Labor Pains Project Update

For today's Labor Pains project update, I wanted to go deep with what I learned from the workshops and interviews I conducted in Albany, NY. Their personal stories, the truth of their lives, led my research down an unexpected path...

In The Theft of Futurity, I argue that the so-called “deficit myth” — the belief that the federal government’s budget works like a household’s — is not an innocent misunderstanding. It’s a psychological weapon, used to keep working people, especially Black women, locked in a permanent state of survival mode.

Through my Labor Pains oral history project, I’ve seen how this myth justifies systemic underinvestment in care, wages, and public goods, while blaming those most harmed for their exhaustion. The result? A national psychology of scarcity that keeps people competing for scraps instead of demanding abundance. ✊🏾

As the economy falters and inflation exposes the fragility of the system, it’s time to name what’s really being stolen. Not just money — but futurity itself. The capacity to plan beyond today. To dream. To build. To rest.

The real deficit isn’t in our dollars. It’s in our imagination, our morality, and our failure to value the labor — and lives — of Black women. 🖤

http://laborpainsblog.com/2025/10/24/theft/