While covering labor and class stories at the onset of the Covid pandemic, New York Magazine senior writer Sarah Jones recognized how the phenomenon changing our world was exposing the harsh reality of racial and income inequality in America. In her new book, “Disposable: America’s Contempt for the Underclass,” she delves into the pandemic’s impact on certain groups, diving into the lives of the essential workers, seniors and people with disabilities who were affected disproportionately because of systemic inequality and poverty. While the pandemic didn’t create these dynamics, it exposed social mobility issues and the staggering width of the wage gap. “Disposable” came out Tuesday, and Jones speaks at Harvard Book Store on Wednesday. We interviewed her Friday; her words have been edited for length and clarity.
Can you share the personal story that inspired this?
When the pandemic started in February and March 2020, I was writing a lot of labor and class stories for New York Magazine, and there were stories coming out of facilities such as Amazon where essential workers were in really dangerous conditions. I had been covering those stories about people working on the front lines when I got the news that my grandfather had contracted Covid. I knew pretty quickly that it probably wouldn’t end well, because he was older and he wasn’t in the best health. He had been in and out of rehab facility after rehab facility as we tried to get him good care, and he ended up dying from Covid in August or September 2020. That was obviously a profound personal tragedy for me and my family, but as a journalist, I also knew that it was part of a much bigger story, and it seemed related to the stories that I was already hearing from essential workers about class and inequality in the United States. It seemed to me that those stories were more befitting a book than, say, a series of articles. I began the process of seeking out people who’d lost loved ones to Covid, and compiling and fleshing out their stories with history and analysis to explain how they fit into this larger story about disposability in the United States.
What kind of research and reporting did “Disposable” require?
It was tricky because I wanted to talk to people all over the country, but there was a pandemic, so I couldn’t do traditional shoe leather reporting. I found social media was really helpful, which was partly just the nature of the pandemic. A lot of us were living our lives online because we couldn’t gather in person, and so communities started popping up in different places. I used Facebook, I used Reddit, I used Twitter, and I started reaching out to people. I told them that I’d also lost someone to the virus, which helped us build a certain level of trust.There was an account called Faces of Covid that was run by Alex Goldstein. He directed me to a few folks, and then there’s a group called March by Covid and they directed me to a few of their volunteers. That’s how it started to come together.
What was it like to reflect on something so recent?
I’m a political journalist, and so one thing that I’ve been grappling with as I’ve been working on the book is the fact that the pandemic is still reshaping American politics. There has been this push to move on and not talk about what happened, even though it was such a disruptive and, for many people, truly painful moment. I write this in the book, but I think in this country we’ve become accustomed to a certain level of preventable death. That was true before the pandemic, and we’re seeing that play out now as we wrestle with the consequences of the pandemic. We’re used to certain people being disposable, we’re used to certain people dying premature deaths, and so it’s tricky to be reflecting on it now and to be putting these stories out now, because you’re hitting back against forces in American politics and culture that have been active for centuries. That’s been difficult, but I am pleased that I see some evidence that people are interested in reflecting and thinking about what happened.
What would need to happen to reach a place where no one is seen as disposable?
We saw glimpses of it during the pandemic when certain relief measures were taken. It wasn’t quite social democracy, but people got some stimulus money, for example. In the middle of all this horror, there were these little signs that maybe we could do things differently. Maybe the horror doesn’t have to be this immutable thing about life in America. Of course right now, that future seems very distant. When I consider what it would mean to honor the dead and reckon with Covid, I think we have to think seriously about health care in this country. I write a lot about single-payer health care in the U.S., so that’s one angle. Housing security is also a big one. I’m not an expert on housing policy, but housing insecurity came up a lot in the conversations I was having with my sources, and we know that it’s a huge factor in economic precarity in this country. There’s a cost-of-living crisis: Rents keep going up, houses are expensive, there isn’t enough housing available. I also think we have to consider things such as universal basic income. The bottom line is, it’s good to get outside the box and think about the ways policy can be applied in a way that debunks the notion that poverty is a moral failing. Because it’s not – it’s a material condition that people experience and anyone can fall into it. I believe policy is a useful way of thinking about that and being a little more clearheaded about it.
What can people who identify with that message do to promote it?
I write about organized labor in the book, and I’m a union member myself, and I think that’s one major way. You can look at organized labor in this country and see the notion of solidarity play out in a meaningful sense. It’s not just a slogan; it has teeth to it. Organized labor is also about regaining control over your working conditions, and regaining control over your working conditions has implications for your life outside work. So I see that as a model, and I would encourage people who don’t belong to unions to consider organizing their workplaces. If you’re not in a position to do that, I would say you can still look at organized labor and learn from it, because it also exemplifies the power of collective action, of working together, of care and compassion for people who might be in a different place than you. That’s important, and it’s really a subversive message, especially right now.
Sarah Jones reads from “Disposable” at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Harvard Square, Cambridge. Free.
The feature image for this post (but not the image seen above) was added to in a digital retouching process. The far right and left of the frame are not real. The author was photographed and her image is untouched and real.
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