Recently, the term “U.S. death line” has been trending across Chinese social media. Originally a term from the gaming world, it’s now being used to describe the financial fragility haunting everyday Americans. Why are so many people in the U.S. just one crisis away from poverty? What does it tell us about the deep-seated institutional gaps in the country’s social safety net? Host Xu Yawen joins Prof. Li Lun, Assistant Professor of Economics at Peking University, and Prof. Josef Gregory Mahoney, Professor of Politics and International Relations at East China Normal University, for a chat.