The Optimists Have Questions…

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Optimists Have Questions…"

Optimist Economy Podcast
Hosts: Kathryn Anne Edwards (Economist) & Robin Rauzi (Editor)
Date: March 31, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this lively Q&A episode, economists Kathryn Anne Edwards and editor Robin Rauzi field a diverse and thoughtful set of listener questions about the U.S. economy. Topics range from retirement savings and homebuyer tax credits to housing market forces, the shifting of risk onto workers, and the feasibility of sweeping economic reforms. Their answers balance realism with a signature optimism, emphasizing practical solutions and the ways policy can be improved for the benefit of all Americans.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Listener Connections and Optimism (02:10)

• Kathryn shares appreciation for positive listener feedback, noting its affirming effect after negative social media interactions.
  • "It was so affirming to hear from y'all. And it was a reminder of why we do this in the first place, which is to connect with fellow optimists." — Kathryn (01:28)
• The hosts dive directly into listener questions, setting a conversational, peer-to-peer tone.

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2. Retirement Savings: How Dire? (02:29–04:55)

Question: How bad is the retirement savings crisis, and is it generational?

• Social Security: Kathryn reassures listeners that Social Security remains solid.
• Private Savings: She is also optimistic about private retirement savings, noting that policy solutions like automatic enrollment in 401(k)-style accounts are well-understood.
  • "We know how to get people to save for retirement. We simply do not offer that to all people and we make it brokered by your employer." — Kathryn (03:40)
• Policy Gaps Remain: Universal automatic IRAs, or government-run accounts, are coming, but implementation and policy tweaks remain points of debate.
  • "There is almost no refutation of the idea that everyone in the US needs an auto enrolled plan." — Kathryn (04:40)

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3. First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credits (05:01–08:41)

Question: Would a revived tax credit help today’s first-time homebuyers?

• Past Effectiveness: The $8,000 tax credit during the Great Recession helped but had a muted effect.
• Current Market: With housing prices high, such credits would likely just inflate prices further, effectively subsidizing existing homeowners’ equity.
  • "It would just add fuel to the fire of home prices that are already going up. Not an appropriate policy because of how high home prices are." — Kathryn (07:22)
• Alternative Solutions: Robin describes a local program offering generous down payment support with shared equity upon sale.

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4. Capital Gains Tax Policy (08:41–14:08)

Question: Should capital gains tax breaks be restricted to “new investment” only?

• Kathryn explains capital gains basics and discusses the “step-up basis,” a significant tax advantage for inherited assets.
  • "It is such a massive incentive not to sell your house but die in it." — Kathryn (11:06)
• Conservative Arguments: The idea of “double taxation” is questioned; she feels wealthier investors aren’t dissuaded by higher tax rates.
• Policy Choices: Lower tax rates on capital gains, along with loopholes and step-up basis, deeply favor the wealthy and could be revisited for reform.

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5. Federal $1,700 Tax Credit for Education (14:08–16:55)

Question: Why make the scholarship program a tax credit instead of a deduction?

• Kathryn warns this is likely "a disaster waiting to happen," functioning as a federal school voucher via the tax code, potentially inviting large-scale fraud due to poor oversight.
  • "This was a voucher program on steroids...waiting to see what [Treasury] rules will look like." — Kathryn (14:46)

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6. Institutional Investors in Housing (16:55–21:01)

Question: Are institutional investors harming the housing market?

• Current Evidence: Data on whether they push up prices is inconclusive and varies by market (e.g., concentrated in Atlanta, Jacksonville, Charlotte).
  • "The evidence is truly mixed because it's really hard to tease out cause and effect." — Kathryn (18:56)
• Role in Repairs: Some players improve housing stock, but access to renovation financing is more limiting for individuals than the presence of investors.

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7. Erasing Trump-Era Economic Policies (22:08–28:02)

Question: What policy "home runs" are needed to rebalance after inequality-exacerbating policies?

• Quick Wins: Federal paid sick/vacation days, higher minimum wage, universal paid family leave, automatic retirement savings.
  • "You can do anything with good people. Truly, you could execute on almost any economic policy." — Kathryn (34:27)
• Longer-Term: Build a universal child development/care system, reverse recent tax cuts, Social Security & unemployment insurance overhauls, and major health care reform (moving away from employer-sponsored insurance).
  • "If they can't survive and sell health insurance...why do we have them? Like, why are they private if they need the federal government's support?" — Kathryn (27:03)
• Major systemic reforms require years and political will.

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8. Millennials and Future Economic Reform (28:02–31:25)

Question: Will big reforms come before Millennials retire?

• Kathryn projects both:
  • Political pressure from repairing Trump-era harms.
  • Demographic pressure from labor shortages.
• "There is an impetus to action...We need people. Americans can't afford children. We're going to have to start making some changes about labor supply pretty soon." — Kathryn (29:40)

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9. Public Financing of Sports Stadiums and Use of Hotel Taxes (31:25–33:29)

Question: Is this a wise use of public money?

• Kathryn: “I detest this policy.” Public dollars should not build stadiums unless there is parity in investments for men’s and women's leagues. Hotel taxes could serve better purposes (childcare, housing support, etc.).
  • "Failing that, don't build stadiums from public dollars at all." — Kathryn (32:32)

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10. Advancing Progressive Policy from Inside Conservative Agencies (33:29–35:38)

Question: How can state-level staff push for equity in conservative environments?

• Answer: Even routine civil service work demonstrates capacity for effective public programs — “stay ready so you don’t have to get ready.”
  • "You can do anything with good people. Truly, you could execute on almost any economic policy." — Kathryn (34:27)

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11. Risk Shift onto Workers (Education & Certification) (35:38–38:19)

Question: How did we end up making workers bear all the risk, and how do we fix it?

• Corporations have divested from worker investment since the 1970s, partly due to Milton Friedman-style economics.
• The solution: take social insurance (health, retirement, reskilling) out of corporate hands and fund it publicly, via social policy and targeted taxes.
  • "If they're motivated by profit...fine, take everything else off their books, tax them to provide it ourselves..." — Kathryn (37:09)

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12. Building a Care-Centered Economy (38:19–41:18)

Question: What does recentering on caregiving look like?

• Kathryn sees this as more achievable than it seems: tweak payment structures to move from private payments to public reimbursement; build on existing delivery systems.
  • "We don't have to dramatically remake everything...to do right by people who need care or provide care." — Kathryn (41:13)
• Points to successful (if early) elder care insurance in Washington State as a model.

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13. Tariffs, Corporate Profits, and Price Gouging (41:18–45:20)

Question: Did companies absorb tariffs out of profits, and how do we guard against gouging?

• Tariff impacts were less than headlines and price hikes were present but modest. Companies used stockpiling and global sourcing to blunt effects.
• Advice: Increase competition and require public disclosure about packaging/content changes.
  • "If they're charging too much for something, they have too much market power. So you either need to break them up, tax them more, or...allow for more competition." — Kathryn (43:58)

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14. Rent Caps and Affordability (45:20–48:23)

Question: Would rent caps help or hurt?

• Economist’s Dilemma: They cause market distortions, but landlords benefit from tax write-offs and appreciation, so policy tweaks can be justified.
• Local anti-gouging caps are preferable, but need to be tailored to local housing markets and based on actual expense and depreciation data.
  • "You could design it really thoughtfully...to inform what rent caps could look like." — Kathryn (48:05)

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15. Why Federal, Not Just State, Policy? (48:23–53:36)

Question: Why bother with federal policy if some states already have good programs?

• Ethical: Unfair to deny proven benefits to kids/people in “slow” or less wealthy states.
• Economic: Poor states can’t afford robust social programs on their own.
• Political/Civil Rights: “States’ rights” are often invoked to limit protections for Black Americans and other minorities.
  • "So do you want black people in the south to have something? If the answer is no, by all means, states rights. But if the answer is yes, then you need to go federal." — Kathryn (50:51)
• Mortality study example: living 20 miles apart but in different states can drastically alter life outcomes due to policy gaps.

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Notable Quotes and Moments

• On Optimism and Criticism:
  • "We're no longer Chippy Mercury. We're going forward, retrograde be damned." — Kathryn (02:12)
• On the future of private health insurance:
  • "If a government is spending so much money to prop up private health insurance...why does it need to be private if it's publicly supported?" — Kathryn (27:11)
• On living the ideal in public service:
  • "Doing your job and doing it well means that they're wrong, because there's someone like you who is able to execute on a vision." — Kathryn (34:42)
• On “states’ rights” and federal policy:
  • "States were willing to kill a lot of people by withholding health insurance from its members because it didn't believe in a government policy." — Kathryn (52:09)

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Timestamps for Core Segments

• 02:29 — Retirement savings
• 05:01 — Homebuyer tax credits
• 08:41 — Capital gains tax/
• 14:08 — Education tax credit program
• 16:55 — Institutional investors in housing
• 22:08 — Erase Trump’s impact? What needs to be rebuilt
• 28:02 — Economic reform before millennials retire
• 31:25 — Sports stadium financing/hotel taxes
• 33:29 — Progressive change from inside conservative systems
• 35:38 — Worker risk and corporate responsibility
• 38:19 — Centering care in the economy
• 41:18 — Tariffs, profits, and price gouging
• 45:20 — Rent caps
• 48:23 — Federal vs. state social programs

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Tone & Style

The hosts maintain an accessible, frank, and witty tone throughout, openly sharing both wonky economic knowledge and sharp opinions. They engage seriously but conversationally with complex questions, always circling back to optimism and pragmatic solutions.

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For Further Inquiries or Feedback

Listeners are encouraged to email questions or economic worries to [e-mail] and join the community on Substack and social media.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[A]

Everybody has a hot take on the economy. And whether you're curious about inflation, trade, wars or the markets, what you need is reporting you can trust. Hi, I'm Kai Rysdal, the host of Marketplace. Our award winning reporters talk to everybody from CEOs to farmers to help you understand how the economy takes shape in the real world. You'll be smarter every time you listen and these days that's priceless. Listen to Marketplace on your favorite podcast app.

[B]

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

[C]

I'm editor Robin Rousey.

[B]

On this show we believe the US Economy can be better and we talk about how to get there one problem and solution at a time.

[C]

But this week we're going to talk about 14 problems.

[B]

I mean, it was something like that. We're going to get to a lot.

[C]

We'll see what we can get to. It's our first Q and A episode of season two. And thank you everybody for sending all of the questions in that we got and for replying to my follow up questions. It takes some time, but it's really nice to correspond with everybody and see who the listeners are. And what I can tell you is that you range from retirees to 20 somethings and you're writing from like literally all over the country.

[B]

It's so affirming. We want to get straight to the questions. So we typically don't do a lot of our front matter, but I do have to give a critical update which is that I had, I think you could tell from the last few episodes that I've been a little bit salty about some of the negative feedback we've gotten and it had been crushing my spirit to like a not good degree. But many of you wrote in and just said we love this show and it was so affirming to hear from y'. All. And it was a reminder of why we do this in the first place, which is to connect with fellow optimists. And that always runs the risk of interacting with the non optimist, whoever those people are. But that's okay because we have.

[C]

Especially on social media.

[B]

Especially on social media. But we have y'. All. And so that's. We're no longer Chippy Mercury. We're going forward. Retrograde V. Damned. Let's answer some questions.

[C]

Okay, are you ready?

[B]

Ready.

[C]

Okay. This is from Max Dakin in Portland, Maine. I saw Katherine quoted in the New York Times in a newsletter about retirement savings. How dire is this situation in your estimation? I'm curious whether inadequate retirement savings has been an issue for a while or if there's something generational about it. Has poverty already been rising for seniors or is it expected to rise? And these are early warning signs.

[B]

Ooh, okay, great question. Where to start? Okay, so the Social Security side, we're great. We're going to be great. We're going to stay great because it's Social Security. The private savings side, I'm really, really deeply optimistic here as well. Private pensions were great, but not that many workers had them and even fewer do now. And I see very little indication that they'll come back. However, defined contributions plans like a 401k, we know how to get those right. You just enroll people automatically and make contributions for them. And I don't mean that employers contribute to retirement. I mean that your employer sets it up so that you are enrolled in a retirement plan and they withdraw some of your paycheck to put money into it. That is how we have successful retirement savings. And for people who are in those plans, they do really well. That doesn't mean it's perfect. It doesn't mean they don't have other risk that they don't dip into them before they retire. But we do know how to get people to save for retirement. We simply do not offer that to all people and we make it brokered by your employer. So auto IRAs, automatic IRAs, government IRAs Trump savings plans. The thrift savings plan, this has been in the works for 20 years now to have a government account that is in fact an auto, like a 401k that the government sets up and auto enrolls you in, that is coming. So I, I don't think the situation is dire. I think retirement security is something that we're so close on in terms of policy because we know exactly what to do. There is almost no refutation of the idea that everyone in the US needs an auto enrolled plan. There is small bickering over how it should be set up, who should set it up, how auto enrollment works, and if the government contributes directly for poor people. But there is almost no question that this is what we need to do. We will get there.

[C]

Ready for the next question?

[B]

I'm ready. I'm sorry, this is what, I'm starting slow, but I feel like I'm going to cook by the end.

[C]

That's all right. Question from Amber Edmondson in Tacoma, Washington. One of the programs out of the Great Recession was a short lived $8,000 federal tax credit for first time homebuyers. I used it. My spouse used another similar program in the early 2000 similar tax credits have been proposed in the last few years too. Would something like this be helpful to first time homebuyers now?

[B]

Unclear. Leaning towards no. It's certainly a popular policy. I think Biden had proposed a $15,000 first time home buyer tax credit. I think Harris proposed like $25,000 homebuyer tax credit. So the reason why people want this is because the biggest barrier to buying a house is the down payment. Being able to afford a regular monthly payment for your living expenses is something that everyone knows how to do once they start renting. It doesn't mean it's easy, but if you've rented for a long time, you can afford a monthly payment. It's do you have. The down payment is by far the biggest barrier. And it's a barrier that a lot of people get help with from their family when they get part of the down payment comes from a family member. And so this, this almost seems like a, well, let's make it a little bit fairer. And how have everybody have help with the down payment since it moves people into housing. And we think that's good. The argument against it is that it will raise home prices and that even though it's targeted to first time home buyers of here's eight grand, here's 10, 20, 50 grand for you, it just makes housing more expensive. So it's really just a subsidy for existing homeowners cause it's giving their equity a boost. Now the reason why it was popular or the reason why I think they went for it in the Great Recession was because the home, home prices had collapsed.

[C]

Right.

[B]

And there was a total freeze of the home purchasing market. And so the thought was we need people to buy houses and if it has an upward effect on prices, all the better. Who cares? Because the home. Yeah, because we need to get prices back up. People are underwater on their mortgages. And so it was a very appropriate for where the housing market was at the time. And for the most part, people who studied the policy found that there was an effect on prices. It was somewhat muted and there was an effect on purchasing, somewhat muted. So it didn't, it wasn't a silver bullet. It didn't grease the wheels as much as it could have or possibly should have. But it did help and it didn't hurt too much. I think the, the worry now is that it would just add fuel to the fire of home prices that are already going up. And so it's not an appropriate policy because of how high home prices are.

[C]

Yeah, you Know, there's an interesting program here in Los Angeles for low income home buyers. It's done on a lottery basis. I don't really know how many people get it, but they will give you up to 20%, up to $100,000 for a down payment on a house, and then you pay it back when you sell the house. And they also get like, let's say you buy a $500,000 house and you get $100,000. That would be sort of the maximum situation. And let's say the house appreciated 20% by the time you sold it, you would give 20% of the appreciation also back into the program.

[B]

Interesting.

[C]

Yeah. I don't know how long it's been around, but I was just reading about that.

[B]

Yeah, tax credits, if they're obvious and they're big and people know they have them, they'll jack up the price of certain houses, especially starter homes. Like, this is a classic starter home. I'm going to make it $8,000 more expensive.

[C]

Right. So.

[B]

So I think other ways to get money to people would be preferred. That's not so obvious for the pricing purposes.

[C]

Great.

[B]

But I am glad that it helps people into the houses. It was good at the time. I mean, should we have another collapse in home prices, this would probably be something we pursue.

[C]

Okay. Bob Martin in Oak Park, Illinois. As I understand it, the reason for the tax breaks on capital gains is to encourage investment, to generate growth, which can benefit the economy as a whole. But the great bulk of securities that are bought and sold are not new investments, but deals between investors, which wouldn't seem to me to provide the same kind of benefit. If the tax break for long term capital gains was restricted to new investment only, what kind of outcomes would you expect?

[B]

All right, so capital gains, this is a safe space. What is a capital gain?

[C]

What is a capital gain?

[B]

So you have income that you earn from selling your labor. You also make money from selling stuff that you own, and that is referred to as a capital gain. It's any money you make on assets that appreciate. So stocks, bonds, houses, other property, big valuable assets, jewelry, artwork, collections. I think maybe the easiest thing would be selling a car. Except for cars never appreciate in value or rarely appreciate in value. So, I mean, like, you make money when you sell a car, but you don't pay capital gains on it because.

[C]

So, because you took a loss.

[B]

Yeah, because you took a loss on that. Like, I bought a new car for $25,000. Ten years later I sold it for 3, $10,000, $5,000 even though I made money from the sale, I didn't actually have an appreciated asset because I sold the car for less than what I bought it for. That's not true for a lot of things like stocks or houses. They appreciate in value. And so when you sell them, you're supposed to pay taxes on, has so many exclusions. One of them, which is probably close to what Bob is talking about, there is a small business stock exclusion. Some government bonds are excluded. Your primary residence is excluded up to a cap if you've lived there two of the last five years. We've now added inherited investments to this exclusion because we have something called the Step up basis that changes the way the asset is valued so that you're not taxed on it. Actually, for you housing people out there, I find it incredible that all of the like, ire and irritation that gets leveled towards the boomers about holding onto houses never manifest as we need to get rid of the Step up basis. So it's 1980. I buy a house for $50,000, and 46 years later, in 2026, that house is worth a million. The lowest tax burden I face for that house leaving my hands is dying with it. If I sell it now, I'll have to pay capital gains on whatever is above the capital gains tax cap for primary residence, which is $500,000 for a married couple. If I give it to one of my kids, they'll have to pay taxes on it. But if I hold onto it until I die, that value resets with my kid's inheritance through what we call the Step up basis. So if my kid inherits a house, it's worth a million dollars and sells it, they only pay taxes on the capital gains that has accrued since my death. So they pay taxes on whatever they get over a million, and not the $950,000 of appreciation that I had through my lifetime. It is such a massive incentive not to sell your house but die in it. But because of how the Step up basis treats this one type of appreciation. I mean, but it works for any type of appreciation. It works for stocks, it works for bonds, it works for art, whatever. It's a tax treatment of inheritance that greatly favors holding onto assets, including the primary home. So for you housing people out there who wanna have more movement in the housing market, yeah, you need to be attacking the Step up basis with all of your might. Anyway, the argument I've heard against a capital gains tax in the United States is that it's a double tax. So I earn $100 in income. I pay $15 in federal income taxes as part of that. What do I do with the 85 that's left? Well, if I spend it, I pay a sales tax. And if I save it, I'm going to pay either a dividend tax or the capital gains tax. And so the idea is that if I make money from saving, I have to pay tax it again. And this is like the double tax. This was really, really popular during Bush 2 in the early 2000s. That like we're taxing savers.

[C]

Sounds like conservative branding. You're not paying taxes on the money you saved. You're paying. You're paying taxes on the income generated by the money you saved.

[B]

Yes. That's not how they put it. They put it as your taxing savings.

[C]

Death taxes. Yeah. They always have a good way to put it. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. But that is, the conservative argument is that you reduce the incentive for savings because you're taxing the gains from savings. That is the argument I've heard. Um, it doesn't carry much water with me because I think the people who do make investments and who would be have high enough income to pay capital gains taxes are not like on the fence about whether to invest. This is just about taxing appreciation and asset investments. And we've lowered that tax rate and we can make it a lot higher. And we've lowered the rate and we've also lowered the things like through the step up basis, the amount that's actually taxed and we can change it.

[C]

Okay. Sarah McCrory in Eugene, Oregon asks, Can you explain the federal $1700 tax credit scholarship program which was part of the one big beautiful act. How weird is it to make something like this a tax credit instead of a deduction like all other donations?

[B]

Okay, this is a disaster waiting to happen and we can see it unfolding in real time. I'm going to mainly punt on this question, but the $1,700 tax credit created in the one big beautiful bill for school spending says if you give up to $1,700 to a scholarship granting organization, an SGO, you can reduce your tax bill by $1,700. It's a one for one reduction in your taxes. Those SGOs in turn can redistribute the money as tuition or covered qualified school expenses, which is like a coverdell expense. This was a voucher program on steroids. This was trying to push a voucher program through the federal tax code. Most of their efforts to do it have been cut back, but it is still an attempt at A federal voucher program states now can opt into. But the reason why I'm punting is because we don't know what this will look like yet. They put it into the bill. It doesn't have a lot of meat on that bone. The Department of the treasury needs to write guidance on exactly how this will work, and they haven't come up with the rules for it yet. So the person I follow in following this is a guy named John Philant who's at the Brown Chalkboard center at Brookings. This guy effing hates this thing and he follows it really closely and he writes really lovely blog posts explaining it. So I'm waiting to see what he says about the treasury rules and we can put a link to him. But yeah, I think it's probably going to be a disaster. I mean, his worry is just how much fraud there is going to be in this program. But most new aspects of the tax code, kind of like the Trump accounts for kids, have really, really low take up in the first couple of years. So I think the bright light here is that it's so obscure, so complicated, we don't have rules yet. They've already missed one tax season for this being really viable. By the time we get to another one, there's time to like kill this thing before it really gets off the ground. Which is what I heard through the grapevine. Democrats are waiting to do.

[C]

Okay. Robert Middlekop of Chicago says outside the housing supply issues, I also hear lots of debate about whether institutional investors are causing problems in the housing market. People, including the president, seem to feel strongly that they do. What are your thoughts?

[B]

All right, short answer. We have no idea. The evidence is just not good in either direction that institutional investors are doing good or bad. So an institutional investor, lot of definitions, but typically something like they own a thousand homes in at least three housing markets. And they do. Institutional investors are in all parts of the housing market. But the part that seems to get people mad are institutional investors that buy single family homes and convert them into rentals.

[C]

Right.

[B]

So that's like. Of institutional investors.

[C]

Yeah, they don't care if you're in apartment buildings, you know?

[B]

Yeah, it's that it's the single family home being used for rental. So how big are they really? Depends. They're very concentrated in specific markets. The biggest three are Atlanta, Jacksonville and Charlotte. So people dislike them because they think that they push up home prices and squeeze out first time home buyers. Very hard to tell in either direction whether or not that's true because home prices tend to rise in markets with rising jobs, which is what in population, which is what Atlanta, Jacksonville and Charlotte are. They're very hot markets for employment and jobs and people. So you can't say that institutional investors are pushing up their home prices. Some people really like them because they buy houses and on average will spend 20 to $40,000 repairing them and renovating them. So the thought around an institutional investor is that they're basically making money assuming that their housing market will continue to grow. And the cost and risk that they face is that they buy a lemon. So they're going to buy 100 houses, and a lot of them will need $10,000 worth of work or $20,000 of work, and one's going to need like 200,000. And so they spread the risk of high renovation cost through their properties and then they turn them into rentals. So are they bad? The evidence is truly mixed because it's really hard to tease out cause and effect. I've read from, like, liberal organizations like the Urban Institute that the evidence is not overwhelming. It doesn't go in one direction. What they said was what you really need is to make it easier for individual buyers to take on renovation loans. Because you apply for a loan to purchase a house. House, you need to apply for a separate loan to remodel, renovate, make large changes to the house. And that second loan has a really high denial rate.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So I mean, we've got an older housing stock. We've got people like the boomers who have been in their houses for a long time. They need a lot of work. You have a harder time selling to a, like a household, a person to person sale if it needs structural repair. So the house that we bought in Houston, we bought from a developer. I don't know if it was an institutional investor. I don't think so. I could have been. But the person who lived in this home for a long time, when she died, her children tried to sell it and they couldn't find a seller because the inspection revealed that it needed $30,000 worth of foundation repair. But getting a foundation repair loan or buying it with 30 grand, they just were not able to sell it. So they sold it to someone who would pay for that, which would be a developer and flipper. And then we bought it with like the foundation work already done. That's something that can be fixed through changing how things are financed. That doesn't necessarily make as much space for institutional investors. So that's. That's what the Urban Institute wanted to stress. Yeah, you know, but even libertarians who hate all government. I couldn't get anything from the Cato Institute that said their presence as uniquely bad or good.

[C]

So, yeah, I was surprised. The numbers are, I mean, like you say, they're kind of concentrated in high growth areas. And they're concentrated in part because people want to rent houses. You know, they're moving into a place, they don't want to live in an apartment, maybe they've got kids, maybe they got a dog, whatever it is. And so there's, there is a market for that. There was a lot of resentment in Southern California after the Great Recession that they snapped up a ton of houses in largely black and Latino neighborhoods all at once. But overall, the numbers that I see, and again, I don't know how accurate they are, are like 3% or less super small.

[B]

And there is some agreement that they helped stabilize the housing market during the foreclosure crisis because they did buy so many homes. But the foreclosure crisis was higher in black and Latino neighborhoods. And, yeah, it definitely doesn't look good. I'm with you. Doesn't look good. But I haven't seen. If they were really, really insidious, I think we would have seen something by now that would have looked more telling than we have.

[C]

Anna Kirkhoff of Montreal, Canada says you've said in various ways that Trump's policies, in essence, will be wiped from history as time passes. However, they are exacerbating existing economic inequality. What type of policy home runs are going to be needed to rebalance?

[B]

Okay, so the last hour of our show will be focusing on this question. I mean, very, I mean, very, very much. Let me clarify. I think his policies will be erased because he's not building anything and he will make no meaningful contribution to the U.S. economy. That doesn't mean. I don't think he will do harm. No, but even the accounts, they're. That they're not his idea and they'll rename them. Yeah, like, I think he is doing harm, actively doing harm, but I don't think that that harm will define what America looks like in the future. Things that we can do quickly is we can pass a set of labor regulations that require paid sick days, paid vacation days, and greatly raise the minimum wage while increasing the enforcement budget for the wage and hour division. You know, the big thing behind that is we need to update labor law. But the small thing we can do is make improvements that we know we need to make. We can make them right away. None of that costs the federal government money. But then Give the federal government money to do more wage and hour enforcement. So that's one thing we can do really quickly. Another thing that I think would actually be really quick to set up would be paid family and medical leave, a universal paid family medical leave program and a retirement savings. So sick vacation, minimum wage, you could do that tomorrow. Setting up a universal paid family medical leave, a universal retirement contributory account like the Trump savings plans that you proposed year. I think that could take a year. Other things that we can do right now is we can pass some investments in children that don't have complicated delivery mechanisms, aka free school lunch. We can restart the 2021 universal cash benefit kids had and we could make every kid in America eligible for Medicaid through their 19th birthday tomorrow. Done.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Present. So those are some, those are some

[C]

also really fast ones. And I think mid to long term. Yeah.

[B]

So I think lurking behind these really short investments in children on things like school lunch is setting up a universal child care after school and summer education program. I proposed this for the Roosevelt Institute and I called this a universal childhood development system that has like a, a basically integrated curriculum around health and well being and development from 0 to 18. I think that would take one year to start, maybe three years to roll out.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Next one would be we could do really quick things to our tax system. So like reverse one big beautiful bill, reverse a lot of tcga, just it kind of like immediately end the step up basis. You can restore rates for capital gains, corporate tax, pass through. You could do all those things that would not take that much. I think that you could pass for the next tax year. Social Security, we could fix that tomorrow. I mean we could fix Social Security's finances 15 years ago, but we could also still do it tomorrow. And then lingering behind fixing Social Security tomorrow is implementing a new unemployment insurance system which again I think would take reasonably six months to start and then three years to probably fully roll out. And then the biggest hurdle, the one that will take some years doing that we need to do is health reform.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And I say the biggest hurdle because we're not half assing it this time. I mean, props to Obama. They accomplished so much and they changed the conversation about health in the United States. But they made everybody really unhappy with health in its own way. And that's great because we need to change our health reform system. And I think it will legitimately take five years to transition to a new universal health plan. And the pain point, the biggest pain point will come from ending the tax subsidy for employer sponsored Health care that will make the private provision of health care through your employer no longer financially feasible for most employers or people. And it would move everybody off of employer provided health care. I imagine that that would seriously bankrupt private health insurance companies. I mean, like, it's one thing if you don't like private health insurance, but do you like how much we subsidize private health insurance?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Again, like, I think I am a cutthroat capitalist on one level, in kind of in my core. I'm like, yo, if they can't survive and sell health insurance and have a profitable health insurance without the trillions of dollars that they've gotten from the federal government, then why do we have them? Like, why are they private if they need the federal government's support on almost every level to be sustainable? Sounds like they're not a good private company. I don't say that because I don't like the people who work there or I don't think the people who work there do good things. I just don't think they have a feasible business model, private sector market product, and then it needs to go away. And if a government is spending so much money to prop up private health insurance, you know what, y'? All, why does it need to be private if it's publicly supported? I don't think we're getting much from having private insurance anymore, except for making middle class people feel good that they're not on public health insurance. And I think they'll get over it if we give them about five years. So those are things we can do tomorrow, things that we can pass the day after tomorrow for one to three years in the future. And then we put our eyes on the prize. Let's tear down US Healthcare system.

[C]

Rebecca of New York City. As an elder millennial, I graduated into the recession and was uninsured, but got a job with insurance right after the ACA passed. I paid off my student loans just months before Biden started forgiving them. Do you think we'll have significant economic reform before millennials retire? Because based on my previous experience, I assume that the United States will pass UBI or increase Social Security payouts the day I die.

[B]

Girl, you're seen. I'm. I'm. I'm with you. I see you. Yes. I think two things are going to force Congress's hand. One political, one demographic. So the politics are Trump is destroying so much and causing so much economic harm that it can't, you can't just like, oh, let's just revert to, to how we were before, like, he has created so many new problems with some of his policies that now we have to go back and fix it. And fixing it's like, well, we need to do something new. So I think there's going to be a lot of policy urgency created by repairing the damage that we are all living through in real time right now. That's the political part. The demographics. Y' all were running out of people, and we need them. And Congress has never tried to do anything about that. And eventually they're going to try.

[C]

You mean because people like worker bots or do you mean worker bots?

[B]

We're running out of worker bots.

[C]

Okay. We need more retirees out the wazoo. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

I mean, I got retirees for days, son. Give me some of them. Worker bots. Yeah, the. The. We need more worker bots. And that is going to force Congress's hand in a lot of ways. And I don't mean that just cruelly. I mean legitimately. Like, Americans are not having the number of children that they want because they can't afford them. So a lot of European countries have beaten us to the moment that we are now because they've never had the same levels of immigration that we have. Like, every family. Family policy passed in European countries. Not everyone, but lots of them were passed with like, oh, my God, we're running out of children. And it's not as like, the French are better at feminism. Like, they're proto feminist forward women, and that's why they have paid family leave and childcare. Like, that's a conservative country that was running out of people. There is an impetus to action that comes from, for a lot of these things of, like, we need to care about the workers, we need to care about children, we need to care about working moms. But truly, what has historically made legislators act in this area is the economic exigencies of demographic realities. So we need people. Americans can't afford children. We're going to have to start making some changes about labor supply pretty soon. And at the nexus of all of those things are child care, health insurance, labor regulations, and minimum wage. Better policy around things like work from home, better labor, law enforcement. Like, all of those things are in service of getting more workers. And so I think a lot of these big, big capital L liberal policies are going to coast on the big D demographics.

[C]

David King of San Antonio, Texas. I'd like to hear your opinion about the economic wisdom of a city financing a sports stadium through a hotel tax. Are there better things a city should do with a Hotel occupancy tax or is the stadium the perfect jobs program for San Antonio? I guess this is up for debate in San Antonio right now.

[B]

Mm. Yeah. So a lot of times I have economic answers for y' all and I don't hear because I detest this policy. I don't like paying for stadiums for very non profitable leagues. So I don't know if I have an economic answer for you. I. I think this is. Oh, you know what? Here we go. I will be in support of states and cities building stadiums with a 50 gender split. So you can't build a men's stadium until you spend the exact same amount of money building a women's stadium. And you have to catch up with all investment since the first female professional sports league was incorporated. So you've got 25 years, almost 30 years. How long has WNBA been around? 30.

[C]

I don't know.

[B]

So you have 30 years of stadium investment that you have to catch up on for women and then you can build another stadium for men. Failing that, don't build stadiums from public dollars at all. WNBA established 1996. So y', all, I. Nicely done. Is there a better thing that San Antonio could do with its hotel occupancy tax? Yes. It can go to rental assistance, housing assistance, and go to child care. It can help new businesses that run child care centers. It can do. You know, it could do all kinds of things.

[C]

Yeah, I hate hotel occupancy taxes myself,

[B]

but yeah, I mean, or get rid of the hotel occupancy tax and not spend it on a stadium and just make it a really cheap place to come visit because it doesn't have a hotel occupancy tax. I've never spent the night in San Antonio because I've. It's always been worth driving back to Houston. So there you go.

[C]

There you go.

[B]

I know that's. I could. Do you want me to stay angry about this? Bye.

[C]

Nathan, who works for a state labor agency and we're going to just not say where that is. He says, I work for a state labor agency and wonder how I can affect positive economic policy. As a progressive, pro labor economic optimist in a deeply conservative state, I do research and advocate for better data. But the actual policy levers I have at my disposal are minor. I help set definitions for demand occupations and I work on credential advocacy. Any ideas on what a person in my situation can do to move toward a more equitable labor market that actually works for workers?

[B]

You know, you can't make your job progressive if it's not progressive. I could empathize with how thwarted you could feel sometimes that you don't have more power at your disposal to do good for the workers in your state. You know, you can execute the labor policy in your state, but that doesn't always mean you're doing as much for workers as you want. I would say if you are a state employee, at the very least you are embodying the progressive ideal that there are good, effective people who do public service. One of the things you hear so much when we propose policy that is bold, that is aggressive, you know, hey, let's have universal childcare. Hey, let's make the minimum wage this much we're told that we can't do it. Not just that we're not allowed to do it, but we can't do it because we'd never be able to implement. That's too complicated, that's too big, that requires too much. You can do anything with good people. Truly, you could execute on almost any economic policy. That doesn't mean the policy is good. It doesn't mean the policy will work perfectly. It doesn't mean the policy won't have problems. But the idea that we can't do it is fundamentally saying that we don't have the people to execute on a vision. And so doing your job and doing it well means that they're wrong, because there's someone like you who is able to execute on a vision. Maybe that vision hasn't arrived in your state, but, like, stay ready so you don't have to get ready.

[C]

Emily, writing from Kentucky, says she's been reading lower ed by Tressy McMillan Cotton. And one idea that has stayed, really stayed with me is how much of the responsibility and risk for employment has shifted onto workers. We pay for our own education, our certifications, and continual reskilling just to stay employable. All it made me wonder, how did we arrive at a system where workers carry so much of the risk, and what would it take for that balance to shift back?

[B]

So this is the last hour of the show.

[C]

I actually did reply to her, and I said, this may be too long. I should have put it at the end.

[B]

I think that maybe Starting in the 1970s, there was a real move towards kind of this, you're on your own free market philosophy. Corporations don't need to pay as much. They don't have as much responsibility. They just need to be profitable and reward money to their shareholders. A lot of people point to the influence of Milton Friedman, and they've had 50 years of Runway to show us what they'll do when we don't make them do much. I think it's a really valuable lesson to have in hand that the answer is not going to come from corporations doing the right thing. And if they're motivated by profit and that's what they have to do, then fine, right, like make it easy for them. You're not offering health insurance anymore, you're not offering retirement anymore. Like we need to get those off of your books and we will regulate your labor provisions and that's it. And then we will tax you for the things that you don't want to provide voluntarily. And you had 50 years to show us that you weren't going to provide it voluntarily. So you don't want to pay an extra payroll tax. Like we could have a corporate tax rate that's a special like 1% tax on corporations that we pay for worker retraining. They would fight and scream and say that they can't do it. But you know what? 50 years later, they've never invested so little in their own worker skill development. So fine, like you don't want to pay for it, that's great. Like you don't want to do it, we will tax you and we will have someone else do it. And so I think for me like there is a real like devolution to be mourned here that we used to have different looking institutions in our economy. We used to have different looking actors and they're gone. And so I'm not going to pretend like the people we have today look like this. They have a single minded goal, fine, take everything else off their books, tax them to provide it ourselves and let's do it through the government where it's fair and people like Nathan are there ready to carry the mantle forward.

[C]

Forward. Erin Johnson from Minnesota. The gigantic care economy that is so essential is also so strained. I'm thinking childcare, elder care, professional, domestic and unpaid. What would it look like to recenter our economy on caregiving and care services?

[B]

How do I want to start this? The most important thing to stress is just how feasible it is to do better by care in our economy. So I think it seems like a really big problem in that being able to have a paid, respected care economy that's formalized and recognized and dignified seems like a lot, but I don't think we're that far away in every care situation. Break it down into one, how is the care delivered? And two, how is the care paid for? And so you have these kind of two Components, delivery and payment. So the policy question is kind of then twofold, do we need to build a delivery system, amend it, change it, formalize it and then how do we compensate within that delivery system? So childcare is an example of one where like yeah, we have a delivery system, we have a distributed mixed delivery method for childcare. It's in people's homes, it's a family based center, it's a center like a off site center and it's currently paid for in a priced market. So we should take that delivery system, build on it and end the market and pay via federal reimbursement for care as opposed to payments out of parents pockets. That doesn't require tearing down every child care center we have and building a new one in its place. It's just a tinkering of the payment methods so that it moves to a reimbursement model. So you know, elder care, I think this one is the hardest one because it's the one where we don't necessarily have a large delivery system either in private or informal settings and nor do we have a good payment structure set up. But the state of Washington has set up an elder care long term care insurance program that is in year something of its rollout.

[C]

Not that long.

[B]

Yeah, but it's very successful and it includes money for long term care in house, in a facility as well as payment for family members who are providing care. So I don't think we need to recenter our economy around care or even greatly alter it. Not because care isn't important, but because it doesn't require a fundamental change to our economy to make care universal, available, high quality and paid. I mean we're so close. We're so close we don't have to dramatically remake everything that's come before to do right by people who need care or provide care. I don't think, I think it'll benefit our economy. I don't think it'll disrupt our economy.

[C]

Connor Jobs of New York City, he asks, what do you make of the fact that US companies were able to absorb so much of the cost of tariffs for nearly a year without hiking prices. Is there a natural profit that companies should be making? And how do we police businesses from price gouging?

[B]

Okay, two things to stress. One, tariffs were much lower in practice than how they were announced.

[C]

Right.

[B]

So if you just read press releases or had like a casual following of the news around tariff announcements, you would think tariffs went up to like 45% on every country.

[C]

Sure, yeah.

[B]

At the peak, the estimated effective tariff rate was around 17%, but people shift their supply in their consumption so that maybe on paper it was closer to 17, but given what people were consuming, it was probably closer to 15%, which is not low. It's the highest it's been in almost 100 years, but it's not 40%. So it wasn't as high as they probably said. Second thing to know is that prices

[C]

did go up, but they didn't go up 15%.

[B]

No, but there are some things that kept prices low. One of them was there was a lot of initial hoarding and prep around the tariffs coming that people increased imports while there was not an import tax that helped in building up inventories beforehand. And then two, the prices on tariffed goods went up, in some cases 11%. So they didn't go up the full measure, but there was an increase in prices. And goods that had higher tariffs did see higher price increases. I don't think that that's a reasonable benchmark for what we thought was going to happen. Not 100% of our goods and services are affected by tariffs. So the degree that prices went up, we wouldn't have expected a one to one effect on our overall prices. It's nuanced, but not everything you consume is imported or affected by imports. All of that said, I think what the past four years of the inflation spike of 2022 and then the tariffs of 2025 and where we are now, I think what that has taught us in a very visceral way is that a lot of companies are price setters. So his question was, how do we police businesses from price gouging more competition? Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, cutthroat capitalists here, y', all, they need some competition.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

If they're charging too much for something, they have too much market power. So you either need to break them up, tax them more, or a combination of the other of both while you allow for more competition. I mean, you can have some policing, but I think there's something to be said for the utilizing market power for good. Right. So we had a listener write the executive order that things have to come in pre sized packages so you know exactly how much you're going to get. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, or make, you know, you have to have for public disclosure, for consumer protection purposes, if you change any aspect of your product, either the weight, the amount inside or any part of the component, you have to put a sticker on it. This now uses a different setting. You know, this now has 15% less goods. You just Put a sticker on there that says this bag has less chips in it than it did six months ago and people won't buy it. It. It's not affecting the market. It's just saying that people in the market need to be more informed about what's going on. And those companies would absolutely change their behavior. So I, I'm more of a like, let's harness market power. Let's have lots of competition and let's have lots of disclosure. Because consumers can be savvy when they have information at their disposal. So give them the information and have some competition.

[C]

Okay. From Aaron in Nevada. I listened to your episode about the wealth gap as the true causation of the housing affordability crisis. What are your thoughts about rent caps? A lot of progressive candidates talk about them. So what are your thoughts as an economist?

[B]

Okay, I'm torn on this one. I mean, the economic argument, as is often the case, is simple and cruel. Right. If you mess with the market price, you distort the market. Which means if you put a cap on every time you start a new rental agreement, you'll have fewer units. You'll push up the price of units that aren't under the cap. You'll have massive rent increases in between tenants. You'll disincentivize maintenance of units, you'll disincentivize renting units at all. I think all of those things are true. That said, I don't think that that's the whole story. There's more to it. Landlords get a ton of help. Maybe, Robin, as a landlord, you will disagree with me, but they get to operate their rental property as a business so they can write off all expenses. Is this a yes or no?

[C]

Half. I mean, in my case, half.

[B]

In your case, they get to. So they get to write off expenses, they get to claim depreciation. Yes, yes. And they're claiming expenses and depreciation on a property that is almost always increasing in value.

[C]

I would say the property, the value on, on rental properties goes up with its rents. So rent caps actually hurt the value of a property by. By limiting the amount of income that it can generate.

[B]

Okay. There are anti gouging laws that some localities have put into effect where you can, you can raise rent every year, but you have to raise it to a cap.

[C]

Yeah. And that's kind of actually how rent control functions here in Los Angeles.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, I can't think of a single policy in which, like a nominal fixed amount is ever appropriate. Like, we should always be adjusting for the change in prices and wages over time. Seems very reasonable to me. What that cap is and what those exceptions are I think would have to depend on the locality. Yeah, and kind of what the housing stock looks like. I mean, you could imagine in certain places you don't have that many landlords and the housing stock is single family homes where you've got one person renting out their former primary residence and that's most of the rental units in say a certain town versus you know, in a really dense area like Washington D.C. where it's like people's basements or you've got multi unit houses. Like I think it would depend on the locality of how they would want to structure it and the expenses. But you could design it really thoughtfully to kind of use the data that you have on the amount of expenses and depreciation that landlords claim to then inform what rent caps could look like or rental growth caps could look like.

[C]

So MJC in my home state of Ohio says, you mentioned that some states have big government programs like health care, childcare, free school lunch and paid sick leave. If states can do this, which might satisfy states rights conservatives, why should the federal government do it?

[B]

Okay, I think there's a few arguments you could make here as to why the federal government should do it. There's certainly an ethical argument to be made that if you think of states as being a testing ground for policy, if you find a policy that's beneficial, it's on some level unethical to withhold it from other citizens. We know that free school lunch helps kids health and their educational and academic performance because they're not hungry at school. So is that something we should withhold for children because their state hasn't gotten around or isn't inclined to help children in their state? I mean, they're still Americans. What sets the lowest bar for American children? What we know to be best or what we allow to be worst? That's the ethical argument. There's a very clear economic argument for federal policy because states are not equally rich. They don't have the same property tax base, they don't have the same income tax base, and they don't have the sales tax base. So these big government programs in certain states, they are not coming from the poorest states by a long shot. And to say like, well, once a state can afford it, those people get to have childcare, but in poor states they can't afford it and so they don't get it. You know, how much inequality do you need across states? The tax base in Mississippi is not large, not large enough to afford everything that you listed in your question. So is that just too bad? So sad the federal government isn't going to help you, or we know something works, but economically you can't afford it. So now you're punished for being poor by having less investment. I don't really like setting that up to put states on a timer, to always have fewer resources and investments. That's the, I mean, so that's the ethical argument, that's the economic argument. I think there is a political argument to be made here which is that you can't talk about states rights in the United States without talking about black people. So do you want black people in the south to have something? If the answer is no, by all means, states rights. But if the answer is yes, then you need to go federal. Now to be clear, policies that withhold investment, also withhold investment from white people in those states on the the state or federal level, but all sorts of

[C]

civil rights, which would include women's rights and it would include gay rights and it would include trans rights. In this moment especially, there was a

[B]

mortality study in the US and it was looking at the intersection of three border counties on Lake Erie. And so they were comparing mortality in these three counties, one of which is in New York, one of which is in Pennsylvania, and one of which is in Ohio. And what they were pointing out was that because of, of state policy, the mortality rate of this same cluster of people that live right up in or outside Erie, Pennsylvania is very different because Ohio doesn't have a good Medicaid program. It doesn't have good supports for very poor people. It doesn't have the same type of cigarette taxes and seatbelt laws. And this, it's like, it just, it's a state that has like a low regulation, low investment state environment. And that New York State is on the contrast, a state that like, it's got a really good Medicaid program. They spend a lot of money on it, they have tons of public health interventions. And it was comparing, you know, just how many years of life living in Ohio shaved off your life compared to living in New York, even if it's 20 miles away? Is that right? It's a state's rights question. Is it right that Ohio is allowed to drive its citizens to an early grave through terrible policy when 20 miles upstate they would be doing better?

[C]

20 miles, 20 miles up I90.

[B]

20 miles up I90. And you, you get better benefits, you get more support. Like so many researchers have covered what we learned from the Medicaid gap and the Medicaid expansion. And what we learned is that states were willing to kill a lot of people by withholding health insurance from its members because it didn't believe in a government policy. So when is that okay? I don't think that that should be the bar for what Americans get is a spiteful state government that doesn't like a federal policy, and therefore they opt their citizens out of it, even to their own detriment. I don't think that's the bar that Americans should be held to. I don't think that's the bar that Americans should live by. If we know good policy helps people, why do we let some governor who wants to run for president harm the people in his state deliberately with all the evidence in hand that he's doing so? Is that something that we allow? That's a state's rights. So no federal policy when we know it works. States have proven it works. So now let's give it to everybody and not let some governor decide who gets to live or die. Hello. Come here. Did you throw something at me? Come here. Did you? You mama was talking and you threw something at me.

[C]

What did you say? Hi, kiddo.

[B]

Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

[C]

Hold on.

[B]

Don't you dare. Is that a dart Heart. Wait, what are you doing? You little devil.

[C]

Don't you dare.

[B]

Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. All right, you guys, I think we should wrap this up.

[C]

I think we should. The Optimist Economy podcast is edited by Sophie Lalonde. Our video production for social media is by Andy Robinson. Video. I'm sorry, Andy Robinson. Just. Andy Robinson. Robinson Just.

[B]

Danny Robinson.

[C]

You can share video clips from our show on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube or LinkedIn. And if you're on substack, we have an optimist chat there. And you can follow along and talk with your fellow optimists. Optimist Economy is supported entirely by listeners like you. If you have the means to contribute, you can do so@optimist economy.com and we are still spitballing names for our various new support levels. We'll also happily sell you a T shirt or a hat or a toe bag or sticker. Thank you for joining us. We'll be back next week with a regular episode.

[B]

Thank you. Optimist.