© 2024 Kansas City Public Radio
NPR in Kansas City
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Up To Date

The Betrayal Of The American Dream

Over the years in this country, Washington and Wall Street have taken one step after another to dismantle the middle class.

At one moment, it's trade policy and the outsourcing of hundreds of thousands of jobs. At another moment, it's tax policy.

The results have been the same: The middle class taking the hit. The loss of jobs. And young men like Kevin Flanagan, who put a shotgun to his head the day he lost his job as a computer programmer to a programmer from India.

You've heard this story before: Kevin was ordered to train his replacement, or lose his modest severance package.

Wednesday on Up to Date, Steve Kraske talks with James B. Steele, who along with his investigative reporting partner Donald Barlett have written a new book, The Betrayal of the American Dream. Steele and  Bartlett are the only reporting team ever to have received two Pulitzer Prizes and two National Magazine Awards.

Read an excerpt of the book here.

HEAR MORE: James Steele speaks this evening at 6:30 at the Kansas City Library's Central Library, 14 W. 10th Street in downtown Kansas City. A 6 p.m. reception precedes the event. Click here for more information and to RSVP.

James Steele was born in Hutchinson, Kansas, on January 3, 1943, and grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. A graduate of the University of Missouri at Kansas City, he began his journalism career at the Kansas City Times, where he covered labor, politics and urban affairs before moving to The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1970. After 27 years as an investigative reporter at The Inquirer, he joined Time in 1997. In 2006, he became a contributing editor of Vanity Fair. Steele is married and has a daughter.

Stephen Steigman is director of Classical KC. You can email him at <a href="mailto:Stephen.Steigman@classicalkc.org">Stephen.Steigman@classicalkc.org</a>.
When I host Up To Date each morning at 9, my aim is to engage the community in conversations about the Kansas City area’s challenges, hopes and opportunities. I try to ask the questions that listeners want answered about the day’s most pressing issues and provide a place for residents to engage directly with newsmakers. Reach me at steve@kcur.org or on Twitter @stevekraske.