Optimist Economy

Consumer sentiment is in the basement. Jobs aren't being added. Prices keep climbing. GDP barely grew at the end of 2025, and a ‘meh’ 2% last quarter. Shouldn’t this be a recession? Not so far. Economist Kathryn Anne Edwards walks through the clear cause of each bad number: Tariffs explain the prices and foul mood. Mass deportations explain the jobs. The government shutdown explained last quarter. Still, knowing the passing reasons for economic pain doesn't make it hurt less. And none of it changes the long-term economic reforms we still need.

Chapters: 
00:01:06 Announcements
00:01:57 Retcon: Wealth at retirement
00:03:52 Terms & Conditions: Recession, Slack, Tight, Loose, Goodflation/Badflation
00:09:10 Centerpiece: What is going on with the U.S. Economy right now? The vibe is don’t panic. But don’t not panic. 
00:53:38 Executive Orders: Free work parking. Legislators do their own taxes.
00:55:00 Spiritual Sponsors: Genre-specific bookstores and great newstands

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(Originally aired 5/06/25) What sparks progress? The right political conditions? Social pressure? Economic upheaval? In response to two listeners’ questions, we say… both none of those and all of the above. 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 movement started decades earlier, and continued decades afterward. For those keeping score at home, this a sneaky third installment of Kathryn’s 68-part series on the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. 
Chapters: 
00:01:08 Announcements
00:01:43 Retcon
00:03:58 Terms & Conditions
00:07:03 Centerpiece
00:42:56 Executive Orders
00:46:25 Spiritual Sponsors

Donate to Optimist Economy: https://optimisteconomy.com

Follow us on Instagram at ⁠⁠@optimist_economy or TikTok at ⁠⁠@optimist_economy. Or on the Optimist Economy YouTube channel⁠⁠. 

Chat with other Optimists on Substack.

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Reach us at [email protected]

Average U.S. wages have barely budged since the early '80s — and if you account for today's labor force being older and more college-educated, wage growth basically disappears. Economists have cycled through explanations: workers lacked technical skills, then couldn't compete with global labor, then lost the policies that once lifted paychecks, like strong unions and a meaningful minimum wage. The latest chapter is monopsony — the idea that as employers consolidate, people have fewer choices of where to work, and fewer places to land if they lose a job. Fix the market, and the paychecks follow.

Chapters:
00:00:45 Announcements
00:01:01  Retcon: Double Taxation and Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act
00:03:10 Terms & Conditions: Monopsony, Septel
00:07:07  Big Pilcrow: Why Aren’t Wages Growing?
00:40:37  Executive Orders: Reverse Billing, Leaked Chat Table Readings
00:42:49  Spiritual Sponsors: Dole Whip, Sad Songs, Being Recognized in the Wild

Donate to Optimist Economy: https://optimisteconomy.com

Follow us on Instagram at ⁠⁠@optimist_economy or TikTok at ⁠⁠@optimist_economy. Chat with other Optimists on Substack.

Andy says look at the Optimist Economy YouTube channel⁠⁠. 

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Got economic anxieties, executive orders or spiritual sponsors? Send them to [email protected]

From California to Washington to New York, states are trying to tax the very rich. The press keeps rehashing whether millionaires and billionaires will flee those states. Wrong question. The more important one is why we’re improvising tax policy state to state when it’s the federal government that should be dealing with health care, child care and affordability—all of which are national problems. Meanwhile, some Senate Democrats are proposing to take even more people out of the tax system entirely. None of these specific proposals make income taxes simpler or fairer, but they do suggest there’s an appetite for reform. 
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Chapters:
00:01:18 Announcements
00:02:33 Retcon: Occupational Licenses
00:06:16 Terms & Conditions: Progressive
00:07:59  Big Pilcrow: Everyone Wants to Tax Millionaires
00:38:23  Executive Orders: Unreadable Menus and Tax Complainer Merch
00:41:42  Spiritual Sponsors: Dream Robin & the Nobel Laureate’s WNBA Contract

Make Optimist Economy economically viable: https://optimisteconomy.com

We have faces on the Optimist Economy YouTube channel⁠⁠. We’re also on Instagram at ⁠⁠@optimist_economy or TikTok at ⁠⁠@optimist_economy. 

The party is at the Substack chatroom.

In lieu of a “I’m better than you… because I pay taxes” T-shirt, can we offer you an Optimist Economy one?: https://merch.ambientinks.com/collections/optimisteconomy

Got economics questions, anxieties, or executive orders? Send them to [email protected]

Americans used to move a lot in search of opportunity. But in 2024, the share of Americans who moved at all hit a 76-year low. Barely 2% of us moved across state lines. Some of that is by choice: people are more rooted, and that's not nothing. But when workers stop moving, rich cities pull further away from poor ones, wages stagnate, and the gaps between thriving labor markets and struggling ones get harder to close. And when there’s a shock to a local labor market, moving is an important release valve. Fixing a fraction of this worker mobility breakdown could improve the labor market for everyone.

Chapters:
00:00:33  Opening
00:01:45  Retcon: Trump Accounts & Career Pivots
00:07:27  Terms & Conditions: Spatial Equilibrium
00:09:55  Big Pilcrow: Does it Matter to the U.S. Economy if We Don’t Move from Place to Place?
00:39:10  Executive Orders: Frances Perkins miniseries; Sleep Shaming; Election Day Weekend
00:43:07  Spiritual Sponsors: The National Consumers League motto ("Investigate, Agitate, Legislate"); ACFC’s winning start

READ MORE:
The increasingly mobile US is a myth that needs to move on | Aeon Essays
Who Moves? Who Stays Put? Where’s Home? | Pew Research Center
Job Changing and the Decline in Long-Distance Migration in the United States | Demography | Duke University Press
The Economics of Internal Migration: Advances and Policy Questions
Population & Migration | Economic Research Service
Stranded! How Rising Inequality Suppressed US Migration and Hurt Those Left Behind

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Faces visible on the Optimist Economy YouTube channel⁠⁠. We’re also on Instagram at ⁠⁠@optimist_economy or TikTok at ⁠⁠@optimist_economy. 

Where’s the party? On our Substack chat.

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Email your economic questions, concerns, or executive orders to [email protected]