On April 23, 2020, some 26.5 million Americans were unemployed, and the St Louis Fed has estimated that 47 million people may be unemployed by the end of June, with unemployment reaching 32 percent. The Congressional Budget Office expects at least a 9 percent unemployment rate through 2021 and perhaps beyond. Tens of millions more will have exhausted their savings, facing mounting debt, evictions, foreclosures. All this on top of the existing problems of neoliberalism’s economy of precarity. As is usual, the crisis will hit the working poor, people of color, and youth the hardest.

What strategies and tactics can organizers and working people more broadly draw on today, in order to build social and political power in this crisis? Historically, the unemployed have organized themselves into networks of mutual aid in moments of crisis, but also to make transformative political demands, often with direct action as a central tool. Marc Kagan talked to Frances Fox Piven, author of Poor People’s Movements, about past efforts, and current possibilities. Fox Piven is a prolific writer, a longtime practitioner of the unruly, disruptive behavior she so often advocates, and even an effective lobbyist — she is credited with playing a central role in the 1993 “Motor Voter” Act. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.