Optimist Economy
by Kathryn Anne Edwards and Robin Rauzi
Latest episode
Sports Betting Is This Generation's Big Tobacco
Sports Betting Is This Generation's Big Tobacco
About this podcast
Optimist Economy is the anti-doomscroll economics podcast. Work rules, tax fairness, healthcare, housing costs, retirement security — the economic forces shaping American life have real problems. But also real solutions. Each week, economist Kathryn Anne Edwards and editor Robin Rauzi break down one problem and solution with data, history, humor, and a belief that tools to build a better economy exist. We just haven't tried them. New episodes on Tuesdays.
✨ Support the podcast at: optimisteconomy.com ✨
Ask questions or share your economic worries with us at: [email protected]
Episodes
The newest 20 of 71 episodes
- Sports Betting Is This Generation's Big Tobacco · 48 min · Season 2 Episode 32Since the U.S. Supreme Court let states legalize betting on sports in 2018, gambling has exploded. More than half of men ages 18 to 49 say they have an active account with an…
- Immigration Economics Part II: Smaller is Worse · 41 min · Season 2 Episode 31Over a year into the administration's anti-immigration agenda, we’re seeing the economic fallout. For the first time in at least 50 years, estimates are that we lost immigrants…
- Americans Feel Awful About the Economy · 48 min · Season 2 Episode 30The Consumer Sentiment Index has tracked how Americans experience the U.S. economy through bouts of runaway inflation, a mortgage crisis, stock market bubbles, and six…
- The U.S. is in the Hole. Will We Stop Digging? · 52 min(Originally aired June 10, 2025) The national debt is $36 trillion. That could be a panic-inducing big number. So maybe it will help to understand how we ran up that debt. We've…
- Occupy! An Unfinished Uprising: The Invitation (Ep. 1) · 38 minOptimist Economy is on break this month, but we know that optimist listeners are interested in tales of economic history, issues of inequality and movements for change. So we…
- Stop Donating Your Vacation Days to Your Boss · 50 min · Season 2 Episode 28Nearly 90% of private-sector workers get paid vacation days from their job, but a Pew survey found 46% leave at least some of it on the table. Government survey data also show…
- The Government is Already Paying for Your Health Insurance, Buddy · 48 min · Season 2 Episode 27About 18% of U.S. GDP every year gets spent on health care. Half of that, 9%, is coming from the government, which is about the whole cost of other countries’ public health…
- Mr. Justin Time Sets a Cruel Work Schedule · 49 min · Season 2 Episode 26Just-in-time scheduling lets an algorithm decide when — and whether — millions of people work. Surveys find 40% of shift workers (mostly in retail and food service) don’t know…
- Young Americans Should Be Raising Hell About Social Security · 44 min · Season 2 Episode 25Nobody has more riding on any changes to Social Security than people under 40. The trust fund is currently projected to run dry in the fourth quarter of 2032, but it could be…
- Simple Immigration Economics: Bigger is Better · 52 min(Originally aired 6/24/2025) 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…
- America at 250: Case for the Defense · 53 min · Season 2 Episode 23It’s the United States’ semiquincentennial … and one of us is not feeling it. The other is literally carrying a flag in her bag — and that’s just her road flag. Kathryn Anne…
- Optimist Q&A: The AI Bubble, the Rapture, and Free Lunch · 52 min · Season 2 Episode 22We can’t give financial advice. Or feedback on your 20-page tax proposal. But economist Kathryn Edwards did take a run at nearly 20 listener questions in under 60 minutes. Among…
- Inflation Risk is the Wrong Recession Lesson · 50 min · Season 2 Episode 21This might be the most dangerous economic assertion circulating today: the high inflation from 2021-2023 was caused by government stimulus. The talking point on the right goes…
- Make the Economy Work for Freelancers, Too (#askingforafriend) · 48 min · Season 2 Episode 20Thirty million Americans, more or less, work for themselves. They freelance, do gig work, have solo LLCs, or — as a certain economist says — participate in “ non-employee…
- About That College Grad Who Can’t Find a Job… · 59 min · Season 2 Episode 19(Originally aired 7/1/2025) 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?…
- Should We Cherish the Ultra-Wealthy? (a.k.a. ‘The Cornfield’) · 43 min · Season 2 Episode 18A certain kind of wealthy American has been griping out loud lately — about taxes, about progressive cities, about how unappreciated they are for the jobs they create, the stuff…
- No Overtime for the Supervisor of Sandwiches · 49 min · Season 2 Episode 17It wasn’t just hourly factory jobs that were supposed to come with a 40-hour workweek. Even salaried jobs were supposed to get overtime pay, though very few do do anymore…
- Can the U.S. Go ‘Cashless?’ · 44 min · Season 2 Episode 16Cash is dirty, inconvenient, and so last century. Some 70% of Americans under age 50 think its days are numbered. But we still need those greenbacks, if as an alternative to…
- The 2026 Economy: Make it Make Sense · 58 min · Season 2 Episode 15Consumer 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…
- Progress is a Long Game · 50 min · Season 2 Episode 14(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…
