By conventional measures, the U.S. is still the world's richest nation, but this is likely to be of small comfort to the many working families who are just getting by (or not), paycheck to paycheck, as essential needs like decent food, decent housing, and decent childcare become ever more unaffordable. This course begins with historical and political economy perspectives on the growth of urban markets and the challenges to working families (and to the social reproduction required in the evolving capitalist system) as they became concentrated in cities and had to rely for survival on wages set by employers in competitive labor markets. These challenges and risks in turn required social protection in the form of regulation and redistribution, and the effects often varied considerably by location (in the U.S., by city and state). We will then explore the current state of American urban living standards with new evidence on the (declining) incidence of living wage jobs—the share of workers in towns and cities across the country able to earn enough to adequately sustain a small family with a single full-time job. How has the share of living wage jobs changed in which locations, for whom (e.g. by age, education, gender, and race), and for what reasons? For example, is the incidence of living wage jobs higher in large cities in "Blue" (Democratic) states or in smaller cities in "Red" (Republican) states? Students will have the opportunity to address these and related questions through case studies of "Blue" and "Red" state cities of different sizes. We will conclude with lessons for the future from this evidence, from cross-country comparisons, and from the Fall 2025 NYC Mayoral election.