Going 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 (https://ttbook.org/goingforbroke)
Publisher
The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and To The Best Of Our Knowledge
Introducing Other People’s Pockets: Ray Suarez on Aging and Work
In 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 like...
26 Nov 2022
Anne Strainchamps and Ray Suarez talk about reporting on poverty and why the care economy matters
The 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.
19 Nov 2022
Can Work Be Love?
In 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 sonne...
12 Nov 2022
Making Up Our Minds
Post-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. The...
5 Nov 2022
Change of Address
In 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 upen...
22 Oct 2022
Coming November 5: Going For Broke on the Care Economy
Going 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....
15 Nov 2021
Jen Fitzgerald: A Poet Without a Home
During 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, Fitzgeral...
8 Nov 2021
John Koopman: A Veteran of America
John 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 ti...
1 Nov 2021
Lisa Ventura: The Daughter’s Burden
Lisa 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 fa...
25 Oct 2021
Ann Larson: The Cashier Philosopher
“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 j...
18 Oct 2021
Ray Suarez: A Veteran Journalist Finds Himself the Center of the Story
Ray 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 eventuall...
18 Oct 2021
Lori Yearwood: Sleepless on the Streets
Lori 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 sleeplessne...
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Apple Podcasts (US)
4.8 / 5
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