone of empathy and a tangible sense of human connection. More about the series at ttbook.org/goingforbroke.
Can Work Be Love?
November 19, 2022 11:00 - 51 minutes - 35.1 MBIn this final part of our series, we’re talking about work — about the right to meaningful work, the search for jobs that pay enough to live, and what happens to people who look for work while also having a disability that’s invisible to most. Original Air Date: November 19, 2022 Guests: Andrea Dobynes Wagner — Angela Garbes — Rodrigo Toscano — Barbara Ehrenreich Interviews In This Hour: Do they need to know that I'm blind? — The work of care is vital. Why don't we pay like it is? — A s...
Making Up Our Minds
November 12, 2022 10:00 - 51 minutes - 35.1 MBPost-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health challenges can push people into poverty. Meanwhile, the experience of financial desperation can also create even more trauma, even more suffering. How do you break the cycle? How do we truly care for people mentally and financially? If you or someone you know are having mental health struggles, we wanted to make sure you are aware of some resources. The National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24 hours a day by calling 9-8-8. T...
Change of Address
November 05, 2022 10:00 - 51 minutes - 35.1 MBIn the first of three episodes of "Going For Broke" all about the care economy, we're thinking about housing. Many of us would consider it a basic human right. But in America, it can be hard to come by. Original Air Date: November 05, 2022 Guests: Bobbi Dempsey — David Harvey — Annabelle Gurwitch — Justin Garrett Moore Interviews In This Hour: When the walk home from school keeps changing — Creating a compassionate geography — More supportive housing can start with sharing space. And up...
Going for Broke: Change of Address
November 05, 2022 10:00 - 51 minutes - 35.1 MBHow we live is indelibly intertwined with the care and empathy we give to each other. What if we put care into helping Americans find homes and build dwellings, into keeping their bodies and minds sound, and finding meaningful and well-paid work? In this three part series, "To The Best Of Our Knowledge" and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project bring you real life stories about economic struggle in our time, as well as ideas for solutions. In the first of three episodes of "Going For Bro...
Coming November 5: Going For Broke on the Care Economy
October 22, 2022 01:00 - 1 minute - 951 KBGoing for Broke returns and this time, we're talking about the care economy. This three-part series hosted by broadcaster Ray Suarez centers on Americans who have lived on the edge. They share their sometimes startling economic experiences and also insight into our society as a whole. Each hour also includes some of our country’s top thinkers on income inequality, among them the legendary writer Barbara Ehrenreich, author of the classic “Nickel and Dimed,” who passed away in September 2022...
Jen Fitzgerald: A Poet Without a Home
November 15, 2021 10:00 - 24 minutes - 17.1 MBDuring the pandemic, Jen Fitzgerald, a poet and teacher, became a statistic, forced to find an apartment under duress as the city closed down around her. The situation the fifth-generation New Yorker and single mom found herself in has everything to do with what has happened to her city—and other hyper-prosperous American metropolises—during the last decade. They are now built to exclude the poor and even the unstable middle class, and certainly most of the poets. In COVID lockdown, Fitzger...
John Koopman: A Veteran of America
November 08, 2021 10:00 - 26 minutes - 18.4 MBJohn Koopman has been a Marine, a war correspondent in Iraq, and a manager at a strip club, among other things. His journey through precarity in the weird 21st century started in earnest after the bottom fell out of the newspaper business. That was when sacrifice or experience seemed to matter, and John found himself laid off and out of the middle class. It was a different war than the one he had experienced before: This time the battle was for consistent and meaningful employment, and its t...
Lisa Ventura: The Daughter’s Burden
November 01, 2021 09:00 - 26 minutes - 18.2 MBLisa Ventura is a housing case manager by day, but for years she's also been her family’s unofficial social worker by night. Lisa was just a kid when she learned to help her Spanish-speaking mother navigate the welfare system. It was a struggle, but she could handle it. But she wasn’t prepared for what it would feel like when her isolated father lost his job during the pandemic and needed her help filing for unemployment. Battling the bureaucracy during Covid on top of a troubled family hist...
Ann Larson: The Cashier Philosopher
October 25, 2021 09:00 - 28 minutes - 19.3 MB“What would it look like for that man in the business suit who comes in in his SUV and loads up with groceries… what if he had to work in the grocery store?” On this week’s episode of Going for Broke With Ray Suarez, Ann tells us how her co-workers at the grocery store where she works chase shoplifters and clean up bathrooms, while shoppers, afraid of contagion, treat her like she’s untouchable. Ann grew up working class and trained to be a college professor but then the academic jobs disa...
Ray Suarez: A Veteran Journalist Finds Himself the Center of the Story
October 18, 2021 09:05 - 21 minutes - 14.5 MBRay Suarez never wanted to be the center of the story. He’s been a journalist of one kind of another all of his adult life, on radio, on television, in books and newspapers. He was the host of NPR’s Talk of the Nation, he was a senior correspondent for PBS NewsHour, and he had his own daily news show on Al Jazeera America. When that last network ceased operations in 2016, he figured it might take a while to find work, but he had a reputation and good connections that would eventually land hi...
Lori Yearwood: Sleepless on the Streets
October 18, 2021 09:00 - 27 minutes - 18.7 MBLori Yearwood had never thought much about sleep, until she found it almost impossible to catch a wink. After a series of tragedies in her life, including losing her home in a fire, Lori was suddenly catapulted into homelessness. The shelters Lori found herself in were a nightmare, and the streets were hardly better—for two years, Lori struggled to get through each day without ever getting a full night’s sleep. The trauma of homelessness was compounded by the trauma of involuntary sleeplessn...
Going for Broke: Coming October 18
September 11, 2021 14:50 - 1 minute - 1.14 MBGoing for Broke is a new podcast about Americans on the edge. On this show, famed journalist and broadcaster Ray Suarez talks to people who have lost jobs, lost their homes and sometimes lost the narrative thread of their lives. But with those hardships, they’ve gained valuable insights into the problems facing millions of people in this country. On Going for Broke, we hear about the struggles they’ve been through, and the solutions they want to see become reality. Going for Broke launches O...