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Affordability vs. the Poverty Line
An essay went viral by claiming that $140,000 is what a family of four needs to just get by — a number higher than what 70% of American households earn. Conservative economists called it idiotic. Kathryn dismissed it and got a nasty DM. Wha
$79 Trillion Worth of Income Inequality
Our own optimist economist Kathryn Anne Edwards worked on a research project several years ago to measure income inequality. Its massive headline number has taken on a life of its own in columns, talking points, memes. We explain how Kathry
We're Back with a Backlog of Optimism
Hey optimists! Season two of Optimist Economy is finally here. New episodes coming on Tuesdays starting January 27. More at http://www.optimisteconomy.com/
What’s the Skinny on Laws that Make Salaries Public?
Listener Max did his grad thesis on pay transparency laws in Colorado and found that they narrowed the gender wage gap by 8 cents on the dollar. But some big-name economists reported that such laws can actually reduce wages. So what’s the d
Thanksgiving Prep: An Optimist’s Guide to Dinner Table Debate
Your drunk uncle calls Social Security a Ponzi scheme. Your crypto-bro cousin thinks tariffs make China pay. Your grandfather blames working women for tanking wage growth. Economist Kathryn Edwards takes on a dozen hostile dinner-table chal
Retcon on Season One (+ Executive Orderpalooza)
Optimist Economy got its start almost exactly one year ago with a phone call that began, "Hear me out…" Thirty-two episodes later we ask, “What have we done?” Mostly we conditioned ourselves to keep our eye on the ball – the better U.S. eco
How Health Insurance Got Shackled to Jobs
Why is anyone’s health insurance tied to their job? It's because of a superintendent in Dallas, World War II wage freezes, a 1953 tax code quirk, and decades of inertia. This accident of history costs America $384 billion a year in tax brea
Optimist Q&A: Evidence for UBI, What to Do About Billionaires, and Where Will the U.S. Economy Be After Trump?
In the final Q&A of the season, economist Kathryn Edwards answers listener questions on recent universal basic income experiments, legislative budgeting tricks, and the value of more aggressive IRS auditing. She also explains what eradicati
Can We Fix America's Broken Unemployment Insurance System?
Just how broken is Unemployment Insurance? Consider this: During every recession since the 1950s, the federal government has had to step in and prop it up. Of people looking for work, only half qualify for Unemployment Insurance. And just h
The Ghost Recession: A Brief Economic History of Now
The economic pain that Americans experienced in 2022-23 was dubbed the “vibesession,” suggesting that negative public sentiment was out of sync with a healthy economy. But what we were truly experiencing was more like a “ghost recession.” A
The Cash-for-Kids Study: Misread and Misrepresented
You might have heard recently that a years-long poverty study “found” that giving $333 monthly to kids with poor parents didn’t make a difference. But here's why that’s the wrong takeaway: The "Baby's First Years" study wasn't designed to t
The Case for Going Big on Paid Leave
Paid family and medical leave is a confusing mess: only 27% of private-sector workers get paid leave from their employer. Some others are covered by state programs, but those vary. The rest of us scramble to patch together short-term disabi
Aren’t Free School Meals a Conservative's Dream Policy?
Free breakfast and lunch for every public school student — an idea associated more with countries like Sweden and Finland — should instead be viewed as a truly American policy that liberals and conservatives can both love. Want complete mer
Looking Beyond the Unemployment Rate
The unemployment rate has been hovering around 4.2%. But in today’s highly unsettled economy, many people feel this headline number from the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t capture their economic struggles — from slow hiring to working t
GDP Was Never Going to Make You Happy
Gross Domestic Product is the big dog of economic numbers. But this measure of the economy’s size has massive blind spots. It ignores income inequality and citizens’ wellbeing. It rewards consumption and thus environmental degradation. Yes,
How to Actually Help Young Men Struggling in Our Economy
The "boys and men crisis" conversation set in motion following the 2024 election is now shooting off in erratic directions, leading to a lot of hand-wringing about college enrollment, long-gone factory jobs, and “loss of purpose.” Still, me
What You Don’t Know About Poverty
About 11% of Americans have a household income that puts them below the official government threshold for poverty. Is poverty a state of being, or a risk? Are the poor people themselves the root cause of poverty? Or are they the outcome of
Q&A Part 2: Working Two Jobs, Incentives vs. Handouts, the Gold Standard, and Government ROI
Economist Kathryn Edwards is back with more answers. In Part 2, she talks more about student loans, who actually “lives off taxpayers,” why gold reserves aren’t a great idea anymore, the importance of mobility in worker power, and whether R
Q&A Part 1: Tax Philosophy, Liberal vs. Conservative Economists, Marriage vs. Poverty and More
In the first of two mailbag episodes, economist Kathryn Edwards answers questions from optimist listeners on taxation on wages vs. investments, whether student loans are regressive, how bona fide economists wind up on opposite sides of poli
A Million Reasons to Raise the Minimum Wage
The federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour hasn’t been raised since the era of flip phones. Competing bills introduced in Congress recently would set it at $15 or $17. Is that high enough, and how can we ensure it doesn’t fall so far behind
Collective Bargaining Without the Unionization Battles
Labor unions’ public approval has been increasing since 2009, and is now at levels not seen since the 1960s. And yet rates of union membership have been falling. Today just 10% of U.S. workers are represented by a union, and below 6% in the
The Tax We’re 99.93% Sure That You Will Never Pay
The Estate Tax is one that half of Americans worry about, but that affects only the richest 0.07% after they die. For nearly 25 years, the U.S. has – through loopholes and ballooning exemptions – undercut a tax that could pay for some nice
About That College Grad Who Can’t Find a Job…
Newly minted college graduates are having a harder time landing that first job than in recent years. Is it AI? Is college useless? Is it a crisis? (No. No. And not yet.) College graduates under 27 still have much lower unemployment rates (5
Simple Immigration Economics: Bigger is Better
One in five workers in the United States was born in another country. Without them, the country’s prime-age workforce would be shrinking, and thus so would our economy. So the calumny (Terms & Conditions) directed at immigrants is at odds w
Work Requirements Don’t Work
Here’s what work requirements rarely accomplish: Getting more people to work or lifting them out of poverty. They are, however, very good at driving people off public benefit programs, which was their primary role during the welfare reform
The U.S. is in the Hole. Will We Stop Digging?
The national debt is $36 trillion — a panic-inducing big number. So maybe it will help to understand how the U.S. ran up that debt. We’ve blown 37% of it on tax cuts, with precious little to show for that. But 28% went to stabilize the econ
College Rules! But Student Loans are a Hot Mess!
The U.S. government makes student loans because our economy benefits enormously: Improved human capital. Higher earnings for taxpayers. Innovation and productivity gains. (Side note: Education has also been a $50 billion per year “export” b
OE Lightning Round: Kathryn Edwards Takes Your Economy Questions
Kathryn Edwards answers listeners’ economic questions, with her co-host's stopwatch running. In under an hour, we cover risks to U.S. economic data, college tuition, taxes, bonds, degrowth, mortgages, tariffs vs. income taxes, wealth concen
The Invisible Hand Doesn’t Want to Change Diapers
Child care is exhibit A that not everything can be solved by private marketplaces. It is too expensive and too scarce — and as Kathryn Edwards points out, nothing will change that fact. (Maybe you’ve heard someone say that preschool costs m
A Family Bill for a Shrinking U.S.
The declining birth rate in the United States is often discussed not only as a major demographic shift, but as a looming economic disaster. Ideas being pitched to the White House include a $5,000 baby bonus for new parents and (truly) givin
