Ten Lives

In Ten Lives: How What We Have Shapes Who We Are, Pulitzer Prize–winning data journalist, artist, and 2023 New America Fellow Mona Chalabi offers a visually striking exploration of money—and the lack of it—in America told through the lives of ten individuals.

Anna has a comfortable life in a mansion in Maine thanks to her husband (well, his parents, really) until he suddenly asks for a divorce. In Arizona, Hunter is a U.S. veteran, feeling ashamed about claiming disability benefits. Then there’s Levi, who is trying to pay off his debts from a gambling addiction, one social media video at a time. And Christian, stifled by his job at an Amazon warehouse before a union-organizing effort offers a way out for his comrades and his young kids. Ten people, ten different incomes, all of them afraid for their futures.

For five years, Chalabi followed them all, documenting how wealth shaped their feelings, their choices, their identities, and their insecurities. But then she too found herself facing the same fears, when her mother’s sudden illness and subsequent medical bills threatened her own financial safety. Interweaving her own story with those of her interviewees and illustrated throughout with the data visualizations for which she is renowned, Ten Lives asks how much wealth it takes to be safe in the United States.

Join the New America Fellows Program for a conversation about Ten Lives.

Copies of Ten Lives are available for purchase here through our bookselling partner Solid State Books.

Editorial disclosure: The views expressed in this book and event are solely those of the author and speakers. They do not reflect the views of New America, its staff, fellows, funders, or board of directors.