Mom-enomics

Polls consistently show that “the economy” is voters’ top issue. But what do people actually mean when they say they’re worried about the economy? What IS the current state of the economy? How is it going to influence the midterms? And how does it affect suburban moms?

This week, our resident economist Amanda Weinstein breaks it all down for us and makes it easy to understand. She’s joined by Jasmine Clark and guest host Beverly Batte, and together they talk through how the economy affects our everyday lives and how it’s inextricably linked to other issues like Roe v Wade, climate change, and extremism. Amanda answers some listener questions from our Facebook group SWEEP and gives some easy replies to Republican one-liners about the economy. (Spoiler: Biden does not in fact control gas prices!)

Finally, Amanda, Jasmine and Bev raise a glass to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and to remembering the joy of teaching and parenting in this episode’s “Toast to Joy.”

The midterm elections are now only 15 weeks away! If you’re ready to join the Great Troublemaker Turnout, please sign up here. Suburban women are taking a stand - join us!

For a transcript of this episode, please email theswppod@redwine.blue.

For a transcript of this episode, please email theswppod@redwine.blue.

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Transcript

The Suburban Women Problem - Season 2, Episode 30

Amanda Weinstein: Hi, everyone. Thanks for listening. I'm Amanda Weinstein. 

Jasmine Clark: I'm Jasmine Clark. 

Beverly Batte: I'm Beverly Batte, filling in for Rachel Vindman. 

Amanda: And you're listening to The Suburban Women Problem. So we've talked before about how Republicans love to talk about inflation. They claim that inflation is what Americans really care about - as if we only care about one thing! I'm a mom, right? Which means I'm a multitasker. I can care about gas prices and reproductive freedom and democracy all at the same time, thank you very much. 

But it is true that inflation and the economy affects families in a very direct and personal way. So today we wanted to talk about the economy. And, as the resident economist on the pod, I'm also going to answer some questions we got from listeners on our Facebook group SWEEP.

But before we get to that, welcome Beverly! Bev is the executive producer of the podcast so she's always behind the scenes with us, but every once in a while, she joins us at the mic! Last week, Rachel recorded the pod from a parking lot in France, so we thought we'd give her a week off to actually enjoy her family trip. Thanks for filling in, Bev!

Bev: Y'all I am so happy to be here to talk about the economy and inflation. And I was literally just having this conversation with somebody about, they were talking about, “what's gonna be top of mind come November? Is it gonna be the economy or is it gonna be Roe and the issues around extremism?” And I was like, baby, it's the same thing. Right? And abortion is an economic issue. And all of these things tie in together. And if you don't think that extremism plays a role in economic unrest, you’ve got another thing coming. 

Amanda: I think that's such a good point because polling typically shows fairly consistently that the economy is a number one issue for people, but what does that mean? Right? So when people say the economy is my number one issue, that can mean something very different to different people. So when you guys hear that, what do you think about when you hear like the economy is important? What do you think that means that they really care about? 

Jasmine: You know, what's interesting about this question is I've been knocking on doors, so I've been going door to door as a part of my campaign and actually talking to people. And one of the questions that I ask at the door is “what is your top issue right now?” And at first, when I ask it, people kind of just look at me, perplexed. Like, “issue, what do you mean?” So then I give them a list and I'll say, “oh, alright, the economy, guns, reproductive rights, climate change…” And as I start rattling things off, some people are like, “oh, the economy.” And I'm like, “oh, okay. Well you know, what specifically is concerning you about the economy?” And a lot of people just say “gas prices” and while yes, gas prices are a part of the economy, I don't think they're like the entire economy. It might feel like your entire economy if you have to drive anywhere. 

But I also noticed recently that gas prices have been going down in my area. So I wonder, as a candidate and as a state representative… number one, I have no control over gas prices. I, I don't push that button. I do not decide–

Amanda: Oh, you don't? You didn't set your local GA prices, you don't walk in your gas station, like, “do you know who I am? I'm Jasmine Clark. I'm gonna pay $2 a gallon.” And they're like, “okay!” 

Jasmine: I do not get to set gas prices as a individual or as a state representative. And just let you all know neither does the president, but that's here neither here nor there. But what I do wonder is if people are just connecting the economy with gas prices, then if gas prices go down, is the economy still gonna be that top of mind thing? Because I mean, when people think of the economy, they think of the something they have to spend money on. So if prices start to go down, will that actually be a top of mind issue going into November or, you know, or, or are we gonna try to just force it to be by just continuously talking about it as if things are all bad?

Bev: We're talking about it now, and I think not to get too caught up in it, but a lot of it is media narrative. It's, “oh my goodness. The price of gas is so high.” So when you ask somebody what is top of mind, they're gonna tell you what they just heard. Right? What they just saw on the news. “Oh my gosh. Gas prices are so high.” But they're not gonna report on them going down the same way and it's not gonna be, “Hey everybody, the gas prices are so low. Did you see that gas is going down? This is amazing, right?” You know, that's not gonna be a news story. So it's never gonna be top of mind for people when things are getting better, it's always gonna be top of mind when things are getting worse.

Amanda: That's a good point. And I think the Fox News narratives tend to break through a little bit more. And so even now with gas prices declining, now you have the Fox News narrative getting out of, “well, they're going down too fast, right? This is really bad for small gas station business owners. Like how could Biden do this to them?” And so part of what we also have to realize is it really doesn't matter what our economy is doing. Fox News will say it's shit, no matter what. 

Jasmine: Yes. Right. So we have to kind of realize that they're never gonna say, “well, you know, the economy's going real great guys, but we still want you to vote for our guy.” It doesn't matter what the economy's doing. They're always gonna say the economy is bad.

Here in Georgia, our governor just turned down extra funding that would go to food banks. And his rationale was, “the economy is good and unemployment is at record lows. We don't need the money.” However, tomorrow he will campaign on how Biden's economy is crappy and we absolutely positively must get rid of Biden, cuz everything's all bad. And it's like, it's the same person, same guy, probably even the same week. But somehow the economy is so strong that we don't need to help people out with food, but the economy is so bad that we do need to do whatever it takes to get rid of whoever made the economy bad, which apparently is Joe Biden all by himself.

Amanda: That's a good point. So I think about, when I think about the economy I think about my family and I think about my community and I think about my state and how things are going, but that's not typically the narrative that breaks through. The narrative that breaks through is this crafted message about what's going on in other states around you. And the truth is, we know a lot less about what's going on in other states around us. We know the most about what's going on in our household, in our communities, but that's not the national narrative that we hear. And when we think about the economy and the way that I personally think we should think about it is… “How is my family doing? How are my friends doing? How is my community doing?” And I think we need to think about it on a very personal level. 

And when we start to think about it on a personal level, I think that's where you see the economy touches a lot of different issues. Right? It's not just gas prices. It's not just prices. It's not just jobs. It's a whole lot of things. And then we start to see things like you said, Bev, right? It's also reproductive freedom. We have a woman in Louisiana who was forced to give birth, I don't know if you guys saw this. She was forced to give birth to a non-viable fetus when her water broke at 16 weeks, rather than getting the D&C that her doctor recommended would be safer. So she ended up losing a liter of blood and the doctor said this was the first time in a 15 year career that they couldn't give a patient the care they needed. So when we're talking about the economy, right, those reproductive freedoms, those strength in our economy, right. Women dying is actually not good for our economy, which will happen with this. And women having to take time off work. 

Bev: Absolutely. You know, I, I mean, most women work up until the day they give birth, right? Like, because we have such crap maternal care in this country for, you know, protections on jobs and such. 

Amanda: Oh yeah. I had people asking me like, “are you due soon?” And I was like, “yeah, on Monday” and like, “oh, that's coming up” and I was like, “no, last Monday! It was last Monday.” 

Bev: Yeah. Like that's a whole, that's a whole other episode. We can go down that path. But so she's having to recover from almost dying from having, right, from not being able to receive medical care. Now who's gonna feed her kid?

Amanda: Yeah. I mean, she could have had a D&C and been out, right, and basically been done with it. But she wasn't. And when you look at things like reproductive freedoms, it is associated with higher labor force participation rate. So when you wanna hear talking points of, “oh, nobody wants to work…”you can't work when you're in the hospital! When you're having this procedure you never wanted to have, but are being forced to have by the government. Or you're on bedrest. And you just like, you know, you did not have the choice to say, “I do not want this for me right now.” There's just so many different things when it comes to reproductive freedom. 

Jasmine: I also think about the attack on contraceptives that we're hearing about now. I mean, we're getting to the point now where they're not only telling you in certain states you won't be able to get life saving medical treatment, or you won't be able to get abortion care, which is healthcare, but they're getting to the point where they're like, “and now we're not even gonna be able to get contraceptives.” That opens up a whole other can of worms when it comes to our economy and economic freedom. You cannot have economic freedom if you do not have reproductive freedom. It is all the same thing. If you open the package and you let one thing fall out, everything falls out. 

Amanda: That's absolutely right. And when we have, so you have more women working, women can go to college. So now we have a more educated workforce. Women can have careers like doctor and lawyer and microbiologist because we can control when we have kids.

And you also get this like zero sum mentality. I feel like, like we talked about with Heather McGhee, and we think, “well, now women are doing better cause they have reproductive freedom. So does that mean men are doing worse?” No! That doesn't mean men are doing worse. And so I actually have research that shows for every 10% increase in women's labor force participation, wages increase 5% for men and women. So wages actually go up for men and women when we have more women working! 

Bev: There's the unintended consequences too, of what, you know, not being able to do family planning could do to your career. I mean, I know that I've read this and Amanda, you could probably speak to this, but you know, what kind of hit does your career take when you have an unplanned pregnancy? And if you get pregnant earlier in your career and don't have that ability, like that's gonna hurt your earning potential for your whole life. 

Amanda: Absolutely. So, the younger that you have those children, you tend to see those women are more likely to be in poverty. And this goes with the, I think it's the turn back studies on reproductive and abortion care, that those women are more likely to be in poverty. The children are more likely to be in poverty when they are denied an abortion. And we generally see that women can do better, right, when they can control those pregnancies. 

And the interesting thing with this is as the number of children for women go up, they are more likely to have lower wages than they would've otherwise. And that's actually not true for men. And if we think about… why might that be true? So actually the more children men have, the higher their wages go. And if you think about it, it's about childcare and who takes on that burden? Who does, you know, most of the shopping to go by diapers? Who does the errands to take your kid to the doctor who stays at home when your kid is sick? That burden still falls disproportionately on women. Which takes away from the time that they can work. 

And we also just don't have a very good safety net. So we don't have paid leave, we don't have childcare. And when we don't have that safety net, women are the safety net. So we do have a safety net. It's women, women are it. But when women are the safety net, they're forced to pull that load without any help. And it takes away from what they can actually do in the workforce. 

Jasmine: You know, as I think about what I ask people at the doors, another thing that comes up in conversation a lot is democracy itself, voting rights and things like that. And all of those things also tie into the economy. When you do not have the freedom to choose who is your elected representative, when maps are drawn to basically already have a certain outcome and completely takes the voters out of the equation, or when things like January 6th happens and there aren't really a whole lot of consequences, so people think it's okay... All of those things also are going to have a direct effect on our economy. So when people say they care about the economy or they care about inflation, you should also care, you know, about access to the ballot box. 

Amanda: No, that's such a great point. So I think Republicans focus on the economy and inflation to cover up their extremist agenda. They wanna cover up attempts to overthrow the government and to change our entire system of government to one that is authoritarian. And oftentimes the kind of unsaid message is, you know, “Let's go to this authoritarianism. Let's give up democracy because we'll be getting some kind of economic safety or freedom. You don't have to worry about inflation as much.” But it's just not true. If you look at authoritarian governments around the world, so if you look at Turkey, if you look at Hungary, if you look at Venezuela, they tend to have struggling economies. Their economies are not doing well. Right? So this is just this false idea that we will get some type of economic security through authoritarianism is just wrong.

Bev: That's wild. When people say that to me, like, I don't understand that argument. Because if America, if the United States is supposed to be this global leader, right, in a global economy, we're gonna lose trade partners, if we descend into authoritarianism, if we lose democracy. Right? And, you know, what's that gonna do to the stock market, which is what most people, you know, see as the economy, right? Which is its own problem, as you spoke to earlier. But I just, your 401k is not gonna be safe in authoritarian hands! It's the most terrifying thing. If we get rid of, you know, banking regulations and go back to wild spending and all of those types of, of, of scary things… like, that's terrifying for what our future holds not just from an economic standpoint but just from how we live our lives. 

Amanda: Yeah, absolutely. And this is a good time to remind everyone that we are now 15 weeks out from the midterms. And that time is going to fly by. I know we keep saying this every election, but you all, this election is so important to democracy. To making sure that we don't go down and become that authoritarian state. This is an all hands on deck situation and we need to act now. So one thing you can do right now is sign up for the Great tTroublemaker Turnout. You can visit redwine.blue to learn more. 

Jasmine: You know, there are people that are open to authoritarianism because they think, “oh, well, my people will be the ones in authority. So it's all good. I'm okay with it because the people that I like are there. As long as it's my guy, I would love for them to be my guy forever. I would love for them to be president forever because I like this person.” That's, first of all, extremely anti-American. Extremely non-patriotic or not patriotic, whatever the word is.

Amanda: Yes! You like that American flag, you should also like what it stands for. 

Jasmine: Exactly. But also it just doesn't make sense. I just don't think people even know what they want. They're just like saying stuff cuz someone else said it and they're like, “oh, that sounds good.” 

Amanda: I feel like what I hear people talk about when they talk about the economy is… they don't talk about, you know, “oh, you know, I'm doing okay and I'm gonna go take a vacation and we're going on vacation next week.” They're doing pretty fine. But what I hear them talk about is, “you know what, I don't know about the economy because I'm hearing this.” And that “this” that they're hearing is usually a talking point, right. Probably originated from Fox News and it just spread. And they're hearing this about some other state about somewhere else, you know, it's not my neighborhood. And I think that is really the wrong way to think about this. 

When we think about the economy, we need to think about what is happening to me. And there are people who are struggling, right? So inflation is hard for especially lower income families, paying those higher gas prices. That is really hard. We do need to think about that. And part of what you think about is that safety net. When we think about our economy and that safety net, what you hear from the Republicans is we can't afford it. Right? “That's gonna hurt our economy, if we spend this, you know, money to build a safety net.” But it's actually not true.

So I think about the safety net as kind of like a trampoline, right? We all could have something bad happen. That could be cancer. That could be a crazy flood. That could be a fire. That could just be losing your business when something bad happens. Right. When you have a safety net, it's like this trampoline to bounce you back up on your feet. The quicker we can get people to bounce back up on their feet, the quicker they can get back to work and our economy can keep chugging along. But if that safety net has giant holes in it and people fall through, that's gonna hurt our economy. 

Bev: I am a one income household and we have to do it that way because my son has special needs and care for him would be extremely expensive. I'm the person that works, my husband stays home, and that's how it's always been. And, and God would it be so cool and would my husband love it, like when time has allowed maybe like during the school year stuff, he does contract work and whatever, but it would be so nice if we had even had that option, right, for two incomes. 

Jasmine: And so an example of a safety net would be if we would have childcare.

Bev: Right. 

Jasmine: If we're gonna pay taxes, I would like to see, I would like to be, like, “oh yeah, my taxes paid for that.” And so when I'm in my community and I, you know, hang out at the park or something like that, I'm like, “oh yeah, my taxes paid for this.” Or when I see a pothole getting filled, I'm like, “oh yeah, my taxes paid for this.” But federally, I would love to also know, you know, when I send my kid to daycare that I don't have to worry about paying astronomical prices, and I also know that daycare is gonna be there. Cuz those bills are still getting paid because there is a safety net there. That would be amazing. 

And it would help everyone, even people of means it would help. We've talked about this with Heather McGhee and Amanda, you brought it up about this whole zero sum thing. It's not like if we help people who have lower incomes, that somehow people who have higher incomes are losing out. Like the right wing has found a way to basically demonize anything that might help someone of lower means. So that people who would also be helped now feel like, “oh, we can't have that because we're giving it to someone that I don't feel is deserving of that service.” 

Amanda: It's shortsighted and they don't follow that through. So what they think about is, right, “daycare would cost money” and they stop there, right? Yes, it absolutely will cost money. Pre-K costs money, right. But research shows for every dollar you spend on quality early childhood education, you save seven. It makes so much more sense. 

And when we think about this safety net, one thing I think about is… I think about risk. We actually need people to take risks in our economy. So a risk can be starting a restaurant. It could be starting your own bakery. That's a big risk. And honestly, it's a big risk a lot of women don't take, not because they're too risk averse, it's because we don't have a good safety net. Right. So if we had a better safety net, more people would take that risk to start that bakery, to start that new shop that they've been thinking about starting, and you get more businesses and more economic activity, and people take the risks that we need.

And if something happens like you start your bakery and you go bankrupt or it goes out of business, you have that safety net to say, “you know, you tried. Let's bounce back and go to your next job.” 

Bev: So what do you think, like just shifting focus a little bit, is something that bugs you right now? Cuz there's so much talk about the economy and I know that you are an economist and you know, you're seeing this stuff and you have to see all these bad takes. Like, what is bugging you about what you're saying right now? 

Amanda: Oh, man. My biggest pet peeve is that Biden is controlling our economy. He's causing gas prices to be higher, that Biden caused inflation. And that is my biggest pet peeve, because it's just simply not how the economy works. And I am hearing the free market people, especially libertarians, make this argument. And I know they know that's not how the economy works. To me it's very disingenuous to hear it from that crowd when they're like the capitalist crowd, trying to say the president controls our entire economy and prices. That's simply not true. Right. Prices are driven by businesses supplying goods and services. They're driven by people, consumers, demand, buying those goods and services. 

But the thing I don't get is why aren't we talking about the companies more, right? If we need more oil and gas, why are we talking about the oil and gas companies produce more? Right? Why aren't we talking about why can't you fix your supply chain issues? So we actually have research at my college, it shows the more women who are working in supply chains, the more efficient those supply chains are. Guess what? It's also a male dominated field, which also means we need more women to be in those supply chains. Cuz they can get our supply chains up and working. 

Bev: Get some moms up in here to fix the supply chain. We are ready to go. 

Jasmine: Haha.

Amanda: Yes, exactly! Like we are made for that like three kids. You all need a lunch to pack, right? Got this. I will get you. Dinner for four kids tonight because we got another kid over? No problem. I will line up that supply chain. Here's your meal. Yes, I know. It totally makes sense. I saw that research, I was like mm-hmm,  yep. Women would be better at that. Not surprised at all. 

All right, well, this has been really fun. You know I love to discuss economics. We are going to take a break and then we'll be back to answer some questions from our listeners.

BREAK

Amanda: Welcome back everyone. So we had a lot of questions about the economy from our listeners in our Facebook group SWEEPS- that’s Suburban Women Engaged, Empowered, and Pissed. I'm going to answer them as best as I can. 

All right, here we go. The first question we got is from a listener named Trish. She said, “I hear so many of my cranky neighbors talk about how nobody wants to work, which is a bizarre thing to believe since unemployment is at 3.6%, which is below what we consider natural unemployment. I'm guessing it's because lots of people are noticing reduced staff at their favorite restaurant, or they keep hearing about it on the news. So what's really going on with the labor market?” 

That's a good question. So this one's pretty interesting too, actually. So there is a history of people saying “nobody wants to work” and it actually goes back, as far as I can tell, to the 1800s. So this is not a new argument, right? We will hear this argument in the next year and the next year, no matter what the economy does, they'll be there to say nobody wants to work. But right now we have what economists call a “tight” labor market. I don't know if you guys have heard anyone say that the labor market is “tight”? 

Bev: No, I've never heard that before. 

Amanda: So you might hear pundits or economists say that we have a tight labor market, which basically means that we have a lot of vacant jobs. And the workers are pretty scarce to get those jobs. So when you think about that restaurant Trish was talking about, you see a lot of vacancies, you see a lot of hirings, but we just don't have enough workers right now to fill that.

And part of what that means is also if you can't hire someone, you probably need to offer a higher wage. But a lot of companies are gonna be a little reluctant to offer that higher wage because if something changes, you can't lower it. It's pretty hard to lower someone's wage. We call that kind of “sticky wages”- easier to give someone a raise than to lower their wage. Right. They might get pissed and leave. So when we think about what's going on with that, we also have COVID still, we have an estimated 1 million Americans who are not in the labor force that we talked about because they have long COVID symptoms and complications that means they're unable to work.

Jasmine: Something else came up the other day in conversation that I think gets left out of the conversation, and that is just how much immigration actually plays a role in our economy. And, you know, Republicans spent a lot of time talking down about immigrants and at one point they kept talking about how the immigrants were “taking all the jobs.” And what we're now seeing is, they weren't taking the jobs. They were actually just doing jobs that needed to be done! 

But now that you have reduced the amount of immigrants that can come in, you are putting a lot more restrictions on the migrant workforce and things like that, now you're seeing that those jobs were not taken, those jobs were filled.

Amanda: They were filled! Exactly!

Jasmine: And now they're not filled. And so now when you go to your restaurant, you're wondering why it's taking so long for your food to come out and it's taking so long because there was a person who had that job and that person is no longer there.

All right, so let's move on to our next question. And this question comes from a listener named Leslie, and she says, “I'm really concerned about the economy and impact on elections. Will the negative economic impacts on families outweigh all the negatives, the GOP have against them like the January 6th trial, Trump or overturning Roe?”

Amanda: I mean, so we've talked about how polls consistently show people say the economy is their top issue right now. What that actually means, I think, is different to each person when they think about the economy. So I would really love if pollsters– if there's any pollsters listening, can you please ask people what they mean by the economy? Because it's actually a pretty unclear question. 

Jasmine: Follow-up questions!

Amanda: Follow-up questions, yes! Ugh. Right. So it's a big influence, but I think what moves people politically is what affects them personally. And I think we need to talk about the economy in ways that are more real to people. How is your job going? What about wages? What about, you know, the benefits that you're earning, right? Are you being offered more flexible workspace or, or more flexible work life balance? Right? So I think those are all the things that we need to talk about when we talk about the economy. 

Bev: But as we mentioned, we also need to talk about all of those things like when you think about, oh, trying to overthrow the government, moving to an authoritarian state, overturning Roe, all of those things affect our economy too. And we need to talk about that. We need to talk about what it means to our economy to deny people freedom, to Jasmine's point, like, are people going to want to come to this country to fill any jobs? Not low skilled jobs, but high skilled jobs. Like we already see it with kids not wanting to come to college here, right? And that's huge, like, that's gonna hurt universities so hard. 

Amanda: Yeah. That's been hurting my university with enrollment as we see that, you know, international students have gone down so much. But when we think about the economy, I think we also don't talk about the wins enough. So our most recent job reports showed that we added 372,000 jobs. That's an excellent jobs report!

So do higher prices hurt for a lot of families? Absolutely. Right. That is a struggle for a lot of people. But do you know what is a bigger struggle? Not having a job. And so I think one thing we need to talk about more is the wins.

Jasmine: As much as Republicans talk about economy, economy, economy, cuz that's what they've been told, that's the only thing right now that they can talk about that gets people on their side. And to be clear, they are not talking about any solutions. They're just trying to scare people to dang death about what's going on with the economy. But they never are like, “and this is why we are proposing this particular thing.” They don't really have a plan. The plan is just to make everybody afraid and tell them that somehow we'll save the day, once that day comes.

But we also need to talk about number one, the wins, as you said, Amanda, because the truth is most people don't know those job numbers. But we also have to continue to talk about the issues that will affect people's day to day lives, that can affect people's ability to, again, have economic freedom. So reproductive justice, access to health care, all of the things where right now, Republicans don't want you to mention those things. Cuz when you mention those things, they look bad. So they're trying to dominate the airways and our ears with the economy, because they feel like that's the only place where they get a little bit of a leg up.


Bev: Well, and I think they have a fundamental misunderstanding of what suburban women think of when they think of the economy. Cause we, you know, as Amanda was pointing earlier, it's about you. And when you take away the Wall Street of it all, you know what scares me about the economy and my economic future? Extremism. Chaos. Not knowing if democracy is gonna survive the next election. Like that affects my financial situation, the choices that I make, more than anything. And so the economy is a top issue for me. And that's why–and I think that I'm not the only woman out there about this– you know, I think that a lot of us, when we say the economy is our top issue, it IS talking about the instability, the chaos. It's not about how our 401k is sitting. So I think maybe they're gonna come in for a shock when yes, we're talking about the economy and it's a top issue, and that's why we're not voting for your ass. 

Amanda: I mean, and I think you have that with red states. Right? So I think there's a lot of women in red states right now wondering if they should be in those red states. 

Bev: Hello, I just moved. Yeah. 

Amanda: Exactly, right. So we're thinking like, but then here's the thing, right? Bev, would you like start that bakery in Kentucky if you were thinking about moving? Absolutely not, right? So you have women who are kind of putting a lot of economic things on hold thinking, “do I need to wait and do I need to move to a state that will respect my reproductive freedoms? My daughter's reproductive freedoms?” And that can put a lot of things on hold and it can become this kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. If we think the economy's gonna be bad, we don't go by that car. Then what happens to car sales, right? They go down. And then we can actually cause a recession by thinking there's going to be a recession.

Jasmine: Which I think is what Republicans want. And they're like, they're like, “we need something bad to happen, cause right now all the bad things are us. So we need something else bad to happen. So like let's crash the economy and then hopefully everyone will blame Biden and then we'll be back on top and everyone will love us again.” That's pretty much what I think they're banking on and then we'll destroy democracy as we do it.

Amanda: Yes. But I also feel, but I also feel like this is kind of a ground we cede to Republicans as Democrats. We kind of, for many years, ceded like, “oh yes, you're the party of family values and you're the pro-life party.”

Jasmine: No, they're not. On both. Not on either. 

Amanda: No, no, they are not. I'm sorry. They are not, right? But we also, I feel like we tend to also be like, “well, you care more about the economy and jobs cuz you talk about it more.” No, that's not true. All of the policies, you're right, we never hold them to what policy will help the economy. They never get asked tough questions. Dems get asked tough questions. And I feel like Dems often shy away from the economy or a lot of issues because they cede that ground too easily. And I think we need to stand up firmer because the policies Democrats are proposing are better for our country. Period. 

Jasmine: Better. Exactly. And we, that's the message that we have to put out. They're just telling you there's a problem and they're not actually offering a single solitary solution outside of “make sure that companies don't have to pay more taxes” because somehow that's literally their solution to everything. It seems like it's just like, “well, just give tax credits to rich people and everyone else will be fine.”

Bev: Yeah. And that's the perfect segue to our next question, which is exactly about that. So this is from Renee who says, “I'd like to know if low taxes are really all corporations consider when moving to a state. My state, North Carolina, is bragging that it's #1 for business, but is also defying a court order to fund our schools at a bare minimum level. What good are low taxes if schools, roads and other public services are neglected?”

Jasmine: Oh my gosh. Can I just point out one thing? Literally, every state is the number one state to do business. Georgia literally has huge posters saying they're the number one state to do business. And, you know, I went to a conference one time and it was like, all these other states were there and people were getting up and introducing themselves, and then someone from Texas was like, “yeah, I'm so and so from Texas and we're the number one state to do business.” And I was like, “no, you're not, Georgia is! Like, that's all they tell us!” And they said, “no, I have the proof right here. This random magazine said that we're the number one state.” And I realized every state just finds a magazine that makes them number one, and then they just tout it. So no one is the number one state to do business, cause literally everybody is. Like, it's crazy. 

Amanda: Yep. Everyone claims to be number one because some random magazine had some metric that they used, right, to decide who's the best for business. So I can tell you, based on real metrics and things like low corporate income taxes, Ohio ranks fifth lowest in the nation in terms of corporate income tax rates, but it ranks 39th for job growth, right? It is not the low taxes. If it was the low taxes, Ohio would be fifth highest for job growth, but we aren't. Right? 

So when we think about… why is that? I keep hearing, you know, low taxes. But in this business environment, what's important is that Americans now want to live in a place that they think is nice to live. And that is where people go live. So I actually have recent research that shows that the quality of life, having a nicer place to live, matters more for job growth than the quality of the business environment. And the strongest predictor of higher quality of life in an area, the strongest predictor, is school spending.

Jasmine: Oh, wow. 

Amanda: Do you spend a lot on your schools? 

Bev: Makes sense. Of course it does. Of course it does! It’s so simple, like of course that's it. Like why is that not on every billboard? 

Amanda: It should be. I know Ohio literally made billboards that went up in Times Square saying like, “we have, you know, no corporate income tax rates. Don't you wanna live in Ohio?” And New Yorkers were like, “no, no we don't.” Right? They think this matters. 

Jasmine: I heard someone on Twitter was like, “oh, the suburbs just cater to families. And that's why they're doing so well.” And I was like, “uh-huh, that's exactly right!” 

Amanda: Exactly. That is the point. You're right. Catering to families! And it's not just families, it can be single people too. So you're considered a household, right, catering to households is economic development policy and it is the best economic development. 

All right. So before we get to our Toast to Joy, I wanted to give you all some rapid response answers you can give when you hear Republicans talking about the economy.

Bev: I love that idea. Sometimes when people spout off Republican talking points, it can be hard to know the perfect thing to say in the moment. And then I just get real frustrated afterwards, cause I'll think about it at like 3:00 AM, you know? 

Jasmine: Yes! You're like, “oh, I should have said this!” 

Amanda: Yeah, I know! So I was thinking about this. I feel like one liners are a lot easier when you can just tell a mistruth, like it's easy to make a mistruth into a one-liner, but to combat a mistruth, it's hard to do it in a one-liner. Right? So one thing that I hear a lot is “Biden failed to keep inflation in check, making it harder for families to get by.”

Yes, inflation makes it harder for families to get by, but ultimately inflation is kept in check and is the responsibility of the Federal Reserve, not the president. Inflation is a global phenomenon due to a number of factors, among the most prominent is the inability of supply to meet demand right now.

All right. So the next one I hear a lot. “The Democrats’ big spending agenda is hurting our economy.”

Jasmine: Oh God. 

Amanda: So the American Rescue Plan helped create those impressive job numbers that we just talked about. The infrastructure bill made investments in our country that will benefit families and businesses. We should be investing in the U.S. We should be investing in our communities. And despite all of these investments, the deficit went down under both years of the Biden administration. The deficit actually went up every single year under Trump. 

All right. So the last one I have here, let me see… “Biden is to blame for high gas prices.” So you may have seen those stickers on the gas stations, right? That “Biden did that?” 

Bev: Oh, I pull them off every chance I get. 

Jasmine: I've never seen one! 

Amanda: Oh, you haven't? Oh, I have seen 'em and I pulled them off too.  

Jasmine: I've never seen, I've only seen pictures of them, but I've never seen one in real life.

Bev: I will tell you, it's good for your soul– just a quick sidebar– there is a video of somebody getting arrested for putting one of those stickers on a gas pump, and it's just some bro guy and he's, as you might imagine, very upset about it. And it's just poetry to watch. 

Amanda: Haha. I need to Google that. 

All right, so high gas prices are the response of a global supply unable to meet global demand. But the global supply is lower in part because, although the U.S. is the largest oil producer, Russia's the second largest producer. And the conflict with Ukraine takes them out of that energy market. Right? So now you've just essentially taken out the second largest producer of oil and gas, which means on the global market, we don't have enough supply to meet demand. And we haven't invested in the things to allow people to transition away from oil and gas, right? So that is a big issue for prices. And what we really need is to give people affordable alternatives to oil and gas, and we've needed to do that for decades.

Jasmine: I mean, yeah. We actually have a planet that we need to try to save at some point. I know that's like low on people's priority lists, but like how much of this really matters if we just all melt at some point because we didn't care about climate change? That's a whole other episode though.

Amanda: It is, but that's a really good point. So Nobel Prize winning economist William Nordhouse estimated for every one metric ton of carbon dioxide you emit, it costs $47, right? So when you're driving around your vehicle, right, you're emitting carbon, when companies are doing whatever that emits carbon, it costs $47. Meaning we're starting to have to pay that $47 when you're dealing with fires in California and fires in Colorado, we are starting to pay that $47. Which is weakening our economy, the economy. 

Jasmine: Yeah. Oh my gosh, all right, so thank you Amanda so much for your economic wisdom. And I just really appreciate your ability to kind of talk economy in layman's terms. So thanks so much for that. And now I think we will end our show by transitioning to our Toast to Joy, which is where we talk about something exciting or happy that's been going on with us since the last time we recorded. So Bev, I am going to start with you. What is your Toast to Joy for this week? 

Bev: My Toast to Joy this week and has been for the past couple of weeks is just Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I just moved, as I mentioned earlier, from Kentucky to Pennsylvania… for a number of reasons, but the political climate was high up there. I've just so loved getting to know this area and it's beautiful and there are festivals to be had everywhere which I love and you know, so much to do so much to see. I have yet to become best friends with Giselle Federman, but like, I'm really hoping it happens. Follow me on Twitter, Giselle! Like just come on the pod and be my best friend! 

But so, so that's, you know, I'm just absolutely enchanted with the area, with my new house, with everything that's going on there. Liam really loves it, the setup that we've got going on, we're around friends. Like I just, I feel so much gratitude that this move was able to take place and, and that we're able to settle in now. So my, my Toast to Joy is really Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

Jasmine: Love it. 

Amanda: I love Pittsburgh. They do have great markets. It is actually my favorite place to watch 4th of July fireworks because the stadium will do 4th of July fireworks and they have the hill… What's the hill called in Pittsburgh? There's a hill that overlooks the river, I should know this.

Bev: I don't know, there's so many hills. 

Amanda: Whatever, the point is, you can actually watch the fireworks from this hill and see the fireworks at eye level. And you can do it in an Italian restaurant, so it's air-conditioned and you can be sipping wine while you watch fireworks at eye level over the city. It's the best. 

Bev: Really wish we would've had this conversation like three weeks ago. But no, next year, next year, for sure. 

Amanda: Alright Jasmine, what about you? What's your Toast to Joy? 

Jasmine: My Toast to Joy is actually to inquisitive minds and my students at the Emory pre-college. So in the summertime I get to teach high school students, mostly juniors and seniors, who wanna get a little dose of college. So it's like a two week intensive course, I teach medical microbiology, and we're coming up on the end of the first two weeks. And I have enjoyed my students so much! You know, sometimes being in the classroom and getting so bogged down with, like, the research and the pedagogy and evaluations and you know, what I need to do to get promoted. Sometimes teaching becomes, you know, or that, that part of my career becomes a lot more methodical and less about my passion. 

But when I teach these high school students, their just, like, thirst for knowledge… it revitalizes me. It actually just helps to remind me why I chose this as a career, because I just love how much they just care and they ask so many questions and they're just so happy to be there. And they're getting a little dose of college, so they stay in the dorms. And so, I mean, just watching them and also having kids that are at the age where they're gonna start doing things like that, like I just think it's a good reminder of why I got into teaching in the first place. So my Toast to Joy is to inquisitive minds and reminders of my passion.

Bev: That's beautiful. I love that. 

Amanda: I love that. I want to do that at my university now, that sounds like such a good idea.

Jasmine: It's such a great program. 

Amanda: It sounds like fun! So my Toast to Joy is similar because I feel like sometimes with parenting, it can become methodical where it's like, get your shoes on, eat your breakfast, eat your lunch  and you know, like you make sure they survive, which is, you know, that's a good goal. They survived today. They ate, you know, whatever. 

But so we're away, we're at a beach right now, and I feel like I can sometimes become too methodical about getting everything done and, you know, kind of like you mentioned with teaching, sometimes I forget that parenting is actually a lot of fun. Like just getting on a boogie board or like jumping in a pool and like “who can jump farther? Definitely me, watch this!” So much fun. And you forget how much fun parenting actually is when you don't have to make it so methodical, right. Just like trying to get through your daily routine. 

Jasmine: Yes, yes. And you're like, “oh, I gotta get this done.”

Amanda: And then you forget like, actually this is a lot of fun!

Jasmine: Love it. 

Amanda: Thanks so much to everyone for joining us today. If you're enjoying the show, please share it with someone you know. As the midterms approach, it's more important than ever that we keep having these conversations. We'll see you again next week on another episode of The Suburban Women Problem.