We Buy an Insane Amount of Cheap Fashion. John Oliver Reminds Us It All Comes at a Huge Price.


Despite decades of outrage over the widespread use of sweatshops and child labor overseas, cheap fashionable garments have continued to prove irresistible to American customers. On the latest Last Week Tonight, John Oliver said the appetite for such low-priced fashion has gotten to the point where Americans now purchase an average 64 new items of clothing every year.

“For the consumer, low prices are fantastic,” Oliver explained. “And nowadays those clothes will even look good because trendy clothing is cheaper than ever and cheap clothing is trendier than ever.”

But Oliver reminds us that all of the cheap fashion we’re scoring comes at an incredibly high moral price. Watch below:

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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