How much money would it take to feel financially secure?

0:00This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel? That's your drive for more. Capella University's FlexPath Learning Format lets you earn your degree at your pace, without putting life on pause. Learn more at capella.edu. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. We talk about money all the time in this country. The price of groceries, the cost of housing, whether the rich pay their fair share. But when it comes to our own money, that's a different story. We don't really talk about how much we make or owe or the help we get from our parents. My guest today, Mona Chalabi, spent five years having those conversations.

0:40For her new book, 10 Lives, How What We Have Shapes Who We Are, she followed 10 Americans across the income spectrum, from people barely getting by to those making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. And almost everyone was deeply worried about their financial future, even those who earn plenty of money. Chalabi argues that this silence can leave us with a pretty distorted picture of where we stand. For instance, in the U.S., people making wildly different amounts of money consider themselves middle class. And Chalabi argues that this disconnect has consequences, not just for how we see ourselves, but how we judge everybody else.

1:20Mona Chalabi is a data journalist and illustrator whose work has appeared in publications including The Guardian and The New Yorker. Her illustrations have also appeared in museums around the world. In 2023, she earned a Pulitzer Prize for Illustrated Reporting and Commentary for a New York Times story that showed the staggering scale of Jeff Bezos' wealth. And Mona Chalabi, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you so much for having me. First question, how does everybody in the U.S. think they're middle class? Good question. I think that the fact that so many of us are discreet about money fuels people's misunderstanding of where they're at on the income ladder.

2:05I also think that there is, I would maybe even say like a level of kind of delusional thinking sometimes in the American psyche when it comes to capitalism. I think a lot of people, even if they have divested intellectually from the American dream, there is still some part of them that is emotionally or psychologically invested in this idea that their hard work will pay off. And what that means is that it becomes very, very challenging, I think, to acknowledge if you're not where you want to be on that income ladder. I will also say that there's a really big difference between wealthy people who are being discreet about their money and claiming that they're middle class when they're actually very, very wealthy.

2:46and poor people in this country describing themselves as middle class. I think to be poor in this country is to encounter an enormous, enormous array of obstacles, including assumptions about your intelligence, your educational level. And so it's actually quite rational sometimes for people to try to present themselves as middle class, maybe even to try to signal wealth with the clothes that they buy or the cars that they drive. I don't think it's simply aspirational. I also think it's them trying to avoid the discrimination that they might face if their real income level were disclosed. What I find so interesting about your assessment is your outsider status in all of this, your ability to kind of see it.

3:29You grew up in London. You're the daughter of Iraqi parents. And so you have spent time from the outside being able to come in. You've been here for more than a decade. And I'm curious what those early years here showed you, what you noticed in the way that Americans talk about money and class that felt, I mean, really different from where you grew up. Yeah, I think class is spoken about much more openly in the UK. I think many more people will be willing to describe themselves as working or upper class than is the case over here. I remember there was this very formative experience when I first moved to the US.

4:10I was on my lunch break, Nicolumba Circle in New York, and I saw this huge inflatable rat and I didn't understand what it meant. And someone explained to me that it's a rat that is put up by unions outside of stores when they feel that workers' rights have been infringed upon. And it was outside of Verizon's store and there were some workers who were protesting. And these workers were holding up signs that said middle class wages for middle class workers. And I remember being so shocked because I just thought, if you work in a Verizon store, I'm not sure that you're middle class. I really don't think that language would have been used in a British context.

4:48It was a bit of a culture shock, honestly. Now, that's fascinating about, right, that goes back to why people consider themselves middle class, too. But there's also something else that you talked about that, like, you can essentially, like, if you're from Britain, you can really hear someone's social class and the way they speak. Yeah, yeah. America, it's not that way. What are some of the other ways that we give ourselves away? Like the little things that you notice that tell you where someone comes from? Oh, that's such a great question. The accent thing is huge, I want to say. Like, I think that when I'm back in the UK, people can get a pretty good read, honestly, on my class by my voice.

5:29And what's fascinating is that as an immigrant, Americans don't really understand these nuances in the British accent. And so I'm just red as posh here. And I think that that has conferred on me actually these huge class benefits. I think that my accent in the US has been really powerful in counterbalancing some of the obstacles I might have faced because of my race and gender. because with this voice it is assumed that I am educated, that I'm cultured. Not sure how true any of these things are, but there's just this assumption that I'm posh that I think is very beneficial in a corporate environment.

6:11Coming here, it took me a little bit longer actually to get to read class. So we've seen an explosion of vocabulary when it comes to, I don't know, white fragility, misogynoir, incels. We've really, really thought about the way that gender and race are shaping our lives. But again, I think in this country, language around class is just so stunted. And it allows us to hide because we're not being specific. I honestly think that one of the things that helped me to understand class was simply things not adding up. so my colleagues in journalism I knew that a lot of them weren't earning money that was that great as you know a lot of journalism jobs aren't particularly well paid and then I might go and visit them in their apartments and they would live in quite nice apartments or their clothes would be quite nice or their vacations would be to places that were pretty nice and it just became quite apparent that they had familial wealth.

7:14I'm not talking about everyone, of course. I'm just talking about some of these individuals that I met over the years and that they were being supported. Because you felt like, is it that it's like it's a secret that we don't speak about, but it's in the room. It's there. Do you feel like it's kind of dishonest in a way? Yes. I think it's more than a secret. I actually do think it's deceitful. So again, I'm thinking about a friend that I made who was outside of journalism. and we would complain together all the time. We were in our mid-20s about how expensive this city is. And actually, she was living in an apartment that was even less pleasant than mine was in a kind of a big room share situation in Bushwick.

8:00It was a pretty nasty apartment, honestly. And so when we were complaining about how bad things were, I did have this feeling that we were kind of in the same boat. and then she invited me to spend one thanksgiving with her parents and it was quite a brave choice because I think she knew that her class would be revealed by the mere fact of me kind of spending time in their home but yeah as soon as I arrived it became very very clear that she came from money but more than that after the dinner was over while we were like cleaning away the dishes her mum kind of implored her again and was like I don't know why you live in that horrible apartment and we've bought this beautiful place for you to live in.

8:40Wow. Yeah. And again, like, I understand that that friend was really, really desperate to make it on her own. Again, this is like a deeply cultural thing. In other cultural contexts, it is fine to lean on your family members. It is fine to lean on community. It's not stigmatised in the way that it is in a highly individualised society. I understand that. And I also think that to me, when I was complaining to her about like, I don't know what I'm going to do if I don't like start to see real improvements in my wages like I don't want to live in this apartment forever this is hard when she's like empathizing with me there's a lie in there she has she has the ability to tap into resources at any time should she choose I do think it's deceitful I really do something really interesting that you do in this book is I actually think you are the first person I've ever heard so openly called themselves rich.

9:42And you do this because you received a very large book advance and you wanted to be open and transparent. So you received about$850 ,000. And talk to me more about that decision to be that transparent. I understand what you're saying about the deceit of others and not being open about their finances. But what did you have to work through yourself to put those numbers out there for everyone to see? As you know, journalism is often very intimate with the people that you're speaking to, including this conversation right now. And I knew that I would be finding 10 individuals. And yes, I would say to them that they would have the protection of a pseudonym.

10:30But beyond that, every single detail had to be accurate and had to be true. And I was asking these people to share so much of their lives with me over again, a very extended period of time over five years. And I felt like that was a big ask. And I'm also very conscious of the power dynamic in journalism, right? That very often, there's this idea that I am the person asking the questions, and they do not have any right to ask me anything back. I'm this kind of neutral and impartial observer. And again, that felt really intellectually dishonest. I felt like the people that I was speaking to had a right to understand my economic privilege, my vantage point as I'm asking them these deeply personal questions.

11:15And as you know, as journalists, we typically do not pay people for their time for interviewing them. I'm not being paid to do this conversation right now. And I think that's fine to not be paying me. I have no expectation of being paid. Hopefully I'll benefit if some people read the book. But that's a very different kind of equation when you are asking people to share these vulnerable parts of their lives. And especially when I am profiting from those stories. Well, I was curious, number one, yes, when I first read that, of course, that's a tenet of journalism that most of us follow is that you don't pay people.

11:58But then when I thought about it, I was thinking, well, I mean, you spent a lot of time with these people. They're giving up a lot of their time. How did you decide what their time was actually worth? Yeah, it was really hard, actually. I initially had thought about doing something like a sliding scale. So I should just really briefly talk about the structure of the book. So it's called 10 Lives because I specifically didn't just want to focus on the 1%. I actually think we've had plenty of conversations about the 1 % in this country. And instead, I wanted to talk about how the 99 % of us aren't all in it together and the kind of power differentials between us.

12:32And so I found somebody in the richest 10 % and the next 10 % and the next 10 % all the way down to the poorest 10 % of households. and again so I could have done this kind of sliding scale I guess of paying the people who I spoke to who had more money than me either not paying them or paying them a smaller amount than the people that I spoke to who were earning$23 ,000$45 ,000 that felt complicated to me partly because one of the things that I discovered in the book is that and I mean we know this anyway is that income only gets you so far in understanding someone's material circumstances you also need to know how much they have in wealth how many other people are they supporting in their lives do they have any health issues so this sliding scale got complicated very quickly and instead at the start of every interview with everybody I spoke to I told them a number of things I said one I will be paying you 40 per hour for your time um if that feels uncomfortable for Do you, let's talk about it.

13:35I said that anything that I asked them as a journalist, they had the right to ask me back. So if I asked them how much money they made, they had the right to ask me that exact same question. Did you worry at all, though, that paying them might create a risk that they would tell you what they think you want to hear? Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I don't think the publisher worried about that when they paid me a huge amount of money, that maybe I'll just tell the publisher what I think they want to hear. The idea was that they pay me and I can still be trusted to tell the truth. And I think I was also super clear, I hope I was super clear, with the people that I spoke to that there was nothing in particular that I wanted to hear, aside from to get a better understanding of what their economic lives look like.

14:22This subject in particular, I mean, it's deeply psychological. Yes. Was there anything you discovered about your own relationship with money that surprised you? Hmm. I have felt a lot of anxiety about money over the course of my life. And I think that before I started writing this book, I had anticipated that the people I was speaking to who had more money would simply feel less anxious about money. And instead, across the board, everyone just seemed to be expressing this feeling of panic that I think is really, really particular to US capitalism, which is an incredibly precarious and cruel system where you are one crisis away from experiencing a real economic shock.

15:14And at the same time, even though everyone was feeling these feelings, I wanted to be super clear about the difference in the material circumstances of people's lives. So, yes, Jacob, who I spoke to, who was earning$550 ,000 per year, was saying he was worried about money. in no way do I want to equate his experiences with the experience of Tiffany who I was speaking to who was earning under$25 ,000 per year and working part-time at Burger King. They might both be feeling anxious. The things that they are worrying about are very very different. You specifically sorted people by household income and can you explain how you made the choices versus like individual income.

16:04Yeah, I think if you really want to understand somebody's economic security, you need to understand who they can turn to when times get hard. And obviously a household is an imperfect measure of that. People sometimes even live with spouses that they can't necessarily lean on. But it is a good way of getting to understand the fuller picture of someone's economic stability. It's honestly the reason why even the household measure is kind of complicated because it's about who's living in that household with you. But one of the things that came out time and time and time again from the book is how much money your parents have is so profound in shaping your economic security.

16:49I'm thinking also about something you said earlier when we were talking about the middle class and how surprised you were that people who were fighting for a union and worked at Verizon, thought of themselves as middle class. It wasn't that long ago that that could be a middle class job, that someone could actually work there full time and receive benefits and live a decent life. So that anxiety that we're all feeling, do you feel like that is a more recent phenomenon based on your research or Or is it just kind of like endemic to the American experience? No, it's an excellent point because I think it gets at the fact that class is about more than the number that is printed on your payslip or the number that's in your bank balance.

17:37Our class identities are very often tied to our household, our households that we were in growing up. They're tied to the professions that our parents had. So somebody who might be working in a Verizon store might have parents who were, I don't know, who also worked in a store who described themselves as middle class, who actually in that generation were able to provide a different level of kind of security for their children. And they have inherited that kind of class language, even if it doesn't match up with their economic reality now. You really delve into inherited wealth, whether it's parents leaving an inheritance or helping children buy a home.

18:19That's invisible wealth that we often don't talk about. But how big of a role does that kind of play overall when you look at the bigger picture of American finances? It has an enormous impact on inequality overall. You know, it's fascinating. Somebody that I interviewed who actually didn't make it into the book, they told me that their father was an economics professor who was very, very leftist. And he spent his life researching and writing about this idea of a 100 % inheritance tax. And he believed it was the only way to address systematic inequality in this country. What does that mean? the past.

18:57It means that when you die, all of your money goes to the state. You don't get to pass it on to your children. And it would be the single most unpopular policy in all of US history, I would argue. And it would also be the policy that would potentially have the largest, I don't even think potentially, I think it would have the largest impact on inequality overall. I really do. and I want to be clear here that not everyone it's not simply a case of looking at people who are inheriting wealth many people also inherit debts from their parents and that also puts them in a very very challenging position as well and and again those debts don't simply go one generation and they're not simply about I don't know a parent having made bad economic decisions if you look at the case for reparations that was argued so phenomenally and so beautifully by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

19:53He also talks about the debt that is owed to black people in this country that would help to address systematic inequality, a debt that has not been remotely addressed, and sadly, a conversation that feels like it's faded away a little. Our guest today is data journalist and illustrator Mona Chalabi. We'll be right back after a short break. But first, we want to tell you about our YouTube channel. Check it out for video interviews and archival gems. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air. Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. Support comes from our 2026 lead sponsor of Fresh Air, Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort.

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21:16This week on Shortwave. What is something found on both true crime TV shows and real-life investigations? Hmm, questionable forensics. And it's almost always accepted by legers as providing an objective scientific truth. Interrogating junk science. That's on Shortwave from NPR.

21:41There's this chapter, Levi. He makes about$35 ,000 a year. He grew up with what were considered wealthy parents, but he remembers feeling like he didn't have as much as the people around him. I'm curious about the world he grew up in. What was he comparing his life to? And how did those comparisons actually shape the way he saw himself? yeah so Levi went to a very very expensive private school that his parents could afford because again he came from wealth but what that meant is that in that kind of that little bubble that he that he was in many of the children that he went to school with had parents who earned significantly more than Levi's parents and as a child you know your world is is the one that you inhabit it's very very hard sometimes to be aware of what exists beyond that and so for Levi I think at times he felt poor despite the fact that again he grew up in a home that was worth well over a million dollars his father earned well into six figures but he felt like he did not have enough and he couldn't keep up with his school friends and you see this over and over again that people's understanding of where they fit on the ladder is so determined by their immediate environment So every single interview that I did, I started out by asking people, first of all, which step on the ladder do they think they live in?

23:10Do they think they're on the sixth rung, the second, the third? And everyone got it wrong. That's interesting. How far off were they, did you find? Good question. Some people were just like a little off and some people were dramatically off. So again, super telling. The guy that I interviewed who was earning$550 ,000, he was actually earning$400 ,000 when I first met him. He got a nice pay bump at work. And in that first interview, I asked him which step on the ladder he inhabited. And he thought he was third from the top when, I hope this is obvious to a lot of people listening, he's in the highest income bracket, the richest 10%.

23:49I'm not surprised by that because we are fixated on the Jeff Bezos of the world. And if you put yourself in relation to them, to the billionaires that we focus on, of course, he's not up there with the 1%. Yeah, there's something particular that happens in that richest 10 % bracket, right? Like everyone else has an upper and a lower bound. And that's the case for me. I mean, my last set of tax returns, I made like about$100 ,000 after expenses. I have my own business account and then I have my personal income account. And that puts me in the seventh decile. well, so the people who inhabit this world of me are earning between$93 ,000 and$116 ,000.

24:30So again, it's like, it's kind of a smaller universe. Whereas again, if you take that top 10%, it's anyone who's earning over$272 ,000. So it just goes up and up and up infinitely. And I think really skews people's understanding of what is normal. There's so much to it. You know, I was so fascinated by this book. I went out on the street to ask people how much money would you need to make a year to feel totally liberated, to feel safe. And I was most surprised that people's numbers were pretty modest. And I tried to go to different parts of the city in L.A. to get this, to kind of see. and everyone was just talking about the basic stuff being able to feel not encumbered by their debt to maybe go on some vacations to have all of their finances paid for their cost of living and so it really does depend can i ask what roughly what numbers were people giving you well there was a mother of four who told me that she would need about a hundred thousand dollars a year to feel completely comfortable and liberate it.

25:44I had a man who told me he needed about$180 ,000 for he and his wife, but he also owns property. And so he understood without me asking how much of a privilege that is to own property in a very expensive part of LA. So that was a distinction that he was making with us standing there in Santa Monica. Can I ask you a question that I hope isn't, again, obviously, I promise you I'm not doing the thing of putting you in the hot seat. But I wonder, when you describe those numbers as being relatively modest, is it partly because the number that you hold in your mind of what constitutes safety is a higher number than that?

26:23Probably. And also me living here in Los Angeles, where it is more expensive than other parts of the country. I grew up in Michigan, and so the cost of living there is vastly different and my way of living would be much different. But it also makes me feel like maybe I've become out of touch in some way. I come from a working class poor family, frankly, but I have moved up the income ladder and have been here long enough that perhaps I do have blind spots. That's the first time I've heard you saying that you grew up poor. and I would love to hear you say a little bit more about that if you feel comfortable doing it because again you and I know how rare that is in journalism that's incredible that is incredible what did you want to know I mean again like it's interesting to me that like how often do you use that when you're describing yourself as as a black woman in journalism do you often say a black woman in journalism who grew up in poverty.

27:30No. Why? Because don't you think that that makes your accomplishment all the more remarkable? Well, because I'm American. I don't know. That's why I don't say it. But let me tell you, like, I mean, you've seen the charts in this book. You are an outlier. Most people who are born in poverty in this country do not make it out. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, that stuck with me. This is why I'm really contending with this book and what you wrote and feel emotional about it because I think we also are tied to exceptionalism. And you understand that it's so problematic in so many different ways and reasons that it has nothing to do with being exceptional all the time because I know countless people who are exceptional who have never made it outside of their income bracket.

28:23Our guest today is Pulitzer Prize-winning data journalist and illustrator Mona Chalabi. In her book, 10 Lives, she follows 10 Americans from different income groups to examine how money shapes their relationships, opportunities, and sense of security. We'll be right back after a short break. This is Fresh Air. Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. Support comes from our 2026 lead sponsor of Fresh Air, Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service, destination-focused dining, and cultural enrichment, on board and on shore.

29:05And every Viking voyage is all-inclusive, with no children and no casinos. Discover more at Viking.com. The number one issue in America right now is the economy. whether it's the high price of gas, a potential AI bubble, or the unsteady job market. At NPR's The Indicator, we've got you covered. Understand the economy in 10 minutes or less each day. Listen to The Indicator from Planet Money on the NPR app or wherever you listen to podcasts.

29:37This message comes from Prolon. Want to look and feel your best this fall? Prolon's five-day fasting mimicking diet is a clinically developed nutrition program with the goal of promoting fat loss while protecting lean body mass. Developed at USC's Longevity Institute, it aims to assist the body in entering a fasting-like state that helps reset metabolism, target visceral fat, and support healthy metabolic markers. Get 15 % off plus a bonus gift when you subscribe at prolonlife.com slash NPR. Okay, let's talk a little bit about love and money because you have some numbers here. You cite a survey showing that nearly half of Gen Z and 40 % of millennials say financial compatibility is more important than physical compatibility.

30:23That is a pretty practical way to think about romance. Why do you think money has become so important in how younger people choose partners? Or has it become more important for younger people? You know, there was this TikTok trend that I saw a while ago with people talking about how they were looking for a partner who was 6 '5", blue eyes and working in finance, which has never been any partner of mine. I grew up with a particular model of feminism that was about being able to support yourself, not relying on a man. But I also think that for my generation, there was this understanding of romance that it's somehow supposed to be post-materialist.

31:11That you're not really supposed to talk about wanting a partner from a particular set of economic circumstances. But how much like in real life do we experience personal attraction being shaped by the social class that we come from? I think it happens all the time. So in the book, I talk about one study that was about something called associative mating, which I know sounds very, very gross. It was a study that was published by the National Bureau for Economic Research. and they compared 1960 to 2005 and what they found was that it's not necessarily that people are seeking out partners in the same income bracket but people very often seek out partners with a similar educational background and education has a huge impact on income.

32:04So they actually found that over that period from 1960 to 2005 the trend has gotten even stronger so we are much more likely now to date someone with a similar educational background to ours. And the reason why this is important to scrutinise is because I would say who we date along with how much money we inherit are probably two of the biggest factors that affect the level of inequality overall in this country. So in this study, the researchers just tried this little experiment to measure the effects of marriage. And what they did is they ran this computer simulation where they matched up couples randomly, regardless of their income or educational level.

32:45And they found that when they did that, income inequality in the country dropped by 21%, which is huge. Do you know the number of government programs that you would need to make income inequality in the country drop by 21 %? Fascinating. This is fascinating. Even though nobody is consciously trying to perpetuate inequality. Well, they're definitely not thinking about big societal incomes, but I think they're worried about their own life changes. You know, I mentioned that I was raised with a particular model of feminism that wasn't about, you know, seeking out a rich partner. But my mum was very concerned with education.

33:24And I think meeting a man who was a fellow doctor was very hot for her. and again education affects income it meant that they did actually occupy a very very similar income bracket did you find that it's based on class and income level and how you grew up and actually thinking about finding a mate who will bring you outside of that class too I think I think so when we were talking about this younger generation I think the younger generation just has more realistic understandings of how the world works they don't have this fantasy of becoming homeowners because they see how out of reach that is and they don't have this fantasy that um relationships are just about love and romance and not actually about material partnership i mean i can i can say for myself that um life has been a lot more costly as a single individual and if I had been in partnership that would have had a huge impact on my household finances um I also mentioned really briefly in the book that I did once date someone who was filthy rich and that also was was interesting in all kinds of ways.

34:42And I would say that, you know, he was a man. He was white. There were lots of different identity markers between us, but actually it was our class that was one of the biggest clashes. I think that had I been from the same economic bracket as he was, I think his parents would have accepted me a lot more readily. Our guest today is Pulitzer Prize winning data journalist and illustrator Mona Chalabi. In her new book, 10 Lives, she follows 10 Americans from different income groups to examine how money shapes their relationships, opportunities, and sense of security. We'll be right back after a short break.

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36:43You grew up pretty comfortable, is that what you would say about your... Yeah, I do spell it out a bit more explicitly in the book that I grew up in a household where I believe our annual household income would have been about$100 ,000 in today's money. Mm hmm. Yep. Because your parents actually came to Britain from Iraq and they were both doctors. But when they left Iraq, they lost community, which is hard to kind of quantify in dollars. But the cost is real. Yeah, the cost is very real. In Iraq, they would have had support for childcare. Obviously, also, you know, the emotional support of having people around you who care about you, who share your language, who share your culture.

37:29But they were really divorced from all of that when they met in the UK. And the consequence of that is that, yeah, they had to pay a lot for childcare. care. I mean, I especially felt that when my dad became sick and the burden of all of the household expenses fell to my mom, as well as the burden of child care. And again, if we had been in Iraq, there would have been a lot more people that she could have leaned on. You know, a lot of people listening are going to identify with your life, particularly some of the challenges that you experienced. You mentioned when you were a teenager, your father got sick.

38:08He had a heart attack and your mother had to hold everything together. And I'm curious about how you think back at those sacrifices now, knowing what you know about money and caregiving in particular. I think many, many people come to an age where they kind of look at their mother and just think, how the hell did she do it? I think there's something quite universal in that. I think I'm particularly moved when I think about what my mum navigated because she didn't have a strong community around her. She didn't have any other family members in the UK at the time. She had a very small group of friends.

38:55And I do want to make this very clear distinction actually between family and friends when it comes to finances that I think it's a bit of a fantasy sometimes that you can rely on friends on a long-term basis financially that's just not how most societies are set up um so yeah it was very very challenging witnessing the the strain that that placed on her and I think that that has continued to affect my psychology around money because it felt at the time when I was a child like we were okay and then we weren't and I don't think that's actually necessarily true. Some of that was like a child's perception of what was happening in the home.

39:38It was me being very, very frightened when she said things like we might have to move home, which we didn't in the end. But I think it really, really shaped a lot of my fears. Your dear mother, later, many years later, she got sick herself and required medical care. And there is this really heartbreaking calculation that you describe in the book. The longer that you kept caring for her, the more precarious your own financial future became. For you, what was it like to find yourself doing that kind of math about someone you loved after also inheriting what you have called, you know, this abundance of riches, this money that you receive from your book advance?

40:29It was really hard. My dad had his heart attack when I was about six and was never really the same afterwards. But he only died when I was 18. So I was very, very aware that there can be a very, very extended period between sickness and death.

40:55and I was very aware that if my mum were to be sick for 12 years and I were to attempt to provide her with care at home

41:08I just couldn't have done 12 years it was just literally impossible but on the way to running out of money many things would have happened so I would have sold my home I would have had to have given up on my job which is again like this trap where I needed my job in order to earn the money for the caregiving. But I could not also do my job while I was attempting to provide caregiving. Yeah, it was terrifying. And again, I want to be really, really clear that I was rich when all of this happened.

41:41And I don't know. I really actually, it happened at a time when I have never felt more economically secure. had just bought my home. And buying a house had this enormous effect on my psychology where, yeah, I just felt safe for the first time. I mean, the calculation that you had to make in that time period in your life, the place you had to put yourself in that so many people also put themselves in is that, yes, you have the money for it. No, you don't want your mother to die. You don't want her to die. But thinking about your finances, you have to think about a calculation of how long you'll be able to sustain it.

42:21I mean, it's just in reading that it really made clear it really doesn't matter how much money you make unless you are just so wealthy beyond measure that you can not have to put yourself in that position of thinking about where this will leave you ultimately. yeah which was like in the circumstance of my that ex-boyfriend um this like i don't know this promised land this perfect island that requires millions and millions and millions of dollars to get to yeah and at the same time it's it it's really hard for me to for me to talk about because i'm trying to navigate my privilege as well in all of this that this is what happens right when you accrue some kind of financial security, like buying a house, the idea of losing it feels so utterly devastating.

43:13Even though I had survived before not being a homeowner, I could, you know, like it actually isn't necessarily the end of the world. But in that particular set of circumstances, it was particularly challenging because if I would have sold my home, then my could no longer live with me. And I felt very, very strongly that if she didn't live with me, that would be jeopardising her life. And I know this to be true because at the time at which she had her stroke, there was a woman who was actually significantly younger than my mum, a black woman who was in the hospital bed beside my mum who had worked as a cafeteria worker in a local school.

43:55And unlike my mum, she hadn't created these documents for her children that are called lasting power of attorney documents. They're really, really important. They're relatively cheap actually to draw up. They're about£300 or let's say$500 each. And they name who you trust to take care of you, both in terms of making financial decisions on your behalf, using your finances, and also making health decisions on your behalf. And that black woman lying in the next bed next to my mum hadn't signed those documents. Not only because actually, you know, $500 is a significant amount of money if you are a cafeteria worker, but also because my mum's economic class meant that she got access to sources of information.

44:39Other doctors were telling her, oh, by the way, these documents exist in this country. You should really, really make sure that your daughters get them and that you sign them and do them. Her daughter wasn't able to refuse when the state suggested moving her into a nursing home, even though her mother had very, very complex needs, as my mother did. And I stayed in touch with that woman to find out about how her mother was doing and how she was doing. And about a week after she was moved into a government care facility she was found dead in her room I feel so compelled to share that story because it's somebody's life and I want to be really really clear that even though I was worrying so much about money and I was worrying so much how I was going to keep my mum alive you know if you have ever had somebody that you care about who is sick every single day with them is a miracle and my money meant that I got more days with my mother than that family did.

45:39So as much as I was worrying, I still have to acknowledge my class privilege, you know. Mona, you started this book with this really simple question that you've sat inside for five years with really the most comprehensive swath of America you could look at. and you wanted to understand how much money it takes to make people feel safe. When people are done with this book, which is such a fascinating read and opens up so much for me too, what do you want them to walk away with understanding, with knowing, with feeling? I think that in this culture, there is such an emphasis on the individual that people tend to believe that if they're doing very, very well financially, they can feel good about themselves.

46:42And if they're doing very badly financially, again, that very often gets individualized and can leave people feeling really bad about themselves. and I hope that I hope this in all of my work that people will also be able to see more of the systems that shape people's life outcomes and that people will be able to see that the economic circumstances they were born in have such a huge impact on the economic circumstances that will follow them for the rest of their lives I hope that in reading the book people will develop a more robust vocabulary for class. They will integrate it into their identities.

47:24They will be more honest with themselves and with the people around them about how money shapes their lives. Mona Chalabi, thank you so much for this conversation and for this book. Thank you so much, Tanya. Mona Chalabi's new book is 10 Lives, How What We Have Shapes Who We Are. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America scored historic victories in last week's midterms. So what does socialism actually mean today? Historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore joins us to talk about the history of socialism in America, from the founding of the Socialist Party in 1901 to the rise of today's DSA.

48:06I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Boldonato, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yacundi, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez-Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley. Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.

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