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- [00:00]
Chuck Bryant
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:02]
Josh Clark
Guaranteed Human in today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal. T Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network according to the experts at OOKLA speed tests. And they use that network to launch Super Mobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built in security and seamless satellite coverage. That's your business. Supercharged. Learn more@supermobile.com seamless coverage with compatible dev most outdoor areas in the US where you can see the sky.
- [00:35]
Chuck Bryant
Best network based on analysis by OOKLA of speed test intelligence data 2H2025 we're
- [00:41]
Josh Clark
always talking about how things work, and one thing that keeps your car running smoothly is regular oil changes. But life's busy and the oil light always comes on at the worst time. Well, that's why there's Take five oil change. It doesn't just save time, it gives you control of your day back. You pull in, stay in your car, check something off your to do list. No waiting room, no pressure. You're in and you're out in about 10 minutes. Oil changes include tire pressure checks and fluid top offs, and the friendly staff explain everything and welcome you with a free water.
- [01:09]
Chuck Bryant
Take five Fitting into your busy schedule is something you should know. Find your nearest shop@take5.com Spring is here
- [01:17]
Josh Clark
and Spring Fest is happening now at Lowe's. If your yard needs a refresh, grab Stay green. Premium two cubic foot mulch. Five bags for just 10 bucks. That's right, five bags for just 10 bucks to help your landscaping look its best. And if you're heading indoors, you can save up to 40% off select major appliances, making it a great time to upgrade the machines that keep your home running. Whether you're working in the yard or tackling chores inside. The best lineup is here at Lowe's, valid through April 22, while supplies last selection varies by location. See lowe's.com for details. Mulch offer excludes Alaska and Hawaii.
- [01:53]
Podcast Announcer
Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartradio.
- [02:03]
Josh Clark
Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck. And Jerry's here too. Sitting in for a good old fashioned stuff you should know episode.
- [02:13]
Chuck Bryant
That's right. Not one of those newfangled ones.
- [02:16]
Josh Clark
No, no. Not one of the new ones that are just like, you know, all hair gel and yeah, you know, style, no substance.
- [02:23]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, it still has that new podcast episode smell.
- [02:26]
Josh Clark
Yes, for sure. Speaking of new smell how do you feel being 55, birthday boy, new smell.
- [02:35]
Chuck Bryant
You know, it's great. I think I have actual privileges now that come with that age.
- [02:42]
Josh Clark
Like cheap coffee at McDonald's, that kind of stuff.
- [02:44]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, I don't know about McDonald's, but, like, I think my. I think I can play golf for a little cheaper now. Like, literally as the senior rate, which is hysterical.
- [02:55]
Josh Clark
Yeah. Well, I think you can get a AARP membership now, too.
- [02:59]
Chuck Bryant
Oh, yeah. I mean, you're probably already getting that stuff in the mail, right? They start early.
- [03:05]
Josh Clark
No, I'm not even 50 yet. They won't let me. I keep applying and they keep denying me.
- [03:09]
Chuck Bryant
Okay, maybe 50. I mean, they start sending in that stuff years ahead.
- [03:12]
Josh Clark
Yeah, we used to have one. You had to get it for work or something like that. But they found out, you know, what our age is, and they got really mad.
- [03:20]
Chuck Bryant
They said, we've been spending. Sending things to spring chickens, but.
- [03:25]
Josh Clark
Yeah. Well, let me know how the golf thing goes and if you get cheap coffee at McDonald's and what being a senior is like, Chuck. Because, you know, I think for me and Jerry and everybody, we just want to wish you a happy birthday.
- [03:36]
Chuck Bryant
Hey, I appreciate that.
- [03:37]
Josh Clark
People went bonkers on Instagram.
- [03:40]
Chuck Bryant
Oh, yeah. Was that you?
- [03:42]
Josh Clark
Yeah, of course.
- [03:43]
Chuck Bryant
I figured. You know what? My uncle. My uncle wished you a happy birthday.
- [03:49]
Josh Clark
Did he? On that post? I didn't see that.
- [03:51]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, it was pretty funny. And then there was a confusing series of texts where he was finally, like, is it your birthday? I was like, it was a few days ago. Sure.
- [04:00]
Josh Clark
He said, who is this?
- [04:01]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, Exactly.
- [04:02]
Josh Clark
He said, McGovan.
- [04:04]
Chuck Bryant
Not McGuffin.
- [04:06]
Josh Clark
No, McGovern.
- [04:07]
Chuck Bryant
Okay.
- [04:09]
Josh Clark
All right, let's start talking, because we're talking about the middle class and America at least. Although this definitely extends to other countries, like the uk, some of the Nordic countries, Australia. There's not an obsession, but a real, like, obsession with the middle class, how it's doing, how mobile it is, upwardly, downwardly. And there's. It's. Essentially, the middle class is like the thumbnail metric for the health, the real true health of a society and economy. Would you agree?
- [04:46]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, I mean, I think so. And I think that used to be a real, like. It's always been a talking point in the United States, but I think it used to be a real genuine talking point, whereas now I think it's like, you know, are all the rich people doing great? Okay. All right, now let's talk publicly a little bit about the middle class, I guess.
- [05:06]
Josh Clark
Right. But not everybody's Fallen for that. There's like this whole idea that the middle class and the health of the middle class was a canary in the coal mine.
- [05:14]
Nick
And.
- [05:14]
Josh Clark
And not only is the canary dead, it caught fire at some point. Yeah. As far as a lot of people are concerned about the United States middle class, at least because there's this idea that it's dead. But then if you read up a little further on it, you come across other people who are like, no, no, dude, look at these statistics.
- [05:34]
Chuck Bryant
Right.
- [05:34]
Josh Clark
Like the middle class is actually doing great, way better than they used to be doing. And other people are like, that just doesn't quite add up. So when you get into it, it's really tough to define the middle class and you can monkey around with who's middle class or who's not and come up with all sorts of different profiles. But I think ultimately it just matters what people who would probably self identify as the middle class feel about the economy and about their prospects in life.
- [06:01]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, for sure. Like what is that? The vibe session?
- [06:05]
Josh Clark
Yeah.
- [06:06]
Chuck Bryant
What was her name?
- [06:07]
Josh Clark
Kyla Scanlon. She's a kind of a Gen Z financial explanatory journalist.
- [06:13]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, yeah. So that's the idea of like, sort of like not falling for being gaslit by everything you're being told about how great it's going. And there's something called a vibe session. Am I saying that right?
- [06:26]
Josh Clark
Yeah, vibe session.
- [06:27]
Chuck Bryant
It just sounds weird because a vibe session sounds like something I do late on Friday nights.
- [06:32]
Josh Clark
Right. This is with a C instead of an S. Yeah, exactly. And it's much less iri.
- [06:37]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah.
- [06:38]
Josh Clark
Oh man.
- [06:39]
Chuck Bryant
But yeah, the idea of various politicians, whenever anyone's running for something, talking about typically reelection, talking about how great everything really is, whereas everyone is like, yeah, but why doesn't it feel that way? That's a vibe session instead of like a true recession.
- [06:58]
Josh Clark
Yeah. And she was pointing out like that actually can become self fulfilling.
- [07:02]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, sure.
- [07:02]
Josh Clark
Because if enough people start feeling like no, things aren't going so good, they start not spending money and that actually can trigger a recession just from the fact that people feel that way no matter what the metrics say. So we'll talk about all that, but let's talk about the history of the middle class. Cause it hasn't always been around.
- [07:21]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, it's interesting if you look at the history of the middle class in the west generally, you can point to late medieval Europe as when things started to get cooking a little bit as far as the middle class goes. And we'll walk you all the way through Modern times. But as cities became a thing, all of a sudden you needed a middle class to sort of administer what the aristocracy was asking for in a lot of cases. So there was this distinct group kind of created that wasn't aristocracy and it wasn't the peasant class. And I think one word, and I believe we've even done a short stuff on the bourgeois. Yeah, didn't we?
- [08:07]
Josh Clark
Yeah. And what it means to be bourgeoisie.
- [08:09]
Chuck Bryant
That's right.
- [08:12]
Josh Clark
There's another word for them, burgers, too. And apparently both words. I don't. I don't remember this, but I'm sure we talked about it in the bourgeois short stuff. That. That's the name of the cities, the fortified cities where they worked. Right. Or where they emerged from.
- [08:27]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah.
- [08:28]
Josh Clark
And burger is. That's why the burgermeister is called that in either Rudolph or Frosty or some Rankin Bass. Exactly. Burgermeister means mayor. So he's like the head of the city, essentially. Anyway, those were the merchants, the bankers, professionals that emerged to kind of fill that space between the peasants and the aristocracy. And you could call them the first middle class.
- [08:57]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, sort of. But they grew in size and wealth and power. So they were kind of like, hey, we tricked everybody. We're not really the middle class. We're. I mean, maybe upper middle class, certainly obviously not aristocracy, because they weren't born into that. But as people got wealthier, there was kind of a true middle class that came after that, where you needed people to do things like bookkeeping and, you know, kind of handle the business of the people that previously had said that they were the middle class, even though no one was using those terms, you know, we should point out.
- [09:32]
Josh Clark
Right. No, nothing like that. There was also a lot of changes where before it was wealth and power. Right. Because that's what nobility kind of based itself on. So the earliest middle class kind of based itself on those same markers. But thanks to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, other markers kind of came along. The whole idea of thrift, of saving your money, of not being just frivolous with your money, that became a really big middle class social marker. Certain tastes, certain ways you would dress. And then, of course, wealth. Wealth has always been a marker for the middle class, especially the upper middle class. But these were all like. All these things seem so normal to us and so ingrained that it seems alien almost to kind of tease this stuff out and identify it historically.
- [10:28]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, for sure. And this was in Europe at the time when the United States was born. Livia, by the way, did a great job with this Article, I thought.
- [10:38]
Josh Clark
Agreed.
- [10:39]
Chuck Bryant
She is a heck of a writer. So the United States was, as she points out, kind of sort of a bourgeois, not a, I don't want to say project or a test. It was an experiment, maybe the American experiment. Because there were people like Thomas Jefferson who very much believed, like, hey, we're going to build this new country on. And not on the backs of, but like the middle class, these people that own farms and could provide for their family and that own some land. Like this is the American experiment, like the goal that we're striving toward.
- [11:18]
Josh Clark
Yeah. And those yaman farmers were typically not slaveholding. So his idea was to basically become a nation of self sufficient farmers growing food for their families and themselves and then selling some in the market. And that just is not how it went. Because the wealthy landowners who had actually had slaves became essentially the power, the elite, the people actually pulling the levers. And eventually they, except in the antebellum south, they kind of replaced that wealthy landowning and agriculture with industry. As the Industrial revolution started in Europe and then spread to the US and then we had a real disparity in power and wealth growing.
- [12:06]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, for sure. Because if you're owning a factory or owning a railroad or a share of a railroad, that is a very distinct upper class. It may not be aristocracy, but aristocracy became less and less important as time went on. Flash forward to like the middle of the 19th century and you had people like Karl Marx and we should say Karl Marx was trying to sell something which was Marxism, but he would come along and say, like, hey, there are really two classes. There are, there's the working class and then everybody else that's exploiting the working class.
- [12:45]
Josh Clark
Yeah, and the exploiters or the oppressors and the oppressed. I think he also put it, they owned the capital. They were the capitalists. They were the ones who could open a factory and employ you and you depended on them for money, but they were exploiting your labor.
- [13:02]
Chuck Bryant
Yes.
- [13:02]
Josh Clark
And in this sense, where there's an owning class and a working class, there's really no room for a middle class. Eventually though, a middle class still emerged because those capitalists aren't going to, like you said, do their own books. They're not going to go teach the next generation of workers to come work in their factory. So like there was a need for people to train the working classes to better serve the capitalist elite. And that's where the middle class really started to emerge in the United States in particular, but also in like the uk, Australia, some of the other places in the west, that's where that the middle class as we understand it now really develop.
- [13:44]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, for sure. And it was there during the time of Marx. But that wasn't good for marketing Marxism to point that out. So it was very much easier for him to say, like, you're being exploited or you're the exploiter.
- [13:55]
Josh Clark
It is a little black and white.
- [13:57]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, for sure. So in the 19th century, the middle class values system started to kind of take shape, which is, you know, sort of the value system that ideally is still around today, which is the idea that, you know, if you work hard, if you save up, you can be a success. In the United States, they agreed that people should vote more and more, like, have access to voting. And of course, that started with like, hey, maybe men that aren't landowners should be able to vote. And then that kind of spread throughout the years to people of different races and then women finally. But the idea that expanding voting rights and expanding education was always sort of a middle class value. And then early on it was, you know, the role of women in society has definitely changed as far as the middle class value goes. But early on it was, hey, women are very important to keep the home, but really be the moral center of the world. Of the home, you know.
- [15:03]
Josh Clark
Yeah. Of the family, which was of utmost importance. The nuclear family, which became really important in the Victorian era and really informed the middle class values too. Right. And all of those seem like. So we take them for granted so much as values, typically, aside from, you know, forcing women to work in the home whether they like it or not. That just goes to show you how effective the middle class was at spreading its. Basically imposing its values on everybody else in the West.
- [15:32]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, for sure. Should we take an early break here? Well, it's not too early, actually.
- [15:37]
Josh Clark
I think so. Yeah, let's.
- [15:39]
Chuck Bryant
All right, we'll take a break. I think that's a good setup. Middle class is forming. Everyone's getting excited, and we'll flash Forward to the 20th century right after this.
- [15:59]
Nick
When you listen to podcasts about AI and tech and the future of humanity, the hosts always act like they know what they're talking about and they are experts at everything. Here at the Nick Dick and Poll show, we're not afraid to make mistakes. What Coogler did that I think was so unique.
- [16:14]
Josh Clark
Who's he?
- [16:15]
Nick
He's the writer, director.
- [16:17]
Dick
Who do you think he is?
- [16:18]
Paul
I don't know.
- [16:20]
Nick
You meet the, like, the president.
- [16:21]
Dick
You think Canada has a president? You think China has a president? Those Law Cruise that. God, I love that thing. I use it all the time.
- [16:31]
Bleacher Report Host
What color?
- [16:31]
Dick
I wrap it in a blanket and sing to it at night.
- [16:35]
Nick
It's like the old Polish saying, not my monkeys, not my circus.
- [16:39]
Josh Clark
Yep. It was a good one. I like that snake. It's an actual Polish saying. It is an actual Polish.
- [16:44]
Dick
Better version of play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
- [16:47]
Chuck Bryant
Yes.
- [16:47]
Taylor Swift Fact Checker
Which. Which, by the way, wasn't Taylor Swift who said that for the first time. I actually, I thought it was. I got that wrong.
- [16:52]
Nick
Listen to the Nick, Dick and Paul show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [17:00]
Bleacher Report Host
The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports right now. The NBA is heating up, March Madness is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about, get real time scores, breaking news and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment.
- [17:33]
RK0 Proof Advertiser
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- [18:14]
Chuck Bryant
All right, I promised Talk of the 20th century in the middle class. And that's where we are specifically. You know, this is when the middle class in the US really, really emerged as like a massive thing. Like the largest portion of a, like, set of people in the US became middle class in the 20th century. And really after the war, it was powered by the New Deal. Of course, after World War II, the United States was in a unique position as victor, but also victor who didn't have the war fought on their, you know, mainland soil.
- [18:49]
Josh Clark
Right.
- [18:49]
Chuck Bryant
So we didn't have to do all this rebuilding after the war. So we were in a position to really hit the throttle on economic stimulus, which was brought about via the New Deal.
- [19:00]
Josh Clark
Yeah. And World War II. Just the sheer amount of money thrown into the economy from the government for World War II helped as well. Right. And we had all those technologies that we developed that gave us things like pop Tarts and stuff immediately after the war and completely improved the quality of life for people in the United States, especially the middle class. Right. So you have government policy like the New Deal, like the National Labor Relations act, that are favoring workers, this working class that is becoming the middle class. And then one of the other really, really, really big aspects of what built the middle class in the United States and elsewhere were unions, union membership. Because if you can bargain collectively, you can't be exploited nearly as easily. And that means that life is a lot more fair for you, the worker, because you're allowed to get together and say, no, you can't do that to any of us. If you do that to one of us, you do it to all of us, and we'll all leave.
- [20:01]
Chuck Bryant
Yes. I mean, we did a great episode on unions years ago. So I advise you to go listen to that now if you want to learn more about those. But no, no, no. Everyone else. I mean, you can if you want. Okay, little refresher. But union membership really bloomed in the 1930s and 40s. I think at the beginning of the 20th century, it was in the low teens, union membership, and then it really, really rose from there, and so did wages. Between 1940 and 1960, if you were a non farmer, your median weekly income rose. And these, by the way, everything we're doing is in 20, $25, just to make it easier to understand.
- [20:41]
Josh Clark
Right.
- [20:42]
Chuck Bryant
But your median weekly income for a non farmer went from $550 to over $1,000, almost 1,100 bucks. And that was across all, you know, a lot of education levels, you know, different racial groups, different industries. That was sort of a broad change. So, you know, it was an interesting time in that, you know, pay for people in what is now like a solid middle class was really rising. They were taxing the rich and constraining corporate power such that some people called this time the great compression, where the wealth levels were sort of smashed together on a graph instead of expanded vastly like we are now. We're going to have some shocking numbers for you later in this episode.
- [21:27]
Josh Clark
Yeah, so that era between 1940 and, I think a lot of people essentially put it at the mid-70s is when they say the party really started to end was just this economic boom, golden age for the United States and the middle class. And there was another big factor too, which was homeownership. I remember in our racial discrimination or housing discrimination episode that we did, we pointed out that owning a home has long been really important, especially for the middle class, because that is how you generate wealth. For most people. Your home just appreciates in value over the years. And then you can also use that home to transfer that wealth to your kids. So it's also a form of generational wealth transfer for the middle class. So it's really big deal to own your own home. And that was another big thing that happened after World War II. Homeownership went up quite a bit.
- [22:23]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. Previous. And this is going way back, but between 1890 and 1930, home ownership was under 50% in the United States. And eventually, you know, thanks to the suspect mortgages they were handing out like candy. In 2004, that peaked at, I think it was close to 70%. Like 69 or something.
- [22:44]
Josh Clark
Yeah, for sure. And then I think it dropped down to something like 65 and has basically plateaued since there. But this is the point that you could own a house, you could own a car, you could have a family of, you know, a husband and wife and two kids and live in the suburbs, and the kids would go to a nice school. And this is obviously, this is the most idealized version, what we're talking about. There's a lot of disparity. There was a lot of people who are still very poor in the United States, too. But overall, if we're just focusing on the middle class, you could do all of these things and have a nice comfortable middle class life, a pension after you're retired, on one salary, one income. Because again, one of the main values of the middle class at this time was that the mother stayed home, raised the kids, and made the house the center of the nuclear family respite from the rest of the world. One salary could do all of that.
- [23:46]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. And it was, you know, people weren't as far apart as they were, financially speaking. Like, you may live in the same neighborhood or maybe the neighborhood next to your boss. You know, blue collar workers and white collar workers were way more, you know, just kind of squashed together. Like your children probably went to school if you were like a line worker at an auto plant. You know, you may not have as nice of a car or as big of a house as your manager or your boss, but, you know, it was in the. It was in the same world. And, you know, I still remember that stuff growing up in the 80s, like the. You watch any John Hughes movie and like all the kids at the same school, they were like, you know, the rich kids and then the kids that lived in that neighborhood.
- [24:32]
Josh Clark
Right.
- [24:32]
Chuck Bryant
But it wasn't extreme wealth and poverty.
- [24:35]
Josh Clark
No. And the fact is they were all going to the same school. Right. There was like a leveling from that. So yeah, that was a really big deal. And this is, this is going on through about to the mid-70s when things started to decline for the middle class, right? Yeah, there was the end of the post war boom. I mean, that's really tough to keep up in the form that it was in for very long. And it's kind of astounding it stayed up that long. Part of it was that the US was in that unique position. Like you said, it didn't have to rebuild after World War II like Europe and Japan did. Well, after a few decades, Europe and Japan were able to rebuild and they started to catch up to the United States, which meant that they were taking more share of the United States pie with say like exports and manufacturing and stuff. That was one factor too. There was also the oil crisis. I think that that made a bigger dent than I ever realized. That that was like a history changing event. The OPEC oil crisis.
- [25:40]
Dick
Yeah.
- [25:41]
Josh Clark
And then also political conflicts that ultimately laid the bedwork for today's culture wars, civil rights movement, feminism, environmentalism, LGBTQ rights. All of these things were marginalized groups. Previously marginalized groups came forward and said, no, there's no reason we should be treated like second class citizens. That created a tension in the United States. A lot of corporations came in and figured out how to exploit this for their own ends. And that eventually started to divide people to where there was this sense of competition is the bedrock of American capitalism and American capitalism is the bedrock of the middle class. It's part of the middle class. It's a new middle class value. It's where we got yuppies in the 80s.
- [26:31]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, for sure. Deindustrialization also happened in 1970. If one out of every four non farming jobs in the US was in manufacturing. And by 2017 it was one in 11. So other countries, as globalization and trade increased, other countries started making stuff super cheap. This isn't a big surprise to anyone listening to this. Imports from China started coming in. Imports from other Southeast Asian countries started coming in. Stuff was a lot cheaper to buy and they started automating a lot of stuff. It was, you know, kind of the first automation boom was happening in the 1970s where factories didn't need as many people on the line to do stuff that these new machines were doing. So that coupled with de unionization really, you know, kind of dropping off was a huge factor.
- [27:26]
Josh Clark
Yeah. And it really definitely declined. It's below 10% for the entire workforce in the United States. A huge chunk of that is just from government jobs like Teaching they tend to have a very strong union. But overall it went from like 35, 36% to 10%. And one of the reasons that that happened is because the government basically withdrew its support for unions. Not only did it stop passing legislation or enforcing legislation that supported unions, it actually started issuing legislation that harmed and crippled unions and essentially removed their power.
- [28:02]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, for sure. And then the last reason, we can't talk about the middle class and wealth disparity without talking about Ronald Reagan. He's the one that kicked it off. And subsequent administrations definitely didn't do the middle class any favors. But those Reagan era policies, the trickle down economics, cutting taxes for corporations, undermining labor unions, cutting taxes on the top earners individually, really transformed the look of our nation. Heavily, heavily in favor of the rich and the top 10%, especially the top 1%. And like I said, other Democrats and Republicans since then have failed the United States in their policies. I know after the economic crash and the real estate crash of 2008, there were a lot of people, especially now in hindsight, that look back and say, you know what, we really had an opportunity there and the Obama administration failed us. When we bailed out those banks with not very many strings attached. We had some leverage there to sort of get some changes in place that could have helped shift the look of the financial outlook of our country. And we didn't do it.
- [29:14]
Josh Clark
No. And what they would have been doing is undoing damage that was done during the Clinton administration where they repealed the Glass Steagall act, that kept banks from dabbling in investments. You were either a bank or an investment company. Which one? And after that you don't have to choose. And that's ultimately what helped lead us to that massive financial crisis, the Great Recession.
- [29:38]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah.
- [29:39]
Josh Clark
So yeah, it's really easy and fun to pick on Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher for kicking all this off. But they were not the only neoliberal presidents to come along after the 80s.
- [29:50]
Chuck Bryant
No, for sure. If you're talking about the middle class today, you really have to start with how do you define the middle class? And Livia did a really great job in this section. I think there are a lot of different ways that people and pundits like to talk about what the middle class even is. Some social scientists, it's just a super straightforward income based definitions, which is good in one sense because you can adjust that depending on where you are in the world. Like a middle class income in New York City isn't going to be the same thing as in a rural area. So you can adjust things economically based on just a strict income based definition, which is kind of cool.
- [30:33]
Josh Clark
Also, that means that the middle class doesn't move out of reach of certain people too. Like if you just have the median income and say that's the middle class, as the median income grows, the middle class goes up and some people stay behind. This is like, here's the middle class section and you can get into it and out of it or drop out of it and go above it, but it's going to stay in the same place and it's just going to, it's going to change depending on how wages rise. Yeah, it seems like a pretty good, it's a good idea to me. The most widely used one comes from the Pew Research center and they, it's an income based approach that they use, but they basically say that if your household income is 2/3 of the median household income or up to double the median household income, you are middle class. Right. And I think in 2024 that meant that your household. This is very important too, that your household made between $55,820 to $167,460 anywhere in there. You were middle class, income wise.
- [31:44]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. This is all obviously like pre tax money, right?
- [31:48]
Josh Clark
Yeah. Oh yeah, I would think so. Yeah.
- [31:53]
Chuck Bryant
So under that definition, the middle class made up 61% of households in 1971, compared to just 51% in 2023. But at the same time, the upper income category went from 11% to 19% and the lower percentage rose from 27% to 30%. So what you're seeing is like the wealth gap happening in real time, basically.
- [32:20]
Josh Clark
Yes. But that also suggests that 8% of people in the middle class moved up from the core middle class to the upper income category. So that's what, that's an interpretation that a lot of people who are like, no, the middle class is fine, suggest.
- [32:38]
Chuck Bryant
Right. And 3% move down.
- [32:40]
Josh Clark
Right? Yeah. So that's. Yeah. Income is like, if you're an economist, this is what you're looking at. If you're say anthropologists or sociologists, you might say, well, who considers themselves middle class? Maybe we should look at those people and then kind of study them like that. Like ask people, are you middle class or not? Are you working class? You consider yourself upper class. And they usually either divide it into those three lower class, middle class, upper class, or else they'll divide it into quintiles, lower class, working class, which they would also call lower middle class, core middle class, upper middle class, and Then gobsmackingly rich.
- [33:22]
Chuck Bryant
And 1% saying buzz off is none of your business. Quit asking me questions.
- [33:26]
Josh Clark
Exactly. They have them arrested.
- [33:29]
Chuck Bryant
So 2024 was the last Gallup poll that we have where someone said, like, hey, what do you consider yourself? And in the United States, 39% of citizens considered themselves middle class. Another 15% said they were upper middle class, which brings that grand total to 54. 31% identified as working class. 12% is lower class. Just 2% of upper class. Which means a lot of those upper middle class people were lying liars and that they're really part of the upper class.
- [34:03]
Josh Clark
Yeah, for sure. But I think also it's not. I'm sure some people were like. I don't want to say, like, I feel upper class. I don't want to.
- [34:10]
Chuck Bryant
Well, it's self identification, so it makes sense.
- [34:12]
Josh Clark
Sure. But at the same time, also, I think that has to do with the idea that maybe based on income. It's almost like that vibe session thing. Like, yeah, your income would put you in the middle class, but you don't feel wealthy. You feel like you could be ruined by a healthcare crisis at any time. So I think, especially with self identification, that gives you a sense of the actual health of the economy as far as, like, consumer confidence is concerned.
- [34:39]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. And there's laziness factors in. You could be in the upper middle class, but also still have a. A car tire sitting in your side yard for sure. With, like, typical markers of, you know,
- [34:53]
Josh Clark
different classes, for sure. Tires in your side yard. I got to get mine moved.
- [34:59]
Chuck Bryant
Emily got onto me for years about the car battery that I had that I just. It's like, how do you get rid of a car battery? I know you can.
- [35:08]
Josh Clark
Oh, you take it to, like, one of the auto stores.
- [35:11]
Chuck Bryant
I know, but none of those feel right.
- [35:15]
Josh Clark
They. No, they take the core out and. Yeah, it's. They recycle them. For real?
- [35:19]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. Because you've watched them do all that right.
- [35:22]
Josh Clark
From beginning to end. I help on weekends as just. It's pro bono.
- [35:27]
Chuck Bryant
That's my point is I don't. I don't trust any of it. None of it feels right.
- [35:31]
Josh Clark
All right, I'm with you. Well, you want to know something that really opened my eyes and changed my life? Chuck, I realized recently that that whole, like, grocery store recycle bag recycling thing is a total scam. Like Publix and all them who have those. Those things out that said, put your plastic bags in here. We recycle them. They don't. They don't they throw them away. And I can't tell you how much time I've spent, like taking labels off of plastic wrap, shaking out plastic wrap to make it clean. Like taking it all bundled together and taking it to Publix and putting it in the bin. And then the idea they just take it and throw it away and use this as just like a PR thing. Oh my God, I'm so sick of stuff like that, man.
- [36:13]
Chuck Bryant
Agreed. Two quick things on that. You can't count on your large grocery store chain to do that. You got to go to like the charm. You got to go what we have here in Atlanta and Athens, the center for hard to recycle materials because they really do the work. It's just a big pain. And number two, just as a quick aside, I went to Belize on winter break recently, had a great time. But the grocery store in there was a grocery store in Placentia named Publix. P U B L I C S. Same exact font and coloring as Publix.
- [36:50]
Josh Clark
It's like Ricky Rouse and Ronald Muck
- [36:52]
Chuck Bryant
thought it was very, very funny.
- [36:54]
Josh Clark
It's funny. They're like, we spelled it different. What?
- [36:57]
Chuck Bryant
All right, so we're getting off track. One of the last ways, I guess second to the last way to look at is through education levels. Because a lot of times when you hear pundits on the news talking about the middle class, they'll say things like, people with a four year college degree, that's only about 40% of the population in the US and it's really misleading. So I wish they just kind of throw this one out with the public's grocery bags. Because you could have a four year degree and be a college professor that also has to have a second job to make ends meet. Or you could also not have a college degree and own a multimillion dollar sort of blue collar business. So I say just get rid of that one.
- [37:42]
Josh Clark
A multimillion dollar battery recycling business.
- [37:45]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. Because that's where all the money is.
- [37:47]
Josh Clark
So yeah. So values also. I agree. Education levels, just get rid of that. Especially with college not really leading to many as many opportunities today as it used to and all of the incredible debt associated with it. That should not be a measurement for the middle class. Values is another one too. And this one I was kind of like, what? Why?
- [38:08]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah.
- [38:08]
Josh Clark
And I realized you can't measure social groups strictly on things like income. That, you know, that self identification thing has a lot to do with values. One we talked about as a nuclear family, which has been altered dramatically since the middle of the last century when I would say, I would argue in the United States at least, the nuclear family was like at its peak of importance. It's definitely declined. People kind of make family wherever they can find it. And that doesn't mean that, like all of the values are gone. That There was a 2010 Vice President Joe Biden middle class task force had no idea that existed, but it essentially went through and said, what are your values? And they came up with pretty basic stuff that I think most middle class people would agree with. Economic stability and security. You want a car for each of your kids as they get to driving age. You want to take a family vacation once a year. You want to send those kids to college. You want to own your home. Like, really basic stuff. And the idea that all of that is up for grabs in this country right now is really alarming.
- [39:21]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, for sure. Should we take another break?
- [39:26]
Josh Clark
Yes.
- [39:27]
Chuck Bryant
All right. We're going to take a break and we'll talk about what's gone wrong with the middle class and where we might be headed right after this.
- [39:45]
Paul
Ambitious, well intentioned, ferocious and wealthy mother
- [39:49]
Chuck Bryant
looks like in the black community.
- [39:50]
Paul
This woman's History Month. The podcast Keep It Posit Sweetie celebrates the power of women choosing healing, purpose and faith. Even when life gets messy, love is not a destination.
- [40:01]
Nick
You have to work on it every day.
- [40:02]
Paul
Keep it positive. Sweetie creates space for honest conversations on self worth, love, growth and navigating life with grace and grit, led by women who uplift, inspire and tell the truth out loud.
- [40:14]
Chuck Bryant
I have several conversations with God and I know why it took 20 years
- [40:20]
Paul
to hear this and more. Listen to Keep It Pies as sweetie on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.
- [40:29]
Nick
When you listen to podcasts about AI and tech and the future of humanity, the hosts always act like they know what they're talking about and they are experts, experts at everything here. The Nick, Dick and Pole Show. We're not afraid to make mistakes. What Coogler did that I think was so unique. Who's he? He's the writer, director.
- [40:46]
Dick
Who do you think he is?
- [40:48]
Paul
I don't know.
- [40:50]
Nick
You meet the, like the president.
- [40:51]
Dick
You think it was the president. You think Canada has a president? You think China has a president? Those walk cruisette. God, I love that thing. I use it all the time.
- [41:01]
Bleacher Report Host
What color?
- [41:01]
Dick
I wrap it in a blanket and sing to it.
- [41:03]
Nick
Like it's like the old Polish saying, not my monkeys, not my circus.
- [41:09]
Josh Clark
Yep, it was a good one. I like that saying. It's an actual Polish saying. It is an actual Polish.
- [41:14]
Dick
Better version of play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
- [41:17]
Josh Clark
Yes.
- [41:17]
Taylor Swift Fact Checker
Which, by the way, wasn't Taylor Swift who said that for the first time. I actually, I thought it was. I got that wrong.
- [41:22]
Nick
Listen to the Nick Dick and Poll show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [41:29]
Ana Navarro
I'm Ana Navarro, and on my new podcast, Bleep with Ana Navarro, I'm talking to the people closest to the biggest issues happening in your community and around the world. Because I know deep down inside right now we are all cursing and asking what the BLEEP is going on. I'm talking to people like Julie K. Brown, who broke the explosive story on Jeffrey Epstein in 2018. These victims have been let down time and time again for decades and decades and decades by local law enforcement, by federal law enforcement, by administration after administration.
- [42:06]
Josh Clark
The Justice Department through, I think we
- [42:09]
Nick
counted four presidential administrations, failed these victims.
- [42:14]
Ana Navarro
Listen to Bleep with Ana Navarro as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [42:41]
Josh Clark
Okay, Chuck, so I think we've kind of said a couple of times that there's a lot of different ways you can look at things to say the middle class is doing great. Oh, no, the middle class is hollowed out and dead. One of the things that you can really kind of point to is like, how much are you getting paid?
- [42:56]
Chuck Bryant
Right.
- [42:56]
Josh Clark
That's a pretty easy one. So you can look at average hourly wages for non supervisory employees. So that's everybody who's not a manager or like a C suite executive. Right. Just the regular rank and file employees. There was a peak of pay in 1973 of 30. $30. This is 20, $25. Right?
- [43:19]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, always. Or always on this episode.
- [43:23]
Josh Clark
Right. In fall of 2025, we were at $31.50, so we managed to gain an extra $50 in average hourly wages in 50 years.
- [43:40]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah.
- [43:42]
Josh Clark
And you might think like, okay, well really, let's think about inflation and everything. I did get this. If you went back to 1973. Right. $1 today buys 14% of what it bought in 1973.
- [43:58]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah.
- [43:58]
Josh Clark
So that means that today it gets worse with inflation. It does. So you could buy, using the same hourly wage today, 14% of your groceries if you went from 1973 to today. So we are definitely worse off because things have gotten more expensive. But wages have stagnated. If anyone ever tells you that wages have not stagnated they are lying or they're dumb or both and just tell them so. Yeah, I've been trying really hard not to get worked up, man. And I'm trying to keep it together right now.
- [44:32]
Chuck Bryant
Here we go everybody.
- [44:33]
Josh Clark
I'm keeping it together.
- [44:35]
Chuck Bryant
The idea of the middle class though around the 1960s was about, wasn't just about getting to a spot and hitting it. It was about everybody continuing to grow and the overall economy of the United States continuing to grow. And that has happened, but compensation hasn't happened along with it. From 1979 to 2025, productivity in the United States rose 87%. But that hourly compensation rose by 33% for non supervisory workers.
- [45:08]
Josh Clark
Right. And there's two ways you can interpret that. If you're like, well, unions are gone, you could say if you're an owner, well, you get rid of the unions, productivity increases. Unions make lazy workers. Another way to put it is that without the unions you can exploit workers more easily and get them to work harder because they're afraid of losing their job. Right?
- [45:26]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah.
- [45:28]
Josh Clark
Regardless of how you look at it like, like there's no way to interpret it differently. If, if your wages have increased 33% but productivity has increased 87%, that means that that extra wealth that was generated had to go somewhere. And it didn't go to the workers, it went to the wealthiest people. And there are just like, if you want to just look at eye popping numbers, just look up income inequality in the 21st century because it has gotten completely out of control compared to how it used to be. And I mean how it used to be. Like I'm talking the 80s.
- [46:06]
Chuck Bryant
As Sam Jackson would say, hang on to your butts. What do you say in Jurassic Park?
- [46:10]
Josh Clark
Hang on to your butts.
- [46:11]
Chuck Bryant
Yep, hang on to your butts.
- [46:13]
Josh Clark
You need a cigarette sticking out of your mouth.
- [46:15]
Chuck Bryant
Oh, I've got it, pal. All right, so these numbers are going to be slightly depressing and slightly eye popping. Annual wages at the bottom 90% of Americans rose by 29% from 79 to 2021. For the top 1% over that same time period, they rose 206%. And the Forbes 400 list, it's a list that we put out in, or Forbes magazine puts out about the 400 wealthiest Americans. They should probably just stop doing this altogether.
- [46:51]
Josh Clark
I know it ruins society, but you
- [46:54]
Chuck Bryant
mentioned the 1980s, 1982. It was the initial Forbes 400. It had 13 billionaires on it. Now everybody on the Forbes list is a billionaire and there's another 500 billionaires that don't get on the list.
- [47:11]
Josh Clark
Wow.
- [47:12]
Chuck Bryant
So in 1982 there were 13 billionaires. There were more than 900 billionaires in the United States right now who have a collective worth of $6.6 trillion. I'm sorry, that's just. The Forbes 400 have 6.6 trillion. Forget the other 500 billionaires.
- [47:28]
Josh Clark
Okay, so another, another thing that that Forbes list pointed out is that the total wealth in all of the United States is $140 trillion. The bottom 50% owns 4 trillion of that. That means the top 50% owns 136 trillion compared to 4 trillion.
- [47:46]
Chuck Bryant
Oh man.
- [47:48]
Josh Clark
There was one other statistic I found too. Between 1975 and 2024, there was a wealth transfer upward to the top percent that totaled $50 trillion. So however you want to put it, however you want to look at it, the middle class and the lower class have been held back while the wealth that they have been producing has moved upward. And a big problem with that is when you have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, they're making the decisions about what happens with that money. Rather than hundreds of millions of people all making individual decisions and collectively making decisions that are like market signals that tell people, I'm going to go make this, I'm going to stop making this, I'm going to make this price that. All these people are upset because they don't have good health care. We better do something about that. None of that matters because they don't have money, so they don't have power and they're afraid of losing their job. So you can do basically whatever you want to them. That's what happened.
- [48:47]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. And you know, politically speaking, the wealth and the power is who controls everything. They obviously via campaign donations is the most clear cut way, but all kinds of interventions to basically let the top 1 or 2% make the decisions for the majority. There's a social scientist, and this isn't us railing on stuff, this is just how it is. Like if you're saying this isn't the case, then you're lying. Like you said, there's a social scientist named Richard Reeves who said that the top 20% of earners basically have been completely successful in pushing zoning regulations and tax policies that benefit them all at the expense of the middle class. They game the systems to pass that wealth down to their children or to get their kids into the better colleges. It's just the way things have gone in the United States.
- [49:41]
Josh Clark
Yeah. And the problem, one of the big problems is people are gonna be all over our itunes reviews being like, these guys are liberal idiots. They don't know what they're talking about. It's not liberal and conservative. It's not Republican and Democrat. This is strictly a class issue. And the idea that you are defending a class beyond yours, that is exploiting your own class, including you, that's a problem because it's presented as a political thing and we're so tribal when it comes to political affiliations that you will defend against your own self interest because it's being presented to you as a political issue and it's not.
- [50:19]
Chuck Bryant
Happens every voting season. That happens. Yeah, people vote against their own interest.
- [50:25]
Josh Clark
It's true. And I'm not picking just on conservatives or Republicans like Democrats do it too. Like tribal and toxic and unhealthy. If, oh man, if we could ever come together and break down those lines, oh my gosh, people are so ramped up right now that it would just be magnificent, the sweeping changes that would happen.
- [50:46]
Chuck Bryant
A new renaissance.
- [50:48]
Josh Clark
Yes, renaissance to the sequel 2.0.
- [50:52]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, here's the thing. You know, goods have gotten cheaper though. If you want to look at again comparing in today's dollars, groceries are generally cheaper than they were in the mid-70s because the mid-70s, as we said, was pretty bad. Things like, you know, clothing and furniture, electronics, all that stuff is way cheaper than it used to be. If you look at, you know, back when you bought a VCR, when those first came out and they were like $1,000, it was, you know, stuff like that is all like the bottom has fallen out on those kind of prices. But that hasn't happened in the housing market, which is a big deal for the middle class. Like you said in Act 1, that median sales price of a house. And again, in today's dollars, it was $300,000 in 1979. It's more than $400,000 today. And I think we said it was 69.2% at its peak of home ownership in 2004 as of, I think 2022. You know, what's happened is that, you know, I think you said it was about 65%. So it's not that big of a difference. But it's that age of buying your first house has just gotten older and older and older. In 2022, only 62% of 40 year olds own their home, whereas the boomer generation, 69% of 40 year olds owned. And the same can be said for rent and childcare and college and health care. It's just all these things are outpacing
- [52:22]
Josh Clark
earnings plus also that 62 and 69% is a little misleading because there are way more boomers than there are Gen x who are 40 now. So 69% of boomers is numerically a much bigger group than 62% of Gen Xers.
- [52:42]
Chuck Bryant
Right. Which also means that that's a greater number of houses that are now locked up being passed on to their kids. And, you know, not saying that you shouldn't own a house and pass along to your kids, but that as far as the housing market goes, that's just a lot.
- [52:57]
Josh Clark
Right. So, Chuck, what are we going to do about this? What are some things we can do? Oh, man, let's solve it.
- [53:07]
Chuck Bryant
Put me on the spot. Well, I mean, I don't know, man. It's not like this all over the world. If you look in Europe, there is a middle class there, but it's not quite the same. They maybe don't have the kind of wealth that upper middle class does here, but they have. The income equality isn't as great generally. They have stronger social welfare programs. The danger of falling into desperate life straits isn't as great over there. I saw, I think on Instagram recently, it was an interview with a guy that was a. He had a good job. You know, it was one of those stories where the guy was on the streets and he had a degree in chemistry and he had a good job. And you know, I read the comments because I was curious if people were going to be like bashing this dude or what. And hearteningly, a lot of the people were like, hey, I worked in and shelters for the unhoused for years. And we saw all kinds of people come through here. We saw doctors and attorneys and people, you know, that just, you know, sometimes you're a bad circumstance or two away from that kind of situation. And it's just not like that in Europe, generally speaking.
- [54:19]
Josh Clark
I Remember during the 2008 recession of reading some statistic that something like at the time, like 40% or something like that of Americans were one paycheck away from being homeless. Like that's how little savings and cushion that most Americans had.
- [54:36]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. Or having to make, you know, healthcare decisions like that aren't good for your life because you can't afford it because it will bankrupt your family. You're having to put yourself and your family in peril physically.
- [54:52]
Josh Clark
Right. That's part of that. Why the European middle class is much more secure because most of them have universal health care. Yeah.
- [55:00]
Chuck Bryant
They're not bankrupted by a diagnosis.
- [55:03]
Josh Clark
Right. But even, even on more Day to day pedestrian stuff. So the, the lower income you are, the more inflation affects you. Where like, if you're higher income and you go gas up your car and you're like, wow, gas went up 20 cents today. That sucks. And you just don't think about it from that point on. If you're lower income, you might roll up to the gas station and be like, oh, I can't afford to drive my car to work today because gas went up 20 cents a gallon. So that's another issue with the whole thing too. It makes it tougher to get ahead when you can't afford the basic necessities because they're growing out of your reach day by day.
- [55:45]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. I mean, when I was a snot nosed, know it all college kid working at Golden Pantry in Athens, Georgia, I used to. And you know, I was working at Golden Pantry, so it's not like I was making any kind of money. But for a college kid it was like, hey, it was great. I had everything I need making that $7 an hour or whatever because my parents were generally paying for my education and it's like easy street. I would, I would wonder why someone would come in and buy like $7 worth of gas. I always be like, what a weird number. Why were you putting $7 worth of gas? Because it didn't occur to me that's all that they could afford. It was like, why don't you just fill your car up? And it's like, cause they couldn't afford to. Dummy.
- [56:28]
Josh Clark
Right.
- [56:28]
Chuck Bryant
I was the dummy.
- [56:30]
Josh Clark
That's right. Yeah. No, I know exactly what you mean. I've been on both sides of that.
- [56:35]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. I mean, you know the naivete of a college kid. So in a way.
- [56:39]
Josh Clark
Was that the Golden Pantry at Alps?
- [56:43]
Chuck Bryant
No, I worked on the College Station road side.
- [56:48]
Josh Clark
Gotcha. So we didn't figure out how to. Yeah, I had the same kind of job and it is a very weird job.
- [56:54]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah.
- [56:56]
Josh Clark
So we didn't figure out how to fix anything.
- [56:59]
Chuck Bryant
Chuck, you got any ideas?
- [57:02]
Josh Clark
I think that you could learn a lot from Europe, expanding social safety nets. We could stop making that a political thing and be like, no, actually this can help everybody. I saw that New Mexico has started free childcare for all. Doesn't matter what your income level is. Doesn't matter. Like you can put your kid into childcare for free and that's a huge expense that saved for the average person. Yeah, I think New York is trying to do that. Like Mamdani is trying to institute that in New York City too. So that could be a huge trend. Just free childcare, universal childcare could make a huge difference in people's income.
- [57:41]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. And all of that is because people want to go out and work their job to make money for the man.
- [57:48]
Josh Clark
Yep. Yeah, well put, man. You got anything else?
- [57:52]
Chuck Bryant
I got nothing else.
- [57:53]
Josh Clark
Okay. I don't either. Which means it's time for listener mail.
- [57:59]
Chuck Bryant
It is a quick correction. We heard from people from Tennessee because we stole their college. Hey, guys. Longtime listener here. Your show has fueled many runs and chores over the years. Quick Nashville nitpick from a proud local. In the Flexner Report episode, you mentioned Meharry being right here in Georgia. Nashville would like to gently reclaim that. Guys, Meharry Medical College has been proudly in Nashville since 1876. And we're pretty attached to it. Totally understand how geography gets slippery mid podcast, but just wanted to defend a hometown institution. And that is from Bridget, Chavon or Chavane. And we heard from a lot of people, Bridget. So I don't know how we screwed that up, but we did.
- [58:40]
Josh Clark
Yeah, we got it screwed up royally. I even went back and was like, surely there's a Meharry college in Georgia too. Nope, nope. It's just the one in Tennessee. So sorry, everyone in Tennessee. You took offense to that because we did hear from a lot of you, for sure.
- [58:53]
Chuck Bryant
That's right. But we're neighbors and we like to think that we're all the same.
- [58:56]
Josh Clark
Yeah, for sure. We all share your medical college.
- [58:59]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah.
- [59:00]
Josh Clark
In the tri State area. If you want to be like Bridget and send us a really nice email correcting us. We love that kind of thing. You can send it off to stuff podcast@iheartradio.com
- [59:15]
Chuck Bryant
Stuff you should know is a production of of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app.
- [59:21]
Josh Clark
Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
- [59:30]
Bob Pittman
Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia and I'm kicking off a brand new season of my podcast, Math and stories from the frontiers of marketing. Math and Magic takes you behind the scenes of the biggest businesses and industries while sharing insights from the smartest minds and marketing. Coming up this season on Math and Magic, CEO of Liquid Death, Mike Cesario.
- [59:51]
Josh Clark
People think that creative ideas are like these light bulb moments that happen when
- [59:55]
RK0 Proof Advertiser
you're in the shower where it's really
- [59:56]
Bob Pittman
like a stone sculpture.
- [59:58]
Josh Clark
You're constantly just chipping away and refining.
- [60:01]
Bob Pittman
Take to interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick and our own Chief Business Officer, Lisa Coffey. Listen to math and magic on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [60:11]
Nick
On paper, the three hosts of the Nick Dickenpole show are geniuses. We can explain how AI works, data centers, but there are certain things that we don't necessarily understand better version of.
- [60:24]
Dick
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
- [60:26]
Josh Clark
Yes.
- [60:27]
Taylor Swift Fact Checker
Which, by the way, wasn't Taylor Swift who said that for the first time. I actually. I thought it was. I got that wrong.
- [60:32]
Nick
But hey, no one's perfect. We're pretty close, though. Listen to the Nick, Dick and Paul show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [60:41]
Podcast Announcer
Then she says, have you seen a
- [60:43]
Josh Clark
photo of my son? And I'm like, who is this person?
- [60:46]
Podcast Announcer
Welcome to the boys and girls podcast. Arranged marriage is basically a reality show, and you're auditioning for your soulmate. And who's judging? Only your entire family. I sacrificed myself to this ancient tradition, hoping to find love the right way. And instead, I found chaos, comedy, and a lot of cringe. Listen to boys and Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [61:12]
Chuck Bryant
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.