This week's episode is a look at how major coastal elite cities have created an economic model that depends on the exploitation of a largely immigrant labor class who serve the wants and needs of the upper middle class in these cities.
Urban dwellers heavily rely on minority or immigrant nannies, nail technicians, maids, Uber drivers, food delivery workers, laundry people, etc. Rarely are these people paid a living wage. Many of them are not even employees, with zero benefits, and who are illegally paid cash under the table. And unlike with the Ellis Island generation of immigrants, many, perhaps even a majority, of their children and grandchildren will not experience upward economic mobility. The growth of this model with an upscale class at one end and an exploited labor class at the other has fueled political discontent, with rising left-wing populist politics and the election of people like NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio who explicitly campaigned on a theme of "two New Yorks," one rich, one poor.
Members of upscale churches in these cities often depend on and profit from this system of labor exploitation. And their pastors talking about justice do not often speak against this system.