Alana Semuels

  • Home
  • The Consumer Experience
  • Technology and Labor
  • Race and Segregation
  • Reporting From Afar
TIME • 23rd August 2023

Who I’m Hurting By Shopping At Walmart

Walmart's low prices are one reason captures one in four grocery dollars in America, but there’s an argument to be made that it comes by those prices unfairly because of its market power.
TIME • 14th March 2024

Why We're Spending So Much Money

Fintech make spending easier than ever before— and there's growing evidence that it's making us shell out more than we realize.
TIME • 21st November 2023

Meet the Solar Sales Bros

Why some door-to-door salesman over-promise and under-deliver, threatening the green energy transition.
TIME • 18th March 2024

Banks Aren't Doing Enough to Protect Customers From Scams

As consumers lose more money to scams, banks aren't stepping up protections.
TIME • 30th November 2023

Why Cell Phone Reception Is Getting Worse

You're not imagining it.
Time • 12th November 2021

The Great American Trucker Shortage Isn't Real

Stop saying there's a driver shortage. It only makes conditions worse for drivers.
TIME • 13th June 2024

Defrauded? Banks May Not Give Your Money Back

Banks are using a legal loophole to avoid returning money to defrauded customers.
Time • 17th August 2021

Why Is Everything More Expensive Right Now?

I track a stuffed giraffe from the factory to my doorstep to explain supply chain bottlenecks and the roots of inflation.
TIME • 7th February 2022

The Problem With the Way We Train Truckers

In most states, aspiring barbers have to spend 1,000 hours or more in training before they get a license. To drive a 40,000-pound truck, though, there’s no minimum behind-the-wheel driving time required, no proof of ability to navigate through mountains, snow, or rain.
Time • 2nd November 2021

How American Shoppers Broke the Supply Chain

America has long been gobbling up more goods from overseas than we send back, but in the past year, spending has gone bonkers.
The Atlantic • 1st December 2017

The Never-Ending Foreclosure

How can the country survive the next economic crash if millions of families still haven't recovered from the last one?
The Atlantic • 28th February 2018

This Is What Life Without Retirement Savings Looks Like

Many seniors are stuck with lives of never-ending work—a fate that could befall millions in the coming decades.
The Atlantic • 5th March 2019

Is This the End of Recycling?

Americans are consuming more and more stuff. Now that other countries won’t take our papers and plastics, they’re ending up in the trash.
The Atlantic • 21st August 2018

‘We Are All Accumulating Mountains of Things’

How online shopping and cheap prices are turning Americans into hoarders
The Atlantic • 31st August 2018

The Online Gig Economy’s ‘Race to the Bottom’

When the whole world is fighting for the same jobs, what happens to workers?
Built with Journo Portfolio
Close ✕