Millions of American households benefited from federal emergency unemployment programs. These programs offered financial support to workers who lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic and its crippling economic impact. Not anymore. Federal…
If you haven’t spent much time exploring the world of foreign films, you’ve seriously been missing out. Yes, Hollywood is the most famous and culturally significant film factory on earth, but there’s literally a…
Sometimes entire decades of a sport are dominated by a few franchises. Sooner or later every team will go on winning a streak, right? Right? To determine the NFL teams with the most consecutive…
Recreational opportunities, including access to park space, are an important quality-of-life measure. In fact, the COVID-19 epidemic has made them more important than ever. People were deprived of entertainment and exercise options due to…
The terms wealth and income inequality have been used frequently to describe the widening gulf separating rich and poor across the globe and within individual countries. To find the extent of wealth inequality, one…
At the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Jesse Owens became the first American track and field athlete to win four gold medals at a single Olympic Games. He simultaneously went down in history as…
Racial representation in the movie industry – both in front of and behind the camera – has long been an issue. The share of Black filmmakers shooting major studio films has increased dramatically in…
Far less risk-averse than the standard Hollywood fare, history’s best foreign films offer a refreshing sense of artistic purity. To watch these enduring classics is to give up the need for rote formulas and…
There are nearly 40,000 grocery stores in the US, including dozens of national and regional supermarket chains, gourmet and specialty markets, and bulk buying clubs. It’s common for a suburban area to have five…
City life has its advantages, from more choices in dining and entertainment to more job opportunities, better public transportation, and more low-cost or free shared public experiences. But urban living also has its disadvantages…
One thing you can count on with America’s restaurant chains is that they don’t rest on their laurels. Sure, they keep their most popular menu items front and center and phase out those that…
Like a sequel no one asked for, 2021 was basically as unpleasant as the year that preceded it. On the bright side, at least the movies were better. Proving that the show must indeed…
The entertainment business is one that demands rapid results. Sometimes, amazing shows are canceled before they can really get a strong following or before their plots have time to properly mature. Since it started…
It has been some six decades since the Civil Rights Acts passed in 1964, yet considerable work remains in combating systemic racism and other forms of racial discrimination in America today. To better understand…
Museums play an important part in America’s cultural life, sharing not just art but history, biography, and more. They showcase some of humankind’s most heralded achievements and also sometimes some of our darkest moments.…
Along with smoky barbecue, bourbon whiskey is perhaps America’s finest contribution to the world of food and drink (and as it happens they pair very well with each other). According to IBISWorld, there are…
The lowest-paid American workers are so often the people with whom we interact the most in our daily lives. They’re not just the people who prepare and serve our food, but also just about…
If you want to make a decent living at a job with good benefits, there are two ways to go about it. One is to develop specialized in-demand skills outside of the higher-educational system.…
Is there anything better for breakfast than a waffle, pancake, or slice of French toast drizzled with maple syrup? We all remember dousing our meals with it as children, watching as the sticky syrup…
America is a very diverse country, and proudly so. However, it’s also diverse when it comes to quality of life, and that’s less welcome. There are vast disparities in different aspects of life depending…
