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Krissy Clark

Former Host and Senior Correspondent

Krissy Clark hosted, reported, produced and edited for Marketplace's award-winning narrative documentary podcast “The Uncertain Hour,” where she dug into forgotten history, obscure policies and human stories to help make sense of America's weird, complicated and often unequal economy. She’s covered the legacy of welfare reform, low-wage work, the war on drugs, and the gentrification of cities. She’s interested in the intersection of public policy, money, and people, and how those forces come together to create parts of our world that can seem inevitable but have very specific origin stories. Krissy has reported for “99% Invisible,” Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, Slate, Freakonomics, NPR, the BBC and High Country News. Her investigation into welfare funding was featured on “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.”  Her reporting has been referenced in legislative hearings, and written about in outlets including the Washington Post, The Guardian, and New York Magazine. She has guest lectured at the USC journalism program, the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies and City College in New York. She has produced audio tours for StoryCorps, and her location-based storytelling projects have been exhibited at the New Museum’s Ideas City Festival. She won two Gracies for best investigative report and best reporter, has been a finalist for a Loeb award, a Livingston Award, a Third Coast International Audio Festival award, and a nominee for a James Beard award for food journalism. She’s been on teams that received an IRE (Investigative Reporters and Editors) Medal, a Scripps-Howard award, a Webby, a First Prize in Investigative Reporting from the National Awards for Education Reporting, and awards from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. Krissy grew up in northern California. She has a degree in the humanities from Yale University and was a Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University.

Latest from Krissy Clark

  • Season 6: The Welfare-to-Work Industrial Complex
    eric1513/Getty Images

    “The Uncertain Hour” is back! We’re diving deep into work requirements.

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  • Former Director of the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services Larry Townsend.
    Gina Delvac/Marketplace

    A lot has changed since the 1996 law to “end welfare as we know it.” In this reprise, we’ll explore the origins of the welfare-to-work movement.

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  • Mar 24, 2021

    My boss is an app

    Julia Soler loads up her minivan with groceries before her shift doing gig work with Amazon Flex.
    Stephanie Hughes/Marketplace

    The gig-app workforce has arrived at our doorstep. But Silicon Valley’s innovations in hiring are only the latest round of this long-running battle over what “employment” means in the American economy.

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  • Mar 17, 2021

    Inside baseball

    Anthony Shew (right) fist bumps fellow pitcher Adam Wainwright while playing for the minor league Springfield Cardinals. As a minor league player, Shew isn't subject to federal minimum wage and overtime requirements.
    Courtesy: Anthony Shew

    In minor league baseball, athletes train, suit up and play for wages that would be illegal in most sectors.

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  • Crowds of people stand in the street, waiting to identify bodies of immigrant workers following the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire in New York City, March 25, 1911.
    Hulton Archive/Getty Images

    After Jimmy Nicks’ job was subcontracted, he took both companies to court — the subcontractor he worked for, the “little boss,” and its client, the “big boss,” Koch Foods.

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  • Jimmy Nicks, a chicken catcher in Mississippi.
    Caitlin Esch/Marketplace

    When chicken catcher Jimmy Nicks’ job was subcontracted, he started doing the same job for a new boss — only without the pay, protections and benefits he’d come to rely on.

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  • A group of Accenture employees.
    Peter Balonon-Rosen/Marketplace

    Over a quarter of the world’s largest employers don’t just make or sell products — they also rent out workers. Let’s talk about how we got here.

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  • “To suffer or permit to work”
    Ben Hethcoat/Marketplace

    We’ll finally tell you what happened to Jerry Vazquez and how it relates to the story of a 1930s hotel chambermaid. Plus, how we got the federal minimum wage and a new version of “The ABCs.”

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  • Feb 10, 2021

    Who’s the boss?

    Jerry Vazquez and his mother Isabelle.
    Krissy Clark/Marketplace

    Jerry Vazquez was running his own cleaning franchise, but he was barely getting by. He started feeling like he had little control over a business he owned — so Jerry decided it was time to fight back.

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  • Jerry Vazquez holding some of his Jan-Pro gear.
    Krissy Clark/Marketplace

    Jerry Vazquez always dreamed of owning his own business. But becoming a franchisee of a janitorial services company left him in debt and earning less than minimum wage.

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