Best Kathryn Anne Edwards and Robin Rauzi Podcasts (2025)

1
Thanksgiving Prep: An Optimist’s Guide to Dinner Table Debate 53:09

12d ago53:09

53:09

Your drunk uncle calls Social Security a Ponzi scheme. Your crypto-bro cousin thinks tariffs make China pay. Your grandfather blames working women for tanking wage growth. Economist Kathryn Edwards takes on a dozen hostile dinner-table challenges to help optimists everywhere prepare for dinner table debate. Robin plays every annoying relative you'v…

1
Retcon on Season One (+ Executive Orderpalooza) 41:28

1M ago41:28

41:28

Optimist Economy got its start almost exactly one year ago with a phone call that began, "Hear me out…" Thirty-two episodes later we ask, “What have we done?” Mostly we conditioned ourselves to keep our eye on the ball – the better U.S. economy and future that are possible – through a lot of very bad news days. In the background, we both moved. Kat…

1
How Health Insurance Got Shackled to Jobs 51:01

2M ago51:01

51:01

Why is anyone’s health insurance tied to their job? It's because of a superintendent in Dallas, World War II wage freezes, a 1953 tax code quirk, and decades of inertia. This accident of history costs America $384 billion a year in tax breaks to corporations for providing coverage. And what do we get for that? A system that locks people in jobs the…

1
Optimist Q&A: Evidence for UBI, What to Do About Billionaires, and Where Will the U.S. Economy Be After Trump? 52:29

2M ago52:29

52:29

In the final Q&A of the season, economist Kathryn Edwards answers listener questions on recent universal basic income experiments, legislative budgeting tricks, and the value of more aggressive IRS auditing. She also explains what eradicating the minimum wage exemption might mean, particularly for disabled and incarcerated workers. We also discuss …

1
Can We Fix America's Broken Unemployment Insurance System? 1:07:56

2M ago1:07:56

1:07:56

Just how broken is Unemployment Insurance? Consider this: During every recession since the 1950s, the federal government has had to step in and prop it up. Of people looking for work, only half qualify for Unemployment Insurance. And just half of those actually receive benefits. That’s what you get from a system designed mostly for factory workers …

1
The Ghost Recession: A Brief Economic History of Now 1:00:36

2M ago1:00:36

1:00:36

The economic pain that Americans experienced in 2022-23 was dubbed the “vibesession,” suggesting that negative public sentiment was out of sync with a healthy economy. But what we were truly experiencing was more like a “ghost recession.” As the Fed squeezed the economy by raising interest rates from zero to above 5% to get inflation under control,…

1
The Cash-for-Kids Study: Misread and Misrepresented 49:47

2M ago49:47

49:47

You might have heard recently that a years-long poverty study “found” that giving $333 monthly to kids with poor parents didn’t make a difference. But here's why that’s the wrong takeaway: The "Baby's First Years" study wasn't designed to test cash payments. It is multi-year, ongoing scientific research into how poverty affects child development. R…

1
The Case for Going Big on Paid Leave 54:37

3M ago54:37

54:37

Paid family and medical leave is a confusing mess: only 27% of private-sector workers get paid leave from their employer. Some others are covered by state programs, but those vary. The rest of us scramble to patch together short-term disability with other paid time off, if we have it. Meanwhile, the United States instead has a federal Family Medica…

1
Aren’t Free School Meals a Conservative's Dream Policy? 54:10

3M ago54:10

54:10

Free breakfast and lunch for every public school student — an idea associated more with countries like Sweden and Finland — should instead be viewed as a truly American policy that liberals and conservatives can both love. Want complete meritocracy? Then you should be furious that some kids can't focus in class or during tests because they're hungr…

1
Looking Beyond the Unemployment Rate 57:37

3M ago57:37

57:37

The unemployment rate has been hovering around 4.2%. But in today’s highly unsettled economy, many people feel this headline number from the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t capture their economic struggles — from slow hiring to working two part-time jobs to recent graduates unable to find work in their fields. But as economist Kathryn Edwards po…

1
GDP Was Never Going to Make You Happy 53:21

3M ago53:21

53:21

Gross Domestic Product is the big dog of economic numbers. But this measure of the economy’s size has massive blind spots. It ignores income inequality and citizens’ wellbeing. It rewards consumption and thus environmental degradation. Yes, it is vital to know if your economy is growing or shrinking and why. And yet maybe GDP shouldn’t be the lodes…

1
How to Actually Help Young Men Struggling in Our Economy 59:45

4M ago59:45

59:45

The "boys and men crisis" conversation set in motion following the 2024 election is now shooting off in erratic directions, leading to a lot of hand-wringing about college enrollment, long-gone factory jobs, and “loss of purpose.” Still, men’s workforce participation has been on a long, slow slide for seven decades, and it is reaching a worrying le…

1
What You Don’t Know About Poverty 47:34

4M ago47:34

47:34

About 11% of Americans have a household income that puts them below the official government threshold for poverty. Is poverty a state of being, or a risk? Are the poor people themselves the root cause of poverty? Or are they the outcome of a low-wage labor market that churns people in and out of work? Because how you diagnose the problem matters if…

1
Q&A Part 2: Working Two Jobs, Incentives vs. Handouts, the Gold Standard, and Government ROI 31:58

4M ago31:58

31:58

Economist Kathryn Edwards is back with more answers. In Part 2, she talks more about student loans, who actually “lives off taxpayers,” why gold reserves aren’t a great idea anymore, the importance of mobility in worker power, and whether ROI is a good measure for the work of government. If this two-parter was too much, blame the listener who said …

1
Q&A Part 1: Tax Philosophy, Liberal vs. Conservative Economists, Marriage vs. Poverty and More 43:09

4M ago43:09

43:09

In the first of two mailbag episodes, economist Kathryn Edwards answers questions from optimist listeners on taxation on wages vs. investments, whether student loans are regressive, how bona fide economists wind up on opposite sides of policy debates, and what it really means when a Montana Congressman calls the CBO “historically wrong.” Yeah, this…

1
A Million Reasons to Raise the Minimum Wage 58:24

4M ago58:24

58:24

The federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour hasn’t been raised since the era of flip phones. Competing bills introduced in Congress recently would set it at $15 or $17. Is that high enough, and how can we ensure it doesn’t fall so far behind again? Minimum wage debates are dominated by worry about anticipated harms to some businesses, but ignore the …

1
Collective Bargaining Without the Unionization Battles 52:31

5M ago52:31

52:31

Labor unions’ public approval has been increasing since 2009, and is now at levels not seen since the 1960s. And yet rates of union membership have been falling. Today just 10% of U.S. workers are represented by a union, and below 6% in the private sector. What if there were a less adversarial way to get the worker-protection aspects of unions with…

1
The Tax We’re 99.93% Sure That You Will Never Pay 54:59

5M ago54:59

54:59

The Estate Tax is one that half of Americans worry about, but that affects only the richest 0.07% after they die. For nearly 25 years, the U.S. has – through loopholes and ballooning exemptions – undercut a tax that could pay for some nice things, like maybe a children’s trust fund. If we chose to just dent more big inheritances, it’d also reduce t…

1
About That College Grad Who Can’t Find a Job… 55:12

5M ago55:12

55:12

Newly minted college graduates are having a harder time landing that first job than in recent years. Is it AI? Is college useless? Is it a crisis? (No. No. And not yet.) College graduates under 27 still have much lower unemployment rates (5.8%) than their high-school-diploma peers (6.9%). What economist Kathryn Edwards finds worrying is that these …

1
Simple Immigration Economics: Bigger is Better 50:44

5M ago50:44

50:44

One in five workers in the United States was born in another country. Without them, the country’s prime-age workforce would be shrinking, and thus so would our economy. So the calumny (Terms & Conditions) directed at immigrants is at odds with the basic fact that the U.S. needs them. What about depressing wages? Economist Kathryn Edwards says that …

1
Work Requirements Don’t Work 53:44

5M ago53:44

53:44

Here’s what work requirements rarely accomplish: Getting more people to work or lifting them out of poverty. They are, however, very good at driving people off public benefit programs, which was their primary role during the welfare reform of 1996. Yes, Kathryn Edwards economist/human will tell you that in theory, people will optimize how much they…

1
The U.S. is in the Hole. Will We Stop Digging? 50:43

6M ago50:43

50:43

The national debt is $36 trillion — a panic-inducing big number. So maybe it will help to understand how the U.S. ran up that debt. We’ve blown 37% of it on tax cuts, with precious little to show for that. But 28% went to stabilize the economy during two major crises (in ’08-’09 and during the COVID pandemic), which is when you do want the federal …

1
College Rules! But Student Loans are a Hot Mess! 58:57

6M ago58:57

58:57

The U.S. government makes student loans because our economy benefits enormously: Improved human capital. Higher earnings for taxpayers. Innovation and productivity gains. (Side note: Education has also been a $50 billion per year “export” because so many international students come here.) Meanwhile, colleges are basically getting blank checks for w…

1
OE Lightning Round: Kathryn Edwards Takes Your Economy Questions 49:34

6M ago49:34

49:34

Kathryn Edwards answers listeners’ economic questions, with her co-host's stopwatch running. In under an hour, we cover risks to U.S. economic data, college tuition, taxes, bonds, degrowth, mortgages, tariffs vs. income taxes, wealth concentration, and why the future can’t be built on lies. Finally, for those of you not from Wisconsin, do you know …

1
The Invisible Hand Doesn’t Want to Change Diapers 58:47

6M ago58:47

58:47

Child care is exhibit A that not everything can be solved by private marketplaces. It is too expensive and too scarce — and as Kathryn Edwards points out, nothing will change that fact. (Maybe you’ve heard someone say that preschool costs more than state university tuition? True in 38 states.) Even among those who think that there’s a role for the …

1
A Family Bill for a Shrinking U.S. 51:32

7M ago51:32

51:32

The declining birth rate in the United States is often discussed not only as a major demographic shift, but as a looming economic disaster. Ideas being pitched to the White House include a $5,000 baby bonus for new parents and (truly) giving medals to women who have a half-dozen babies. But what are the real contours of this supposed crisis? Indeed…

1
Progress is a Long Game 51:04

7M ago51:04

51:04

What sparks progress? The right political conditions? Social pressure? Economic upheaval? In response to two listeners’ questions, Kathryn Edwards says… both none of those and all of the above. (Also, "not a historian.") Still, as an example, we talk through just one bit of the New Deal in the 1930s, which was the law to limit child labor. That mov…

1
Paid Sick Days for Lady Gaga (and Everyone Else Too) 42:31

7M ago42:31

42:31

In the category of low-hanging policy fruit, why won’t any politician pluck the ripe, juicy goodness of federally mandated paid sick leave? About 30 million American workers not only don’t get a paid day off when they have the flu, there’s no law on the books to prevent them from being fired if they call in sick. Economist Kathryn Edwards points ou…

1
AI Suggested Five Horrible Titles for This Episode 45:43

8M ago45:43

45:43

A recent article in the Washington Post proposed that U.S. labor data has just started to show the bite artificial intelligence is taking out of U.S. jobs – in this case, for computer programmers. Is AI going to cause mass joblessness? Silicon Valley bros seem to think so. Journalists seem to think so. So what’s with economist Kathryn Edwards' ho-h…

1
Work Rules for the Modern World 38:28

8M ago38:28

38:28

Never heard of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938? It’s why there’s a minimum wage, overtime pay, and 12-year-olds can’t legally have a job. It’s also due for a 21st-century update. What would these “New Work Standards” include? Let’s start with the right to request remote work, part-time schedules, or non-traditional hours. This shift would be a…

1
Robin Loves a Tax Story 33:27

8M ago33:27

33:27

The United States is more than 20 years into a tax experiment – an era of a cumulative $7 trillion in tax cuts. So, asks economist Kathryn Edwards, how’s that working out? Well, we have worsening income inequality and public faith in the tax system is cratering. Meanwhile every social policy is conceptualized as some kind of tax cut/credit. The que…

1
Social Security Don’t Miss 52:45

8M ago52:45

52:45

What’s with the persistent narrative of Social Security's impending doom? Are the baby boomers draining the trust fund? Are Americans living too long? No and no. There are just two of the many misunderstandings people have about what economist Kathryn Edwards will tell you (for hours if you let her) is, truly, the most popular and effective public …

1
Is This a Recession or Not? 47:20

8M ago47:20

47:20

Wouldn’t it be funny if we launched a podcast called “Optimist Economy” at the very moment the economy started to slide? Nice timing, us! In this bonus episode we dive into the data that has folks spooked. We also talk about if willy-nilly tariff policy (technical economic term there) is to blame, whether a recession is more like a wildfire or a hu…

1
An Elegy for the DEI Boogeyman 30:34

8M ago30:34

30:34

Rapidly changed government and corporate policies mean the era of DEI is coming to a screeching halt. But gross racial discrimination in the U.S. labor market persists. Just one example: The black unemployment rate is almost always double the white unemployment rate. In this episode we muddle through what can be said about DEI now at its funeral th…

1
All We've Tried is Nothing! 18:29

9M ago18:29

18:29

Who are we and what in the world is an “optimist economy?” For our first show, we (economist Kathryn Edwards and editor Robin Rauzi) introduce ourselves, explain how we met, and lay out our goals for our new podcast. We want Optimist Economy to empower listeners to understand the economy we have, but also the one we can have so they feel good about…

1
Welcome to Optimist Economy 1:05

9M ago1:05

1:05

Here at Optimist Economy, we recognize that today’s economy isn’t great for a lot of Americans. That is exactly why now’s the time to talk about how it could be so much better — whether you’re hunting for a first job or worried about the future of Social Security. Co-hosts Kathryn Edwards (a labor economist) and Robin Rauzi (an editor) decided to m…

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Kathryn Anne Edwards And Robin Rauzi Podcasts

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