Slate Money: The Lucky Strike Edition

Date: February 16, 2019
Host: Felix Salmon (Axios)
Panelists: Anna Shymansky, Emily Peck (Huffington Post)
Special Guest: Max Jacobs (Slate, in bonus segment)

Overview

This episode of Slate Money is titled “The Lucky Strike Edition” and features a lively roundup of major business and finance stories from mid-February 2019. The panel dives into the psychological quirks of tax refunds under new U.S. tax law, explores the implications of Finland's closely-watched universal basic income (UBI) experiment, and examines the recent resurgence of labor activism and strikes in the U.S. Each of these topics is tackled with sharp debate, clear explanations, and playful skepticism. The podcast’s tone is conversational, smart, and sometimes irreverent, with the hosts poking fun at one another and themselves.

Main Topics and Key Insights

1. Tax Refunds & Withholding Changes

(Starts ~01:32)

• Background:
  Most Americans expect annual tax refunds, a feature of the U.S. tax system that also acts as forced savings. This year, due to changes in tax law and withholding tables under the Trump administration, many people are getting smaller refunds, or even owing money unexpectedly.

• Key Insights:

  • Withholding tables were adjusted to give Americans more take-home pay throughout the year, but this led to smaller refunds at tax time.
  • Although the goal was to let people “feel” the tax cut sooner, psychological research shows people don’t notice small increases in paychecks but do notice big refunds.
  • Fewer Americans are receiving refunds, and more are owing money:

    “One estimate I saw so far was 4 million fewer filers are getting refunds and 4 million more are owing money to the IRS.” — Emily Peck (03:36)

  • The cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions disproportionately affects residents of high-tax states.
  • The psychological value of receiving a lump sum is significant, even if the total benefit is smaller than incremental gains.

    “Your paycheck going up by $25 a week versus a $2,000 bump at the end of the year ... you could have made more money ... but it just does not matter because then you’re not getting that check that you’ve been waiting for all year.” — Emily Peck (10:17)

• Notable Quote:

  “If you have a teeny tiny increase in your check, you’re much less likely [to notice].” — Anna Shymansky (06:41)

2. Finland’s Universal Basic Income Experiment

(Starts ~10:52)

• Background:
  Finland initiated a closely-observed trial giving 2,000 randomly selected unemployed individuals a monthly stipend of €560, exploring whether UBI can encourage employment and wellbeing compared to traditional unemployment benefits.

• Key Insights:

  • The trial wasn’t extended or expanded, but wasn’t "cut short" either.
  • Participants reported increased happiness, health, trust in government, and life satisfaction—but not an increase in employment.

    “The real difference was the people who were getting this money were. This is so basic, guys. But they were happier. They had better well-being, they had better health, they had more trust in the government, which was really interesting.” — Emily Peck (13:07)

  • The experiment targeted only unemployed people, so its relevance for true UBI is limited.
  • The psychological pain of losing the benefit was significant:

    “We all react much worse to losing €500 a month than we react to gaining €500 a month.” — Felix Salmon (12:12)

  • Discussion of similar experiments in Kenya and the U.S. clarified that UBI’s benefits are context-dependent and often more pronounced for the poorest.
  • The primary societal benefit in Finland seemed to be increased well-being and trust in government rather than labor force participation.

• Memorable Moment:

  “If you give people more money, are they more likely to work or are they not more likely to work? Because it wasn’t that long ago that if you talked about giving people money, everyone would say, well, if you give people money, they’re going to be less likely to work ... that whole hypothesis has been completely rejected at this point.” — Felix Salmon (17:38)

3. The Resurgence of Labor Activism and Strikes

(Starts ~20:41)

• Background:
  The U.S. saw a significant uptick in work stoppages and strikes in 2018, led by teacher strikes and walkouts at large corporations like Marriott. The hosts analyze what’s behind this labor revival.

• Key Insights:

  • Work stoppages tracked by the Department of Labor nearly tripled in 2018, largely due to a series of major teachers’ strikes in states like West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona, and California.
  • Factors include tight labor markets (7 million open jobs), lingering economic inequality despite positive macro indicators, and the influence of social media and post-2016 protest culture.

    “If you look at, like, the share of national income that goes to labor, the share that goes to capital, it has been going more to capital. But when we’ve seen it narrow has been when the economy is doing better, there’s less slack in the market.” — Anna Shymansky (23:01)

  • Social media has enabled new forms of labor organization, especially in sectors traditionally hard to unionize, like retail and tech.
  • Union membership is ticking up slightly after decades of decline.
  • The episode contrasts the U.S. system of enterprise-level unions with industry-wide unionism in Europe (the “Ghent system”).

    “If we have some organized way of telling you what we want and what’s gonna make us happy, that’s gonna be better for both of us.” — Felix Salmon (25:53)

  • Host Emily Peck shares a personal story comparing union vs. non-union outcomes during layoffs at HuffPost and BuzzFeed (26:21).

• Notable Quotes:

  “This was one of the first stories ... where social media was kind of the good guy, that it was allowing people to organize actually in different ways.” — Anna Shymansky (24:47)
  “I feel like this is part of a bigger trend ... people feeling a little bit fed up with not getting what they need to just go to work and like, live their lives.” — Emily Peck (31:01)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Tax Refunds as Nudge Economics:

  “It’s an interesting psychological kind of case study in how money works. Like your paycheck going up by $25 a week versus a $2,000 bump at the end of the year. ... It just does not matter because then you’re not getting that check that you’ve been waiting for all year.”
  — Emily Peck (10:16)

• On Universal Basic Income’s Societal Effect:

  “If you realize if you’re on Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid and you’re receiving substantial amounts of money from the government, you generally like those programs and you like the people who are giving them to you.”
  — Felix Salmon (19:09)

• On the Evolution of Labor Movement:

  “People are finding many different ways to push for what they feel they deserve.”
  — Anna Shymansky (24:47)

Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |------------------------------|-----------------| | Tax Refunds & Withholding | 01:32–10:52 | | Finland’s UBI Experiment | 10:52–20:41 | | Labor Strikes & Activism | 20:41–31:15 | | Numbers Round | 31:48–38:50 |

Numbers Round (31:48–38:50)

The hosts each share a number of interest from the week:

• Emily:
  • $450,696 (31:49): The average household income in Atherton, CA, highlighting Silicon Valley’s extreme wealth and housing challenges.
• Felix:
  • 0 (33:02): The number of letters published by the New England Journal of Medicine calling out its failure to adhere to scientific reproducibility guidelines.
• Anna:
  • 1888 (37:03): The year invoked by Trump at a rally to support tariffs; Anna debunks the historical accuracy of his claims.

Overall Tone and Style

Smart, witty, and informed, the discussion is loaded with quips, gentle mockery, skepticism toward political narratives, and a deep concern for how economic policies affect individuals’ lives. The hosts skillfully balance technical explanations with accessible analogies (e.g., comparing tax refunds to Wall Street bonuses), and the panel dynamics are lighthearted yet substantive.

Final Thoughts

Listeners will come away understanding how technical shifts in tax policy ripple through personal finances and national politics, why basic income experiments are harder to interpret than headlines suggest, and how labor’s resurgence is both traditional (through strikes) and modern (through social media). Whether you’re an economics novice or a seasoned policy observer, this “Lucky Strike” edition offers depth, clarity, and plenty of moments worth pondering.

For the bonus content on baseball labor economics, see Slate Plus.