← So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
1751: Inside the 2024 Election: Polling, Money, and Dividing Opinions on the Economy
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- [00:00]
Farnoosh Turabi
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- [00:31]
Farrah Bostick
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Farnoosh Turabi
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Farrah Bostick
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Farnoosh Turabi
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Farrah Bostick
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Farnoosh Turabi
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Farrah Bostick
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Farnoosh Turabi
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Farrah Bostick
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- [01:33]
Farnoosh Turabi
So money episode 1751 inside the 2024 election polling money and why Americans feel so divided on the economy. You're listening to SOW Money with award winning money guru Farnoosh Turabi. Each day get a 30 minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers and from Farnoosh yourself looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons. Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life. Welcome to so Money.
- [02:10]
Farrah Bostick
People will tend to answer particularly questions about how they think the economy is doing based on whether or not their preferred party is in power. So Republicans have been saying whenever there is a Democratic president for a few few different Democratic presidents now that the economy is worse when there's a Democrat in charge than when there's a Republican in charge, even though the underlying fundament and their personal income situation is not any different. And so, you know, literally since last week, there have been polls in the field asking people how they feel about the economy. And Republicans feel much better about the economy all of a sudden. Democrats feel much worse about the economy all of a sudden.
- [02:47]
Farnoosh Turabi
Welcome to so Money everybody. Today's episode takes a little bit of a detour from our usual discussions about personal finance and money strategies, but believe me, it's a fascinating and relevant topic, especially as we grapple with the aftermath of the election, economic un uncertainty and the financial anxiety I know many of you are feeling right now. Our guest is Farrah Bostick. She's a brand strategist, researcher, and founder of the Difference Engine, a consultancy that helps entrepreneurs and brands make smarter decisions through deep dive research and data analysis. She's also the co host of in the Demo, a podcast exploring generational differences, and the host of Crosstabs, which dives into polling and what data can reveal about the decisions we make. And speaking of polling may seem like an unusual topic for this podcast, but it's incredibly relevant as we think about what drives voter behavior, how people perceive the economy, and what it all means for issues like student loan forgiveness, financial policy, and even your grocery bills. Leading up to the election, Farrah became something of a polling expert. On her podcast and substack, she analyzed what the data was saying and what it missed. Today, she helps us unpack why polls often misfire, why so many people were divided on the economy, and how voter turned turnout, or lack thereof, shaped the results. Here's Farrah Bostick. Farrah Bostic, welcome to SO Money. It's so nice to have you on the show. We were trying to get this all together before the election. It didn't happen, but actually now we might have a lot more to talk about. Tell us a little bit about your work and not just your work, because I feel like you have your, you have your company that you run, but you have so many other interests and experiences that, that play into your work as a brand strategist. But I think for the purposes of our conversation today will also be meaningful for our audience who cares about their money and their careers.
- [04:40]
Farrah Bostick
Yeah, I mean my, my career path has been a little funny. I did my undergraduate degree in journalism and in political science and, but wound up working in advertising and so, and wound up is probably not quite the right word for it. I think the writing was on the wall even in 1998 that journalism jobs were going to be rough so, but like advertising place where I could write and get paid for it. And so I started out as a copywriter and then just found that my curiosity about how businesses work, about what motivates people to do anything in any kind of consumer category was more powerful than my desire to write advertising copy, which is not my favorite form of writing, it turned out. And so I became what's known as an account planner or brand strategist in advertising. And then I went to. Took a little. Took a little jaunt over and went to law school, thinking that maybe that would be my next career when the dot com bust happened. And advertising was punished pretty heavily for that. So I did that and then kind of came out and went, no, I have taken enough tests. I have. I have studied enough. I'm not going to go work in a law firm now. And I need to start paying back these student loan debts. So I need to get the kind of job I can get now at a decent salary. So I went to work in market research coming out of, coming out of law school because it was like the closest I could get to where the decisions happen about how people spend their time and their money. And that was the thing that was the most interesting to me. And it meant I could travel and meet lots of interesting people. And that's more or less how I got into this kind of work. And then about a dozen years ago, I started my own shop.
- [06:20]
Farnoosh Turabi
Yeah, the difference Engine. You also have several content platforms. You're the co host of in the demo, a host of crosstabs, you have a substack. And I was interested to start today by talking to you about your work in analyzing the polls. I know on your podcast leading up to the election, you would take a new poll every week with experts and kind of unpack it based on what the polls predicted. And then of course, what happened? Why were the polls so far off? Is it the mechanism of the poll? Is it the poll sort of anatomy? Or is it how we are looking into it? And that needs to change.
- [07:02]
Farrah Bostick
I think the interesting thing that happened for me from starting this show to literally today. So right before we spoke, I was interviewing Brian Schaffner, who's one of the principals who works on what's known as the Cooperative Election Survey. And they do, they survey like 50, 60,000Americans a few times a year. There about half the survey, everybody answers. And the other half of the survey is little modules where different groups of academics get to ask different kinds of questions. But it is one of the few large scale Surveys that we really do. So I think one of the challenges is there is a kind of narrative path of polling. And so when we're a year out from the election, it's temperature taking. What's going on in the electorate, what are people's preferences, where are they leaning, what's the vibe? And that kind of continues to be the case for quite a long time. And then you get into the summer of the election year and the press really wants those polls to be predictive. They want to be like, what's going to happen? Everyone wants to know what's going to be the result. And in the summer it's not a great time because frequently we haven't had the nominating conventions yet. We don't know who the vice presidential picks are. A lot of people are not yet paying attention to the election. And so really there's this kind of sweet spot between the middle of August when the conventions have happened and the beginning of October where everybody who's going to decide decides. And the interesting thing about the elections in the last few cycles, the last 12 to 16 years, is that we don't really have that many undecided voters anymore. By the time you get to October 1st, by the time you get to October 1st, people's preferences have been formed. And so there's not a lot of, there's sort of a question, an open question about how much campaigning matters, how much does politics matters. Are October surprises still a thing? You know, all of those kinds of questions about what, you know, what we should we be doing in October is an open question for the, for the campaigns themselves. But then the other side of it is that the polls take a turn and they stop being these kind of diagnostics about what's going on in the electorate and what are people's preferences and what's the vibe and do shift over from, you know, snapshots in time is always the phrase that gets used to describe polls up to that point. And in October it's like, no, these now have to have predictive capabilities. I think the biggest challenge to the polls are a few things. This is a big country with a lot of different kinds of people in it. 1500 person surveys are never going to be as fine grained as we want them to be. And so we're always going to be missing something and trying to compensate for it with math, which is really what weighting is. If you've heard people talk about waiting the surveys, they're trying to get a survey that is not a perfect replica of the electorate to look more like what they think the electorate is going to look like. They do that based on typically past performance. So what did the electorate look like last time? And so the closer we got to this election, you saw people saying, well, if it looks like 2020, then this is what the electorate is and this is what the outcome would be. If it looks like 2022, then this is what the electorate would be and this is what the outcome is. No one knows what the next electorate is going to look like. And that's the real challenge. Like the ability to predict who's actually going to turn out and vote is actually the biggest gap, I imagine, between what the polls say and what the reality is. Brian, who I was talking to earlier at Tufts, was telling me that something like 20, 30% of college educated people who will tell a pollster they are definitely going to vote won't, and they probably never were. But they are also educated enough to know that they should. And so they will tell you what they think you want to hear and what they think they ought to say. And so we just have a lot of blind spots. We cannot actually ask everybody what they're going to do and everybody might not do the thing they're pretty sure they're going to do. And so, you know, some of it is like it's never going to get closer really than it gets. It's within about two points either direction. We're just so polarized that it can fail spectacularly while only being off by a couple points.
- [11:17]
Farnoosh Turabi
So it begs the question, that's an incredible explanation. Thank you so much for going into the details there. It's not the first time polls have incorrectly predicted a winning candidate, but this year there was a survey by Marist themselves. The Marist poll survey found that 61% of Americans have not very much or no confidence at all in polls. So do you think that the polling, does it serve a purpose anymore?
- [11:41]
Farrah Bostick
This is a really good question and something that I have kind of been asking every guest of the show, which is, you know, how should people think about receive understand polls in the kind of body politic? The problem is there's sort of an interesting history of polling which is that it has more or less grown up alongside the modern media. And so you. This goes back to, you know, the late 20s, early 1930s with George Gallup and some of the kind of original pollsters. And look, the point of even before that straw polls were to sell newspaper subscriptions, to sell subscriptions to magazines. And so they serve a purpose of getting People to pay attention to newspapers and radio and television, whatever, in greater numbers in an election year so that those newspapers can make a little bit more money. Right. So they serve a very odd purpose, which is. And it means that the journalists who cover polling are extremely impatient. And so, like right now, everyone is crafting stories about what happened in this election, but the truth is, the soonest we're going to know what happened in this election is like March of next year. And the reason for that is it takes a long time for the states and the counties to report who actually voted. And so you don't know what happened until you know who actually voted. And, you know, we know what the results are. Yes, but you don't really know the demographic makeup of those people or what issues drove them or any of the rest of it. I think because there have been these polling misses and because, frankly, I think, you know, part of what is making it feel more fraught now is because the elections are so close and have been for several cycles. And, you know, we also have had more recent highly publicized polling failures. So, like in 2004, I want to say the exit polls were really wrong. And so people thought John Kerry had won the election when he had most definitely not won the election. And, you know, the polling up to that didn't really make it look like it was a blowout for him, but the, the exits did. And it just turned out that, like, exit polling had gotten harder and harder. People don't want to stop and talk to a pollster on their way out of a polling place. Local elections districts made them move their polling station further away from the polling stat station. So, you know, the farther away you were from the voters, the less likely they were to talk to you. So there were a whole bunch of reasons why it didn't. Didn't work very well. And I think those repeat performances of some things off every time does lead people to feel like they can't trust the polls. I think the other thing is they are relying on polls to do something they just really can't do perfectly. You know, an October 5th poll is pretty predictive, but so what, you know, by then, you know, when it's. When it's so close, 48 and a half to 51, one and a half or something that feels like, you know, the result is dramatic, even if the difference is small. And so if it was two points in favor of Harris, but actually it wound up being a point in favor, you know, point and a half in favor of Trump, people feel let down and That's a challenge.
- [14:58]
Farnoosh Turabi
Do you remember the Iowa poll that came in at the 11th hour? And you'll explain it better than I can. But, I mean, because I don't really. I wasn't really following polls up until that point. My husband does, and he's like, oh, my God, you know, and I'm like, what's going on? He's like, well, this pollster, and she looked at Iowa and it looks like, you know, and that's not a battleground state. And it's very much in Harris's favor. And so if this is at all maybe a bellwether or an indicator, you know, it's great news. And I thought, I hope it's right, because I hope this doesn't lead to complacency, where people go, well, it's in the bag now, so I'm not going to go vote. And we know that there was very low Democratic turnout, voter turnout in this election relative to other elections, at least the last election. And so do you think that polls sometimes have they sway us in directions prior to an election that would lead to some people voting or not voting?
- [15:53]
Farrah Bostick
There is some evidence of, for instance, in the 2016 election, not necessarily the polls, but the forecasts coming from places like 538, influencing people's sense of urgency around getting out to vote for Clinton or for Trump. So there's a way where, if it looks like it's a sure thing in either direction, then people may feel less motivated. They don't feel like their individual vote will count as much or that they need to help out their preferred candidate. This year is different because at no point was the polling saying that it was a blowout in either direction. At no point did it look like either candidate was going to run away with it. And in the end, neither candidate did run away with it from the popular vote perspective. It's just that enough of a shift happened in enough states that Trump. Trump carried those states. So, you know, the Ann Seltzer Iowa poll is a very respected poll. She has been incredibly accurate, particularly in her final poll before Election Day for Iowa in years past. But I think there are other things happening here, which is that, you know, her approach to doing this is she just keeps calling voters until she gets 800 likely voters who are registered to vote in Iowa. And her method of determining whether they are likely to vote is, frankly, by asking them, you know, have you already voted or are you extremely likely to vote? And, you know, what seems like it may have happened is either it's just luck of the draw she got the 800 respondents for whom it was a, you know, three, five point, whatever it was, lead for Harris or there were a lot of people who, after having seen that result, said it's in the bag, I don't need to go vote this year. I think there is something else happening though, which is just that I think people are sick of talking to pollsters. I think if you live in a battleground state, you have been pulled within an inch of your life. If you don't live in a battleground state, you haven't been talked to by a pollster ever. And that actually is another thing that we know undermines people's trust in polling. They are not being asked, so how accurate can it be? And I think it also drives candidates and campaigns to spend most of their time in those battleground states and other states feel neglected. And so, you know, they vote in a way that reflects their neglect.
- [18:12]
Farnoosh Turabi
Coming up, I want to talk to you about the economy. And we know at least from some of the exit polls, the economy was top of mind for voters, particularly Republican voters who thought the economy wasn't doing so hot. That was a big change they were looking for. And then I want to talk more about money and anxiety is something that you have unpacked a lot. Maybe personally, but definitely professionally more after the break, Imagine having a super smart and reliable virtual friend to help you guide your finances. Well, besides me, that's exactly what you get with Claude, the AI assistant from Anthropic, designed to help amplify your potential. Whether you're tackling your finances alone or working with a team, Claude is there to help. Need to analyze financial data, track expenses or make a plan to pay off debt? Claude's advanced reasoning capabilities are perfect for breaking down complex charts, forecasting savings goals and even generating custom tools tools to streamline your financial models. Plus, Claude offers top tier security and reliability, ensuring your sensitive financial information is always protected. Trust it to help you make the best decisions with the peace of mind of knowing your data is safe, ready to take control of your financial future? Visit Claude AI today and see how Claude can help you exceed your goals. Have you ever experienced a dry, itchy scalp? Or ever wondered why your color isn't lasting as long as your hairdresser promised? I'm raising my hand. Well, unfiltered mineral filled water could be the reason why. Did you know hard water is a leading cause of damaged hair and dry, irritated skin? And that about 85% of the United States uses hard water filled with dissolved minerals and added chlorine. That's where Canopy's filtered showerheads come in. Canopy, known for their beauty hacks and reimagined humidifier, has revolutionized the filtered showerhead space with not one filtered showerhead but a handheld version as well. Dermatologists recommended this unique three stage filtration system greatly reduces contaminants and odors in your shower water, leaving with healthy hair and glowing skin. Best of all, the Canopy's filtered shower heads are hassle free, installation is a breeze and its unique filter replacement feature allows for seamless filter changes unlike any others on the market. Go to GetCanopy Co to save $25 on your Canopy filtered showerhead purchase today with Canopy's hassle free filter subscription. Even better, my listeners can use the code somoney at checkout to save an additional 10% off your canopy purchase purchase. Hurry. Your hair and skin will thank you. Here's something I'm really looking forward to as the weather turns cooler. Penn State football games Pumpkin Spice Lattes yeah, I said it. And slipping into a cozy sweater from Quince. Quince is known for their Mongolian cashmere sweaters from $50. And it's not just that. All Quince Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. That includes beautiful leather jackets, cotton cardigans, soft denim and so much more. How are they able to do that? By partnering directly with top factories and cutting out the cost of the middleman, which passes the savings on to us. I just did a huge Quint haul because I'm obsessed with their cropped button down cardigans. Perfect to go with my high waisted jeans. They fit perfectly and look like a million bucks and I only spent 49. Get cozy in Quince's high quality wardrobe essentials. Go to quince.com sew money for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C E.com somoney to get free shipping and 365 day return quince.com sowmoney.
- [21:42]
Farrah Bostick
My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big roas man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laugh at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B but with LinkedIn you'll be able to reach people who do. Get a hundred dollar credit on your next ad campaign.
- [22:03]
Farnoosh Turabi
Go to LinkedIn.com results to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com results terms and conditions apply LinkedIn.
- [22:10]
Farrah Bostick
The place to be.
- [22:11]
Farnoosh Turabi
To be. All right, we're back, and we're talking to Farrah Bostick. And you just gave us quite an education in history in polling. Not a typical topic on SO money, but I think really important context for all of us is we're just, just trying to do our best to get our heads wrapped around the election results and now also our finances and the implications of this vote to our bottom line, our personal bottom line. The economy was very much top of mind for so many voters. When you look at some of the exit polling that was done, the economy, specifically disappointment towards the economy led many people to vote for Donald Trump, which can be baffling to those who voted for Harris for the opposite reason, who thought the economy is doing relatively better. And I know that it wasn't always so rosy under a Biden administration. We had very high inflation, but they understood why that happened and they understood the steps that were taken to try to mitigate that with raising interest rates. And we have a soft landing. The unemployment rate is still very strong. And yet it seems like there were two narratives at play around the economy and the Republican narrative. One, what's your take on all of that? What are your first thoughts? As I just finished talking, I think.
- [23:31]
Farrah Bostick
There are a few things going on. One is that we have to remember that this economy is one that is really built on income inequality. And so the wealth gap, income inequality, means that on average, the economy looks pretty great. And for the people who are on the other side of the curve, it sucks. And the people who are on the opposite side of the curve, it's doing really great. Like they're feeling really good about things. I think there are some, you know, roughly speaking, some demographic correlations between obviously an increasingly affluent and educated Democratic voter base. So they would be experiencing the side of the curve that feels good. And the Republicans have been doing a better job of attracting people who are lower on the education scale, lower on the income scale, where it's feeling even worse. And so there is a reality gap that is happening between the supporters of both parties that I think we do have to just stipulate is true. There is, however, also a thing called expressive responding, which is that people will tend to answer particularly questions about how they think the economy is doing based on whether or not their preferred party is in power. So Republicans have been saying whenever there is a Democratic president for a few few different Democratic presidents now, that the economy is worse when there is a Democrat in char than when there's a Republican in charge, even though the underlying fundamentals and their personal income situation is not any different. And so, you know, literally since last week, there have been polls in the field asking people how they feel about the economy. And Republicans feel much better about the economy all of a sudden. Democrats feel much worse about the economy all of a sudden because they're thinking.
- [25:11]
Farnoosh Turabi
More about like, what's to come.
- [25:13]
Farrah Bostick
I think that the disparate perceptions of it are they are trying to imagine what their immediate future is going to look like. And if they think that the person who is in charge of the economy, whatever has their, is on their side, then they're more optimistic about it. If they think that, that the person that they chose to be on their side is not in charge, then they feel more pessimistic. So some of this is about thinking about the future and not really describing the current state of the economy, whatever that means. People are trying to think about what their own prospects for growth and stability are. And you know, we tend not to have very sophisticated understandings of the larger economy. We know how we feel. And so even someone who's reasonably affluent, we're reasonably affluent. But I go to the grocery store and know that it's $25 more per bag of groceries, my local grocery store, than it was prior to the pandemic. And like that has not significantly come down. It's come down a little bit in my neighborhood, but I also live in a weird place with not a lot of grocery options. So that may be part of what's driving that. And I think that people also have very, very kind of tactile experiences of the economy where okay, price growth has slowed, but it hasn't come down. Interest rates are still kind of high. So I'm not ready to replace my car or put it, you know, try to get a mortgage on a new place. It may have driven up rents in place that don't have rent control because the adjustable rate mortgage that my landlord has has gone up. And so they need to cover their expenses. There are a lot of things that people buy with debt and that's just a reality. You come up against an unexpected out of pocket healthcare expense or your car breaks down, or you need, you know, to pay the tuition for your kids school and you put that on a credit card and the interest rates are much higher. And so it feels a lot more fraught to people. And I think one of the things that I have seen repeatedly in a variety of projects that we've worked on in our own and our own business is Younger people in particular feeling like the only thing they really want out of their lives is some kind of sense of stability. And stability is not a feature of really anybody born after like 1995. So, you know, your kindergarten memory is 9 11, your middle school memory is the financial crisis, your high school memory is, you know, is Covid. And, and nothing's been normal in your entire life. So what do you want? You want a stable job? You want to be able to afford a place to live? You want to be able to have a family? I was struck a couple of years ago in the midst of the pandemic, interviewing people who were thinking about going off to college. And it was amazing how much these 18 year olds wanted the life my grandfather had, not the life my baby boomer parents had, not the life I've had. They wanted my grandfather's life. And I, I, you know, the, the, I guess the, the, the Gen Xer in me sort of had this reaction of like, who told you you could have that? Like, who, who, who suggested that was even possible? And on the other hand, when I sort of took a step back and thought, well, what have they been through? They've been through a lot and all they want is something like stability. And so people will find stability in different kinds of leaders. You know, someone who feels really kind of nurturing and reasonable and wants what's best for you and wants to do the right thing that might make you feel stable. Somebody who feels like they shoot from the hip and make decision and are not afraid of anybody that might make you feel like things will be more stable.
- [28:54]
Farnoosh Turabi
What I would tell that gen millennial er, who's been through a lot and that's undeniable, and it's awful, that stability, sometimes the cost of that is a lack of growth, right? If you're just at stasis, are you growing? And I think as humans, we want to grow, we want growth, we want to feel like we're moving somewhere, we want mobility. And I think particularly for women, because I've seen some of these videos too, where the women like, oh, I have to get a college degree, I gotta pay my bills, I have to be independent. I wanna be in the 50s again where I can be literally like, I don't know why my algorithm is feeding me this video, but I think it's important.
- [29:35]
Farrah Bostick
Trad wifey stuff.
- [29:36]
Farnoosh Turabi
Yeah, it's kind of trad wifey, but it's actually there was a, it was like a college educated woman who was on a stage talking to a room full of Other probably college educated men and women and getting applause because she's like, the system is setting me up for failure and anxiety and stress. She's not remembering the anxiety and the stress that mothers in the 50s felt when they didn't have options, when their roles were very limited and defined in very limited ways. So I think it's just important to have that perspective. I think that, you know, looking through a Betty Crocker cookbook is not going to give you the actual depiction and reality of what it was like to be a woman in the 50s.
- [30:17]
Farrah Bostick
No. Apart from much greater use of mayonnaise in almost every recipe.
- [30:21]
Farnoosh Turabi
Yeah, no, I just finished watching the. Not to get too heavy. I just finished watching the Martha Stewart documentary. Oh, wow. And it was really fascinating because here you have a woman who is like juxtaposing, right, like boss billionaire, first self made billionaire woman. And how she got there was prescribing this like life of perfection in the home for women. And it's just, it's very fast. I don't have a thesis on it yet. I just think it's just really fascinating stuff. All right, well, let's talk about higher ed just a little bit. I want to touch on higher ed because you brought it up and specifically public student loan forgiveness. Trump has talked about dismantling the Department of Education and you've had many clients in a higher ed world. And then I want to talk about money and anxiety goes hand in hand. But people have been reaching out to me and wanting my opinion on what my crystal ball says about the future of student loan forgiveness. Will it go away? And if so, what does that mean for borrowers today and in the future? What are you hearing from the higher ed front? How are schools preparing for this potentially, or student borrowers? What's your advice if you have anything on that front?
- [31:33]
Farrah Bostick
Yeah, I think the short term prognosis is not good given that, you know, this is a long term project of the Republican Party to get rid of the Department of Education. They, I think, have slightly misapprehended what the Department of Ed is for. You know, like, it is chiefly a frankly kind of a law enforcement mechanism for civil rights. So it is there to guarantee children's access to public education like that. That is its primary job. And so if you have a kid who's on an IEP that is mandated by the Department of Ed and by, by federal law, so that will be one of the first places that it comes home for parents in particular, which is, you know, it is now a new Question for them of will they actually be getting the support that they need from public schools for kids who are disabled or have learning disabilities or what have you, or have just learning needs. Will you then be forced to make a decision about whether or not you need to figure out how to afford private education that might provide more of those services or at home assistance or tutors or what have you? So that's one side of the equation for people who are in college or thinking about going to college. One of the other important functions that the Department of Education provides is accrediting and certifying colleges so that you can determine as a student borrower who actually is sort of accredited by the federal government so that you can qualify for federal student loans and subsidized student loans. It is also going to give you an indication of, you know, who's the fraudsters out there. And this Department of Ed has been over the last several years very active in, you know, kind of cracking down on the predatory lenders and the predatory, you know, for profit colleges. They have also managed to significantly regulate the colleges that just were like, you know, they weren't, they weren't actually setting out to be fraudsters, but they had run afoul of some basic regulations. I think those things are all worth being concerned about. Student loan forgiveness is kind of historically and philosophically not a project of the Republican Party either. They think debt is something that is, you know, if you're rich enough to be able to use debt to get richer, then great. But if you're poor enough that debt is problematic for you, then that's punishment you deserve. And so there is not really a lot of sympathy for students getting student debt relief. The other problem is that this is a kind of mental model thing that I keep encountering, which is that a lot of conservatives, even anti Trump conservatives have been kind of reflexively against student loan forgiveness because what they imagine when they think of a student is they imagine a upper middle class kid from Cherry Hill, New Jersey who's going to go to Penn next year and who doesn't really need a lot of aid, will probably get a job in investment banking or something out of college and will therefore be able to afford his student loans. That's not actually the median first year college student. The median first year college student is like a 26 year old Latin American woman who's the first in her family to go to college and is simultaneously a full time job and either providing childcare or elder care or both. That's the real student. And most of the people qualifying for student loan forgiveness are people who have, you know, so far with the. With the programs that the Supreme Court didn't kill, have been aimed at people who went into public service in some form or another. So they've become teachers, nurses, social workers, psychologists, those sorts of jobs. Um, and most of them have required you to make steady payments on your student loans for 10 years or more before you even qualify for the relief. And so I think a question that, like, as a society, we might want to consider is, you know, how much is enough for a teacher to prove that she's done what she needed to do in order to become a teacher? How. How much do we need to recoup on. On her investment before we feel like actually, you know, all she's doing is investing because she's also underpaid as a teacher and because she's. She's working in public service. So these are some, like, mental model narrative problems that I think we have that get in the way of an honest conversation about what student loan forgiveness really is. But I don't hold out a lot of hope that those programs are, A, going to continue to survive court challenges and B, even be, you know, prioritized by a Trump administration that doesn't even want to have a Department of education. So I think, like, if you can put in whatever paperwork you need to qualify for those programs now, do it now because. Because the rollover of government won't happen for another couple months.
- [36:23]
Farnoosh Turabi
What you were saying about IEP programs and how the Department of Ed plays a hand in protecting the laws at the local school level, public school level is really important. I hadn't thought about that angle. My son has an IEP in school, but I also know that New Jersey, our state, is very protective of that. So another reason why it's really important to get involved in your local politics.
- [36:44]
Farrah Bostick
Absolutely. I think if there's a lesson, if you don't like the outcome of this election, and maybe even if you do, a lesson I think we're all going to learn is how important our state and local governments are. Because you're absolutely right. You know, that that federal requirement came after a lot of states implemented it, and, and then they federalized it to make it something that every state had to, to some degree, comply with. But you're right, you know, those. Those regulations can fall away at the federal level and still be in place at the state level.
- [37:15]
Farnoosh Turabi
It's an anxious time. It's a. It's a lot of fear and anxiety, and I've done so much content on this and I will continue. But I saw that you posted on your LinkedIn as one of your qualifying. It's like a LinkedIn bullet of yours that you have an ability to have awkward conversations with compassion about people's habits, health, finances, worries and aspirations. This is a talent, I have to say. It really is. And so, as parting advice for us, for those of us who are feeling the anxiety of not just the election outcome, but what the next four years could define, what is your advice? I know you're big on controlling what you can control.
- [37:56]
Farrah Bostick
Yeah, I think that is the first part of it is controlling what you can control and not sort of over prioritizing any one thing. There's a lot of catastrophizing that people are doing right now about what the next four years are going to entail. And there are a lot of scenarios that can play out and there are worthwhile exercises for doing that. But for most folks, I think the things that they can control are the extent to which they get involved in their local politics, their local schools, their local city councils, state government, those kinds of things, and understand what protections are available to them in the places that they live. And that might provide either some inspiration or some comfort. I think the other thing is sort of getting beyond the abstract and the social media imagery of what your life ought to be like and actually thinking about what you want your life to be like. You know, if I think about those 17 or 18 year olds who are thinking about going to school and their desire for stability, part of it is like figuring out what they want their life to look like and then what the steps are in order to shape it in that particular way. I think one of the most important things that we're all going to need is more community in real life. And you know, certainly Covid threw a wrench in that, but also 10 plus years, 15 years of social media has thrown a wrench in that. And the more that you can be in community with people in your community, I think the more you'll see opportunities to help and be helped and we're all going to need that.
- [39:35]
Farnoosh Turabi
I got, I got to say, that's some very much needed advice right now and very doable. I think we can all do something in our community, figure it out, whether it's even just like joining a pottery class downtown. Get to know your neighbors. They're not all who you think they are, and that's a good thing. Barra Bostic, thank you so much. I really appreciate your insights. Breaking down the data and making it very tangible for us and giving us the context that we really needed in many cases to understand this election and what to keep our eyes on going ahead.
- [40:08]
Farrah Bostick
Thanks for having me. Pranesh.
- [40:11]
Farnoosh Turabi
Thanks so much to Farrah Bostic for joining. What questions do you have about the economy? Your finances? I'm hosting a fresh episode of Ask Pharnouche on Friday and I'd love to read your questions. You can email me farnushmoneypodcast.com, you can go to somoneypodcast.com and click on Ask Farnush. Leave me a voicemail if you'd like and you can always DM me on Instagram. Arnoosh Tarabi Speaking of Instagram, I'm doing a whole series right now on what Trump's proposed policies may mean for our money. Check out that series on my Instagram at Farnush Tarabi. I'm also posting it on TikTok for good measure. I'll see you back here on Friday. And I hope your day is so money.
- [41:03]
Farrah Bostick
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Farnoosh Turabi
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Farrah Bostick
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Farnoosh Turabi
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