Annie Lowrey

In some ways, modern life has made us unkind. That unkindness has profound personal effects. And if we can build a kinder society, that would make life better for everyone.

In functioning high-income countries, the government guarantees the provision of essential goods and services: medical care, transit between cities, supplies for public schools, financial support to weather a period of unemployment.

The cost-of-living crisis extends beyond housing. Health-care costs are exorbitant, too: Americans pay roughly twice as much for insurance and medical services as do citizens of other wealthy countries, but they don't have better outcomes.

So overall in the entire economy, the issue is not that health care costs are growing dramatically. The issue is that the burden placed on families is. So just between 2010 and 2016, the cost burden of family private insurance premiums jumped 28%, whereas incomes rose less than 20%.

A thin safety net, an expansive security state: This is the American way. At all levels of government, the country spends roughly double on police, prisons, and courts what it spends on food stamps, welfare, and income supplements.

The United States is an outlier in the size and scope of its loan infrastructure; in many peer countries, higher education is seen as a public good and a college degree is low-cost or free.

For animals, for humans, for the planet: It makes sense to curb meat consumption, and that is something vegans and omnivores agree on. Roughly two-thirds of Americans report reducing their meat consumption, and many are sensitive to the way their diet might be damaging the planet.

Student loans are delaying retirements. They're suppressing the housing market. They're suffocating new business formation. They're even leading young people to delay getting married and having children.

A warming planet is destroying the country's physical infrastructure: In 2019 alone, the United States experienced more than a dozen billion-dollar weather events, and 2020 might be worse.