304 episodes

*** Named a best podcast of 2021 by Time, Vulture, Esquire and The Atlantic. ***
Each Tuesday and Friday, Ezra Klein invites you into a conversation on something that matters. How do we address climate change if the political system fails to act? Has the logic of markets infiltrated too many aspects of our lives? What is the future of the Republican Party? What do psychedelics teach us about consciousness? What does sci-fi understand about our present that we miss? Can our food system be just to humans and animals alike?

Listen to this podcast in New York Times Audio, our new iOS app for news subscribers. Download now at nytimes.com/audioapp

The Ezra Klein Show The New York Times

    • Society & Culture
    • 4.5 • 9K Ratings

*** Named a best podcast of 2021 by Time, Vulture, Esquire and The Atlantic. ***
Each Tuesday and Friday, Ezra Klein invites you into a conversation on something that matters. How do we address climate change if the political system fails to act? Has the logic of markets infiltrated too many aspects of our lives? What is the future of the Republican Party? What do psychedelics teach us about consciousness? What does sci-fi understand about our present that we miss? Can our food system be just to humans and animals alike?

Listen to this podcast in New York Times Audio, our new iOS app for news subscribers. Download now at nytimes.com/audioapp

    Matter of Opinion: Paul Krugman on Inflation, ‘Bad Vibes’ and 2024

    Matter of Opinion: Paul Krugman on Inflation, ‘Bad Vibes’ and 2024

    We’ll be back on Friday with a new episode. In the meantime, we wanted to share one of our favorite recent episodes from our sister podcast, “Matter of Opinion.”

    Why does the economy look so good to economists but feel so bad to voters?

    The Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman joins the hosts on “Matter of Opinion” to discuss why inflation, interest rates and wages aren’t in line with voters’ perception of the economy. Then, they debate with Paul how big of an influence the economy will be on the 2024 presidential election, and which of the two presumed candidates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, it could benefit. Plus, Ross Douthat’s lessons on aging, through Michael Caine impressions.

    Mentioned:

    “Believing Is Seeing,” from Paul Krugman’s newsletter

    “The Age of Diminished Expectations,” by Paul Krugman

    “The Trip” scene: “This Is How Michael Caine Speaks”

    • 36 min
    The Deep Conflict Between Our Work and Parenting Ideals

    The Deep Conflict Between Our Work and Parenting Ideals

    American policy is uniquely hostile to families. Other wealthy countries guarantee paid parental leave and sick days and heavily subsidize early childhood care — to the tune of about $14,000 per year per child, on average. (The United States, by contrast, spends around $500 per child per year.) So it’s no wonder our birthrate has been in decline, with many people saying they’re having fewer children than they would like.

    Yet if you look closer at those other wealthy countries, that story doesn’t entirely hold. Sweden, for example, has some of the most generous work-family policies in the world, and according to the most recent numbers from Our World in Data, from 2021, their fertility rate is 1.67 children per woman — virtually identical to ours.

    Caitlyn Collins is a sociology professor at Washington University in St. Louis and the author of “Making Motherhood Work: How Women Manage Careers and Caregiving.” To understand how family policies affect the experience of child-rearing, she interviewed over a hundred middle-class mothers across four countries with different parenting cultures and levels of social support for families: the United States, Sweden, Italy and Germany. And what she finds is that policies can greatly relieve parents’ stress, but cultural norms like “intensive parenting” remain consistent.

    In this conversation, we discuss how work-family policies in Sweden frame spending time with children as a right rather than a privilege, how these policies have transformed the gender norms around parenting, why family-friendly policies across the globe don’t increase birthrates, how cultural pressures in America to be both an ideal worker and an ideal parent often clash, why many American parents feel it’s impossible to have more than one or two children, how cultural discourse has led younger women to “dread” motherhood and more.

    Mentioned:

    “Parenthood and Happiness: Effects of Work-Family Reconciliation Policies in 22 OECD Countries” by Jennifer Glass, Robin W. Simon and Matthew A. Andersson

    “Is Maternal Guilt a Cross-National Experience?” by Caitlyn Collins

    If you're interested in this topic, we also recommend checking out this series from the New York Times Opinion:

    “Would You Have Four Kids if It Meant Never Paying Taxes Again?” by Jessica Grose

    “Are Men the Overlooked Reason for the Fertility Decline?” by Jessica Grose

    “If We Want More Babies, Our ‘Profoundly Anti-Family’ System Needs an Overhaul” by Jessica Grose

    Book Recommendations:

    Competing Devotions by Mary Blair-Loy

    Mothering While Black by Dawn Marie Dow

    Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit

    Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

    You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

    This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Jessica Grose and Sonia Herrero.

    • 1 hr 6 min
    Birthrates Are Plummeting Worldwide. Why?

    Birthrates Are Plummeting Worldwide. Why?

    For a long time, the story about the world’s population was that it was growing too quickly. There were going to be too many humans, not enough resources, and that spelled disaster. But now the script has flipped. Fertility rates have declined dramatically, from about five children per woman 60 years ago to just over two today. About two-thirds of us now live in a country or area where fertility rates are below replacement level. And that has set off a new round of alarm, especially in certain quarters on the right and in Silicon Valley, that we’re headed toward demographic catastrophe.

    But when I look at these numbers, I just find it strange. Why, as societies get richer, do their fertility rates plummet?

    Money makes life easier. We can give our kids better lives than our ancestors could have imagined. We don’t expect to bear the grief of burying a child. For a long time, a big, boisterous family has been associated with a joyful, fulfilled life. So why are most of us now choosing to have small ones?

    I invited Jennifer D. Sciubba on the show to help me puzzle this out. She’s a demographer, a political scientist and the author of “8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death and Migration Shape Our World.” She walks me through the population trends we’re seeing around the world, the different forces that seem to be driving them and why government policy, despite all kinds of efforts, seems incapable of getting people to have more kids.Mentioned:

    “Would You Have Four Kids if It Meant Never Paying Taxes Again?” by Jessica Grose

    “Are Men the Overlooked Reason for the Fertility Decline?” by Jessica Grose

    “If We Want More Babies, Our ‘Profoundly Anti-Family’ System Needs an Overhaul” by Jessica Grose

    Book Recommendations:

    Extra Life by Steven Johnson

    The Bet by Paul Sabin

    Reproductive States edited by Rickie Solinger and Mie Nakachi

    Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

    You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

    This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Mixing by Isaac Jones. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Jessica Grose and Sonia Herrero.

    • 1 hr
    What a Second Biden Term Would Look Like

    What a Second Biden Term Would Look Like

    President Biden gave a raucous State of the Union speech last Thursday, offering his pitch for why he should be president for a second term. It’s the clearest picture we have yet of Biden’s campaign message for 2024. But while he listed off all kinds of proposals, it’s not as easy to parse what a second Biden term might actually look like. So I sat down with my editor Aaron Retica, who had a lot of questions for me about the speech itself and what Biden would be likely to accomplish if he got another four years in the job.

    We discuss how my argument for Biden to step aside holds up after he gave such a deft, high-energy performance; what a second Biden administration would likely do when it comes to abortion rights and foreign policy; the issues that didn’t receive much attention in the speech but would likely play a huge role in a second Biden term; the strongest 2024 campaign message that I’ve heard so far; and whether this is a Locke election or a Hobbes election — and what that means.

    Book Recommendations:

    Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century by John A. Farrell

    A Nation Without Borders by Steven Hahn

    The Field of Blood by Joanne B. Freeman

    Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

    You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

    This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

    • 1 hr 1 min
    How America’s Two Abortion Realities Are Clashing

    How America’s Two Abortion Realities Are Clashing

    When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it scrambled the landscape of abortion access in America, including in ways that one might not entirely expect. Many conservative states made the procedure essentially illegal — that part was predictable. But there’s also been this striking backlash in blue states, with many of them making historic efforts to expand abortion access, for both their residents and for women living in abortion-restricted states.

    And this has created all kinds of new battle lines — between states, and states and the federal government — involving travel, speech, privacy and executive power. It’s an explosion of conflicts and constitutional questions that the legal historian Mary Ziegler says has no parallel in modern times. She’s the author of six books on reproductive rights in America, including “Roe: The History of a National Obsession,” and the Martin Luther King Jr. professor of law at the University of California, Davis. “We’re seeing, from conservative and progressive states, moves to project power outside of their borders in ways we really haven’t seen in a really long time,” she told me.

    In this conversation, Ziegler explains the bifurcated abortion landscape that has emerged since the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe. We discuss the different political and legal strategies conservative and progressive states are using to pursue their opposing goals; why the abortion rate has gone up, even as 14 states have implemented near-total bans on abortion; and how a second Trump administration could try to restrict access to abortion for all Americans, no matter what states they live in.

    Mentioned:

    “Harsh Anti-abortion Laws Are Not Empty Threats” by Mary Ziegler

    Book Recommendations:

    The Family Roe by Joshua Prager

    Tiny You by Jennifer L. Holland

    Defenders of the Unborn by Daniel K. Williams

    “Before Roe v. Wade” by Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegel

    Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

    You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

    This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Claire Gordon and Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

    • 57 min
    Marilynne Robinson on Biblical Beauty, Human Evil and the Idea of Israel

    Marilynne Robinson on Biblical Beauty, Human Evil and the Idea of Israel

    Marilynne Robinson is one of the great living novelists. She has won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Humanities Medal, and Barack Obama took time out of his presidency to interview her at length. Her fiction is suffused with a sense of holiness: Mundane images like laundry drying on a line seem to be illuminated by a divine force. Whether she’s telling the story of a pastor confronting his mortality in “Gilead” or two sisters coming of age in small-town Idaho in “Housekeeping,” her novels wrestle with theological questions of what it means to be human, to see the world more deeply, to seek meaning in life.

    In recent years, Robinson has tightened the links between her literary pursuits and her Christianity, writing essays about Calvinism and other theological traditions. Her forthcoming work of nonfiction is “Reading Genesis,” a close reading of the first book of the Old Testament (or the Torah, as I grew up knowing it). It’s a countercultural reading in many respects — one that understands the God in Genesis as merciful rather than vengeful and humans as flawed but capable of astounding acts of grace. No matter one’s faith, Robinson unearths wisdom in this core text that applies to many questions we wrestle with today.

    We discuss the virtues evoked in Genesis — beauty, forgiveness and hospitality — and how to cultivate what Robinson calls “a mind that’s schooled toward good attention.” And we end on her reading of the story of Israel, which I found to be challenging, moving and evocative at a time when that nation has been front and center in the news.

    Book Recommendations:

    Foxe’s Book of Martyrs by John Foxe

    The Vision of Piers Plowman by William Langland

    Theologia Germanica

    Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

    You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

    This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero and Alex Engebretson.

    • 1 hr 2 min

Customer Reviews

4.5 out of 5
9K Ratings

9K Ratings

T1D Strong ,

Too late

Responding here to the March 22, 2024 episode with Caitlyn Collins. There’s something so… white… privileged… liberal… about these concerns with navigating pressures to be perfect in both parenting and career. What about people who don’t have the luxury to feel that tension, who are working several jobs to try to make enough money to keep food on the table, to raise their kids safely and intact, to take care of aging parents with expensive health and financial concerns for which there are no solutions? Open up your conversation, please, to include folks who don’t live in your world. That’s a lot of folks.

newsjunqui ,

Birth rates

Fascinating program! What I liked - the balanced perspective, nothing extreme or alarmist. So clear that the guest expert has deep knowledge. Enjoyed this conversation-thank u

Butchadd ,

Used to have some interesting guests & discussions…

Used to enjoy the variety of topics and Ezra’s inquiring mind although his politics have always been a bit too “both-sides y” “enlightened centrist” for my admittedly much more left leaning sensibilities, fair enough. But it’s become abundantly clear by March 2024 that the NYT has lost credibility and any vestige of impartiality and the agenda setting imprimatur now that the sheer magnitude of the paper’s journalistic malpractice, trading integrity and truth for obsequious catering the power from which it gets its “sources” And the deliberately set top down editorial slant and the corporate drones employed in furtherance of that agenda has been a staggering blow to legacy media’s little remaining shreds of credulity. This pod now Peddles zionist garbage with feel good pandering to pipe dreams like those elicited from interviewing Neo-cons about a two state solution; now Ezra is just a full on stenographer for the establishment; For those whose interests lie in holding up our exploitative hyper-capitalist global society and in the preservation of the mainstream, neoliberal consensus of the D.C. duopoly party establishment, and in furthering American worldwide hegemony and imperialism for the Wall Street and Beltway bandits. Panders to a pseudo intellectual , professional-managerial class audience; peddles Neo-con & neoliberal policy wonk claptrap and harmful, left punching rhetoric dressed up as feel good faux progressivism With plenty of hand wringing for elite liberal Democratic Party establishment hacks And the “New York Times subscriber class” In 3 words: neoliberal Zionist rubbish

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