The Broken Economy: The Role of Narratives

​The workshop will briefly discuss measures of economic “brokenness,” and then discuss a number of key narratives that have played two roles in causing these results. First, narratives such as the primacy of individual effort in achieving success are used to justify poor outcomes (they’re the result of laziness). Second, the same narratives have been used to determine tax and safety net policy so as to minimize aid to the poor.  Throughout, the narrative of the post-racial economy has been used to deny opportunity to families of color to build financial and human capital. The workshop will present data bearing on these points, and leave plenty of time for discussion.

**Please register using your Harvard.edu email address