Events

Sheryl WuDunn went into the rural town where her family has spent decades and discovered that the lives of some of her friends — people she had known for decades — were in such turmoil that it seemed they were journeying through Dante’s inferno.  The dysfunction, pain and suffering were similar to what she had seen in the developing world, but this was happening in America.  And then she went across the country and discovered this was not unique.

In fact, she saw the on-the-ground reality of what recent statistics lay bare: rising mortality rates among working class Americans from “deaths of despair.”  So even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans in the working class were the forgotten class.  Now, the pandemic is underscoring how critical the working class is to the American economy and American society, far more than society has acknowledged. The workers deemed essential are inversely proportionate to salary levels.  As America looks to rebuild, Sheryl WuDunn’s book, Tightrope, explores solutions to these economic and social problems that shed light on how to build a more fair society.