Analyzing refugees provides an opportunity to problematize standard macroeconomic approaches to economic well-being because refugee communities have no legitimate place within nationalist, neoliberal capitalist structures. Furthermore, once the issue of gender is added to the mix, the problematic and intersectional constraints created by patriarchal, nationalist, and neoliberal institutions are brought into sharp focus, revealing the way each plays a role in contributing to economic vulnerability. In this paper we first develop a theoretical framework for examining how refugee crises can be used to illustrate the limits of neoliberal, patriarchal and nationalist approaches to economic vulnerability. Subsequently, drawing on interviews with NGO and UN employees in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey we explore how as the Syrian response illustrates the problematic ways that nationalism, neoliberalism and patriarchy intersect to shape patterns of economic vulnerability and how solutions proposed both reinforce and are in tension with these three isms. The paper ends with a discussion of the importance of rethinking macroeconomic policy frames, not only to better address the economic vulnerability of refugees but also more generally, with a focus on how studying refugees can inform other vulnerability contexts as well.