Progress is a Long Game

Summary

Optimist Economy: Episode Summary – "Progress is a Long Game"

Release Date: May 6, 2025

In this engaging episode of Optimist Economy, hosts Kathryn Anne Edwards and Robin Rauzi delve deep into the historical and contemporary challenges of economic policy-making in the United States. Titled "Progress is a Long Game," the episode explores the complexities of implementing significant social policies, using the evolution of child labor laws during the New Deal era as a primary case study. The conversation is enriched with thoughtful reflections, historical insights, and a touch of humor, making it both informative and enjoyable for listeners.

---

1. Building the Optimist Community (00:13 – 02:34)

The episode kicks off with Kathryn and Robin discussing updates to their podcast's infrastructure. They announce the launch of their official website, optimisteconomy.com, where listeners can subscribe, donate, and engage with the community through features like "Letters to the Editor."

Notable Quote:

“It’s an inclusive optimism,” says Kathryn at [01:54], emphasizing their commitment to welcoming diverse feedback, including critical perspectives.

---

2. Retcon: Reflecting on Past Episodes (03:01 – 04:00)

In their regular Retcon segment, Kathryn and Robin revisit topics from previous episodes to provide updates and personal reflections.

• Kathryn’s Retcon: She humorously admits to “collapsing” her timeline to age 22, acknowledging the complexity of her experiences since then. [03:19]

• Robin’s Retcon: She discusses the evolution of paid sick leave laws in California, highlighting the significance of state-level initiatives in shaping labor policies. [04:08]

---

3. Deep Dive: Child Labor and the New Deal (04:13 – 28:38)

The heart of the episode centers on the intricate journey of child labor legislation in the United States, tracing its roots back to the early 20th century and elucidating the prolonged struggle to enact meaningful reforms.

Key Points:

• Historical Struggles: Kathryn outlines the decades-long battle against child labor, from early movements in the 1830s and 1870s to the eventual passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in 1938. [14:16]

• Supreme Court Challenges: The hosts discuss how early child labor laws, like the Keating-Owen Act of 1916, were struck down by the Supreme Court for infringing on parental rights. [22:45]

• Advocacy Efforts: They highlight the multifaceted campaigns led by labor organizers, consumer leagues, and photographers like Lewis Hein, who documented child labor conditions to galvanize public support. [17:23]

• Compromises and Limitations: Kathryn emphasizes that the FLSA, while groundbreaking, was a conservative compromise that only addressed a fraction of child labor issues, leaving many vulnerable children still exploited. [27:57]

Notable Quotes:

“These fights are much longer. And if anything, what is going on in the current administration is proof of that.” – Kathryn [28:46]

“The Fair Labor Standards Act… it’s focused on a specific set of occupations.” – Kathryn [27:22]

---

4. Parallels to Modern Economic Challenges (28:39 – 42:31)

Transitioning from history to the present, Kathryn and Robin draw parallels between past and current economic issues, particularly focusing on demographic shifts and their impact on the labor market.

Key Points:

• Demographic Pressures: Kathryn points out that unlike past economic upheavals, the current challenge stems from demographic changes, notably the retirement of the Baby Boomer generation and the resulting labor shortages. [40:35]

• Labor Market Weaknesses: They discuss how declining workforce participation exposes vulnerabilities in current economic policies and the urgent need for solutions like expanded childcare. [41:22]

• Optimistic Outlook: Despite the daunting challenges, Kathryn maintains an optimistic perspective, believing that informed and persistent advocacy can lead to meaningful progress. [37:58]

Notable Quotes:

“We’re so much closer than our current state reveals.” – Kathryn [37:58]

“We just have to keep fighting because we’ve never been closer.” – Kathryn [37:58]

---

5. Counterpoint: Light-Hearted Executive Orders (42:32 – 50:42)

Balancing the heavy discussion on policy, the Counterpoint segment introduces humor as Kathryn and Robin propose whimsical executive orders.

Highlights:

• Cinnamon Labeling: Robin suggests that any product containing cinnamon should clearly label it as "cinnamon granola" to avoid surprising consumers. [44:17]

• C-SPAN Creativity: Kathryn humorously recommends granting C-SPAN more creative freedom over its programming, envisioning a more dynamic and possibly reality-show-like presentation of congressional proceedings. [46:08]

Notable Quotes:

“It’s an awful flavor.” – Robin on unexpected cinnamon in products [44:36]

“Boost the ratings for sure.” – Robin on the creative C-SPAN proposal [46:56]

---

6. Closing Remarks and Acknowledgments (50:44 – End)

The episode concludes with heartfelt thanks to their team members, producer Sophie and video editor Andy, ensuring smooth production of the podcast.

Spiritual Sponsors:

• Robin’s Sponsor: Griffith Park, lauding its vast hiking trails and iconic landmarks. [48:06]

• Kathryn’s Sponsor: Abby Wambach’s header goal from the 2011 World Cup, symbolizing resilience and triumph. [48:37]

---

Final Thoughts

"Progress is a Long Game" serves as a compelling reminder of the enduring nature of social and economic reforms. By dissecting the historical trajectory of child labor laws and juxtaposing them with present-day challenges, Kathryn and Robin underscore the necessity of patience, persistence, and collective effort in crafting a better economic future. Their optimistic outlook encourages listeners to remain hopeful and proactive, reinforcing the podcast's core message that building a better economy is achievable one problem and solution at a time.

Stay Connected: For show notes, member discussions, and more, visit optimisteconomy.com. Share your questions or economic concerns at [e-mail].

Support the Show: Become a paid member via Substack or show your support on Buy Me a Coffee.

---

This summary captures the essence of the "Progress is a Long Game" episode, highlighting the key discussions and insights shared by Kathryn Anne Edwards and Robin Rauzi.

Transcript

[Katherine]

Oh, what's there to be stressed out?

[Robin]

Have you.

[Katherine]

You read the news or you had your eyes open or you pay attention? Like what? What are you stressed about? Humanity, People. Our country, Democracy. Tell me when I get close.

[Robin]

Marco Polo.

[Katherine]

Hello, and welcome to Optimist Economy. I'm Katherine.

[Robin]

I'm Robin.

[Katherine]

On this show, we believe the US Economy can be better. And we talk about how to get there. One problem and solution at. Well, we are going to start with a quick announcement. Our show now has an official website, optimisteconomy.com in which you can subscribe to the show, in which you can donate to the show. You can donate through our substack. You can donate through Buy me a Coffee. And we've decided that we'd love money. We'd love to have it to support the production of the show. And in fact, it would be pretty useful in maintaining the show to have money for it.

[Robin]

All true.

[Katherine]

All true. And we're also hoping to turn their website into a place for Optimist to gather. Robin did something which I thought was really inspired, which is she started a section, Letters to the Editor, where she publishes letters about the previous episodes. And they've been a delight to read. And I. You can go and find them.

[Robin]

You can. They're there.

[Katherine]

What I appreciate about the ones you picked is that they aren't just like, I love this. Like, they were very thoughtful replies of, like, things that we didn't think of or. Or other points of view that weren't expressed. And I. I really appreciated them.

[Robin]

Yeah, I thought they were all really thoughtful. And I. I want to say they are welcome. We want your feedback. Not just that you like the show and what we can talk about on the show, but also, you know, your critical thoughts about what we're saying.

[Katherine]

It's an inclusive optimism. And Robin did ask their permission before she posted. You won't have to worry that if you send us a letter, it'll just end up there. Yeah, I love it and I loved reading them, so please contribute. We also opened up a sponsorship level where you can give us money to support the production of the show. And one of the sponsorship levels is a spiritual sponsor. It is the highest ticket item. But of course, if you become a spiritual sponsor, you can also give us a message to read on the show. I'm not guaranteeing we'll read it, like, if it's something really inflammatory. I mean, I don't think we're gonna read. This isn't like a contract, but if you gave us a message and Lots of money. We would read it if you want.

[Robin]

A contract like that. We can make arrangements.

[Katherine]

Yeah, we can make arrangements. We do have one spiritual sponsor so far who did not want to be named, but did have a message which was, y' all are doing good shit. So, I mean, hats off to you, sir. Thank you so much. So that is. That is our plug and just another step in building the optimist community. So thank you for your time there. Now we can go straight to Retcon.

[Robin]

For our new listeners, because I'm sure we're getting them every day. Retcon stands for retroactive continuity, and this is where we talk about things that we actually talked about in our last episode and offer any updates or things that we thought about since then. Katherine, what's on your Retcon list this week?

[Katherine]

So mine's actually from a few episodes back, but in the Social Security episode, I said that I was commissioned to write an explainer about Social Security when I was 22. I was 24.

[Robin]

I'm glad that we're on the record about that.

[Katherine]

I thought about it, and I. You know, the four years between college and grad school, I just kind of collapse everything to age 22. Not just for, like, when did I write this thing about Social Security? Like, everything that happens happens at age 22. And then I go to grad school, and I'm, like, 30 for, like, another 15 years.

[Robin]

We call that. At our house. We call that the collapsing 90s. Like, they just telescope down.

[Katherine]

For you.

[Robin]

Apparently, it's later, but, you know, I get it.

[Katherine]

I'm just. Everything was 22, and then it was like a whole bunch of shit happened when I was 30, probably about 10, 15 years worth of stuff. And I'm about to turn another age soon, so that'll be a really big deal for me. But, yeah, that was my Retcon.

[Robin]

Great, Great. I was thinking about paid leave, paid sick leave, which is.

[Katherine]

Oh, is yours a real. Yours is a real Retcon?

[Robin]

Yeah, it is a real retcon. Because I was curious, I knew that in California, where I live, we have paid sick leave. And in fact, California updated its law, and it's pretty remarkable. The update started this year, I believe, and basically, temp workers, seasonal workers. If you work more than 30 days for any employer, you get paid sick leave in California. California wasn't the first state to implement this. Connecticut, I believe, was, but California came on shortly thereafter. But anyway, 21 states and the District of Columbia actually already have paid sick leave for employees in the United States. And it's so surprising that that many people could be covered by this already and that there would be resistance at the federal level.

[Katherine]

It's through their state and city actions that we have so much good evidence about why paid sick leaves are so beneficial to the economy and to workers.

[Robin]

Right. And I put that study up on the show notes the one in about Seattle.

[Katherine]

Okay, terms and conditions. Do you have any. Do you have any fun ones this week?

[Robin]

I don't know if this is fun or not, but we can cut it in post if it's not. I looked up animal spirits, which, you know, is. Is a term that apparently comes from John Maynard Keynes.

[Katherine]

Keynes.

[Robin]

Keynes.

[Katherine]

We say canes.

[Robin]

Canes.

[Katherine]

Oh. Be a first year grad student and say, keen as I'm not coming from like a place of judgment. I'm coming from a place of experience. This old hick from Texas doesn't say things right the first time. So if I've learned, you can now learn. They say canes.

[Robin]

Canes. It's from one of his books about that overarching macroeconomics. But he basically says that markets aren't perfectly mathematical, that there is this human element to decisions about how markets move, particularly in moments of stress and panic. And he calls this the animal spirits, which I thought was pretty great term.

[Katherine]

There's a book called Animal Spirits, which I would actually really recommend called How Human Psychology Drives the Economy. And it's fascinating, but it's all about essentially making bad decisions. Like if you were just to lay out like the economic path of like, make it a strict numbers decision. And this is how economists build our understanding of the economy. People will be like, well, I picked the wrong thing every time. And I think it's also taken on a broader meaning of animal spirits of a two way street of not just how people act in the economy, but also how people react to the economy. And so I've been using animal spirits interchangeably with vibes lately. You have this notion, updated for the nomenclature of the day, that there's more to the economy than just the data and the numbers and the cold calculating decisions. I think he had brought it up a lot more for things like panics.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Katherine]

And how situations get worse for no economic reason but for psychological reasons.

[Robin]

Right, right. The fundamentals may still be there, but people freak out. Yeah. But Anne, the book you're talking about is not by Keynes.

[Katherine]

It's not by Mr. Quinez. It is by George Akerloff and Robert Schiller. Akerlof has won the Nobel Prize I.

[Robin]

Don'T think is Shiller is in the case. Shiller Housing Index. That's Shiller.

[Katherine]

Yes, that's Shiller. I'm pretty sure it's that Shiller Akerlof has won the Nobel Prize. And he's probably one of few Nobel Prize winning economists who has a more famous economist wife in Janet Yellen.

[Robin]

Oh.

[Katherine]

So he, he like I've, I've heard him give speeches where he's like this Nobel Prize winner and he's like, oh yeah, I'm, nobody knows which one I am because his, because his wife is Janet Yellen. And so he, he's like, I'm, I'm kind of the lagger in the couple, which is amazing.

[Robin]

Excellent. Did you have anything to add on the terms and conditions front?

[Katherine]

I mean, Vibes.

[Robin]

The saris version of Katherine Vibes. Yeah.

[Katherine]

Okay.

[Robin]

All right. So today, speaking of our tens of tens of listeners, and there are more than tens of you we know now because I answered a lot of your email. When I answered email, I told people I've added your questions, your worries, your things you'd like us to talk about on this list. And this list is, I think it's nine pages long of copied text from emails. But one that kind of stood out to me right now came in two different letters. Should I read these letters?

[Katherine]

Yeah.

[Robin]

Okay. So one is from Ben, who lives in Richmond, Virginia. And I want to say again, I contacted these people, they said I could read these. He said, what political conditions beside Broadleigh's gesture at the Great Depression existed to pass so much of the social welfare programs that we have today? Why was it easy then but so hard now? Or was it hard and politically dangerous and the history books just don't cover it that way? And then Sharon, who lives in Washington, D.C. also sent in a question that was similarly about the New Deal. She says, related to this, can you talk about the social pressures that contributed to the very wealthy being willing to relinquish control with FDR's new deal? I don't see any reason why the wealthy would accept a higher tax rate today. It doesn't benefit them. And since they seem to hold the keys of power, it seems unlikely to happen. However, historically it has happened and I would love to hear why. So we thought that this would be a good jumping off point for a conversation today and see where it takes us.

[Katherine]

These are great questions. Thank you so much for writing them in, Ben and Sharon.

[Robin]

Yeah, I thought they were too. And I guess where I'm going to start is I think that we're always living through history, but there are moments that it feels very acute to us. And this is probably one of those moments. And at least for me, and I think, like Ben and Sharon makes you think, is there a parallel moment in history? And if so, what is it? And what do we have to learn from it? So I put these to Catherine and I was. And she said, you know, it's the long game. Like this stuff did not happen quickly.

[Katherine]

Robin's got that shirt. Not an economist. I have another shirt that says not a historian. This is coming from the lens of someone who looks at policy in order to understand how to design it and implement it. But I am not a historian.

[Robin]

That's fair.

[Katherine]

So acknowledging that we don't know what we're talking about, should we dive right in? So when Robin showed me these questions and we were thinking about what we wanted to talk about, my first thought was, social policy is a long game. And we kind of cluster that part of history into the New Deal. And I think the shortest answer to both of these questions would be that the New Deal, for being as formative as we think about it in our economy, in society, it was not like the, like the high watermark of liberalism. If anything, it was a compromise and it was not the most radical proposal by far. And it was in some ways watered down, especially at passage. And then really its legacy comes from what was added after the fact that it's less of a crucible moment on the front end because there were decades of social fighting in progress and in lawsuits and Supreme Court cases that were cruel that preceded the New Deal. And then afterwards, I mean, it was corrected and improved upon for decades after it had passed. And so we think about this moment, which is important, but it was not. It didn't all happen in three years. It didn't even all happen in the Great Depression. I mean, we're talking about, you could probably squeeze 100 years of social and economic policy history, history in which the New Deal was a big turning point, but it wasn't. I wouldn't even say it was a high water mark.

[Robin]

And I do think we're taught the Great Depression. Again, talk about the telescoping 90s. It's like the telescoping 30s. They just, you know, and then there was the Depression and then there was the war. And that's sort of how we, how we learn it. I mean, you said, what did you tell me the other day? Like, we think that like FDR came into office with all this policy in his back pocket and that they just rolled them out in response to the Depression. But it took, I mean, years. Right.

[Katherine]

Even after he was elected, it took years to get his agenda passed. And the Social Security act passed in 35 after he had had, I mean, just crushed some midterms. But he didn't get the Fair labor standards act till 38, until he had been reelected. He had a historic hundred days of a bunch of stuff that was eventually all ended by the Supreme Court. I wanted to think of an example to explain what I mean about the front end and the back end to the New Deal and how it was more of a conservative compromise. And so I think noting, of course, the theme of the show is optimism.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Katherine]

I want to talk about child labor and dwell on just how hard it was to ban child labor in the US which we actually still have, kind of. And whether or not we even did it to protect children.

[Robin]

Right.

[Katherine]

All right. So the Fair Labor Standards act of 1938 sets out some pretty strict rules of the labor of children. You know, they can't work under 14 unless they're a paper boy or a babysitter. This is like a thing that even if I talk about child labor resurging today and, you know, the horrific cases of child labor we found in the US I will get someone responding like.

[Robin]

But what about my paper boy?

[Katherine]

But I had a paper boy. I have to be like, your paper route is protected. And also, we don't have those anymore.

[Robin]

But I understand your paper is coming by fax machine.

[Katherine]

We have a fax machine route, but it comes into law in 1938. And this is the foundation for prohibiting child labor. You can't work under a certain age. Your hours are limited. When you're in the school year, you can't work too late. And there are certain jobs that you simply cannot do. Anything too high, anything too sharp, you're not supposed to have kids there.

[Robin]

That's fair.

[Katherine]

Yeah. So even like a deli, you're not supposed to have someone under 18 in a deli. So that law was really a weak compromise, even though we see it now of like, oh, in the New Deal, they banned child labor. I think it was a victory for sure and one that we look back on and built a very liberal foundation for prohibiting child labor in the United States. But it was not the victory they wanted, and it didn't come quickly. So, I mean, the earliest movements for child labor in the U.S. go back to. To the 1830s in Massachusetts.

[Robin]

The earliest to ban child labor or restrict it.

[Katherine]

Yeah. Because what has to happen in the United States for child labor to be banned is that we have to go from the paper boy. It's good for them. It prevents idleness. You know, we need to send these kids to work so that they'll be industrious and learn things and be responsible, and that's what they need as children. And like, that is the accepted norm. Two, child labor is the result of the exploitation of capitalism. It's destructive to children and families, and we need to send them to school and protect them from working. And in between is this kind of background argument of like, they're unskilled and cheap in competing with adults. And there's lots of. I mean, there's instances of child labor, like, in the 1870s that are horrifying and like, it's going to be another 60 years before it's banned.

[Robin]

On a phenomenal, like, well known at the time, cases of child labor in the 1870s.

[Katherine]

There's actually an article from like 1871, 72 in the new York Times where they're bringing up an editorial of an Italian indentured service that brings children from Italy to quote, unquote, go to music school, but then forces them into busking on the street as street performers and musicians. It's run by a group of Italian men called the Padrones. And the New York Times says, why would we need to get slaves from Africa? We get children from Italy. And that's like a direct quote from the article in the 1870s. So it's not as if we didn't. Like we decided in 1937, child labor was wrong. And then in 1938, like, we did it, there were rumblings for a really long time. What pushed child labor to the forefront is so many more children started working. And by the early 1900s, like one in five kids under 15 are working.

[Robin]

And is that due to the kind of urbanization and moving off of farms or immigration or what's the.

[Katherine]

It's urbanization, immigration and industrialization. And you just, you had a lot of jobs that children would do in. In coal mine. Their biggest employers were cotton mills.

[Robin]

Great.

[Katherine]

Oh, yeah, fantastic stuff. Coal mines and industrial occupations. And then they were on the street, they were delivering things. They were like newsies selling things on the street. They were forced buskers, as in this case of the. The Italians. Even as early as like 18.

[Robin]

The.

[Katherine]

American Federation of Labor is saying we need to ban child labor because it's going to undercut the wages and opportunities for adult workers because they'll just.

[Robin]

They'll continue to get undercut.

[Katherine]

They'll continue to get undercut. I say all this, I mean, I think the fast forwarded version would be. Think of how early that is relative to the first federal child labor law that is upheld by the Supreme Court. I mean, you're Talking about like 70 years between rumblings of child labor being a problem, between workers saying it might not be good to have child labor to a multi decade child labor campaign being successful on the federal level. So there's some real, like, it's not like they weren't organized and they didn't fight. So I think the movement itself, despite rumblings, the movement against child labor and the idea that child labor needs to be prohibited really takes off around 1900. And you have labor organizers, you have members of the clergy, you have people who are social workers and work in settlement households, houses, and they kind of band together to say, we need to stop child labor. And they had a multi fronted campaign to do this. They had a PR campaign. So they hired a photographer named Lewis Hein and he spent a decade going around the United States taking photographs of children working. And that was his one mandate, just photograph them on the job. He had to sneak into places, he had to be very surreptitious in his photo taking. And every picture you see, that's like a grainy black and white photo of a kid in a factory, it was probably taken by this guy who they had hired and told him, you know, go out and take photos of children working.

[Robin]

Wow.

[Katherine]

They started consumer leagues, the national consumer League. And they started this campaign called the white label campaign which would products that weren't made with child labor were given a special white label so that you would know you were supporting producers that weren't relying on child labor.

[Robin]

I'm like, this is the social media campaign and you know, environmental cotton campaign of its day.

[Katherine]

And a lot of it starts around child labor. We do not want to support businesses that use this labor or factories that use this labor. And they, they organize. The whole idea of you need to be a responsible consumer comes from child labor, really. And then the other thing they do is they set up kind of permanent fact finding campaigns because they want data and they want evidence. So the first time they do it, they commission the Bureau of Labor Statistics in conjunction with Roosevelt or Teddy Roosevelt as president to do like a fact finding mission of what is the actual state of children working? And almost taking it from a perspective of like, is it even that bad? Do they really need the money? Are their conditions so terrible? I mean, they do a two year study I could talk about. I just want you to know first, I am grateful that I get to go back to the 1830s and the 1870s in this one. But the drama caused by the Bureau of Labor Statistics trying to find out if working children had good labor conditions is so high stakes and incredible. The commissioner does this report when he goes up to be reconfirmed and is reappointed. The Southern Democrats are still so upset that he said that child labor is worse in the south and there aren't good conditions there that they try to block his nomination. They come up with a pressure campaign where they come up with all these lies and have people come forward to say, like, the commissioner is not a good administrator and he steals money and he goes on really long vacations and like, he's biased against the south and he hates Democrats and if a Democrat works for me, he gets fired. This guy was like, oh, that's really interesting. I think you should hire an outside law firm to independently investigate my performance on the job for the past six years. They hire the law firm, the law firm holds all these hearings. The law firm comes back and says, we think he's clear, he's really good at his job. This was just a smear campaign. Then he gets reappointed and two weeks later he resigns. And he's like, yeah, I wasn't ever going to do another term. It's just that I didn't want to not have a term and have you think that that campaign was going to be successful. So once I cleared my name and showed you that you wanted me for the job, he quit two weeks later. It was like a four month battle. And he was like, yeah, okay, I'm out. And it all, it all came down to the fact that Democrats in the south, where cotton mills were, did not like that he had, you know, essentially found out so much about child labor in cotton mills in the south. They had the highest share of children working.

[Robin]

Yeah, they had the little, good, good little fingers, Right?

[Katherine]

The good little fingers and the spinners. But like, yeah, you use your tiny little fingers and you're spinning and you're making cotton. And they were not necessarily the largest employer of child labor, but they had the highest share of children of their total workforce. And so they were deeply opposed to any child labor legislation.

[Robin]

Right.

[Katherine]

And anyone who was trying to convince them otherwise. So, like, the next big story in the child labor fight is in 1906, the first child labor law is introduced into Congress for a federal Legislation again. This is 32 years before the Fair Labor Standards Act. The law is defeated by Southern Democrats, but 10 years later, they are successful in Congress in passing a child labor law. And it's struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional.

[Robin]

Really?

[Katherine]

Yes. So it's called the Keating Owen Act. It passed in 1916. It prohibited, I mean, really, it's even less prohibited so much as deeply regulating child labor. And the Supreme Court overturns it and says it's not constitutional. So then they pass.

[Robin]

I'm sorry, on what basis? So your parents get to decide if you're going to work or not? Yes. Is it parental rights?

[Katherine]

Yes, it's under parental rights. I was like, I mean, if I'm wearing. Not a historian on the front, I have to have an all caps on the back. Not a lawyer, but me either. But, you know, there's a parental rights case, like you are telling a parent whether or not their kid is allowed to work, and that violates parental rights. And so they overturned the first federal child labor labor law.

[Robin]

Because parents own their children.

[Katherine]

Because parents own their children. Then Congress is like, okay, well, you know what? We're going to pass a tax that if you employ children as a business, you have to pay more in taxes. And the Supreme Court overthrows that too.

[Robin]

Were they trying to level it out? Like, you can use children, but. But you're gonna have to spend as much as you're gonna spend on adults?

[Katherine]

Yes, basically. What if you make up for in. In wages because you're employing children? We're gonna, we're gonna hit you with taxes. And even though Pretty sure Article 1 says taxes and spending lies with Congress, the Supreme Court's like, actually, that's unconstitutional too. So I feel like there should be some parallels now to feeling like the Supreme Court is standing in the way of progress, that people want.

[Robin]

Right.

[Katherine]

And that people want to have certain things. And the Supreme Court is just like gladiator style saying thumbs down. And they're standing in the way of where people want to go, where law has already gone. And it feels almost, you know, like dictatorial that they get to come in and do this. That child labor activists. I mean, this was such a blow. So then they decided that they, because they couldn't get past the constitutionality, according to the Supreme Court, they passed a constitutional amendment. This was going to be the 20th amendment to the Constitution. It passed in 1924. I think it was called the Child Amendment or the Child Labor Amendment.

[Robin]

And they, they. This is, I'm sorry, you're saying Congress.

[Katherine]

Passed this, and Congress passed a constitutional amendment, and they even got 28 states to ratify it. They weren't that far away. I think they were 10 states off. And this was their answer of like, okay, well, if we change the Constitution, the Supreme Court can't rule unconstitutional. And the campaign against this amendment and where ratification failed, I mean, y' all, there's just so many echoes. Right. Like it's parental rights.

[Robin]

Right.

[Katherine]

They basically turned it into a cultural war that they're not trying to regulate businesses, they're trying to regulate families, you know, and that this is what you can do with your children. And businesses should have the freedom to make decisions and not have the government get in the way and squash enterprise. Yikes, yikes, yikes. And they. They were successful.

[Robin]

So we should note that there are people who think that children should work now.

[Katherine]

Yes.

[Robin]

They just try passed some liberalization of child labor.

[Katherine]

And was it Florida, Florida, Arkansas, a couple other states? I think Florida and Arkansas were the worst. So then that is the like part.

[Robin]

So, yeah. What were 19, 20, what'd you say?

[Katherine]

Now we're getting into the 1930s, right. Then the Great Depression hits, and this cultural argument doesn't have as much sway for the number of adults out of work. The labor argument, the economic argument, it becomes much more.

[Robin]

We need the adults to be able to make a living.

[Katherine]

We need the adults to be able to make a living, and it's not good for children anyway. And I mean, of course, going on the whole time is the move to increase compulsory education, which also gets a lot more support during the Depression of like, we should not have these kids competing for jobs and we prohibit child labor in the Fair Labor Standards act, which, I mean, really, people were not convinced that the Supreme Court was going to uphold it. They did. But the flsa, when it was passed in relation to child labor, I mean, it was estimated that it was, you know, 10% of actual children working were going to be immediately affected by it. I mean, the vast majority of occupations in which there were children were not under the legislation. It was focused on a specific set of occupations. So they passed this federal law, but it's not like the law is really simple, like, no children can work.

[Robin]

Right. He was very specific about certain industries.

[Katherine]

And, like ages of the kid and times of day and things like that. And it didn't. And because of the way it was written, it didn't cover actually that many child workers, really.

[Robin]

So when you were saying it's 10%, it was like only about 10% of children. Who are in the worst, one assumes worse conditions would be covered by this law.

[Katherine]

You took all kids who were working in 38. It was really just a fraction of them that were protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act. So it's a conservative compromise, watered down from what they had wanted, but it ends up being the basis for the continued child labor movement. We got this marker federal law prohibiting and regulating child labor.

[Robin]

But that wasn't the end of the fight.

[Katherine]

That wasn't the end of the fight. Especially because we relaxed it in World War II. But then we got up strong again and we did relax it. We did relax it in World War II. I mean, it only just passed.

[Robin]

I mean, come on, we got some ships to build.

[Katherine]

We gotta build stuff. So we need.

[Robin]

Little fingers are really good.

[Katherine]

Yeah, little fingers at it. I mean, we were already putting women to work. Can you believe it? I mean, so it's, it's the fight continues and you see that same cultural argument somewhere else. And so I, I take a lot of comfort in kind of the history of the child advocate movement and the trying to ban child labor movement because it just cements like these things don't happen overnight. You become aware and upset about a problem and it can feel like overnight.

[Robin]

Right.

[Katherine]

But that's. These fights are much longer. And if anything, what is going on in the current administration is proof of that. Just having a limited mandate to follow through with radical action is jarring on so many levels. And then the kind of this need to relish the people who were wrong, you know, like, oh, they voted for him and their tariffs are going to crush him of like, well, you know, it doesn't. This is why social movements tend to be long because you get people on board with the solution so that it's accepted and it's permanent and we don't have whipsaw policy changes in our economy. There's a trade off to going slow, which I recognize, but there are some benefits for being deliberate.

[Robin]

Right, right.

[Katherine]

And child labor gauze did get stronger.

[Robin]

And when did they get stronger?

[Katherine]

They got stronger. You know, basically all the way up until like three years ago.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Katherine]

They were mainly just one. A story of one direction of getting stronger. And the federal government sets the floor and most state governments go above the floor. There's lots of provisions that could be stronger. But I mean, you know, there was a resurgence of child labor recently. There's really only three types of child labor violations. Either the kid's too young, they're working too long, or they're in a place they're not supposed to be. The vast majority of child labor violations in the US Are kids working too long. The too young one doesn't happen too often. You can work when you're 14 in certain jobs for a limited number of hours. Then when you turn 16, you can work for more hours. And then when you turn 18, you can work in more occupations. Most of the time it's kids in retail sectors who are working too long where, like, it's a school night or like it's. It's during the week. You can't work kids more than three hours, but like, they'll be at McDonald's and stay for seven. Those are the typical violations and I think would characterize the vast majority of child labor in the United States. What came up in the Biden administration, this, this like, flourishing of child labor was a bunch of kids who were in places they weren't supposed to be, which we had not seen, especially to that degree, for a really long time. But it was like staffing agencies. Would you hire a cleaner to clean your poultry factory, Your poultry factory, your slaughterhouse? And the cleaner is like, okay, we have a staff that's going to come do it, and the staff has children on it. And then they all claim that none of them knew that they were children. And one of the violations, the reason why they were found, is that there was another labor regulatory agency there. I think it was osha. The inspector looked over and like someone walked in with a pink sparkly backpack and they were like, well, I think you have children working here. It was a function of the fact that most of those kids were kids who came across the border as asylum seekers and they were unaccompanied and they were taken advantage of in the United States in an absolutely disgusting way. It was not like the law in Arkansas of like, we need to give parents more rights over kids work schedules was not. It was a development that was not in response to what was the crisis. The crisis was you had a lot of kids who didn't speak English, who didn't have family in this country who were being employed in places the law says they weren't supposed to be. And then they're kind of going back and under business pressure saying, like, actually kids can work six hours on a weekday, or like, actually you don't need your parents permission to work when you're 15, because that's a parent's right. You know, it's just. It's like stuff like that. So, you know, the fight continues.

[Robin]

Yeah, yeah. Can you talk at all about what was going on, though, during the actual New Deal, about, you know, I mean, I think both of these questions that we got really have to do with conditions of the moment. And I know, and what you're. I mean, what you're talking about is that things that we might see happen now are things that maybe started long ago. Right. But did you, when you were doing your reading, you're not, not a historian reading on this. Like, was it the economic conditions, though, that led laborers to say, hey, maybe we need to get. We need to stop having competition from 12 year olds who will get paid pennies on the dollar.

[Katherine]

Right. Also, when we passed some of our strictest immigration law and most racist immigration law was around the same time.

[Robin]

So.

[Katherine]

You know, the other thing, and I think this gets more to the, to Sharon's question about, like, why were the wealthy even willing to give up taxes? Like, what was in it for them? I would hazard a guess that, you know, for example, like, the Social Security act was by far the least crazy radical proposal that was around at the time. I mean, with this economic distress came a blossoming of policy proposals. Some of them who came from, like, a guy who had a radio show who was kind of crazy. So, like, look at us, Robin. Look at us, you know, or like, like a guy who was. Had like a lot of failed professions, but who was a doctor who wrote like an editorial. And like, I want to say it was like the Long Beach City newspaper or some Southern California newspaper wrote an editorial that was like, all people over 60 should get $500 a month. And it's like tens of millions of people joined clubs to promote this plan. That was the Townsend Plan. You had Huey P. Long. Every man a king.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Katherine]

You know, his proposal was Share Our Wealth. So I mean, like, you can already tell that rich people aren't going to like that one. But, you know, he was, he was incredibly popular. And Share Our wealth was like, every family gets money. You had people who were trying to nationalize banks who thought that the best way to get out of the Depression was to deliberately inflate the currency. Upton Sinclair ran for governor of California under the EPIC plan End Poverty in California. And his 12 point plan included all kinds of, like, very radical proposals. I mean, most of them, they weren't all radical, but they felt radical at the time. And so I think the New Deal, we see it as, like the evolution. We don't see what it beat out on the policy side. Like, we see what it moved past. Right. Like, we now have Social Security. We now have an unemployment program, you know, in the Fair Labor Standards act was quick on its heels. And the National Labor Relations act was quick on its heels. And so we see all of these things as, like, the bad guy, right? Yeah, it's a big jump. Like, the bad guy that we defeated was lack of movement in the before. And then what we won was the New Deal. And I think at the time, it was like, man, there's a lot of crazy shit out there. And this rich cat from New York, it's kind of got some reasonable stuff to say, you know, like, we. We don't see the fight as they experienced it, which was so much outpouring for so many things that were more radical. I mean, the Townsend Plan. The Townsend Plan stayed popular, like, through the 50s.

[Robin]

People love a simple. A simple.

[Katherine]

People love a simple plan.

[Robin]

I mean, it's, you know, flat tax and all that.

[Katherine]

Flat tax. And we all get money. People loved it.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Katherine]

People still love flat tax when we all get money.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Katherine]

So maybe just the moment is less special. I mean. No, it's still special. I don't think that that's fair. It's. The New Deal is special, but I don't know.

[Robin]

Our view of it isn't complete. Our view of it is very low resolution.

[Katherine]

I don't know if it was necessarily this moment of, like, you know, oh, well, let's get ready for terms and conditions next week. Is it like, okay, lightning in a bottle, flash in a pan? I'm thinking of, like, that, like, special moment, maybe Flash in the pan.

[Robin]

No, maybe lightning in a bottle is something. Yeah. That just. Yeah, I think that's what you're getting toward. I'm not sure yet.

[Katherine]

I'm not sure.

[Robin]

Finished your sentence.

[Katherine]

Wow, Robin, sometimes you're such an editor about this. Sorry, I can't actually tell what you're saying if you don't ever finish what you're trying to say.

[Robin]

More words need more context.

[Katherine]

We think of this as this, like, historically special moment. The Depression was bad. The politician was amazing. And we get all these things, and then we confine it, we compress it to age 22. But really, you know, there was a lifetime there. More than a lifetime. Yeah, a lot of lifetimes. And I take that as a very inspiring lesson for the current moment, frankly, because this is the process. This is the process for American social policy. We take a really long time. We're very deliberate. We do a lot of stuff in states. First, we have state campaigns, we have federal campaigns. It comes down to how good your PR Guy is and how good of a story you can tell. And then sometimes the economy tips in your favor and you take advantage of the moment, and there's big change. But I think people might be more doomeristic about where we are now. When I'm of the mind, like, we're closer than we've ever been. And for a lot of this stuff, I'm like, it's in reach.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Katherine]

We just have to keep fighting because we've never been closer.

[Robin]

Yeah. Yeah. That sounds optimistic to me. Yes. So let's stop talking.

[Katherine]

We should stop or hold on.

[Robin]

Counterpoint.

[Katherine]

Can I keep going? I know we're laughing, but I do actually want to keep going.

[Robin]

All right.

[Katherine]

So the undercurrent to a lot of things that happened in the New Deal was an economy turned on its head. And I think that that teaches us in some ways the wrong lesson. That we're like, oh, when the economy's bad, we should be able to accomplish things.

[Robin]

Right. Yeah. That we're in a. Never let a crisis go.

[Katherine]

Never let a crisis go to waste.

[Robin]

Go to waste. Yeah.

[Katherine]

Yeah. And that we were like, oh, because good stuff happened right after the Depression. Every time there's a recession, something good should happen for us. Y' all. There have been 13 recessions since World War II. And you do not associate them with this advance in policy. Yeah. And you're not like, oh, yeah. And then after the 73 recession, then we got. Then we got crickets, long silence. What about the double recession at the start of the 80s? And then we got. Not going to say anything else.

[Robin]

And then we just cut to dead air.

[Katherine]

Just got to dinner. I think of the Simpsons cutaway of technical difficulties. But this Great Depression, ergo, social policy, is also, for me, it's not the right lesson. I mean, the Great Depression was a pressure point that kind of. In some ways, lots of things happened at the same time. But I don't think that it has to come from the economy. I think where it's going to come from now is demographics. So the baby boomers, it's officially defined as individuals born between 1946 and 1964. That is the census definition of the baby boom in the United States Based on birth rates in other countries, it's different. The youngest baby boomer is 61, and they are mostly retired now. We're not getting smaller. There was just a lot of them. As long as the baby boomers were in their prime working years, we had a ton of people willing to work in the United States. And it was a Numbers game. And the numbers game was I don't have to do anything to increase labor force participation. I don't need to make sure they're that well paid. Like, I've got this, I've got this massive tailwind which is huge population that wants to be working. As they get smaller, they are leaving in their wake all of the decisions that we didn't have to make before.

[Robin]

And you're not saying the generation is getting smaller, you're saying as they make up a smaller part of the workforce.

[Katherine]

So the fact that they're leaving exposes the labor market's weaknesses, especially when it comes to policy. And so I don't think the undercurrent or the ticking clock is a Great depression or an economic upheaval. We've gotten better at managing them. We've had more of them. We understand how they work and how to get past them. And we have experience getting past even horrible recessions. What we do not have experience getting past is a demographic shift of this nature, especially for the pressures it puts on the labor market and workers. And at some point, I don't care if Congress doesn't like children or child care, they need more warm bodies. And childcare is a really effective way to get more people to work.

[Robin]

You could just put the 7 year olds back in the factory.

[Katherine]

Yeah, but for me, for me, I'm kind of like, this is death throw. Like, I mean, the idea that they're like, hey, we can't have child care, but we can get more 14 year olds in the labor force is like, y' all are desperate and you're clinging at grasping at straws.

[Robin]

Grasping at straws.

[Katherine]

Grasping at straws. Wow. I learned so much. They're grasping at straws. And so I'm like, I'm like incredibly optimistic. Like 10 years. The childcare industry will probably collapse before then and we're gonna have to get more people.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Katherine]

Even if we weren't taking a radical term on immigration, immigration would not be enough. But we need to have policies that make it easier to work. And so I think this will affect huge change. And like that will be our Great Depression. The cataclysmic not before seen, not really sure how to understand, but exposes so much that's wrong with our economy. It is coming from these demographic shifts.

[Robin]

Yeah, we should do a whole, we'll do a whole show on the demographic shifts. I think that's a really fascinating topic. I say that as if I decide what we're going to talk about every week. Well, at some Point, Catherine. I'll let you talk about that.

[Katherine]

Honestly, this works really great for me. I'm the top on the table. You spin me. And I'm like, okay, child labor. I mean, there's so much more to say on these topics and these problems that are still ongoing. But I think you can't be depressed that the problems are still ongoing. You just have to see where the progress we've made and the fight being in front of us should not be depressing when you see how much fight we've already had. Maybe that is depressing to people. Actually, it doesn't. It doesn't. I mean, I said it out loud and I'm like, isn't it good to know we've been doing this for a long time? And I'm like, maybe that actually doesn't make people feel better. You know what? I'm the optimist. Y' all just get. You can just do thumbs up every episode. We ought to do a little poll. Are you more optimistic at the end.

[Robin]

Of this or not? Yeah.

[Katherine]

Well, I'm thriving. Oh, my God. I empathize so much with these questions, too, because it's so tough. It's so frustrating. We have these just such massive problems in our economy. And you're like, oh, okay, let's do tariffs. Cool. Because that's going to help me afford child care. Or a house.

[Robin]

Or a house. Or hell, a car.

[Katherine]

Hell, you know what? Mess with mortgage rates. That's really. That's really helping.

[Robin]

Exactly.

[Katherine]

The problems of the present moment can seem overwhelming, but I think they aren't a problem of a day, and they aren't fixed in a day. And we're so much closer than our current state reveals. Okay, let's do executive orders.

[Robin]

Let's do executive orders. Yours looks really serious. Mine looks really silly. Okay.

[Katherine]

Oh, no, mine's pretty silly.

[Robin]

Okay. Can I go first?

[Katherine]

Yeah.

[Robin]

So this is really. On behalf of my spouse, we believe that there should be. If you're going to put cinnamon in anything, you need to label it. You need it. It needs to be called cinnamon granola. Because you know what? Cinnamon is not a neutral flavor. You can't just slide it into things and people aren't going to notice. Just be honest with us about where the cinnamon is.

[Katherine]

I think cinnamon is such a neutral flavor.

[Robin]

It's awful. It's an awful flavor.

[Katherine]

You don't like. You don't like cinnamon?

[Robin]

I like cinnamon in certain things, but I don't like it to surprise me in things that were not like ice cream, that were Supposed to be like fudge swirl.

[Katherine]

Okay. You don't. You don't approve of the cinnamon hegemony that's taken over the. I don't know, it's like the sweets business, the corn.

[Robin]

Corn syrup business. Just putting it in everything.

[Katherine]

I just think that whenever I have a recipe that calls for cinnamon, like, especially in a baked good, would be like. And use a teaspoon of cinnamon. And I'm like. Or three tablespoons. That's like, God, throw it in there. Because I feel like when you bake it, it loses a lot of its punch.

[Robin]

Yeah. Okay, well, that's fine.

[Katherine]

Which apparently is okay. Mine. Mine is more petty. I don't know.

[Robin]

I'm sorry. More. More petty than sorry.

[Katherine]

I don't mean that you're petty. I mean, mine is like, of the petty variety. I feel like yours is of the, like, exacting of like. Come on. It's too much cinnamon.

[Robin]

Thanks.

[Katherine]

This is a standard, and this standard needs to be met. I appreciate that. Mine is like. You know what would be kind of fun? Okay. If you let C SPAN have creative control over its programming. So I don't know if any of you remember this, but the Republicans have a very hard time electing a leader, and they couldn't take majority control of Congress until they had elected a leader. Well, that is when a lot of us learned that the majority in Congress dictates to C Span how it can cover things like proceedings on the House floor. And when they didn't have anyone telling them what they could do, it was like, high stakes drama. And they would like, zoom in on people talking and they would like, you know, the camera would, like, move across the floor and you would see people talking and they're like, no, no, don't show me talking to him. And then they would, like, move away way. I loved it. And I mean, like, I want C Span to have a little bit more creative control over how they depict Congress. Because the reason why C Span, especially when it's covering congressional events, they're. They're regulated by the majority of how they are allowed to do that. Like, it's a fixed point of view. You never move off the speaker, or you can use these three angles, but apparently when you let them have fun with it, it's kind of wild.

[Robin]

I like this idea. Boost the ratings for sure.

[Katherine]

Boost the ratings for sure. And then I think within 10 years, this will devolve into some kind of like, reality show type situation where C SPAN has like, no fewer than 50 cameras going at any time. And like any hearing room has got like the over the shoulder camera where you're like, jesus, C Span, give me some privacy. Like, sure. I mean, I don't think it's gonna stay good. I think it'll start fun and then it might just evolve like so many other things related to media. However, I mean, let's have some fun with it. So that is my executive order. C Span should have more fun.

[Robin]

Here we are again at the end of an episode where we thank our spiritual sponsors who are what we have in the meantime before we have our financial sponsors.

[Katherine]

But we should clarify. We did get actually a lot of questions about this. We will always have spiritual sponsors even if we get actual non spiritual money. I had several comments on social media that was like, please don't get rid of that.

[Robin]

Don't ever get rid of that.

[Katherine]

Don't ever get rid of spiritual sponsors. I'm like, no, I'm going to need them for forever. So the show will always have them. Robin, who is your spiritual sponsor this week?

[Robin]

My spiritual sponsor is Griffith park, which is one of the largest parks in the country. 4,000 plus acres. Griffiths park, first of all, is everything. Like, it has the observatory, it has the Hollywood sign, it has a zoo, it has tennis courts, it has, has. I would future executive order get rid of them golf courses. But what it has more than anything else is it has 53 miles of hiking trails and I have walked every mile of them. I got poison ivy on one last week. And I forgive you Griffith park, because you are the best.

[Katherine]

I, I love it. I've only been once, but it was stunning.

[Robin]

Love it.

[Katherine]

It helps that LA always has like pretty good, pretty good weather. Pretty good weather. All right. My spiritual sponsor for the week is Abby Wambach's header. Go. In the 2011 World cup quarterfinals, it was after 30 minutes of overtime. In the 122nd minute, it was the equalizer that sent them into penalty shootouts that they won, which they won. You know, riding high on the moment. I think, I think I've watched it. I mean it has to be more than a hundred times.

[Robin]

It's great. And Megan Rapinoe's kick into the box is also fantastic.

[Katherine]

I mean, it comes and she's like what, like three miles away? Like, it's just, it's such this amazing cross if you haven't watched aired live and it was when the World cup was in Germany. So it actually aired on Sunday afternoon in the US and so a lot of people ended up watching and it was a completely thrilling ending. To level it right at that minute. But when I was taking my qualifying exams, during my PhD, in the minutes before the test, when you have to put everything away, it's just pencil, you have some sheets of paper. I just sat there watching the goal. And I went back to the beginning and I watched and I went back to the winning and I watched again. I know, like, at one point I was. When I was going to testify in front of Congress, I was on the Metro on the way there, and I was trying to listen to pump up music as I was, like, frantically reading about obscure tax law. And then I was like, no, we know what we need to do here. I pulled it up and I could. I mean, I could hear it of, like, chants of USA is ringing around the arena in Dresden. And I, you know, the US has to get numbers forward. There's no point depending on.

[Robin]

We should build an app. We should build where you just, like, keep it on your home scre and just play it whenever you need it.

[Katherine]

Oh, my God. It's those moments. Those, like, exhilarating sports moments. So thank you, Abby Wambach for that amazing goal. And obviously Megan Rapinoe for the assist back when her hair was still blonde.

[Robin]

Well, that's it for us.

[Katherine]

As we close out our episode, we, of course want to thank the two people who make this show possible. Our producer and audio engineer, Sophie. Thank you very much. And our video editor and producer, Andy. Thank you very much.

[Robin]

Thanks.