Work Rules for the Modern World

Summary

Optimist Economy Podcast Summary: "Work Rules for the Modern World"

Release Date: April 15, 2025
Hosts: Kathryn Anne Edwards and Robin Rauzi
Podcast Description:
Economist Kathryn Anne Edwards and co-host Robin Rauzi delve into the fundamentals of the economy, exploring solutions to build a better future for all Americans. They examine how the U.S. economy, despite its strengths, underperforms for millions due to barriers in workforce participation, resistance to change, and inadequate support systems for workers and retirees.

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1. Retcon and Taxation Insights [00:02 - 05:11]

Kathryn and Robin kick off the episode by reflecting on their previous discussion about taxes. Kathryn clarifies that the $7 trillion figure mentioned was sourced from the Congressional Budget Office, representing the ten-year cost of four pieces of legislation aimed at tax cuts benefiting the top income earners [00:21].

Robin adds depth by researching the demographics of the top 0.1% income earners, revealing there are approximately 133,757 households in this bracket—comparable to the population of Rockford, Illinois [00:57]. Kathryn further breaks down the income distribution, noting that the top 0.1% earners take home 4.14% of all adjusted gross income, while the next 0.9% secure an additional 12%, summing up to about a quarter of the total income [01:27].

They discuss the implications of these tax cuts, emphasizing that redirecting such substantial funds could fund essential services like free school lunches, childcare, and secure Social Security benefits, rather than merely reducing tax burdens for the wealthy [02:35].

2. Introducing New Work Standards [05:11 - 15:17]

Shifting focus to labor laws, Kathryn proposes a significant update to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). She advocates for enshrining the right to request flexible work arrangements into law [05:11]. Robin seeks clarification, and Kathryn elaborates that these arrangements could include options like part-time work, remote work, and asynchronous hours, tailored to individual needs [05:44].

Notable Quote:
Kathryn emphasizes the necessity of these changes by stating, “We could do some pretty remarkable things for workers in the United States” through updated labor laws [05:11].

3. Defining Flexible Work Arrangements [05:44 - 09:28]

Kathryn outlines what flexible work arrangements might entail, such as allowing employees to request part-time schedules, work-from-home days, or adjusted working hours outside the traditional 9-to-5 structure [05:49]. She stresses that while employers wouldn't be mandated to approve all requests, there should be transparency in denial rates and protections against discrimination for those who utilize these options [06:59].

Robin and Kathryn debate the terminology, with Kathryn suggesting "new work standards" to better capture the essence of the policy, which is about ensuring workers remain connected to the labor market despite personal challenges [09:28].

Notable Quote:
Kathryn remarks, “This is really about keeping workers attached to the workforce,” highlighting the core objective of the proposed standards [09:28].

4. Labor Force Participation and Economic Growth [21:33 - 31:15]

Kathryn delves into the critical role of labor force participation in driving economic growth. She explains that the U.S. economy's size is closely tied to the number of active workers, with household spending being the largest component of GDP [21:33]. Historical data shows that increasing women's labor force participation significantly boosted the economy, even during recessions [22:07].

She identifies current barriers preventing groups like individuals with disabilities and parents of young children from fully participating in the workforce. By addressing these barriers through new work standards, the economy can sustain growth and generate more income for a broader segment of families [23:47].

Notable Quote:
Kathryn asserts, “The US economy is larger because those women joined and they brought home income for their families,” underscoring the economic impact of inclusive labor policies [22:07].

5. Challenges in Implementing Flexible Work [16:31 - 18:27]

The conversation turns to potential obstacles in adopting flexible work standards. Kathryn and Robin discuss employer resistance, managerial challenges in handling a hybrid workforce, and the necessity for improved management training [16:31].

Kathryn critiques the outdated management styles that hinder the adoption of flexible work arrangements, emphasizing that the responsibility lies with employers to adapt rather than penalize employees for seeking flexibility [19:20].

Notable Quote:
Kathryn questions, “Do you really think that's a problem with the person who wants to work 30 hours a week instead of 40 or do you think it's the problem with the manager?” highlighting the need for better managerial practices [19:20].

6. Health Insurance and Employment Linkages [26:04 - 28:32]

A significant barrier to flexible work is the linkage of health insurance to full-time employment. Kathryn explains that detaching health benefits from employment is crucial for the success of new work standards but acknowledges the complexity of this issue [26:04].

They discuss potential policy reforms, such as universal savings accounts for retirement, which are simpler to implement compared to health insurance reforms. Addressing health insurance dependencies is essential for enabling part-time and remote work without disadvantaging employees [26:21].

Notable Quote:
Kathryn states, “Health insurance is the hardest one,” emphasizing the critical challenge in reforming employment-linked benefits [26:04].

7. Tax Reform and TurboTax Criticism [32:35 - 34:05]

Shifting back to taxation, Robin criticizes the necessity of paid tax software like TurboTax, advocating for the government to provide free tax filing options. They highlight how the complexity of the tax code forces individuals to rely on third-party services, which is both costly and unnecessary [32:35].

Notable Quote:
Robin insists, “The government should provide free tax software at a very minimum,” underscoring the need for accessible tax filing solutions [32:35].

8. Executive Order on Suicide Hotlines [34:05 - 36:03]

Kathryn shares a personal initiative inspired by a TV show episode, proposing an executive order that mandates the inclusion of the 988 suicide hotline in any fictional depiction of suicide. She emphasizes the importance of such measures in preventing copycat incidents and providing necessary support to those in crisis [34:05].

Notable Quote:
Kathryn passionately declares, “If your work of fiction depicts suicide or talks about suicide, you have to put 988 up on the screen,” highlighting her commitment to mental health advocacy [34:05].

9. Conclusion and Acknowledgments [37:03 - 37:40]

As the episode wraps up, Kathryn and Robin express gratitude towards their producer Sophie and their spiritual sponsors. They encourage listeners to engage with the podcast through various platforms and to share their economic concerns and questions via email [37:03].

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Final Thoughts:
In "Work Rules for the Modern World," Kathryn Anne Edwards and Robin Rauzi present a compelling argument for updating labor laws to include flexible work standards. By doing so, they aim to enhance labor force participation, drive economic growth, and ensure that the U.S. economy remains inclusive and robust. The episode balances economic theory with practical policy proposals, advocating for systemic changes that benefit both workers and the broader economy.

Transcript

[A]

Hello and welcome to Optimist Economy. I'm Kathryn.

[B]

I'm Robin.

[A]

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

[B]

It's a heavy sigh kind of day.

[A]

It's a heavy sigh kind of day. So let's start first with Retcon, where we make quick reflections and adjustments from our last conversation. Our last conversation was about taxes. Taxes. My retcon is to say that the numbers that I cited were from the Congressional Budget Office. The Congressional Budget Office tells Congress how much things are going to cost. And they measure the cost of something. They call it a score. They put it in a 10 year window. And so those were the 10 year scores of the four pieces of legislation that total $7 trillion. So that's where the 7 trillion came from.

[B]

Great. Great. I actually went back to find out how many tax filers are in the 0.1% that we were referring to. And our ballpark wasn't bad. And last quarter there were 133,757 households. So when I multiplied that by two and a half people roughly per household, that's the equivalent of Rockford, Illinois. So in the whole country, all our top 0.1% could all live in Rockford, Illinois.

[A]

And they have a ragtag all girls baseball team. And they put in just an amazing performance by Geena Davis.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

All right. Okay. And I checked from the IRS statistics of income that the amount of money the top 0.1% and the top 1% earn. So the top 0.1% of Americans take home 4, 14% of all adjusted gross income and the next 0.9%. Right. So the rest of the top 1%, they take home 12% of income, which means the top top 1% in the U.S. takes home about a quarter of all income.

[B]

I haven't figured out where they could all live.

[A]

And we don't know where they are. Dallas, as far as Retcon of like reflecting on optimism, you know, going back to the $7 trillion. Sure. We haven't spent it well because it's gone to tax cuts that have reduced the tax bill. Most of people in the very top. But that should give you an extent of the potential that we have to buy all these really nice things like free school lunches and free childcare and fixed Social Security. It's actually quite easy to purchase things. If you're not giving away the company.

[B]

Store, you're not giving away all the money.

[A]

We've got some Evidence over last year that the company store. We get some dollars in our pocket. Not now. We're. We actually have an incredible amount of debt. But were we to make a few changes to the tax code, we could rake it in and forward a lot. And so what I tell people is that you should feel empowered that like, we can do so much when we stop giving our money away. I think that's a good note.

[B]

I like how you threw a lot of math in there.

[A]

Good fractions, Fractions, decimals, percentage. Have you stopped listening? Don't turn that dial.

[B]

Are we ready for terms and conditions?

[A]

Terms and conditions. Robin, did you look up anything else this week?

[B]

I did because I was still thinking about taxes. I was thinking about like tax revolts when people have used taxes to register their displeasure with the government. What I was sort of thinking about initially was how hard it is to say, not pay your taxes as a form of revolt when tax cuts are the policy that you're trying to object to. But it did lead me to look up kind of some of the history of tax revolts. And I went back and I reread Henry David Thoreau's resistance to civil government. He wrote this in 1846. He refused to pay a poll tax. And he was angry, specifically about slavery, but also the expansionist tendencies of James Polk, lesser discussed president who annexed Texas and other things. But he was angry about the Mexican American War and the idea of expanding slavery into these new territories. He spent one night in jail, dined.

[A]

Down on it for a long time.

[B]

But died down on it. But. But there is a lot in that piece that I, you know, has resonated with generations and indeed centuries of people who have had moral opposition to what's happening in their government.

[A]

Is that where when the law is unjust, the only place for a just man is in prison. Does it come from that?

[B]

Yeah, it does. Yeah. Did you look anything up this week or did I look anything up behind the 7 trillion?

[A]

I don't think anything of note. I mean, I looked up a lot of like, basically like I should have a subscription to People magazine. Kind of like trash tidbits. I have always a fan of looking at like the celebrity divorces and who got what, you know, those are the types of things I've been looking up. Not necessarily relevant for staying optimistic in today's economy.

[B]

Well, marry, marry rich. Divorce.

[A]

Well, marry rich. Yeah, marry rich.

[B]

It's a good strategy.

[A]

All right, all right, pitch meeting. I'm pitching you. So we have rules that govern how workers are treated by Their employer. It's called the Fair Labor Standards Act. It was enacted in 1938 and it has had a pitiful amount of updates in the nearly century since then. But were we to update the Fair Labor Standards act, we could do some pretty remarkable things for workers in the United States. And one in particular is that we could enshrine in law the right to request flexible work arrangements.

[B]

Explain to me what flexible work arrangements are or could be, or could be.

[A]

So we don't have them, so they could look like whatever we want. But for people for whom working from home or working asynchronous hours is possible, they basically have the right to request them. So, you know, wouldn't work if you say work a shift job. If you're in person, say like a clerk or a cashier, you wouldn't really be able to request like work from home or part time work. I have a whole other set of policies related to shift work in the Fair Labor Standards Act. This is like the high end intervention and the Fair Labor Standards Act. There's a lot more we can do for people who work in shifts. But this would basically say like, okay, you work for an employer for a certain amount of time. You can request various arrangements to meet your schedule. So you can request to go part time, you can request to work from home a certain number of days, and you can request to have part of your hours completed in the evening or.

[B]

Morning outside the 9 to 5.

[A]

Outside the 9 to 5. So it kind of builds in the expectation that if your employer is, we work nine to five in person, five days a week. This gives you the legal right to request basically exceptions to that.

[B]

It would not obviously require your employer to say yes to that.

[A]

No, it wouldn't require them to say yes. I think it depends on how the law is written. So you could put something with a lot of teeth of like, if someone is in good standing and they work in a computer, you have to meet their request versus like, you have to take it into consideration. And if you say no, they get to report it. Like, you don't have to say yes, but if you say no, The Department of Labor publishes the denial rates on flexible work arrangement request at every company. You're kind of like leaving it to the market of what happens. There's other things you can build into this too. So you could build into the right to flexible arrangements that there's a non discrimination clause. So you can't discriminate in firing or promoting or pay raises. You can't discriminate between them. You could also say that you can't pay people less if they work remotely. All of this is kind of on the table for what the law can do. I think there's a few questions I have. Flexible work arrangements is an awful catchphrase if you are for this.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I think. I think something like, something tighter, something that's. That conveys that this is about. It's about people who want to do work, and life can make it very hard. So it's really about keeping workers attached to the workforce. The question is, what is the best version of this for workers in the United States?

[B]

Well, I mean, I think that there's a legit question about what could also be a good version for employers in the United States, because, you know, what we have now is not particularly good for either.

[A]

Yeah. Antagonism and mercurial policymaking.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, was it Goldman Sachs, where. Where the CEO just.

[A]

Oh, Jamie Dimon was caught on, or someone leaked the audio of him saying, like, don't give me that bullshit about working from home. I call on Fridays, they don't pick up. And it was, like, really derisive of people who were working from home.

[B]

Yes, that's it. But I do think that there's also a real question about, like, I've lived in places that are more expensive and less expensive just in the last few months and made the same salary. You know, I don't know if that's fair to me. Fair to my employer, to the economy. In Spokane.

[A]

There are three key constituent groups with this policy. There's the employers, there's the workers who want to take advantage of it, and there are workers who don't want to take advantage of it.

[B]

Mm.

[A]

So I think the easiest, you know, sell.

[B]

Yeah. Is to the people who want to take advantage of it.

[A]

Yeah, the people who want to take advantage of it. And then there's just kind of. There's like, the permanent fourth constituency, which is the economy overall.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I'm still on flexible work arrangements. I don't know. I don't like flexible work arrangements because it implies that it's. It's. I don't know. There's something about, like, rigidity and the deviation from the norm and that you're just making it okay to not be different. When I think.

[B]

Right.

[A]

What I see these laws doing is essentially changing what is normal.

[B]

Right.

[A]

In what is a typical culture around work in the United States. And so I almost see it as, like, work standards.

[B]

Yeah. It's like a reset of work standards.

[A]

Okay. New work standards. I Mean, I would say one of the biggest reasons economically for wanting new work standards is that workers who could take advantage of it would be people who are on the cusp of dropping out of the labor markets.

[B]

That's interesting because I think so much of what's been written about flexible work arrangements is that it's people sort of at the, at the top of the worker pyramid. Right? People who have skills that are in demand and who could compete for other jobs and that they sort of have the, I don't know, the power to demand that flexibility from their employer. I mean, I'm not saying that that's true. I'm saying that that's the conversation that I'm seeing in the news media.

[A]

Okay, it is, it's true, but not complete.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So workers who would take advantage of new work standards, survey data of workers and their preferences for work from home show that it is an amenity they value. Yeah, I mean, this is something that workers like and they enjoy. And people who have valued it the most have like a high correlation of people who are at the top of the skill distribution, people who have been working for a long time. And because this is a very highly productive set of workers that would be valuable to any firm, it's not wrong that the news media is like, all right, so where are these like best and brightest going to go if they want to work from home? And JP Morgan's CEO is laughing at them as they do it. That group of. Where does this highly productive set of workers, these best and brightest, end up given how valuable these workers can be to a firm? I mean, I think that's a fair question. The group of workers that has been most positively affected by it, however, are people who have a disability.

[B]

The people who've been most positively affected by the ability to work from home.

[A]

Is people who have a disability.

[B]

Disability, Got it. And how do we know that their.

[A]

Work rates are at all time highs?

[B]

Oh, interesting.

[A]

The labor force participation rate, which you can think of as the work rate, but it includes people who are also looking for a job. The labor force participation rate of people who have a disability, especially if it's a work limiting disability, like they can't do certain types of labor, they have a very hard time finding a job, they can have a hard time keeping a job, and they don't participate in the labor force to a great degree. Their all time high in labor force participation has just passed because they benefited so much from the ability to work remotely.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

So yes, if I think of this, workers who will Take advantage of it. You end up with classes within these. So yes, one class will be the people who are just really productive and really love it and it's just a preference that they want to have met. Then you're kind of on the other like opposite end are the people for whom, without which they wouldn't be able to work at all. And in between you'll find workers who are in some type of, say, like long term or short term duress. So certainly parents of young children.

[B]

I like that. You call that duress.

[A]

It is absolutely duress from the point of view of your employer working 9 to 5 in person. Like y' all, my daycare, I have to be there by 5, 20. That's when the doors close and then.

[B]

They just leave your child out on the curb.

[A]

I can't teleport there. Like if I didn't work from home, I'd have to find a new daycare. Finding a new daycare can be a six month endeavor and kids are sick all the time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So being able to work remotely or work. Now this new work standards includes working fewer than full time hours. So say I work 20 hours a week instead of 40 and I do that for the three years my kids are not school age and then I go back to work full time. It's funny you bring up Jamie Dimon because the new CEO of Citi is a woman and she worked part time when she had young kids. And she has said Citi is going to be a place where remote work and hybrid work stays an option. Because I would not have had a career if they had made me work full time when I had young kids. I would have had to have quit and I don't know if I would have ever come back.

[B]

So we know where everybody from is gonna go.

[A]

Yeah. Not that I love these banks, but when I saw that I was like, finally. Although I didn't realize she's the first female CEO of a financial institution in the United States in the entirety of its history. But she's very much the typecast of who you would expect to be in these classes of people that benefit from new work standards. You know, yes, there's people who prefer it, yes, there's people who can't work without it. And then you're gonna have people who are like, I don't need to do.

[B]

This, I just need to get through.

[A]

I just need to get through this. Like, my parent is sick, my spouse is sick, I have really young children at home. You know, I'm moving, that type of thing. Like, it's, it's a really good way, an effective way to keep people from quitting work.

[B]

Right, right. And especially because I, I feel like sometimes we have these, these policies that are short term. Right. They're like six weeks. They're designed around emergencies, but not, as you said so eloquently put it, periods of duress.

[A]

Periods of duress. For me, having young children, I should say, is not a duress of, like my actual life, but it is absolutely a duress from the point of view of trying to be a worker. You know, my young children are another person's, you know, dying elderly parent. People have these things that come up in their lives and too often in the labor market, the consequences, we all just have to quit. Yeah, that is catastrophic for the labor market to force people out who want to work because you have rules that don't let them. Rules that don't necessarily come from evidence or productivity, but from the mercurial whim of a CEO who says, whatever I call people on Friday and they don't pick up. So no one's allowed to work from home anymore.

[B]

Yeah, he didn't call me.

[A]

He didn't call me. So these. That's the first beneficiary group. And I think part of making these policies something that people are in general supportive of is I think one. One part is kind of making sure that, like, look, it's not just these, like, people who like working from home because it fits their lifestyle preferences, and then they get to like, leave and go work out every day. Although that should be nice too. I mean, new work standards are about who gets to access the labor market. I mean, for me, this is somewhat of a conservative argument that in the history of the world, the most incredible engine of income and wealth is the US labor market, and it has doors around it and they will slam in your face and kick you out and you don't get to participate anymore. I mean, I. This to me, is about giving, like making sure those doors are open that people get to access the labor market because it can create incredible income. But not if you don't get to have a job.

[B]

Right, right. That's the way that you need to frame this. Because the people who need to be convinced are, again, not. Not me, who works part time and loves working part time, but the people who are the gatekeepers who've deliberately set up various gates and traps and mazes for workers to go through in this economy through their laws and public policy.

[A]

Yeah, I think it's coworkers and employers that you have to convince, that you have to convince. And I, the coworkers, I don't know. So part of me thinks that there's, this is a little bit of a, like there but for the grace of God go I. Right. Like I know you think you work full time and you'd never take advantage of it, but like, are you sure that for the rest of your life you will never need a year that you keep your job and work part time because something happens? It seems like a little bit of hubris to say like I'll never need it, but maybe someone wouldn't ever need it. I do wonder what the argument is for them to say, like, here is why you want one of your co workers to be able to go home half day.

[B]

I mean obviously those are really narrow circumstances, probably meaning you don't want to lose institutional memory. You don't want to lose the particular expertise that that person brings to your team. You know, it's hard on a grand scheme to make sweeping generalizations about why people would want their co workers around more or less or have to have more flexible arrangements. But I do think that yourself, you know, it's self preservatory because at some point something happens to everyone.

[A]

Well, and I also go back to like if you work full time in the office and you work with someone who doesn't and you have a fractious relationship with them, I mean, there's one person who's clearly at fault and it's whoever is your collective manager. I mean, it's so easy to blame a colleague when the manager does a very bad job. It's part of this like knee jerk reaction to take the problem down instead of up. You need to take that problem up. Wouldn't you know many people who are managers in the US are no good at it.

[B]

Well, yeah, and I think, you know, we're seeing the real strains of that around hybrid work in general. Right. That managing a hybrid workforce are a different set of skills than people needed before. And it turns out we haven't really been training a lot of people for it or selecting for it.

[A]

Management is so important to how a company runs. And I don't think it's worth, I don't know if I'm going to use this phrase correctly. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Where on earth does that come from?

[B]

Retcon.

[A]

Retcon. We'll find out next time. It's kind of like I can see the argument so clearly and it probably doesn't sound ridiculous to someone saying it to say, well, it's really hard to manage people who don't have the same schedule. So we're actually going to throw away all the benefits from it and just not do it because it's hard on me. Like it's hard on me and I'm.

[B]

Already not good at my job.

[A]

I'm already not good at my job and this makes it harder. So we're just going to bump, bump.

[B]

By.

[A]

The co worker argument is, you know, one you don't know that you'd never take advantage of it and to like, don't blame your colleague that you're poorly managed.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And think for a second that like this could open up work in so many ways for creativity. And your employer's knee jerk response is you're not allowed to do it. Like, do you really think that's a problem with the person who wants to work 30 hours a week instead of 40 or do you think it's the problem with the manager? You know, you should demand better management for your employer. This is on them. They want to manage like it's 1955. I didn't want to be the bearer of bad tidings. But it's not just like married men and that's it. And no black people and no women and that's your workforce. And they all can be at work until 10pm at night and that's it. And I'm sure that, that honestly that's what an incredibly easy group of people to manage. Like, no sexual harassment. Everybody drinks.

[B]

You see Mad Men. Come on.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, no reported sexual harassment.

[B]

Okay, there you go. There you go.

[A]

Wouldn't it be easy to be a manager of Mad Men? No rules.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Nothing. Yeah, but it's, it's 2025. We have very diverse workplaces, whether or not we kill DEI or not. And you know, it's more challenging to manage people who look different, people who have different backgrounds, people who have different needs in order to perform their work. Yes, it's more challenging, but that should be about you becoming better and not about you stuffing progress in a box and going the other way.

[B]

Yeah. And I hate to say this, but I think sometimes, you know, people are in full time jobs and they maybe aren't operating a full time capacity because they can't. And wouldn't it be better for the company if they were actually working 32 hours a week or 20 hours a week? I, as you know, work halftime. And that allowed me, for instance, not to take time off work to take my ailing in laws to the doctor, I could do that on my time, not as sick time that my company would have been paying for. The part of your Venn diagram that we haven't touched on is the economy overall. And you were talking about how the labor force, the American labor force is a income and wealth generating force in general. And I don't think that I understand how important growing the labor force is for the overall economy. Can you make that argument?

[A]

Okay, so. So the size of the US Economy is very well predicted by the number of people working in it. So our labor force participation rate is basically the bellwether of economic growth. Part of that is because if you were to divide the economy into pieces, the largest piece of the US Economy is household spending. So it's somewhat translated from both what workers produce for the economy and then what they use their income to go out and buy. So having workers is the most important part of an economy.

[B]

Full stop.

[A]

Full stop. If your labor force participation rate falls, that means that your potential GDP is lower than it would be. So for every million people who drop out of the labor market, you go from having a million workers to a million non workers. That shortens your GDP potential. So every so often there'll be like an institute or a think tank that will do some report about like how much larger the US economy would be if women were working. This is all they're basically using is they're throwing the number of women who could be working into per worker GDP and showing that the economy would be 5% bigger. And historically, I mean, this goes backwards as well, that women entering the labor force, they doubled their labor force participation from 1950 to 2000. That absolutely grew the economy. The US economy is larger because those women joined and they brought home income for their families and they raised the income of their families. And all of that is like very well documented. Women entering the labor force in mass was a massive windfall for the US Economy and kept us growing even through bad periods. So recessions of the 70s and 80s, if you look at the share of like job loss by men and women, yeah, there's like three or four recessions where female employment doesn't go down because so many women are joining the labor force that even as the economy is shedding jobs, they're still picking up jobs and they're growing the economy. Incredible tailwind to have people join the economy. We have large groups still that sit out from the economy. Workers with a disability and women with young children at home are probably two of the largest.

[B]

The biggest. Yeah.

[A]

Two of the biggest there is another very large group that has its own set of labor force issues which is workers who have a felony history.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And they have a very special type of discrimination and problem when it comes to the labor market that even new work standards could have a hard time.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Solving. But what is interesting about this is that when employers are against things like this, for me it evinces an incredible amount of lack of creativity. In England you have a year of maternity leave.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And so they have very common in their labor market to have mat leave positions where they will hire someone for a year knowing that it's just a one year position while someone is on maternity leave. And it's not necessarily a one for one replacement, it's someone to help out. And the these mat leaves positions can be really useful for people who are trying to like switch careers, trying to switch industries, you know, are willing to try something else. You know, it's kind of like a constant opening up of positions that are unrelated to flows in the economy. So it can lead to a lot of creativity on the employer side. But they might not get there on their own, right?

[B]

You mean the employers might not get there on their own.

[A]

Yeah, they might like, they would like fight it tooth and nail and be like, oh no, we could never do this. And then it became law. They're like, we've got so many great ideas, like we fought this hard but we are ready. I can kind of shape up all these arguments of like this is why it's good for you. The like very, very difficult burden with the new work standards is who gets benefits.

[B]

Yeah, I wasn't going to bring it up.

[A]

You weren't going to bring it up.

[B]

But I was thinking the same thing, that we've entangled benefits to full time work specifically and but I do feel like have states experimented with some of that in terms of. But that still doesn't deal with things like flexible remote requirements. And you work for a company in Wisconsin and everybody's insured through a company that's in Wisconsin and you want to live in Ohio.

[A]

Yeah. So sometimes when I think of policies that characterize like me optimist economy of like this is all this good stuff that we can do. Some of them are very much like you could just drop it into the labor market now and it would be no problem, like paid sick days, just drop them in. Yeah, we'll be fine.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This is one that I think its success would hinge on how well the benefits question is answered. And it's the best version of this policy is one in which at the very least health is delinked from employment.

[B]

Right. And that's a much bigger, which is.

[A]

A much bigger problem. And so maybe this is in some way like if you build a constituency around new work standards, you could say like and oh, by the way, maybe we should delink health and work because you could come up with some kind of rule. But whatever rule you come up with, like they will do n +1 to get around it. Like if it's 20 hours of work to be part time, then everyone will work 19 and that's the only option you have. Or if it's 30 hours to be eligible for health benefits, congratulations, you work 29 hours a week like that. Whatever it is, they'll skirt by it because they don't want to pay it, especially if you're not working full time. And I, and I do understand health insurance is so expensive for them. There's always this question about building policy for the future, of how constrained do you need to be by the terrible policy of the present? Right, yeah, the retirement one is very easy to solve. So right now your employer gives you retirement benefits. I would say odds are in 10 years they're not going to come from your employer anymore. Employers are already pulling back on 401ks and that's basically all they offer. So having a, like you get to opt into a savings account that is universal to that's actually quite easy. And I think that would be no problem. Health insurance is the hardest one. And I think you would essentially write the new work standards in two ways of like, here's new work standards, given that we have made this horrible decision to link health insurance to work. And then here's the new work standards from whenever we emotionally and logistically move beyond that. And here's how they would work and you'd have to, it would just all of the benefits of part time work, of working from home, of hybrid work, of being able to like work after 10pm when your kids are in bed or like after you get back from a doctor, doctor's appointment, all of those benefits would still be there. This is more just like the knife under the ribs. It wouldn't change all the really good dividends you would get from everything else. It wouldn't change the dividends you have for the employer or the colleague or the person who benefits it from having these people. And it would really only affect people who wanted new work standards to work less than full time, not people who wanted flexible arrangements or asynchronous Work. So it's a subset of them. But I think that that subset is incredibly important. And that subset I think is the hardest to manage with the health insurance.

[B]

Yeah. You know, you can't solve everything in one go, you know. But I do think you're going to have to acknowledge it because anybody who's worked part time knows exactly what you come up against in terms of benefits.

[A]

The other part time work issue is the people and the employers who still treat you as if you're full time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So you just end up making part time pay for working a full time job. That makes you more stressed. Yeah, the I again, none of those are insurmountable. So this essay, the case for new work standards. I mean, what is.

[B]

You've really latched onto that New Year.

[A]

I just, I hate flexible work arrangements.

[B]

No, it's fine.

[A]

Flaws, if you will. Flaws ain't my jam. Because it just makes the person who takes them seem less than of like, well, I don't need flexibility, but she does. Like, I don't like it. Yeah, we're not doing this like that's, we're not creating a hierarchy of best worker where the best worker is the one that doesn't have to take advantage of flexibility.

[B]

Right.

[A]

The best worker is the one that can show up and do the job. And if you are in this economy and you're out there trying to work, we shouldn't have our labor laws decide that you get to sound worse than other people. So listeners, you tens and tens of optimists who join us, if you come up with something better than new work standards, I would absolutely last onto it. But I think the essay from this is. Here is this thing. I can take any constituency and explain to you why they would benefit from it. You know, what is the like maybe it's what is the hook versus what is the long sell. How do you make people care about this, Especially if they don't maybe think if they would want to take advantage of it.

[B]

I mean, the overall growth of the economy and the strength of the American economy is the long game. Right. I feel like people had this little tiny window into this during the pandemic where the recovery from the shock was slowed by the fact that there weren't enough workers. And now at the current moment, I don't know that most people on the street feel like there aren't enough workers. So you have to make them understand that growing the number of available workers is still a good thing to do. It's still an important thing to do. It's not going to make it just harder for you to get a job.

[A]

So that's the pitch. You know, there are two paths going forward. One in which we try to include workers into the labor market and one in which we don't. And we've turned from one path to another.

[B]

You and I have talked about this before. The number of workers that, you know, the kind of going off of a cliff of the number of workers from the baby boom generation. And our population isn't growing and apparently we're not feeling particularly welcoming towards immigrants at the moment as a nation. So we are going to need these workers.

[A]

We are going to need workers. So that's the pitch of we have two paths of who gets to benefit from our labor market and what does that mean for the economy. The more people benefit, the bigger the economy is. And this is the path we want to be on. The path where the economy gets to generate more income for more families. Maybe this gets back to optimism. You have the choice between two economies. One in which more people work and have income for their family, in which we don't punish people for getting sick or having things happen in their life that makes them less than a full time worker for a period of time. There's an economy that includes them and capitalizes on them and then there's one that shoves them out like one of them is clearly better than the other. And if the only difference is your manager doesn't know how to work with hybrid people like y' all, that is an excuse, but not a reason. I need a reason to exclude people from the labor market. Not an excuse about why it makes your job harder. Yeah, okay. I'll do excuse versus reason and then I'll do the paths of growth of why would you ever turn away from a larger economy. Yeah, I think this is optimistic too, y' all. We can have a bigger, better economy.

[B]

More people can have jobs.

[A]

More people can have jobs. This is all good.

[B]

Okay, okay.

[A]

Palate cleanser, Executive orders.

[B]

So I'm still in the tax thing. You're still here.

[A]

So you're deep on taxes.

[B]

So TurboTax, you should not have to pay a third party company so that you can pay the government either what you owe or to get what you have overpaid back. And I don't know if people have read it, but ProPublica has done this just ongoing series for years about TurboTax and there's also a pretty great episode that sums up a lot of that work from Reply All I've got links to both of those that we will put online. But the government should provide free tax software at a very minimum.

[A]

Yeah. And if they mess up, it's on them. Yeah. Yeah. I. I couldn't agree with this more. Turbotax. And they also are very good at lobbying against the development of a free software because their whole livelihood is built on you having to pay someone to do your taxes. It shows you just how complicated and in desperate need of reform our income tax system is that even for someone who just has a job, one source of income didn't change for the entire year. They still need to pay someone to do their taxes. Because the tax code is so complicated. That's because of the tax code. That's not because of the person. You shouldn't have to be smart to file your taxes or be tax code sophisticated. I'm with you on this one.

[B]

You're with them. You're with me on all of them. Are you gonna veto?

[A]

I could.

[B]

Are we gonna have a veto?

[A]

That won't happen here. Not in the Edwards Republic. Okay, so my executive order is a bit of a downer, which I apologize for in advance, but I need to give the origin story for my executive order. I was watching Shrinking, the season finale of season two. If you don't watch, you don't need to know the story. The very end of season two ends with someone who is about to kill themselves. It's averted, the episode ends, the season ends, and a title card comes up that says, if you need help, go to apple.com heretohelp if you or someone you know is in Trouble, go to apple.com heretohelp and I mean not dial 988. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, I must have jumped a foot in the air and screamed at the tv. Fuck you, Apple. I was so mad. Here's the thing. 988 is so incredibly good at what it does, and it is effective. And they were right to put up a title card because suicide is a copycat crime. And the Public Health Service has been, you know, moving mountains to change the way that suicide is talked about and reported on in journalistic outlets, in news media, to always have the suicide hotline printed to never give details of what happens in a suicide. So my executive order is if your work of fiction depicts suicide or talks about suicide, you have to put 988 up on the screen. I don't care if it messes with the aesthetic like it is. It is such a beneficial public service. Everybody is in crisis at some point. Not everybody has someone next to them, and not everyone is going to remember to go to apple.com here to help. Oh, I was so mad. So that's my executive order.

[B]

I'm for it.

[A]

Yay. Didn't think you'd be against it, but 988 is a good service. It doesn't need to be duplicated. You need to direct people to the health service that helps them.

[B]

I mean, the truth is that I actually find the creation of 988, which is pretty recent. I actually find that a kind of a miraculous turn of events from calling basically the police. I think that 988 is a constant reminder to me that we can, in fact, change things and do it better.

[A]

Before we end our show, we would of course like to thank our sponsors who are not financial but spiritual and get us through this life as well as this podcast. The sponsor I'd like to thank for this week is Angelica Houston's portrayal of Carrie Catt in the early 2000s movie Iron Jawed Angels. It's a good movie. It has flaws, but her performance is incredible. And she definitely starts as the, you know, kind of the antagonist of the women's suffrage movement because she's a conservative member within it. And then she really kind of help carry the day. And it's Angelica Houston in early 1900s outfits. She looks so cool. Then we get to vote. Oh, it's great.

[B]

I gotta put that on my watch list. Okay. My spiritual sponsor in the last week has been Keri Russell in the Diplomat. Great suits and just that frazzled but competent and focused ability that she has. It's just been, you know, thank you for that.

[A]

As we turn a corner on Optimist Economy, where we go from recording shows to actually publishing them, letting people listen to them. Letting people listen to them who aren't just my mom, who was appreciative, she liked them.

[B]

Oh, good.

[A]

As people who aren't my mom get to listen to the show, this is when we need to extend the biggest thanks to our producer, Sophie, who is an absolute miracle worker who gives us confidence, who helps us stay poised, who makes sure the show comes together. And if we publish this and people like it, she's who we have to thank her. Absolutely. So snapping out. Sophie, this is Optimist Economy. You can find us on all the platforms at Optimist Economy. You can email us your questions with. We would love to hear optimist economymail.com you can find me, Ked's economist on all the platforms. And you can find Robin Rousey Nowhere, Nowhere.