endnotes
& sources
Introduction & Chapter 1: The Big Kahuna
Economic Policy Institute, “The Productivity–Pay Gap,” updated 2023, https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/.
Pew Research Center, “How the American Middle Class Has Changed in the Past Five Decades,” April 20, 2022, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-american-middle-class-has-changed-in-the-past-five-decades/.
New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority / New Hampshire Association of REALTORS®, “New Hampshire Housing Market Data — 2023,” https://nhar-public.stats.showingtime.com/docs/ann/x/StatewideOnly?src=map.
Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Who Pays? 7th Edition, https://itep.org/whopays/.
USAFacts, “Who Owns American Wealth? The Top 1% Hold 30% of Net Worth,” November 2023, https://usafacts.org/articles/who-owns-american-wealth/.
Chapter 2: What is Community First Economics?
ENew Hampshire Housing Finance Authority, “Who Can Afford to Live in New Hampshire? Housing Market Update,” October 5, 2025, https://www.nhhfa.org/who-can-afford-to-live-in-new-hampshire/.
Economic Policy Institute, “Wages Have Grown More for the Top 1% Than the Bottom 90% Over Decades,” https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/.
Economic Policy Institute, “CEO Pay Has Skyrocketed 1,460% Since 1978,” October 4, 2022, https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2021/.
RAND Corporation, “A $2.5 Trillion Question: What If Incomes Grew Like GDP Did?” commentary, October 6, 2020, https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2020/10/a-25-trillion-question-what-if-incomes-grew-like-gdp.html.
S&P Dow Jones Indices, “S&P 500 Q4 2022 Buybacks Tick up, As 2022 Sets A Record,” press release, March 21, 2023, https://press.spglobal.com/2023-03-21-S-P-500-Q4-2022-Buybacks-Tick-up,-As-2022-Sets-A-Record.
Chapter 3: The Disappearing Middle Class
Pew Research Center, “Almost 1 in 5 Stay-at-Home Parents in the U.S. Are Dads,” August 3, 2023, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/03/almost-1-in-5-stay-at-home-parents-in-the-us-are-dads/.
Pew Research Center, “Breadwinner Wives and Mothers,” full report, April 13, 2023, https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/04/Breadwinner-wives-full-report-FINAL.pdf.
New Hampshire Association of REALTORS®, “New Hampshire Single-Family Residential Home Sales, Statewide: 1998 to Present,” accessed February 2026, https://nhar-public.stats.showingtime.com/docs/ann/x/StatewideOnly?src=map. T U.S. Census Bureau, “Historical Median Household Income by State, Current Population Survey (Table H-8) and American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates (New Hampshire),” accessed February 2026, https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-households.html. (1998-2024).
KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation), 2023 Employer Health Benefits Survey, October 18, 2023, https://www.kff.org/health-costs/2023-employer-health-benefits-survey/.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator, accessed February 2026, https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm.
New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, “High Prices and Low Availability of Child Care in New Hampshire: Challenges Continue,” January 14, 2025, https://nhfpi.org/resource/high-prices-and-low-availability-of-child-care-in-new-hampshire-challenges-continue-in-2025/.
The Institute for College Access & Success, “Student Debt for College Graduates in New Hampshire,” accessed February 2026, https://ticas.org/new-hampshire/.
U.S. Federal Reserve Board, Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2024 (May 2025), Section 5, https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2025-economic-well-being-of-us-households.htm.
Brookings Institution, “The Middle-Class Time Squeeze,” August 18, 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/The-Middle-Class-Time-Squeeze_08.18.2020.pdf.
Gu, Y., et al., “Income Inequality and Political Polarization,” Journal of Chinese Political Science (2022): 105728, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8608558/.
Chapter 4: The Housing Crisis & The Path Home
New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority, 2023 Statewide Housing Needs Assessment, March 2023, https://www.nhhfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/2023-NH-Statewide-Housing-Needs-Assessment.pdf.
New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority, 2023 Statewide Housing Needs Assessment– Executive Summary, March 2023, https://www.nhhfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/2023-NH-Statewide-Housing-Needs-Assessment-Executive-Summary.pdf.
State of New Hampshire, Department of Business and Economic Affairs, New Hampshire Economic and Housing Report 2024, https://www.nheconomy.com/getmedia/13040d3b-0f35-4bd9-bb7c-f204d9e6ac07/2024-Housing-Report.pdf.
Collinson, Robert, and Peter Ganong, “How Do Changes in Housing Voucher Design Affect Rent and Neighborhood Quality?” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 10, no. 2 (2018), https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20150176.
Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, The State of the Nation’s Housing 2022, https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/state-nations-housing-2022.
Richard Rothstein, “Suppressed History: The Intentional Segregation of America’s Cities,” American Educator, Spring 2021.
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HOPE VI Data Compilation and Analysis, 2016, https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/HOPE-VI-Data-Compilation-and-Analysis.pdf. Nationwide, HOPE VI demolished about 98,592 public housing units.
International Housing Solutions (HOUSE-IN), Vienna Case Study, https://www.ufz.de/export/data/2/261384_ HOUSEIN_CaseStudyProfile_Vienna.pdf.
RiverBay Corporation, “About Co-op City,” https://www.coopcity.com/aboutus/.
Singapore Department of Statistics, “Resident Households,” https://www.singstat.gov.sg/find-data/search-by-theme/households/resident-households.
Government of Singapore, “Evolution of Public Housing in Singapore,” https://www.gov.sg/explainers/evolution-of-public-housing-in-singapore/.
Champlain Housing Trust, Annual Report 2024, https://www.getahome.org/wp-content/uploads/AnnualReport_2024.pdf.
National League of Cities, “Community Land Trusts: A Guide for Local Governments,” https://www.nlc.org/resource/community-land-trusts-a-guide-for-local-governments/.
Vox, “Tokyo’s Housing Miracle Explains Why the U.S. Has a Housing Crisis,” August 8, 2016, https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-costs-tokyo.
New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated, RSA 162-A:22, “Unified Contingent Credit Limit,” https://law.justia.com/codes/new-hampshire/title-xii/chapter-162-a/section-162-a-22/.
New Hampshire Business Finance Authority, “Real Estate Development,” https://nhbfa.com/real-estate-development/.
Freddie Mac, “Housing Supply: A Growing Deficit,” May 7, 2021, https://www.freddiemac.com/research/insight/20210507-housing-supply.
USAFacts, “Households Paying More Than 30 Percent of Income on Housing – New Hampshire,” https://usafacts.org/answers/how-many-households-in-the-united-states-spend-too-much-on-housing/state/new-hampshire/.
Chapter 5: The Property Tax & A Fair Funding System
Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Significant Features of the Property Tax: New Hampshire (2020; data updated October 2023), https://www.lincolninst.edu/app/uploads/legacy-files/nh_october_2023.pdf.
Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Who Pays? 7th Edition, https://itep.org/whopays/.
New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, “New Hampshire State Funding Rate for Public Elementary and Secondary Education Lowest in Nation,” December 7, 2023, https://nhfpi.org/resource/new-hampshire-state-funding-rate-for-public-elementary-and-secondary-education-lowest-in-nation/.
New Hampshire Department of Education, Bureau of Education Statistics, “Financial Reports: Cost Per Pupil by District,” https://www.education.nh.gov/who-we-are/division-of-educator-and-analytic-resources/bureau-of-education-statistics/financial-reports.
Jackson, C. Kirabo, Rucker C. Johnson, and Claudia Persico, “The Effects of School Spending on Educational and Economic Outcomes: Evidence from School Finance Reforms,” NBER Working Paper 20847 (January 2015),https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w20847/w20847.pdf.
New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, “Households with High Incomes Disproportionately Benefit from Interest and Dividends Tax Repeal,” March 14, 2023, https://nhfpi.org/blog/households-with-high-incomes-disproportionately-benefit-from-interest-and-dividends-tax-repeal/.
Chapter 6: The Myth of the Self-Made Millionaire & The Rise of the Corporation
Internet Society, “A Brief History of the Internet,” https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet/. Accessed February 3, 2026.
National Science Foundation, “NSF and the Internet: An Overview,” https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/nsfnet/. Accessed February 3, 2026. CERN, “The Birth of the Web,” https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web. Accessed February 3, 2026.
Federal Highway Administration, “Happy 40th Anniversary, Interstate Highway System,” https://highways.dot.gov/highway-history/interstate-system/happy-40th-anniversary-interstate-highway-system.
Freight Analysis Framework, “Freight Analysis Framework Data Tabulation Tool,” Oak Ridge National Laboratory, https://faf.ornl.gov/faf5/dtt.
Lee Fleming, Hillary Greene, Guan-Cheng Li, Matt Marx, and Dennis Yao, “Government-Funded Research Increasingly Fuels Innovation,” Science 364, no. 6446 (2019): 1139-1141.
Francis Narin et al., “Patents and Publicly Funded Research,” in Assessing the Value of Research in the Chemical Sciences (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 1998), chapter 6.
Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, November 12, 1816, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 10, May 1816 to January 1817, ed. J. Jefferson Looney (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 532. Available at Founders Online: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-10-02-0390.
U.S. Supreme Court, Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. 518 (1819), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/17/518/.
Michigan Supreme Court, Dodge v. Ford Motor Co., 204 Mich. 459 (1919), https://law.justia.com/cases/michigan/supreme-court/1919/204-mich-459-170-n-w-668-1919.html.
Tax Policy Center (Urban Institute and Brookings Institution), Historical Corporate Top Tax Rate and Bracket, Tax Years 1909-2024, https://taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-corporate-income-tax-rates.
Markus Krajewski, “The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy,” IEEE Spectrum, September 24, 2014, https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-great-lightbulb-conspiracy.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Plastics: Material-Specific Data,” https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/plastics-material-specific-data.
Danny Yagan, “What Is the Average Federal Individual Income Tax Rate on the Wealthiest Americans?” Working paper, University of California, Berkeley, https://eml.berkeley.edu/~yagan/wealthtaxrates.pdf.
Cato Institute, “Corporate Welfare in the Federal Budget,” https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/corporate-welfare-federal-budget.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address at Madison Square Garden, New York City,” speech delivered October 31, 1936, The American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-madison-square-garden-new-york-city.
Mondragon Corporation, “Mondragon at a Glance,” https://www.mondragon-corporation.com/en/about-us/.
Chapter 7: The Price of Democracy
U.S. Supreme Court, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010).
OpenSecrets, “By the Numbers: 15 Years of Citizens United,” January 27, 2025, https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2025/01/by-the-numbers-15-years-of-citizens-united/.
Brennan Center for Justice, “Citizens United, Explained,” https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citizens-united-explained.
Center for American Progress, “Undoing Citizens United and Reining in Super PACs,” https://www.americanprogress.org/article/undoing-citizens-united-and-reining-in-super-pacs/. more than $4.2 billion.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Union Members Summary,” Economic News Release, annual series, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm.
U.S. Supreme Court, Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal. Employees, Council 31, 585 U.S. ___, 138 S. Ct. 2448 (2018).
OpenSecrets, “Cost of Election,” https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/cost-of-election.
Chapter 8: Education as the Engine & Child Well-Being as Economic Policy
James J. Heckman, “The Economics of Human Potential,” Heckman Equation, 2023, https://heckmanequation.org.
National Center for Education Statistics, “NAEP 2022 Reading Results,” 2022, https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading/nation/achievement/.
Frontiers in Psychology, “The Benefits of Outdoor Play,” 2019, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00305.
Gray-Lobe, Guthrie, Parag A. Pathak, and Christopher R. Walters, “The Long-Term Effects of Universal Preschool in Boston,” NBER Working Paper 28756 (May 2021), https://www.nber.org/papers/w28756.
Share Our Strength, No Kid Hungry Annual Report 2024 (Our Impact), https://annualreport.nokidhungry.org/.
Pac, Jessica, Maya Rossin-Slater, Jenna Steingruebner, et al., “Paid Family Leave and Parental Investments in Infant Health: Evidence from California,” Economics & Human Biology 48 (2023), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2023.101283.
New Hampshire Public Radio, “Points of Progress, Grim Statistics Shape NH Child Advocate’s Annual Report,” February 6, 2023, https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2023-02-06/points-of-progress-grim-statistics-shape-nh-child-advocates-annual-report.
New Hampshire Public Radio, “In Manchester, an Urgent Call to Address NH’s Rising Youth Homelessness: ‘See Our Faces,’” March 24, 2025, https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2025-03-24/in-manchester-an-urgent-call-to-address-nhs-rising-youth-homelessness-see-our-faces.
NH Coalition to End Homelessness, “State of Homelessness in New Hampshire Annual Report 2024,” https://www.nhceh.org/news/nhceh-state-of-homelessness-in-new-hampshire-annual-report-shows-continued-increases-in-nh-homelessness/. Sanctuary of Hope, “Foster Youth Statistics - The Need,” October 30, 2020, https://thesoh.org/about-us/foster-youth-statistics-need/.
Amy Dworsky, Laura Napolitano, and Mark Courtney, “Homelessness During the Transition From Foster Care to Adulthood,” American Journal of Public Health 103, no.S2 (2013): S318-S323, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3969135/.
Youth.gov, “Child Welfare System,” https://youth.gov/youth-topics/homelessness-and-housing-instability/child-welfare-system.
Christian Alliance for Orphans, “US Foster Care Statistics 2025,” November 10, 2025, https://cafo.org/foster-care-statistics/.
Protopsaltis, Spiros, and Sharon Parrott, “Pell Grants — A Key Tool for Expanding College Access and Economic Opportunity — Need Strengthening, Not Cuts,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, July 27, 2017, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/pell-grants-a-key-tool-for-expanding-college-access-and-economic.
Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Prisoners in 2022,” 2023, https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2022-statistical-tables.
Chapter 9: How Health Care Became a Corporate System and How We Take It Back
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, “History of Blue Cross Blue Shield,” https://www.bcbs.com/about-us/blue-cross-history-of-healthcare.
Robert Cunningham III and Robert M. Cunningham Jr., The Blues: A History of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield System (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1997). Stabilization Act of 1942, Pub. L. 77-729, 56 Stat. 765 (October 2, 1942).
David Balat, “The employer-health insurance connection an ‘accident of history,’” The Hill, November 9, 2019, https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/469739-the-employer- health-insurance-connection-an-accident-of-history/.
PeopleKeep, “The Complete History of Employer-Provided Health Insurance,” https://www.peoplekeep.com/blog/the-complete-history-of-employer-provided-health-insurance.
Social Security Amendments of 1965, Pub. L. 89-97, 79 Stat. 286 (July 30, 1965).
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, “History,” https://www.cms.gov/about-cms/agency-information/history.
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Pub. L. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119 (March 23, 2010).
NPR, “Why Bernie Sanders’ Single-Payer Health Care Plan Failed In Vermont,” September 13, 2017, https://www.npr.org/2017/09/13/550757713/why-bernie-sanders- single-payer-health-care-plan-failed-in-vermont.
Chapter 10: A New Social Contract – From GDP to Gross National Happiness
Nicholas H. Wolfinger, “Young Adult Happiness From 1990 to 2022 Is Down a Bit. Why?” Institute for Family Studies, December 12, 2023, https://ifstudies.org/blog/young-adult-happiness-from-1990-to-2022-is-down-a-bit-why.
World Happiness Report, “Bhutan and Gross National Happiness,” 2023, https://worldhappiness.report. Bhutan now ranks among the happiest countries in Asia.
New Zealand Treasury, “The well-being Budget 2019,” May 30, 2019,https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/well-being-budget/well-being-budget-2019.
OECD, How’s Life? 2020: Measuring Well-Being – Highlights, March 2020, https://www.oecd.org/sdd/How-is-Life-2020-Highlights.pdf.
Robert J. Sampson, Stephen W. Raudenbush, and Felton Earls, “Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy,” Science 277, no. 5328 (1997): 918-924.
The Pew Charitable Trusts, Cutting Lead Poisoning and Public Costs, issue brief, December 2010, https://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/assets/2010/12/14/cutting_lead_poisoning_brief.pdf. van Bavel, Rens, et al., “Social Capital as a Protective Resource in Times of Social Crisis— Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Frontiers in Public Health 10 (2022), https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.1037395.
General Further Reading
Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Harvard University Press, 2014)
Matthew Desmond, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (Crown, 2016)
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Random House, 1961)
Kate Raworth, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist (Chelsea Green, 2017)
Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists (Little, Brown, 2017)
Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together (One World, 2021)
New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute: https://nhfpi.org NH Housing Finance Authority Research: https://www.nhhfa.org/research The Brookings Institution: https://www.brookings.edu Economic Policy Institute: https://www.epi.org
OECD Well-being Reports: https://www.oecd.org/wise