Swifties, this one’s for you. It seems like Taylor Swift's Eras Tour has lasted eons. Yet somehow, there’s always something to talk about. Just thinking about how much she’s accomplished while on tour makes me want to buckle down, lock in, and channel my inner girlboss. But while I can’t even be bothered to cook dinner at home after a long day of work, Taylor is accomplishing milestones most musicians can only dream of. Let’s recap.
The Era’s Tour began in March 2023 with its North American leg. It’s set to go until December 2024, with dates in Europe, Australia, Asia, and South America— spanning 152 shows across five continents.
As the queen of multitasking, Swift hasn’t stopped at just selling out stadiums. Since the Eras tour began, she’s released multiple albums — both new and old — and shaken up the tour setlist with each new release. Her list of new releases started on the first day of tour with “All Of The Girls You Loved Before,” which was quickly followed up by “The Alcott,” a feature on The National’s album — reciprocity for their work on her pandemic era albums, Folklore and Evermore.
She also released Midnights: Late Night Edition (including the iconic collab with Ice Spice), as well as not one but two album re-releases — Speak Now Taylor's Version and 1989 Taylor's Version. As if that wasn’t enough, she announced her latest album, The Tortured Poet’s Department, in a GRAMMY’s acceptance speech. Talk about legendary. Since its release, she’s also been churning out deluxe versions and remixes to keep us on our toes. The Eras Tour was even made into a Blockbuster film that brought Beyonce to its premiere. Star power: confirmed.
But that’s just her work life. Her personal life is just as eventful. She ended her 7-year relationship with Joe Alwyn in April 2023. Then entered into a brief but controversial fling with 1975 frontman Matty Healy. Though it didn’t last long, the relationship was enough to inspire a whole album and catapult her into her current romance with Travis Kelce, aka Amerca’s first nepo boyfriend. Now they’re the American Royal couple — and she somehow had time to fly from tour to his Super Bowl performance.
We all have the same hours in the day as Taylor Swift, but how she uses them will always be a mystery to me. I work eight hours a day and can barely manage a social life. Meanwhile, Taylor literally has it all — though conservatives are turning on her for daring to be a woman in her 30s who’s not married with kids. If that’s not proof that women can’t do anything right, I don’t know what is.
Clearly, she’s working late because she’s a singer. No wonder Taylor Swift became a billionaire months into her tour in October 2023. Her net worth is currently around 1.3 billion dollars, making her the only female musician to become a billionaire from her music.
Other entertainment billionaires like Rihanna, Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian, Jay-Z, and Kanye West have joined the three-comma club thanks to ventures like clothing brands, beauty products, and other entrepreneurial pursuits. Rihanna has her FENTY Empire. Kim has her award-winning SKIMS. Ye had Yeezy. But Taylor has an unbeatable catalog of publishing.
But Taylor isn’t just different from other Billionaires because of how she earned her money. She’s the Taylor we know and love because of how she spends it. Her rollercoaster Eras Tour is how she’s made much of her fortune. And she’s using it to give back in monumental degrees. From individual donations to investing in local infrastructure, Taylor is literally changing lives on a macro and micro scale. And teaching us what to expect from all billionaires in the process.
The Era’s Tour Bonuses — Talk About Workplace Benefits
First to make headlines were the Eras Tour crew bonuses. While some of us get rewarded with a pizza party or a $10 gift card to Starbucks, Taylor casually dropped $55 million in bonuses for her tour crew. The massive sum was paid out to everyone who makes the Eras Tour go around, from truck drivers to dancers and sound technicians.
In fairness, these bonuses are definitely well-deserved. Taylor’s shows are over three hours long. Imagine dancing for that long — because Swift certainly isn’t the one with the impressive moves — for hundreds of tour dates. Or remembering countless combinations of light cues to go with a setlist that changes daily. Yeah, they’re clocking in. And if my boss had millions to blow, I’d be expecting a comfortable bonus too. But $55 Million? That’s a testament to Swift’s generosity. It's like she's Oprah, but instead of cars, she's giving out life-changing amounts of cash. "You get a bonus! You get a bonus! Everybody gets a bonus!"
It’s similar to how Zendaya gave film equity to every member of the crew that worked on her controversial black-and-white drama, Malcolm & Marie. Filmed in a few days with a bare-bones crew during the peak of the pandemic, the film was Zendaya’s passion project with Sam Levinson, in which she starred alongside John David Washington. Though the film got mixed reviews, it captured the audience’s attention all the same. After all, it was Zendaya — and we’ll watch her in anything. So since the film sold to Netflix for a hefty sum, all the crew members got payouts from the deal on top of their salaries to reward their hard work.
Bonuses and equity payouts are common in many industries, but not entertainment. Even though it’s one of the most lucrative and recognizable American industries, most entertainers don’t make enough to survive. The SAG and WGA strikes last year were proof that there needs to be systemic change in the industry. LA County has even identified show businesses as risk factors for being unhoused — after all, how many stories do we hear of actors who were living in their cars before their big break? And for many, their big break never comes. For even more, they get hired on amazing gigs with giant performers … then go right back to the grind afterward. While individual actions from our favorite stars won’t fix everything, Zendaya and Taylor are providing models for how Hollywood should treat the people who make this town go round.
And in this economy, even a little bit could go a long way. Inflation and the cost of living are not a joke. Especially when, like with many creative careers, you often have to invest in lessons or equipment for your craft. With all this considered, the impact of Swirt’s donations can’t be overstated. Imagine getting a lump sum of cash for dancing to your favorite Taylor Swift tracks? Talk about a dream job.
The Economic Impact of Swift - Swiftonomics, if you will
Like Barbie and Beyonce last year, Swift is still on a tear to boost the economy of the cities she’s in just by traveling there — ad inspiring others to make the trek, too.
The Barbie movie proved that by marketing to women (instead of just making Marvel flops like Madame Web that aren’t really targeted to women at all), the entertainment industry can make giant profits. Barbie fever went beyond the theater. Thanks to a plethora of product collabs, the phenomenon rippled through retail.
Similarly, Beyonce’s Renaissance Tour tour generated an estimated $4.5 billion for the American economy. According to NPR, that’s almost as much as the entire 2008 Olympics earned for Beijing. People were taking money out of their 401ks to pay for Beyonce tickets and the glittery, silver-hues outfits to rock at her shows. Cities even started calling her effect the “Beyonce Bump.”
Swift has the same effect. She’s not just proving her generosity on a micro-scale for the people close to her, she’s having actual, tangible effects on the economy. It's like she's leaving a trail of dollar bills in her wake, and cities are scrambling to catch them like it's a country-pop, capitalist version of musical chairs.
The US Travel Association called it the Taylor Swift Impact after she generated over $5 Billion in just the first 5 months of the Eras Tour. But how does this work? It’s not like Taylor is printing more money at those shows, but it almost is. Her tour dates are pretty much economic steroid shots for local businesses. Hotels are booked solid, restaurants are packed, and let's not even get started on the surge in friendship bracelet supplies.
“Swifties averaged $1,300 of spending in local economies on travel, hotel stays, food, as well as merchandise and costumes,” say the US Travel Association. “That amount of spending is on par with the Super Bowl, but this time it happened on 53 different nights in 20 different locations over the course of five months.” That’s not to say anothing of her effect on the actual Super Bowl and the entire NFL season thanks to her ball-throwing boyfriend.
It's like she's created her own micro-economy, and everyone's invited to the party. And unlike some economic theories that rely on wealth trickling down (spoiler alert: it doesn't), Taylor's wealth is more like a t-shirt cannon or the confetti at her shows — showering everyone around.
Donations that actually do good
Taylor isn’t just stepping into cities and calling it a night. She’s also not just throwing pennies at problems - she's making significant contributions that are changing lives. And more importantly, she's using her platform to encourage her fans to do the same.
She kicked off her tour with quiet donations to food banks in Glendale, Ariz., and Las Vegas ahead of the Eras Tour. Once the tour was in full swing, she continued this practice. In Seattle, she donated to Food Lifeline, a local hunger relief organization. In Santa Clara, she showed some love to Second Harvest of Silicon Valley. And let's not forget about her $100,000 donation to the Hawkins County School Nutrition Program in Tennessee.
She’s been making similar donations overseas. Taylor Swift donated enough money to cover the food bills for an entire year across 11 food banks and & community pantries in Liverpool. Swift also covered 10,800 meals for Cardiff Foodbank and many more banks across the UK and EU. Her impact is so profound that her numbers are doing more to combat issues like hunger than the government.
Can billionaires actually be good?
One thing about me, I’m always ready and willing — knife and fork in hand — to eat the rich. Because fundamentally, can any billionaire really be good? In our late-stage capitalist horror story, the answer is usually no. Look how many of them are supporting the Trump campaign just to get some tax breaks.
But here's the thing - Taylor Swift might just be the exception that proves the rule. She's not perfect, sure. She still flies private jets and probably has a carbon footprint bigger than Bigfoot. But unlike most of the others in her tax bracket, she's not flaunting her wealth like it's a personality trait.
Take a look around. We've got billionaires trying to colonize Mars instead of, I don't know, helping people on Earth. In this context, Taylor's approach is more like Mackenzie Scott’s — Bezos’s ex-wife. She's not trying to escape to another planet - she's trying to make this one better.
And look, I'm not saying we should stop critiquing billionaires or the system that creates them. But she's just setting the bar for what we should expect from all billionaires. She's showing us that our collective power as fans can translate into real-world change. That our love for catchy choruses and bridge drops can somehow, improbably, lead to food banks getting funded and crew members getting life-changing bonuses.
So sorry to my neighbors who hear me belting “Cruel Summer” and “right where you left me” at the top of my lungs (and range). Just know it’s for the greater good.
6 Reasons You Should Fill Out Your Census (Immediately)
The Census has one goal: "Counting everyone once, only once and in the right place." Every 10 years, the US Census Bureau conducts a survey of every single person living in the United States.
The United States has been conducting census surveys since the 1790's because when the founding fathers were building their fledgling democracy they decided that population would be the basis of political power.
The 2020 Census asks a few simple questions about you and everyone who was living with you as of April 1, 2020. The survey asks about the number of people living in your household, and each person's age, sex, and race.
The September 30th deadline is rapidly approaching, but some Americans still haven't filled out their census. Not filling it out, has some very real consequences. Here are six reasons why you should fill out your census immediately.
1. It's illegal not to
Your response is required by law.Getty Images
Filling out the census is mandatory, and everyone living in the U.S. and its five territories as of April 1, 2020, is supposed to be counted. This includes children, babies, people without homes, college students, and immigrants regardless of their legal status.
According to United States Code, Title 13 (Census), Chapter 7 (Offenses and Penalties), SubChapter II, if you're over 18 and refuse to answer all or part of the census, you can be fined up to $100. If you give false answers, you're subject to a fine of up to $500. If you offer suggestions or information with the "intent to cause inaccurate enumeration of population," you are subject to a fine of up to $1,000, up to a year in prison, or both.
2. If you don't, someone will show up at your house
Census Bureau EnumeratorU.S. Census Bureau
If you haven't already filled out the census, you can expect a visit from a US Census taker as part of NRFU. The Nonresponse Followup operation (NRFU) is when census takers visit nonresponding households to survey their inhabitants in-person and enter their answers on their secure Census Bureau smartphone.
If no one is home when the census taker visits, they will leave a notice of their visit with information about how to respond online or by phone. As necessary, they will make additional visits to collect responses from the household.
NRFU is a huge operation, this year they are expected to send enumerators to approximately 56.4 million households that have not responded to the 2020 Census.
3. It affects your representation
Apportionment map of 2010 CensusU.S. Census Bureau
The census determines how many representatives each state will have in Congress for the next 10 years. The US House of Representatives has 435 seats, each of which is allocated based on population. For instance, Texas gained four seats after the last Census, while New York and Ohio lost two seats each. State and local officials also use census results to help redraw congressional, state, and local district boundaries.
4. It affects your community's funding
Billions in government funding are allocated through census data every year. Andy Warhol
The Census also affects funding. Each year, approximately $675 billion in federal funds is spent on schools, hospitals, roads, public works and other vital programs, and this money is divided up largely based on population. Responding to the census helps your community receive its fair share of that funding.
Census data isn't only used by the public sector. It is also used by many businesses in the private sector to decide where to build factories, offices, and stores, and developers use the census to decide where to build new homes.
Local governments use the census so they can plan for every emergency from riots to fires to hurricanes, and advocacy groups use the census to support community initiatives involving legislation, quality-of-life and consumer rights.
5. It's so easy and safe!
This is the first year you can fill out your census online!U.S. Census Bureau
This year, there are three different easy ways to fill out your census.
- By mail. You should have received a paper survey in the mail in April, which can still be mailed back to the U.S. Census Bureau.
- Online. This is the first time the census can be completed online! Visit www.2020census.gov to fill out the survey. The online survey has 13 available language options.
- By phone. Respondents can call the Census Bureau at 844-330-2020, and can be provided with answers over the phone in 13 languages.
You may be thinking that you don't care how easy it is, and no matter what, you don't want to share your information with the government. But the census is a safe and secure way to participate in democracy. It is strictly against the law for the Census Bureau to disclose or publish any census information that identifies an individual. Title 13 makes it very clear that the data collected can only be used for statistical purposes—and it is not allowed to be used for anything else, including law enforcement. No law enforcement agency can access or use your personal information at any time, including the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, the FBI, and the CIA.
6. COVID-19 might lead to an undercount, which hurts vulnerable populations
Undercounts hurt everyone, but they hurt vulnerable populations the most.Getty Images
The coronavirus has changed a lot about how the Census operates. In-person efforts to reach census respondents have been significantly reduced and delayed, the Census office had to undergo a month-long hiring freeze right as they began sending out survey, and the deadline for filling it out has shifted twice.
The NRFU operation was originally scheduled for May 13 through July 31, 2020, but these dates have been adjusted due to the COVID-19 pandemic and are now set to take place between August 11 and September 30, 2020. This reduction from two and a half months to one and a half months has caused some concern.
The Census Bureau is also having trouble hiring and keeping employees during the pandemic. They say they require 435,000 census-takers to complete their accelerated count, but as of Aug. 18 they had onboarded just 309,000. A report from the Government Accountability Office explains this discrepancy may be due to high attrition rates. The Census Bureau expected that about 10% of employees that started training would not show up for field work, but surprisingly the rate was closer to 35%.
The Bureau's original COVID-19 plan was to extend the census count's follow-up period from July 31 to October 31. Given this extension,the Bureau also requested that Congress delay the mandated reporting of census results to the president from December 31, 2020 to April 30, 2021. However, the extension was never approved and on August 3, the Bureau announced its intention to end all follow-up activities by September 30 and report the results to the president by December 31.
The Census Bureau says they are on track to meet this goal, but many have criticized the decision and blamed it on pressure from the White House. Four former Census Bureau directors who served under nine presidents have made a statement saying that without the full deadline extension, "The Census Bureau will not be able to carry out the NRFU fully and will be forced to take steps such as fewer in-person visits and rely instead on the use of administrative records and statistical techniques on a much larger scale than in previous census." This could result in a serious undercount of hard-to-count populations.
Hard-to-count populations have always taken extra effort to reach. These populations include the homeless, residents of dormitories or group homes, racial minorities, immigrants, rural residents, and residents on Native American reservations. Some groups are hard to count simply because they are hard to locate, like homeless people or people in remote locations, but others don't respond on purpose because they don't trust the government.
Unfortunately, the populations that are most likely to go uncounted are also those who need funding and representation the most. These populations are often already underserved by the government and an undercount could affect the next 10 years of resources available to them. Homeless people, minorities, immigrants, and rural communities are all at risk of being underrepresented in legislative bodies, and they also risk receiving less funding for desperately needed social programs, hospitals, and schools.
September 30 is the last day to be counted in the United States Census. As of September 1st, approximately 64.9% of the country has already self-responded, and another 17.9% have been counted through follow-up efforts by the bureau. Unfortunately, that still leaves approximately 17.6% of the population to locate and count in the next 30 days. Make sure your community gets the resources and representation it deserves by filling out the Census today
For more well-researched, unbiased information on today's biggest issues, follow Alexandra's Instagram account The Factivists.
What the Term “Illegal” Means for Undocumented Immigrants
The term is typically used to refer to a whole person, not a person's legal status, and so it therefore implies that the person themselves is not a viable human being, thus not entitled to any human rights protections.
The word "illegal" has become a buzzword in modern immigration discourse, a common way of describing someone who has crossed the border into America without papers.
The term is typically used to refer to a whole person, not a person's legal status, and so it therefore implies that the person themselves is not a viable human being, thus not entitled to any human rights protections.
The term "illegal immigrant" was first coined to describe Jews fleeing during the second world war. "How can a human being be illegal?" asked the writer and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, pinpointing the contradictory nature of the term. In 2017, journalist Maria Hinojosa riffed on Elie Wiesel's description of illegality, stating that "Because once you label a people 'illegal,' that is exactly what the Nazis did to Jews.' You do not label a people 'illegal.' They have committed an illegal act. They are immigrants who crossed illegally. But they are not an illegal people."
Image from Time
Being labeled as illegal has severe consequences for those who fall under the term's shadow. An "illegal" immigrant cannot demand raises or report human rights abuses at work. Undocumented immigrants face the double pressure of fear of being sent back to where they came from and fear of being 'found out' in their new nation.
The majority of migrants labeled as "illegal" are doing work for low wages, and provide services while demanding nothing in return. In practice, their work is similar to mass incarceration, which keeps whole segments of the population out of sight while they perform unpaid labor and are unable to exercise their civil rights.
In the novel Dear America: Notes from an Undocumented Citizen, the Filipino journalist Jose Antonio Vargas outlines the unique stresses and pains that come with living as an undocumented civilian. "This book is about homelessness," he writes, "not in a traditional sense, but the unsettled, unmoored psychological state that undocumented immigrants like me find ourselves in. This book is about lying and being forced to lie to get by; about passing as an American and as a contributing citizen; about families, keeping them together and having to make new ones when you can't. This book is about constantly hiding from the government and, in the process, hiding from ourselves."
Vargas, a successful reporter, came to the US at eight and discovered he was undocumented at age 11; what followed were decades of trying to hide his status until he finally spoke out and became one of the most famous undocumented citizens in the public eye.
Every single migrant's story is different, and for many people, speaking out is not an option. Many people have to work, to support families or relatives at home, and cannot risk "coming out" as illegal like Vargas.
Image via CNN.com
Studies have found that undocumented immigrants—especially those of Latinx descent—are especially at risk of mental health disorders due to the unique combination of trauma and secrecy that often plagues their journeys to the United States. As Warsan Shire writes in her stunning poemHome, "how do the words / the dirty looks / roll off your backs / maybe because the blow is softer / than a limb torn off." Although living in an America that calls them "illegal" is preferable to remaining in their native countries, many migrants have written about the psychological impacts of living in constant fear, and of being "found out" on American soil.
Bigotry and xenophobia may be better alternatives than the violence that many migrants faced at home, but defining groups of people as "illegal" is a convenient way to strip human beings of their humanity, the very thing that lies at the heart of the United Nations' Declaration of Human Rights. Peoples who are in flux are especially at risk of getting lost, as official laws refuse to help them; outside of the light of official regulations, people are quite literally disappearing, slipping into the cracks between policy and legal protection.
Keeping people in the subterranean realms of the criminal justice system or beneath the umbrella term of "illegal," is the result of a cycle that relies on many elements that work to perpetuate it. Xenophobia is one of the important steps that keep this cycle in place. A pervasive distrust of foreigners is a way of creating divisions and continuing cycles of disadvantage. Human rights abuses happen when human beings become faceless, anonymous, and stripped of recognition and legal protection. Rejecting and silencing people because they are so-called "illegal" even if it is not consciously spoken, is a way of selectively subjugating certain voices.
Of course, America has never been open to all migrants. This nation has a history of drawing non-white migrants to it when it needed labor—such as with the Chinese in California during the building of the railroads in the 19th century—and sending them home via acts like the Chinese Exclusion Act once the work was completed. This nation has a history of silencing certain groups, making it so they have no chance to even take a crack at the American dream.
Everyone is allowed to use language to express their beliefs—that's one foundational premise of the American experiment that everyone can agree on (though of course in practice it gets more complicated). Language is always political, and the word "illegal" carries powerful implications that it should at least be understood, not thrown around as an abstract umbrella term.
Eden Arielle Gordon is a writer and musician from New York City. Follow her on Twitter at @edenarielmusic.