Work in Progress
Derek Thompson, Rogé Karma, Annie Lowrey, Jerusalem Demsas, and others explain today’s news and tomorrow’s trends in work, technology, and culture. Sign up for the newsletter here.
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Illustration by The Atlantic The Federal Reserve’s Little Secret
No one really knows how interest rates work, or even whether they work at all—not the experts who study them, the investors who track them, or the officials who set them.
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Illustration by Tyler Comrie for The Atlantic America’s Top Export May Be Anxiety
English-speaking teens are spreading their problems abroad.
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Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Getty. Americans Are Mad About All the Wrong Costs
Don’t complain about the price of a Big Mac. Complain about the price of a house.
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Illustration by Paul Spella / The Atlantic. Source: … The Future of Labor
Can workers’ power grow, even if union membership does not?
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Alex Kent / AFP / Getty Americans Are Thinking About Immigration All Wrong
Population growth, economic growth, and income growth can be mutually reinforcing.
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Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Shutterstock; Getty. No One Knows What Universities Are For
Bureaucratic bloat has siphoned power away from instructors and researchers.
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Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Getty. The Happiness Trinity
Why it’s so hard to answer the question What makes us happiest?
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Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Adrian Ace Williams … The 67-Hour Rule
Married couples are working as much as ever.
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Millennium Images / Gallery Stock The True Cost of the Churchgoing Bust
Many Americans seem to have found no alternative method to build a sense of community.
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Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Andy Ryan / … Why Did The U.S. Navy Kill Arizona’s Housing Bill?
NIMBYism is coming from inside the government.
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Brandon Bell / Getty America’s Magical Thinking About Housing
The city of Austin built a lot of homes. Now rent is falling, and some people seem to think that’s a bad thing.
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Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Hudzilla; Rowan Butler … America’s Loneliness Epidemic Comes for the Restaurant
The restaurant recovery is not a simple story of universally positive outcomes.
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Illustration by Matteo Giuseppe Pani. Source: Getty. How Happy Couples Argue
They don’t try to control each other. They try to control themselves.
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Illustration by The Atlantic The Americans Who Need Chaos
They’re embracing nihilism and upending politics.
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Alec Soth / Magnum Why Americans Suddenly Stopped Hanging Out
Too much aloneness is creating a crisis of social fitness.
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Photo-illustration by Ben Kothe / The Atlantic. Source: … The War on ‘Woke Capital’ Is Backfiring
Republicans want to outlaw state investment in funds they see as tainted by progressive ideology. They’ll probably just get lower returns.
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Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Getty. The Great Normalization
Last year, the crime and inflation crises largely evaporated. So did the leading theories about what had caused them.
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Illustration by Ben Kothe / The Atlantic The Nine Breakthroughs of the Year
CRISPR, GLP1s, and other advancements that astonished me
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Darrell Eager / Gallery Stock It Sure Looks Like Phones Are Making Students Dumber
Test scores have been falling for years—even before the pandemic.
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The Atlantic How Anxiety Became Content
The way we commonly discuss mental-health issues, especially on the internet, isn’t helping us.
