Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Matthew Desmond (on poverty)

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

Matthew Desmond (Poverty, by America) is a sociologist and author. Matthew joins Armchair Expert to discuss why he became interested in studying poverty in America, how people are being priced out of their own neighborhoods, and what solutions he feels would help unhoused people the most. Matthew and Dax talk about why a wealthy country can have such a large wage gap, what metrics the government uses to define who an impoverished person is, and how some financial institutions are predatory towards people with less money. Matthew explains why people should change their outlook on paying taxes, how welfare dependency is not as common as people think, and what he thinks caused the mass amount of economic inflation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Modest Mouse. Hi. You're not really a modest mouse, but that is a great band, Modest Mouse. It is a great band. Yeah. I don't think I'm a- Immodest.

Immodest. It depends on the kind we're talking about. Well, not in your style. Not in my style. Yeah, yeah. Me either. I'm in a beautiful, beautiful gray Burberry sweater that my friend bought me. Who gave you that?

My friend. Oh, your friend has great taste. She has incredible taste. And I am so grateful for her immodesty in this department. It's such a nice sweater. It is. I love it. It looks great on you.

It couldn't be softer. Okay. Today's guest, kind of an ironic setup. Shameful, actually. Oh, my God. Almost shameful. We might have to cut all that. No, we got to keep it.

It's funny. Matthew Desmond. Matthew Desmond is a Pulitzer Prize winning author and sociologist. His books include Evicted, Poverty and Profit in the American City, The Racial Order, Race in America. And his newest book that's out now that we are here to talk about today is Poverty by America. Great fucking book. Hard, hard truths to confront.

Yeah. And he is a sweet, wonderful person. I loved getting to spend a few hours with him. Yeah. And I wasn't here for this. Same day as Paul Giamatti. Yeah. But it was really nice to listen and learn.

Please enjoy Matthew Desmond. Trip Planner by Expedia. You were made to have strong opinions about sand. We were made to help you and your friends find a place on a beach with a pool and a marina and a waterfall and a soaking tub. Expedia. made to travel. He's an object expert. He's an object expert. He's an object expert.

Cream top. It's just coffee. It's espresso. It's pretty damn delicious, Matt. you might want to give it a shot there's a liner on the block i feel like i gotta go in there and are you wearing a shinola watch i am look at this we're bound together you have to have one from detroit that's right yeah yeah and aesthetically i would get one anyways i think for probably the same reasons you did no that's creamy. It's an indulgence, for sure.

I've got a Shinola watch wallet. Is there anything functionally different about it that makes it? Just a good stand-up wallet. Okay, nice leather. Brown leather wallet. Had it for years. Oh, wow. Okay, so it's standing the test of time.

It is. And you're originally from standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona? Winslow, Arizona. I was born in San Jose, California, but really grew up in Winslow. Railroad Town. You ever seen the show Cars, the cartoon? Yes. So that was modeled off of like our high school rival.

Oh, really? So kind of my town is like that, like a Route 66, Railroad Town, yeah. Hence the Eagles song. Standing on the corner. Winslow, Arizona. I think he was actually in Flagstaff. Because Route 66? But I think Winslow is better pentameter in the song, float in the corner. Winslow, Arizona. I think he was actually in Flagstaff. Because Route 66? But I think Winslow is better pentameter in the song,

float in the song. So I think the actual corner wasn't there, but we've made use of it. I'm telling you sincerely, Matt, I'm delighted to actually meet someone from Winslow, Arizona, simply because of the song. I've traveled this planet for 48 years and yet to meet someone from Winslow.

Here it is. Flagstaff's not a metropolis, so I can only imagine Winslow's even less of a metropolis. Small town, one high school, right on the southern edge of the Navajo reservation. You know, big industries there are railroad and the prison. I think it was 10,000, 13,000 folks if you counted the prison population. My high school was like majority Native American. And dad was a pastor? Yep. It was the first Christian church in Winslow, Arizona, which is basically a Baptist church. Small congregation, and then he lost that job. Was there impropriety? There was no

impropriety. When you lose your job as a pastor, it does beg the question. I'm still kind of confused about what happened. That was tough times for our family. How old were you when that happened? I was in junior high when that happened. Okay. Already a dicey time period, junior high. Yeah. Some guys are 5'11", like I was. Other guys are 4'9". You were like the back row kid. Every parent felt bad for my mom.

Like, oh, this poor woman's kid has flunked like three or four times. But here's the guy with the mustache back there. Yeah, this is the guy who rode up on a Harley smoking cigarettes. That's his to go with the mustache back there. Yeah, this is a guy who rode up on a Harley smoking cigarettes. So then you experienced for the first time some major economic insecurity. We did. And you bounced around from where to where.

You lost the family house because of this? Yeah, before it was all the rage. Family declared bankruptcy, and then the bank foreclosed our home. My childhood home was $60,000. We just couldn't make payments. So it was a smallclosed our home. My childhood home was $60,000. We just couldn't make payments. So it was a small, tiny ranch home. And the family moved into a little tiny rental. I was in college at this time. So I remember going back, moving my family into that place.

I remember being embarrassed. Of course. I remember blaming my dad. One of the beauties of my job is taking these personal problems and making them political problems. Being like, this isn't just on you. So this is paraphrasing C. Wright Mills. He was a great mid-century sociologist.

This is basically the mission of sociology. A thing you think is on you that's your fault. That's about something inside of you. To pull back the curtain and say, look, there's millions of folks. This is a societal thing. There's a bigger game afoot. Right. There's a system in place that's producing this outcome. And so then questioning the system that results in that. Right. Despite all that, you found your way to college, to ASU, Sun Devil? ASU, Sun Devil. My dad had a phrase, whenever we saw someone like digging a ditch,

doing some really hard labor, he'd turn to us kids and say, you want to do that for the rest of your life? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we'd be like, no. And he'd be like, go to college. But there was no plan. It was just like an expectation. And so when it was time for me to go to college, I applied for my in-state colleges in Arizona. If you graduate at the top of your class, you get tuition for free. ASU gave me the most financial aid. That was my choice. You arrived though after they had shut down Flaky Jakes, right? Flaky Jakes. Do you know Flaky Jakes? I don't know Flaky Jakes. I know Gus's. I know Gus's, which is the best pizza in Tempe. Yes. But Flaky Jakes was like the original

Fuddrucker. So I'm obsessed with it. I'd go to Arizona as a kid because my stepdad was an engineer and he worked at the proving grounds. And the big trip was to go to Flaky Jakes and build your own hamburger. I have the warmest feelings for that. But it was directly across the street from the campus. I missed out. Oh, man. Yeah, I had a hunch because I think I'm three years older than you. You know Philly Bees? You know Filaburto's?

No. The place you end up at two in the morning? Oh. You know Big Burritos? Oh. We know Philly Bees. Yeah. Okay.

In Santa Barbara, we had T.O. Burrito's. Yeah, and I know what the two-pound burrito's all about. Yeah, so no one to really model this. But my mom did the exact same thing. So there was a very wealthy area of Oakland County where we grew up. And we would take pilgrimages out to Bloomfield Hills. And we'd pull into driveways and look at huge houses.

And my mom would go, these people went to college. That's interesting. You just knew you had to do it, but you didn't know how kind of thing? No, she was really supportive. When I graduated, I was like, I'm not going to college. I read on the road, I'm going to live in a car and write. I don't understand why we would need to go to college. Broke her heart.

I did find my way to UCLA eventually because it came with free rent. The only ones for me are the mad ones. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Gotta love it. So when you're there, you're originally, you major in communications. And justice studies. That's a triggering study for me.

Yeah, yeah. It was kind of a pre-law degree. Oh justice studies. That's a triggering study for me. Yeah, yeah. It was kind of a pre-law degree. Oh, okay. But it was interesting because, you know, if you wanted to be a sheriff or go into law enforcement, go to FBI, you took those classes too. The students in those classes were really politically diverse. You had folks that were very pro-law enforcement and you had folks that were much more kind of pro-social justice.

The conversations you had in those classes were really heated and interesting. I bet. I would even guess that ASU is a little bit more politically diverse just as a baseline. Yep, totally. There's way more right people there. I think I just read a statistic

that only 20% of current students are conservative. But I would imagine at ASU, it was more like 40-60 or 50-50. When I was there, there was a lot of folks all across the political spectrum. And we would just have it out in class. And I value those conversations.

Yes. I took a class on critical race theory. The much-heated, debated critical race theory. Hot button. And it was taught by a law professor. He's a law professor now. His name is Donald Tibbs. And he started the class.

It was just about tort law. Boring. Yeah. And then one class, it just switched, and it became about racial inequality. Years later, I realized that what he was doing, he was making sure the drop deadline passed so the folks that needed to be in that class stayed in that class. He had them over a barrel. That was an important class to me. That was one of the many classes I took where I was like, really? This is how it is? And so we grew up

where money was tight, but we always had the story of what America was like. Story I got at my church and my Boy Scout troop, it was the American dream story. And I was one of those kids that went to college that was kind of having my mind blown. And so when I wasn't working, I worked all through college. Some fun jobs, by the way. Yeah, some unfun jobs too. Barista, firefighter. Telemarketer. I too was one of those. Did you make a sale? that way. Yeah, some unfunded. Barista, firefighter. Telemarketer. I too was one of those. Did you make a sale? Yeah, well, I had two versions of it. One is my father invented subleasing in Michigan. So it was right at the birth of leasing cars and people getting these six-year leases and they wanted out of them, but there was no way. So we would call people who are selling a car in the

newspaper for 16 grand. I would look at the Kelley Blue Book value. I know they owed 18,000. And I'd say, would you like us to take over the payments? And I was 14 and I would be convincing these people to transfer ownership over to my father. And then I was raising money for Hugs Not Drugs as a telemarketer. The thing that blew me away about telemarketing is it works. And I'd get folks on the phone and I remember my first sale and I was like, really? But you're probably discovering something that now later comes into this book, which is you're probably noticing who says yes. And it's heartbreaking. Yeah, a lot of lonely folks say yes.

A lot of lonely folks, a lot of not worldly folks, a lot of confrontation adverse folks. I think even me immediately was like, ugh. I don't love how I feel about the people that are saying yes. That's right. It did make me feel good. But my truck broke down and I needed to fix it. That's right. Those old F-150s, they're troublesome.

Okay. So what turns you on to sociology? Why go get a PhD in? I don't have a really clear answer. Law felt a little constricting to me. Didn't feel like I fit there. And I was super confused about inequality. And I did have this growing hatred toward poverty and confusion. So I spent a lot of time with homeless folks around my university, not serving them, just literally talking to them, hanging out, just kind of like, what's this about? This is very peculiar and deserves a dig. You would acknowledge that's a very abnormal thing for a college student to do. Yeah, I think there's part of me that was like, go to the street for your answer. And I think that instinct has served me

pretty okay. But I, you can even relate to a tiny bit right at this moment. And we chose different paths, which is I had to do an ethnography on the homeless as part of my anthropology degree. So I went down to Skid Row, as we would affectionately call, I know there's 13 shelters there and you know, there's just thousands of people people and i milled around and i talked to people and i went in shelters and my conclusion was mind you i'm an addict i'm like there's almost nobody here who's not an addict yeah this is an addiction problem i just was like this isn't me and my mom and my brother and my sister out on the street that's not what this is this is a mental health crisis and an addiction problem. And so many of them are on disability and they actually are housed with a relative until they get their disability check. And then they come downtown and they're just there downtown getting high until the money runs out and then they go back.

Now, mind you, I only spent a month doing that. But that's my nature was to go like, oh, I don't even think we're talking about what the two problems are. And I don't hear anyone proposing what was it we're going to do with mass mental health, you know? And I just was like, oh, it's overwhelming and nothing can be done. And it's not really about more houses. Yeah. And you went a completely different way. I guess maybe. Have you read Homelessness is a Housing Problem? No, I have not read that.

You know, he does these analyses where it's like, is it drugs? Is it mental illness? And what you find is that there's a lot of folks struggling with addiction all across the country. A lot of folks that are suffering from mental illness, but that doesn't manifest as homelessness. It does in a place like LA because what it is, it's just rinse. That's what the thing is. It's abject rinse. So another shocking statistics that's come out about the LA homeless is that 40% are from the foster care system. Yeah. What you said earlier too,

is these kind of failing systems. There's a system of addiction that we're failing at. There's a system of mental health treatment that we're failing at. And you know, for these young folks that are aging out of foster care, that are given 500 bucks and a pat on the back. No, it's devastating.

That's my issue. It's like, oh, you want to say 35 years later when we failed all these people, we're going to give them an apartment and that's going to work out. To me, it seems a little naive and a little unrealistic and not totally honest. And so for me, I donate the whole war chest

to upriver solutions. I'm a little pessimistic about the downriver solutions. The downriver solutions are tougher because for every day you're spending outside, your problems get a lot worse. And the likelihood that you'll stay outside increases. Yeah, so the new study out of California that shows a lot of folks start taking drugs

after they become homeless because it's scary, they want to stay up. They start juicing. So then their problem is accentuated and doubled. Can I add one thing I think is also the problem? Yeah. Is we're using one word to describe what is 55,000 people in LA. I don't know what the number is, but it's something like that.

And you have such specific groups within that. You have a lot of people, which your book addresses, people who are like two checks away from being evicted. That's one group. They're actively striving to have housing. I wish we could separate out these different groups a little more surgically and delineate the difference between those groups that I do think exist within the overall group. Yeah, right policies for the right people. Some folks, they just need a pretty shallow intervention, and that really matters.

Some rent forgiveness for six months. Some legal aid. Some folks need a much deeper intervention. Yeah. And it's hard because the policy is supposed to address everyone. In California specifically, a massive attack on the high level of rents would really make a difference. It seems like the evidence is there. Okay. But can I just push back a little bit? Yeah. The world's on your side. So I'll be the one that looks like an asshole throughout this. But I also have a little bit of an issue in this national debate, which is it ignores the market. The housing market? Adam Smith's invisible hand. So does everyone have a right to be housed in Beverly Hills?

I think we would all on the surface go, no, that's kind of crazy. You don't have a right to live in Beverly Hills. Similarly, I think it's interesting that we have picked the most expensive places in the world to deal with this problem. So we're going to do it in San Francisco, where that's the highest rent outside of Manhattan. We're going to do it in LA, where that's the nature of the market, right? Everyone wants to live here. That seems fundamentally flawed. I don't know why the goal is to get all the people housing in the most expensive cities in the world. Let's not send them all to Tokyo and Singapore and Beverly Hills and San Francisco and LA. That seems really illogical. Does that make any sense to you, that objection?

Tokyo is different. Tokyo is a pretty affordable city for the size and desirability it is. Our expensive cities don't have to be like this. And if you go to other countries, you see very desirable, very awesome cities without this level of homelessness. Okay. It's already getting fun. Yeah. What makes the difference is in places like New York, LA, San Francisco, people have just been completely priced out of their own communities. And that's the thing. So we used to think, okay, people are coming to San Francisco to be homeless. They're coming to Portland to be homeless. That's not true. So a lot of folks are coming to Portland because Portland's awesome or coming to San Francisco because San Francisco's awesome. But I mean, a huge study came out of the San Francisco Chronicle last year that showed that

most folks who are homeless in the Bay Area are from the Bay Area. Things happened, you know, and they just couldn't get back in. That's where their family is. That's the place they know. That's where their friends are, their networks are. It's a really scary thing, I think, to be thinking of like, hey, why don't you move to Cleveland? But homelessness is so bad and so traumatic. I do wonder why there's like a stickiness in super expensive cities. But the Beverly Hills thing is interesting because like's like, no, I don't think anyone has a right to live in Beverly Hills.

But does Beverly Hills have such a right to exclude so many people? That would imply there's a nefarious overlord that's making that decision. It just literally, what is the price of a house there? There are zoning laws. There are laws in most residential land that says it's illegal to build anything.

To build a skyscraper in the middle of Rodeo. Yeah, or to build decent multifamily housing. Yeah, that's true. And so a lot of times these debates kind of ignore the fact that on most residential land, you literally can't build affordable housing. That's something that we have to confront too if we're going to get serious about this. And this is where California is like, are we in a progressive state here? Well, but look, I live here and you don't, right? And it's really relevant. I hear people be critical. And if I didn't live here, I would be too. I dropped my kids off at school, literally dozens of times. There's people taking a shit right in front of the school.

That's my life. We have thrown a ton of money at this. We have rent control. We have had liberal policies and we have watched the rate of homelessness increase, increase, increase, increase. So the approach isn't working. There's data in San Francisco that if you combine the state revenue and the philanthropic efforts, that they're spending an average of $60,000 on each homeless person. And it's increasing. So that can't be ignored. The policy, and I'm going to add one thing that's going to infuriate you. Month four of COVID lockdown, driving around LA, and I notice, and I say to my wife, where are all the homeless people? Literally, where are they? They're gone. So I thought, has there been a massive FEMA? Is there a tent somewhere? Have

they gathered everyone to take care of them during this lockdown? Start looking in the LA Times, researching. That doesn't exist. And all of a sudden I go, oh, I know what happened. There's no one on the streets to panhandle from. And humans aren't going to sit on the street and die of starvation. They went somewhere. They went to a relative.

They left because they couldn't sustain without the panhandling. Just interesting that we have no support and they're gone. We have a ton of support and it's growing. Yeah, I don't know what happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anecdotal, I acknowledge that. I do know what happened in cities like Houston that have massively reduced homelessness. The Houston reduction in homelessness is a real thing. And it seems to have been driven by this massive coordination effort across social services industries in Houston and the fact that Houston has no zoning laws. It's the fourth biggest city in the country and it's way less expensive than other large cities in America. And so they're

able to get folks housing quickly and efficiently. So my solution to this is look at Houston and look at all the evidence of the Housing First programs. You're right. We are spending so much money triaging this problem. The top 5% of hospital ER users consume half of all ER costs. Guess who they are, right? They're homeless folks with serious medical conditions. Just from a sheer heartless, what are we spending our money on perspective, regardless of the human moral argument, we have to get serious about this. My solution is housing. Now, housing isn't going to solve many of the other problems, but there is a lot of evidence that when you say, okay, this guy is dealing with a lot of stuff. Let's get him housed first.

Let's start there. And then let's address addiction issues or health issues or mental health issues. That can really work. So another big pushback you'll hear from conservatives here is that we have tons of unfilled beds because people won't piss clean. Like if you got to piss clean to be somewhere, you can't be there. And we have a ton of empty places because of that. But I understand what you're saying. Like, well, let's just start here.

That's not the housing first, right? Right. That's the get clean first. Yes, yes. And so it's kind of like, all right, that's an issue we want to address. But the primary issue is let's get a roof over this person's head and then let's start on these other issues. I thank you for placating me. You've won a Pulitzer writing about eviction and the housing crisis.

I just want to acknowledge that. I appreciate you. I want to acknowledge this part, though, that you talked about, about living in California, because I think this is something that does get to the heart of it. And it's also about this kind of recognition that poverty, it drags us all down.

Yeah. I mean, I feel bad for the police. I feel bad for the city workers. I feel bad for them. It's heartbreaking. It puts you in this very bizarre position as a parent, which is you can't take it on. It's overwhelming to the kids and to you.

So you put up a wall. That's weird. You're ignoring human beings. Like the whole thing is a mess. You're right. It impacts everyone. It diminishes us all. Yes.

For me, this is really important because a lot of times when we talk about ending poverty, we kind of say, hey, it's the right thing to do. It's also like, don't we want a safer, more vibrant, healthier country? Yeah. Yeah. My little girls will walk to the store and they'll cross the street three times because there's someone fighting a bird scooter. Shit's popping at all times. But I agree with you. It's maddening to me that people won't acknowledge the downriver costs of not dealing with it, which is like, you think you can just go, we're not dealing with it, but you are, unless you're going to change the policy at the hospital that we don't take people without

insurance, which is never going to happen. Of course, we're not going to turn people away dying. So once you admit that, then you have to work backwards from that. What does that cost? And same with prison. It's very expensive to keep someone in prison. So all of these things, even if you're economically conservative, you should be able to acknowledge it's a much better investment to do it upriver with what we do with kids in foster care, what we do with helping parents who are struggling. It would be much cheaper. And the outcome would be so lovely. The outcome would be lovely. Yeah.

And so this is where I'm writing about public poverty and private opulence. this is where I'm writing about public poverty and private opulence. A lot of rich people living alongside a lot of poor people that creates this momentum where the rich kind of withdraw from the public sector. Yeah, build bigger walls. Build bigger walls, you know, buy our own schools, buy our own parks, buy our own pools, and suddenly the public becomes degraded. And that actually affects everyone, including those of us pretty secure in our money, because our kids have to cross the street three times. Yeah, yeah. Or because we can't enjoy our public parks like we used to.

Or because we just feel implicated, right, and icky. It's why I find there's this thing where people of privilege have this very patronizing tone with waitstaff and service workers, where they're overly nice and, oh, and how was your day? And how was your weekend, Gail? They don't do that to their doctor because they know they're paying their doctor. They're like, we pay you. I don't have to fucking placate you. I witness it all the time. It's like, oh,

that's great. That's them feeling guilty. That's right. I think a lot of us don't want that. I really do. Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of Americans want this conversation in part because they feel complicit and embroiled in these morally compromising relations and they don't know what to do about it. Yeah. And then if I'm being my most selfish person, I go like, well, I'm giving half my money away. I'm happy to do that. But also there's a frustration where it's like, well, I'm giving half my money. What could fix it? It doesn't appear that money could, but we'll get there.

Okay. All right. I think first we should define poverty because that's what the new book is. Greatest title ever, Poverty by America. So Poverty by America. I think first we should know what we're calling poverty. And there's an interesting background with the government employee. So technically poverty is an income level.

And so Johnson launches the war on poverty. We have no idea how many poor people are in America. Suddenly it's like, well, how do we know if we're winning the war? And so social security administrator named Molly Orshansky, she's like, all right, poverty is, you can't afford basic things. There's nothing more basic than food. And so she takes this basic food budget, says if a third of more of your income goes to food, you're poor. And that's literally our official poverty measure adjusted for inflation over the years. If you use that measure, family four falls below about $29,000 today. They're poor. There's 38 million Americans under the line. Yeah. You said if our poor were a country, they would be more numerous than Australia or Venezuela. That's right. But also like notice how low the poverty line is. You know, $29,000 in LA, you can double that and you're still facing pretty significant hardship. Absolutely.

You couldn't do it realistically. But for what you're talking about and what you want to tackle, what will we add to that? Are we going to use that? No, we shouldn't. That's just the start. It's like what the poet Layla Longsoldier said. It's the oil on the surface.

Poverty is like tooth rot. It's like your cousin getting roughed up by the police. It's the nauseating fear of eviction. It's giving your kids not enough food to eat. It's literally death. Come early and often, studies show that poverty is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. So for me, poverty is a pile.

It's this problem on top of this problem on top of this problem. It all goes together. And so it's much worse of a problem than often we think. It's the reduction of people born for better things. And just to put it in perspective, I think the really reasonable question you're asking is, okay, so we have 38 million people living below the poverty line. Yet if you take our GDP, it is bigger than two through seven combined. Japan, Germany, England, India, all of them combined, we are bigger than. So how is it that we could have both ends of this enormous spectrum? We're by all accounts, the wealthiest democracy of all time. And we have the both ends of this enormous spectrum. We're by all accounts the wealthiest democracy of all time, and we have the most amount of per capita people below the poverty line.

Compared to other rich democracies. So that's the thing that makes America in a disgrace class all of its own. Like our child poverty rate, the share of our kids living in poverty, it's not just higher than other countries, it's double. One in nine Americans is, and then one in eight children are. That's right. I was shocked to read that a million school children right now are homeless. And that two million don't have running water or functioning toilets.

Two million households. So yeah, times however many people live in there. Those are staggering then when you look at the opposite of our wealth. Yeah, totally. Economists have estimated that you need $4 a day to afford the very basic bare minimum necessities in America. Five million of us get by on that. There's a lot of abject poverty in America.

Just real, truly horrendous poverty in this nation of dollars. And that's the thing that's so confusing and raging to me, because it means that it's unnecessary. Do you think it's something that's accelerating in that as we get more segregated, we get less and less aware of it? Like, I would imagine these will be shocking numbers as they were for me. And by the way, I'm from a lower class area of Michigan. Half my childhood was hanging out in trailer parks and dirt roads. But even I wouldn't have guessed that 2 million people don't have running water or flushing toilets in the household. Rather, 2 million households. Or that a million kids are going to school, waking up in a car. I think the increasing economic segregation does blind us a

lot to other people's poverty. And it's like what happened when Michael Harrington published The Other America 60 years ago, where it was really this way of revealing how many poor folks really were in America. And it shocked the American middle class and upper class. And I think that we should be shocked still today. You know, America, for a chunk of the country, works great. And it can feel like it's really working. And when I hear folks say like, the American dream is real, you know, it's because you're in the front of the plane, bud. I do think that kind of chasm that's defined American life can really blind us to this other

layer of what America is too. I, of course, am in that boat. I have achieved the American dream probably times 10. You have. You're a professor at Princeton and we're at Harvard. So you two have done it. And for our own story, it does feel threatening to admit that we aren't the rule or the exception. That if you look at the gross data of how much actual vertical movement there is within socioeconomic categories, it's almost non-existent. It's a coin flip today, basically, whether your kids are going to do better than you. It wasn't like that in the 50s, 60s, 70s, but today social mobility has declined. There's like more American dream outside of America in some countries than

inside of it. So you write this great book, Evicted. You win the Pulitzer. You've been studying forever. You've been interacting with folks in poverty since you were in college. You've been studying forever. You've been interacting with folks in poverty since you were in college. And A, you had no explanation for what was going on when you finished this, right? You had no idea of the theory of why it is this way. You left evicted still with this question of what is actually causing this. Yeah. And previously, every attempt at looking at this really focused on the poor.

And you took a different approach. Yeah. No, you're right. I was spending all of my time researching poverty. I was talking about it. I was teaching classes on it. I was just convicted. I was like, look, if someone stopped me in the streets and was like, all right, Matt, break it down for me. Why do we have so much poverty here? How can we get rid of it? What would be my answer? I just felt like I have to have an answer to that. So in a way, I wrote this book to get it out of my system. I had to get it down for myself. And I felt like for over a hundred years, we've focused on the poor. We've asked a million questions about their work ethic and their families and their welfare dependency and you

name it. And I felt like there was bigger game afoot. And if you wanted to understand the causes of poverty, that's not where you look. You got to look elsewhere. Now, first, actually, I would love for you to do the analogy of the people jumping out of the burning building. Right. So this comes from Tommy Orange, California writer. And he has a novel, There, There. And there's this line in the novel where he says, these kids are jumping out of the windows of burning buildings, falling to their deaths. And we think the problem is that they're jumping. Right. And when I read that line, I was

like, that's the poverty debate. And it's just jumper after jumper after jumper. That's book after book after book, debate after debate. And we should have been focusing on the fire, who lit it, who's warming their hands by it. So this is a book about the fire. This is a book about how the other half lives. Right. What we have to recognize is that the American poor live in the epicenter of global capitalism, and they have access to a bunch of cheap goods and services

like the rest of us do. And so Michael Harrington once wrote, it's easier to be decently clothed in America than decently housed or fed or doctored. I think that's still the case. It's probably easier to have a 70-inch TV as well. Yeah, you can get a 70-inch TV and a cell phone pretty cheap, but do you have a dentist?

Right. It even screws with me growing up in the 80s, which is only rich people had this 27-inch Zenith color TV. Some people didn't have a phone line. So when I look around, I'm like, well, people have everything now. It's kind of misleading. But you just can't eat a cell phone, right? Like you can't trade that TV in have a phone line. So when I look around, I'm like, well, people have everything now. It's kind of misleading. But you just can't eat a cell phone, right?

Like you can't trade that TV in for a living wage. You can't trade those sneakers in for affordable housing. And so I think that social progress, technological progress gives us the impression that, gee, when I was a kid, no one had a cell phone. No one had a computer. I remember when our family got our first computer. And as those things have been more accessible, that can give us the impression that no one's poor anymore.

But on these basic things, housing, healthcare costs, the cost of education, those things have gotten more expensive. And so the things that are the most important to our thriving have actually gotten further out of hand. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. Sasha hated sand, the way it stuck to things for weeks. So when Maddie shared a surf trip on Expedia Trip Planner, he hesitated. Then he added a hotel with a cliffside pool to the plan. And they both spent the week in the water. You were made to follow your whims. We were made to help find a place on the beach with a pool and a waterfall and a soaking tub and of course,

a great shower. Expedia. Made to travel. Expedia. Made to travel. So given that that's the case, how are we assessing it? And what is your personal opinion? Has it increased or decreased? Where are we at in the historical continuum for this country? Okay, this is a big question. So forgive me if I go into professor mode, okay?

No, I love it. This is my free continuing education. So if you look at the official poverty measure, what the government uses, that measure has basically stayed the same over the last 50 years. But that measure is flawed. It doesn't account for government spending, like on food stamps or housing assistance, and it doesn't account for cost of living differences. So $27,000 in LA and $27,000 in rural Mississippi are counted the same. That didn't make a lot of sense. That's crazy, yeah. So in 2011, the government put out another measure. It's called a supplemental poverty

measure. And it says, we're going to account for living expenses, and we're going to account for healthcare expenses, and we're going to account for government aid and transfers. So those food stamps, that housing assistance, if you get it, we're going to count that as part of your income. When they released those numbers, America officially gained 3 million more poor people. Oh, that had to be counterintuitive. income. When they released those numbers, America officially gained 3 million more poor people. Well, that had to be counterintuitive. It was counterintuitive. And it was because the rising cost of healthcare and housing costs outpaced what the government was doing. And if you use that measure, the supplemental poverty measure, you still see pretty flat line over the last 50 years. Now this scares people because

government spending on poverty has increased. 37% from 1998 to 2017? 237%. No! And what we're talking about, just to be specific, these are means-tested programs, per capita spending, and they're inflation-adjusted. So these are things like Medicaid, food stamps,

housing assistance. Between Reagan and Trump, you get an over 200% increase in spending. Most of that's Medicaid, Medicare. Most of that's healthcare spending. But even if you take that out of the equation, you still see an over 100 percent increase between Reagan and Trump. So if you're spending more and poverty is not changing, that makes people super nervous. I think there's a deeper paradox. There's a ton of evidence

that government programs work. They're lifesavers. They lift millions of families above the poverty line. But poverty is so persistent in part because the labor market isn't pulling its weight. Explain that a little bit. So if you think about when the War on Poverty and Great Society were launched in 1964, they made huge reductions in poverty. They basically cut the poverty rate in half. They did so by expanding food assistance, expanding Social Security massively, Medicaid and Medicaid were founded, Job Corps. These were deep investments in the poorest people, cut poverty in half.

But they didn't do it by themselves. One in three workers belonged to a union back then. The middle class was thriving much more. Wages were climbing. Even folks at the bottom of the market were getting pay raises consistently every year. We experienced the most economically equitable time in our country. But as our jobs got a lot worse, as unions lost power, the job market has turned anti-poverty programs into something like dialysis. They help, but they don't attack the fundamental root causes of poverty. Right.

this thing that's happening where I feel we're spending more to stay in the same place. It's because we're not going to the root cause. So the Great Depression hits. What do we do to address it? We strengthen the unions. We regulate the banks, right? We have an intervention that really tries to get at the heart of the problem. We also have a ton of government-funded industry, the WPA and all these different programs. But since then, we've kind of turned to programs that aren't really intervening in these markets. We're just helping. Now, I want to be super clear. These programs are essential. They do really work. Like housing assistance, or the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is like a bump, a pay raise for our poorest paid workers, or food stamps. I mean, food stamps are just incredibly anti-poverty. It's rare that you say a lifesaver and it's not

a metaphor, but this is a literal lifesaver. Yeah, it's truly, yeah. So I think this is the paradox that we actually have to lean into and take into account. This all started because you asked me how to measure poverty. And there's also measures that show poverty is going down. And we can talk about why they technically show that or not. But for me, let's look at actual hardship measures. So evictions have increased about 20% since 2000. The share of families visiting food pantries has increased about 19% since 2000. The number of homeless public school kids has increased by over 70% since the Great Recession. These are pretty troubling signs yeah and so it does suggest that something is really broken in our society let's look at what the book focuses on which is

the other half and how we profit from this which i think would shock some people let's talk about 2008 really quick you have a line poverty was positioned as a cause of it instead of a consequence of it and that's not ringing a bell because I probably didn't get the quote perfect. I'm reaching, I'm reaching. But anyways, this happens to be one of my, for whatever reason, a thing I got obsessed with in 08, during the collapse.

And I started in a place that was probably like a lot of Americans, which is like, oh, these assholes went and fucking got these subprime mortgages and bought houses they can't afford. And now they're defaulting on the debt. Then I learned that there was some deregulation. And then I learned that the bank lenders were actively pursuing a class of borrower, full sales forces deployed to convince these people to take on these loans because of a regulation going away and come to find out all those people that sold that paper didn't even

keep that paper so they're not even defaulting on these people who sold them the loan who they committed to they bundled that up and they made mortgage-backed securities that they had then offloaded to germany everyone made money along the way, and Germany's holding a significant percentage of these. And then I come to find out, well, that whole mass of toxic loans really only amounted to something like 85 billion, or I forget what the number was. But then on top of that had been built

$2 trillion in derivatives of financial products, one of them being credit default swaps, where you can actually take out an insurance policy on an investment you don't even have and come to find out that $1.4 trillion was bet against all these stocks and mortgages and securities that they didn't even hold, that that's a fucking product in our financial system,

and that that was the actual collapse, and that there are legions of people incentivized to make Bear Stearns go under because they own an insurance policy on if it goes credit default swap. See, that's making a personal problem a political one. Yes. I feel like you should get your honorary sociology degree. I came out of it at the end going like, oh, none of the people at the bottom who are getting

blamed for this have anything to do with the massive meltdown that's happening. It's not the toxic mortgages. And even those, the people who borrowed the money, weren't truly at fault. So I have great empathy for everyone that suffered through that. And that was very eye-opening to me. It's actually one of the many things that pulled me out of being a libertarian. It's actually one of the many things that pulled me out of being a libertarian. I'm like, oh, no, no.

We need a shitload of oversight on this financial sector because you should not be able to insure stock shares you don't own. That should not be allowed. You're incentivized to make a company go out of business. That can't be the way this system works. But it is how this system works. So maybe that was just one way that the haves profited on the have-nots. But you have this great statistic about the $61 million a day. This is criminal that on any given day, $61 million is being made on overdraft fees.

That's right. So we're talking about overdraft fees from banks, payday lending fees, and check cashing fees. So this is just fines and fees that are allowing low-income folks to access their money or credit. So $61 million every single day. So like when James Baldwin wrote how expensive it is to be poor in America, I don't think he could have fathomed these receipts. So then this brings up the question of who benefits from this. And yeah, we can point to the banks and we can point to the payday lending industry and we should. But also like, no, I got a free checking account, but it's not free. It's subsidized by $11 billion in overdraft fees charged to 9% of bank customers every year.

These are just normal banks. Yeah. When people are predatory against low-income people, it is, to me, the final ring of hell. It is so gnarly, I can't believe anyone can sleep at night. I don't really care if someone swindles a rich guy out of some money, but the many industries that are on the back. What about bail bondsmen? The prison industrial complex. There's so many that profit off of these folks.

And I think that folks that are not poor, that are living quite secure, they often kind of see these decisions. They say, well, don't make stupid decisions. You know, why are you taking that payday loan? The data show that most folks are taking out a payday loan for a normal expense to pay their rent,

to keep the lights on. It's not like a big emergency hits their life and they have to turn to this. They're not buying the iPhone 14 in most cases. Their whole life is an emergency. They're turning to these lines of credit because those are the ones available to them. It doesn't mean there's nothing we can do about that. There's studies that show when we regulate payday lending by showing clearly what people will probably pay. You know,

like when you go to McDonald's and you see that big calorie count next to the burger, you're like, okay, all right. I won't get the triple. When we do that with payday lending, folks take out the loans less. But the problem is they're there for a reason. So when we do that with payday lending, folks take out the loans less. But the problem is they're there for a reason. So when we close down one line of credit, folks go to pawn shops, folks go to auto loan. And so we need to find ways to open up, not close down these lines of credit. What are some other ways people are profiting? One way to kind of tell that story is to talk about Julio Peaz, who I talk about in the book.

He's a young man I met in Emeryville, California a few years ago. Julio clocked in at 10 p.m. at night, worked the overnight shift at McDonald's, got off at 6 a.m., had two hours, then he'd clock in again at Aerotech, going anywhere the temp service sent him between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. He'd sleep as much as he could, and then was back to McDonald's, each job paying minimum wage. Julio was like, I got to do this to afford my little apartment that he shared with his mom and his younger brother. And one day his younger brother, who was eight at the time, was like, hey brother, I'm saving up my money. And Julio was like, why? And his younger brother's like, I just want to buy an hour of your time. How much for an hour to play with me? Who benefits from that kind of labor exploitation that folks like Julio are profiting from? So shareholders and bosses,

they can benefit, but many of us aren't shareholders. Half of the country is invested in the stock market. Don't we benefit when we see our savings going up and up and up, even when it sometimes comes at a human sacrifice, like the kind Julio has to pay? Yeah. You know, Warren Buffett shined a good light on the difference between the capital gains tax and the income tax his secretary was paying, famously, right? He said, it's pretty crazy that I'm paying half the rate or maybe even less. But there's other interesting tax things afoot that would shock people, I think, to find out that people below the poverty line are paying more tax. Yeah, I think we got to think really hard about taxes.

For me, that's the thing. Everyone left, right, and center, we kind of talk about it in the same way, which is like, shit, I got to pay my taxes. Well, sure, sure. It's never fun to give away half what you make. Reagan famously said taxes should be hard, and they are hard in America. They're often painful. But look, if we get a tax deduction that costs the government money

and that puts money in our pocket, In America, they're often painful. But look, if we get a tax deduction, that costs the government money, and that puts money in our pocket. We got to count that as part of what the government does for us. The government sends $1.8 trillion on tax deductions every year, which is like double what we spend on the military. It's an enormous part of the welfare state. Great, yes. Define the welfare state, because I think we have a traditional way of thinking of the welfare state, but I want you to include everything that's actually in the welfare state. Great, yes. Define the welfare state, because I think we have a traditional way

of thinking of the welfare state, but I want you to include everything that's actually in the welfare state. I think everything the government does for us is the welfare state. So part of that is means-tested programs, food stamps, housing assistance, things we usually think about

when we think about welfare. But we also should think about social insurance, like Social Security, which a lot of Americans will get or are getting today. And then we got to think about tax breaks. That's got to be part of the conversation about what the welfare state does. And if you add all that stuff up and you say, you know,

what's the average family in the bottom 20% of the income distribution get? They get about $26,000 a year from the government. But the average family in the top 20% are richest families. They get about $35,000 a year from the government. So like $9,000 more. It's almost a 40% difference. And you're right. By the way, I'm guilty of this. So it's like, yeah, you can deduct your mortgage interest. And it cost us a lot. By one estimate, it cost us $190 billion a year in homeowner tax subsidies, which is way more, like triple the amount. And by the way, it's really funny. I'm sure many people are like, why should that person get free

rent? Or why should that person get free food when I don't have to? But then they're never going like, well, wait, why do I get all this money back? Why do I get to deduct the interest of the mortgage for my second home? Why does my nice house in a nice neighborhood need to be subsidized by the government? You know, a mortgage suburban home and a 15-story public housing complex are government subsidized, and we should face that. Can we make the argument?

I'm trying to be generous. Do you think the reigning philosophy when that was enacted was, this will create more home ownership, which will fuel the economy and create more building and buying and everything. Do you think that was the premise behind allowing people to deduct their interest? No, it was an accident. Oh, great. Tell me. You actually know the history. I love it.

It was like, you know, the mortgage interest deduction started to spur small business owners. It got into the tax code in the early part of the 20th century. Then we enter into World War II. We get the GI Bill. We get a massive investment in veteran mortgages. A year after the GI Bill comes out, over 40% of mortgages are VA mortgages. It builds the homeownership society in America, the suburbanization in America. Suddenly, we're like a homeowner society. And suddenly, mortgage interest deduction is baked into a lot of budgets. And so then the federal government's like, oh crap. Oh, it got bigger than they expected. Oh, this is a thing now.

And then a lobby forms around it. And that lobby is called the Realtors. And they're the second biggest lobby in the country based on the number of dollars contributed. Their number one issue is protecting the mortgage interest deduction because that makes your house and my house more expensive than it would have been if it was just market dynamics. It does nothing to spur homeownership. It's straight up subsidy. I know it's hard to admit that's a straight up subsidy. And if you look at the data, it's straight up to the upper class. It's not even a middle-class benefit. It's interesting historically how some things get started,

like even entitlements. I'm like, how did entitlements start? And there was a spending freeze, right? You couldn't offer more wages at Ford, I think. And they wanted better employees that would stay around longer. Like, okay, we can't give them more money per hour for the government.

So we'll give them a retirement package. That doesn't count. We'll give them this. And then all of a sudden that spending freeze is lifted and then they're stuck with entitlements forever. I don't think it makes a lot of sense that I get the mortgage interest deduction when there's a million public school kids

that are homeless today. I feel we got to talk about that. And I feel like the next time tax season rolls around and your neighbor leans over the fence or your kid's soccer game and someone's like, taxes, geez, my God. I think we have to start having a very awkward conversation. I think we have to be like, I know, I get the 529 college savings tax deduction, which is only for people that can squirrel away money for college. And this just doesn't make a lot of sense. Or look at my

house. I get the mortgages deduction for this thing. And we're evicting people by the millions. I wrote my congressperson being like, you should wind this down for folks like me. That's a very different conversation. That's an awkward conversation. But I feel like that's how we change the common sense of America. And we've done this for other issues. There was a time where you could saddle up next to your buddy and say a racist thing or saddle up and say something that's not- Definitely sexist. Sure, absolutely. Shifting that aperture, changing that common sense. But with these issues, it's still very sticky. It is. Yeah, it's the only thing that unifies everyone is they hate paying taxes.

A lot of times when we talk about taxes, we're talking about the tax brackets. We're talking about increasing taxes on the wealthy. We got to talk about enforcement, just literally collecting taxes. The IRS chairperson told Congress last year that we lose a trillion dollars a year, a trillion with a T, just on uncollected taxes because of corporate shenanigans and the kind of tax maneuvers by ultra wealthy families in the country. So even if we just left the tax brackets exactly where they were and just made sure people pay the taxes they owed, that could make a world of difference. Yeah. I think the total budget of the government is something like $3 trillion.

So you're talking about adding 33% more to the kitty? Yeah, a study came out a few years ago that showed that if the top 1% of Americans just paid the federal income taxes they owed, that it would raise $175 billion a year. $175 billion a year is almost enough to close the poverty gap. Really?

So for me, when I hear like, we can't afford to do more, or like in a world of scarce resources, I'm like, that's not our world. That's not our country. Okay, what is TANF and how does it work? TANF stands for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. It's cash welfare. You remember Clinton reformed welfare in the 90s.

It was kind of a deal with the Gingrich Republicans. And he turned what was a cash entitlement, like a guaranteed cash program, into a block grant. And a block grant is just a wonky way of saying, okay, California, okay, Missouri, here's a chunk of cash. It's intended for poor families, but you've got some freedom about how you spend it. That seems like a terrible idea. Yeah. So prior to that, the federal government was in charge of physically distributing this? Prior to that, you were guaranteed access to a basic level of cash assistance if you met certain requirements. Right. You are no longer guaranteed access to that. Okay, now, so one out of every dollar given by the Fed, of that dollar,

only 22 cents makes it to the person. That's right. In terms of cash in their pocket, the thing they need the most. Where is this other 78 cents? You name it. Abstinence-only classes, Christian summer camps in Maine, child protective services, juvenile delinquency, a whole host of things that states spend the money on. They justify it in some way, but it has very little to do with poverty reduction or just easing families' hardship. We're talking about kids not having enough to eat because they're not getting that money. We're talking about kids getting evicted because they're not getting that money. So there are real costs to the decisions that states are making. And this is not just a red state or blue state issue. Tennessee, the last time I checked, literally didn't spend the money.

$700 million. $700 million. But Hawaii, our blue estate, was sitting on so much unspent TANF funds, they could give every poor kid $10,000. What was their explanation? I didn't ask them. Okay, let's get them on the phone. All right.

Has Tennessee issued any kind of explanation for that? I didn't ask him. Okay. Let's get him on the phone. Yeah, right. Has Tennessee issued any kind of explanation for that? I didn't ask him either, no. There's just a lot of state discretion, and states are doing a lot with that money that doesn't have anything to do with helping poor families. And one of the misconceptions you point out is that a lot of us are afraid that poor families are taking advantage of the programs. And we think of welfare dependence, but that in point of fact, there's probably a bigger problem of welfare avoidance. Yeah. Welfare avoidance is the idea that billions and billions of dollars in unused aid is left on the table every year because families that are eligible for programs do not take

advantage of those programs. So about 7 million Americans who qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is this pay raise for our poorest paid workers, they pass on it. How does that work? That's if you make below this amount of money, you get to take this huge deduction off. So virtually you pay no federal income tax. I remember when I made $8,000 a year for 10 years, I never paid any federal income tax. I was always below that. Yeah. The earning of tax is a little different, but you get a benefit around tax time. And it's kind of a windfall that comes. It's usually for working parents. In the way of tax forgiveness or an actual check?

You get a check. Okay. So there's, do you say how many people? How many people pass on this incredible big benefit? Yeah. About 7 million people a year, which means they pass on about $17 billion in EITC funds. And if you add that up with the amount of money that goes unspent because people who could receive food stamps don't apply for them, because people who could get government health insurance doesn't apply for it,

could get supplemental security income, which is kind of a payment for folks that are below a certain income level that have a disability or that are blind or old. If you add all that up, what you're talking about is over $140 billion, billion with a B, dollars in unused aid every single year. So that's not a picture of welfare dependency. That's not a picture of the American poor somehow figuring out how to nickel and dime everything for the government. This is a different thing. Well, and let's be honest, there is fraud.

But what's more likely to happen is if there is some fraud perpetrated, it's going to be on every single news channel. It might amount to $800 million, yet we're ignoring this $170 billion that's not getting used. It's definitely more newsworthy when there's some kind of fraud. I wish the fraud at the top got more news than the fraud at the bottom, right? I mean, that's like so much more consequential. Look at COVID. We roll out paycheck protection program. We spend $800 billion on the paycheck protection program. Most of that money just gets captured by the top 20% of income earners. It didn't protect a lot of jobs. It went to shareholders and owners of businesses that were fine already. And what did we talk

about? We talked about that unemployment insurance, right? We talked about those laid off workers that were staying home. What fraud do we care about? You know what I mean? Yes. So this isn't to like say that these programs are perfect or no one ever doesn't take advantage of these programs. Right. But it's kind of like, gosh, there's just bigger game afoot out there. You're looking at the pennies and not the dollars in that situation. Yeah, I feel so. And so what are the deterrents? Right off the bat, people would guess maybe it's some kind of pride that they wouldn't

go and apply for, but it's much deeper than that. I think so. Have you ever been to a welfare office? No. I have, and it is a terrible experience. Take the GMV and multiply it. You're spending four hours in the waiting room for a 10-minute appointment. And as you point out earlier, poverty is this huge ball of things. So people in there, much higher per capita rate of chronic pain,

addiction, everyone in there is already suffering. Yeah. Taking a day off work means losing money. They have kids with them, I'm sure. Absolutely. So there is something about stigma. There's something about pride, but there's a deeper issue. Absolutely. So there is something about stigma. There's something about pride. But there's a deeper issue. And the deeper issue is the just red tape bureaucracy. So if you look at food stamps in Oregon, almost all the folks in Oregon who qualify for food stamps receive them. But in California, it's only about 63%.

So it's not like food stamps were more stigmatized in California. What it is, is you got to answer 200 questions to apply for food stamps in California. Some states, you got to get fingerprinted and photographed to apply for welfare. There's just all this government bureaucracy and wrap up to these programs. And for me, that's both very hopeful, like, oh, okay, we can fix this.

And it's also like super enraging because if our country does one thing well, it's like marketing stuff to people. Well, yeah, they're the best at it. Why can't we do that for young moms that need formula? Yes. And is it your opinion that it is calculated to prevent giving out the money? Or do you think, again, to be generous, they think it's an attempt to prevent fraud?

So there's a great new book called Recoding America. prevent fraud. So there's a great new book called Recoding America. And the author makes a case that a lot of these programs are embroiled in this red tape, not out of any sort of nefarious intentionality, but because the reward structures in government agencies is about butt covering and not about delivering. And so you don't want to make a mistake. You want to kind of cross your T's, dot your I's. That's how you keep your job. That's how you advance. It's not really about, hey, we're delivering this outcome.

And so the argument in that book, and I think it's right, is we need to change the reward structure and delivery system for these programs. This is a bizarre analogy to bring in, but I just happened to be reading the Isaacson book about Elon Musk. And it's like, literally what he's been able to do

with space travel is solely because he wasn't working for the government. That's interesting. Yeah. That 90 plus percent of the costs that NASA was dealing with were the reams and reams of oversight and ass protecting and this and that, that were completely unnecessary. It can be pretty stark. But we know how to get out of this. There's a study that's literally, if you change the font on a program announcement about the earning tax credit, people sign up for it more. There's a study that shows that if you just send a mailer to older Americans who qualify for food stamps, like, hey, you might qualify for this, call this

number. And when they do, a person with a pulse picks up the phone, spends a half an hour on the phone walking them through, big take-up rates. So this is low-hanging fruit. This is the very least we can do. And again, that's not even asking for more money. That's just asking that we help get to the people who it's been designated to. Let's deliver. That's right. Where's all this money going that gets unspent and unclaimed? I don't know. But it does mean like a dollar in the budget doesn't mean a dollar in someone's hand. That's very, very terrible. 22 cents. Now, so I heard you talking about COVID. And I guess on some levels, this is a pretty dynamic experiment that was run for someone on your position, I would imagine. This was likely to never occur. And yet it did. And

there's some amazing results. So what happened during COVID? Most Americans were financially better off in COVID than before COVID, which is crazy. It is crazy. And I would imagine too, lopsided for the lower end of the spectrum of income. Absolutely. So we have three historic relief bills in COVID, two under Trump and one under Biden. The one under Biden is called the American Rescue Plan. The American Rescue Plan is unquestionably the most important thing the government's done for low-income families since the Great Society and the War on Poverty. It was a game changer. One of the things it did is take a tax credit, it's called the Child Tax

Credit, and tweak it a little bit and make it something called the extended child tax credit, which without getting into all the wonky details meant that basically if you were a middle-class, working-class, or poor American with kids, you got serious money for those kids. $3,600 per kid for very young kids, and then $3,000 for a little older kids. Like serious money. That small intervention lasted six months. That cut the poverty rate by 44%, the child poverty rate. So that took it from one in eight to one in five-ish? Five million more kids were pulled out of poverty

because of that intervention. This is just one part of the rescue plan. We had something called emergency rental assistance, which is like, okay, we have this eviction moratorium, but when it ends, what's going to happen? So the federal government allocates about $46 billion to help tenants in arrears. It reaches 10 million families,

and it drives evictions to the lowest they've ever been on record, ever. And I know this because I'm the guy that collects all the eviction data that knows this. Just drives down eviction in expensive cities and cheap cities all across the country. It worked. And so one of the lessons of COVID is anyone who says that government action, bold relief, cannot make a difference. They're ignoring reality. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

Okay, now, if I can put on my conservative hat. Do it. There's no question it definitely had a huge impact. You'd be willfully ignorant if you denied the impact all those relief checks had. However. However, our interest rate now is 7%. And it's 7% because of that. We made money valueless.

We caused inflation to go through the roof. And now we have a Fed that has to have interest rates at 7%. It's caused a whole other problem downriver. So I would just flag, yeah, it works. But where's the money come from? And does the bill come from? And does the bill come due? And it appears that the bill came due. So there's a massive debate in economics right now about the source of inflation because everything happened all at once, right? Like Russia invaded

the Ukraine. We had supply chain breakdowns. There is a lot of evidence about corporate markups, corporations capturing this and driving up prices themselves. And there's a debate about the extent to which the government overheated the economy. I totally agree with you. As soon as supply chain's broken, now your basic supply and demand dynamic is largely impacted by the supply side. So of course, demand and prices are going to go up. But we also printed a ton of money. We just invented money and put it into the system.

$5 trillion in aid relief over the next 10 years. So not all of it went out already, but a lot of it did. But I don't think that inflation is a necessary or automatic result of these deeper interventions. Like we could keep some of the more effective programs that we saw during COVID and not have the inflationary pressure that we had. Because we ran the grand experiment and we know now what works. And we know it didn't work. And what was kind of wasteful, the small business administration who administered the Paycheck Protection Program

is estimating that $200 billion of that money was probably fraudulent, that didn't need to go out the door. So the Extended Child Tax Credit, that was about $100 billion program. And if you look at other countries that make deeper investments in poverty and just public services in general, it's not like they're all sacked with inflation regularly. So I don't think it's automatic. It doesn't mean that these things don't have consequences, right? And that the economy is a fine-tuned machine. I don't think the inflationary response means that we can't do anything more. Right. So now I'm going to put my progressive hat back on and say that I don't think we can

just invent money. I agree. And those programs are necessary. And I think you got to get realistic about one in three dollars collected going to the military. This is a thing that no one wants to talk about at all, especially in this moment where there are two wars raging and it's a very scary world we're confronting right now. But you go, here's the pool. Now, granted, yeah, let's definitely clamp down and enforce the tax code because that could be another trillion. That's the budget of the military and homeland security. I think all that adds up to about $1.4 trillion, something like that. But if you're looking around and going, where's this money going to come from? To me, the most obvious thing that no one wants to talk about is that 33 plus percent of it is going to this.

You want to talk about we have an economy that's the same size as two through seven. We also have a military that's the size of two through 12. So that's where I feel we got to address what we're spending money on. When you say you want more taxes and less tax credits, I'm like, yeah, or let's not buy these fucking jets that don't serve any purpose. Everything's drones now. Why do we have the, you know, like, let's get realistic about the fucking $800 billion spent on all this machinery that we don't need. We spend a lot more on tax breaks in the military, though. That's pretty bonkers. Yeah.

Let's meet in the middle. Let's cut the military in half and then you can get half of your tax breaks. So there's a part of me that's like, a lot of us want to talk about the military because we're not in it and we're not affected by it and our kids aren't in it and we don't think our kids will be in it. But let's be honest, the personnel expense of the military is not the expense. You get no argument from me on this. Like, I'm totally open. I feel like I'm a little over my skis on this. Like, I just don't know where it would come from.

Right, right. But I'm very comfortable talking about, okay, what about all this corporate tax revenue that's lost because Facebook says that thousands of their employees are employed in Ireland? What do we do about that? What do we do about the fact that a lot of top earners are effectively paying the lowest?

And so for me, there's an argument here about the pay for, which is about rebalancing the safety net. And what I want too, is not just a point to the guy that's a little richer than us. I want to point to myself and be like, how am I benefiting from this unbalanced safety net? Not because I think that move is sufficient, but it matters. I think it matters for building the political will. I'm so tired of arguments about poverty that let me off the hook. I don't want to be left off the hook anymore. Yeah. I do want to answer, because there'll be some right-wing people that'll go like, if you care so much, why don't you give

all your money to it? And I just want to answer, I see this as a pushback all the time. Like, Warren Buffett, oh, if you don't like that, then why don't you give all your money? Because the goal is to correct the problem. An individual giving all their money to the government is not going to correct the problem. You'll notice there's no sentence in my book that asks the reader to give any money away. I'm asking the reader to often take less from the government. Uh-huh. Less of your subsidized lifestyle. I'm asking the reader to shop and invest in solidarity from the government. Uh-huh. Less of your subsidized lifestyle. I'm asking the reader to shop and invest

in solidarity with the poor. I'm asking the reader who lives in a segregated community to show up at those zoning board meetings and be like, we should build this in my community. So that's what I'm asking. Yeah. Can we sidebar for one second? It won't serve any purpose other than we're here.

I want to be fair to everyone. This shit is complicated as hell. It's so complicated. It's complicated. So when you look at corporate taxes, yes, obviously, it's preposterous. Unless you reverse engineer from the reality that these companies can exist in any country. We're in a global economy. And that people will just relocate.

So you can't be naive and think we can have a 30% business tax rate and that everyone won't go to England or they won't go to wherever. So you're trying to really balance this thing where we're keeping America a very appealing place for businesses to start and thrive because we're competing with the globe. It's even the AI debate is affected by this. It's like, well, we can't even enact a policy here we might all agree with morally because Russia's not gonna and what are we going to be behind morally because Russia's not going to. And what are we going to be behind? You know, you got to be realistic about what are the options on the table that doesn't drive Microsoft into fucking Ireland.

Totally. But there are, I mean, there's research on like the millionaire tax. And it turns out when you increase taxes on high earners, they don't suddenly flee the country. There's a lot of sunk costs about being in America and a lot of benefits. I hear that term a lot, sunk costs. Will you explain that to me? If you create a company here, it's just hard to pick up and move it to Bangladesh. Now, you could overdo it, right?

You could overreach. And you can have these kind of externalities or capital flying away that would hurt everyone. But I do think that that doesn't mean we have to settle for what we have now. I think there can be some more fine-tuning of the machine. A lot of times we hear in Washington, well, how can we afford it? And that's the thing that drives me nuts because it's just so clear that this rich country could afford it, but we'd have to do a lot more to fight poverty and a bit less to protect fortunes. Yeah, we do do a lot to protect fortunes. We do. Now, I've heard you talk about how race plays into this,

and we kind of touched on it with the segregation. I think that deserves two seconds, but I also, I'm weirdly interested in what you think about women's reproductive rights and this cycle of poverty and what's happening and the notion that the Supreme Court's about to hear a case about the morning after pill how does that play into that to me seems to be one of the more just demonic aspects of it which is you can't have an abortion that's off the table and we're

not going to help you at all we're going to sentence you to a life of poverty and then when your kid ends up in the criminal justice system, that's the only time we'll pay for it. And we'll pay 33 grand a year to keep them then. All of that seems so medieval. In the debate around Roe falling, people were talking about this more and more as an economic justice issue. But I admit that before that debate, I didn't think about it a lot as a poverty issue. And we weren't talking about it as our conferences and our policy debates. It wasn't really on the table. I'm glad it's become on the table. And I felt like I needed to see for myself. So I visited an abortion clinic

right before Roe fell and talked to doctors, talked to folks that are basically trying to get money for folks seeking abortions. Saw the folks there that day, and they just looked so much to me like the folks that are in eviction court, that are at bus stops, that are in welfare offices. They were poor. And read this amazing study called the Turnaway Study. and she basically followed women who sought abortions and those who had abortions and those who were turned away just because they were just days or a few weeks over the cutoff, the gestational period. And she followed both sets of folks. So it's this really rigorous design

and shows that the women who were denied abortions, much more likely to be cast into poverty. Their kids, much more likely to be cast into poverty. Their kids, much more likely to grow up in poverty than the kids that the women had later after their abortions. And so I don't really know how to have this conversation on a moral plane or a religious plane, but just as a concrete economic justice issue,

the fall of Roe is going to create more poverty. Generational, yeah. It's going to perpetuate a cycle. I mean, a lot of people are walking in there because financially they cannot do it. They're barely supporting themselves. Yeah. And that's plain to see for anyone who's been in those waiting rooms. Yeah.

I think of Crystal from your book. Yeah. A, heartbreaking from beginning to end, and something I witnessed nonstop. I think about Crystal a lot when I hear easy or glib solutions about poverty. When people say, well, why don't people just go get a job? So Crystal is born because her mom is stabbed. 11 times in the back. Right.

It induces labor. She's born into violence. That wasn't the first time her mom was stabbed. For as far back as Crystal can remember, her dad beat her mom. Her mom was addicted to crack cocaine, so was her grandmother. By the time Crystal's five or six, she ends up in foster care.

She's molested as a young girl. She bounces between places. She lives with her aunt for five years, and then her aunt returns her. The longer she lived, anywhere after that was eight months. She goes through like 20, 25 different placements. At 16, she drops out of high school. She starts fighting with girls

in the guest rooms of foster care. She gets a scar across her face. She picks up an assault charge. She's diagnosed as a kid with- This list is impossible. Bipolar disorder, affective detachment disorder, just on and on it goes. Some kind of borderline intelligence thing. Yeah. So she ages up of foster care. She hits the private rental market at the age of 18. She cannot get into public housing, not only because of waiting lists,

but because that assault charge. So she can't take advantage of this program. She rents a really crummy apartment at the bottom of the market, but it still takes over 70% of her income. She's soon evicted. She's on disability for 700 bucks a month or something at this point. On and on it goes. She goes off of disability. She gets kicked off of disability.

Kicked off, rather, I should say. She burns through her ties. She can't get back on. And she eventually ends up street homeless and turning to prostitution. This is a church-going woman. But that's what she did to survive. So you go to Crystal and you say, just get a job. Just finish high school. Yeah. Don't be 11 on the ACE scale. Play by the rules. And I feel like those kind of statements are so far away from the reality.

It's kind of like, have a different life, Crystal. I know. It's hard to recognize just how many benefits we've all had. Even when it was rough. There's still 20 more rungs down the ladder. Like I'm reading Crystal's story and I'm like, yeah, I've had that abuse. I've had this, but fuck me. And I didn't bounce. Yeah. My dad didn't stab my mom. I mean, there's so many more and I can barely function. I've had to be in therapy and all this shit. You know, what on earth would this young woman do? Yeah. This reality of America scares a lot of us, do. Yeah. This reality of America scares a lot of us, that there's always a further you can fall. And I feel that that causes us to just clutch on to whatever advantage we can have. That leads to a discourse in America where there's a lot of people that are just blind to their own privilege

and affluence. And you get empathy fatigue. There's like these Paul Bloom studies, right? Or these other studies where it's like you show one kid starving in a country and people will donate. You show two people and a little less people donate. You bring it up to like 15, 20 kids on the poster that are starving. All of a sudden it drops down a significant percentage and you're like, oh, that's weird. But yeah, once it feels overwhelming and insurmountable, it's easier to just look away and ignore. Right. So it can't be insurmountable. And so we have to push against this hopelessness that I think is gripping the country. It's even like a chic nihilism. It's somehow safer or even cooler to be kind of nihilistic. That makes me very nervous. And I feel like this book brings

hope. This book brings an answer. All this poverty in our midst, it's unnecessary and it's totally solvable. And so I'm not hopeless. I feel that hopelessness is kind of useless. I understand hopelessness. I do. But I kind of have to reject it because I just feel like it's part of the mission to reject it. Well, it's a beautiful book and it's the last topic I wanted to talk about. But it's so good that I enjoyed everything I learned. And the reason I don't want to know about it is because I don't want to have to, I'm in that group where it's like, it feels overwhelming and I don't are fed up with all this poverty and inequality.

Most Americans think poverty is a result of unfair circumstances, not a moral failing, including most Republicans. Interesting. Most Americans think the rich aren't paying their fair share of taxes. Most Americans want a higher minimum wage. Something's happening. In the book, at the end, I tell this little story about this protest that One Fair Wage had at the Albany capital in New York City. This is mostly black and Latina women service workers fighting for higher wages among tipped workers. And it's the same day there's a Stop the Steal rally. And so the guys in MAGA hats come over and say, what are you guys protesting? And the One Fair Wage folks are like, we're fighting for higher wages.

And the Trump supporters are like, we want higher wages too. And they shook their hands, they joined the protest. I think that the country is riven by a lot of issues, but on this issue, on more economic justice, I think there's a lot of us pining for it. And I think that's exciting. And now the challenge is how to translate that into actual political action. Yes, because you're right. So many of these polls, you just scratch your head of like, how could policy be this if these polls are real and to be trusted? And yes, there's many of them right now where it's like, well, America feels this way. Well, take Roe v. Wade.

It's like up in the 70%. So how on earth is this happening in a democracy or the unjust treatment of low-income people and then turning your head at the white-collar criminals? Everyone, it's unanimous. So what the fuck? Yeah, I mean, Citizens United was a disaster on this score, right? And all the money flowing into politics and the lobby power is substantial, right? Just counting the lobby flex in terms of dollars of the top five corporations is much more than all organized labor spends on lobbying, right? It's just outgunned, outmatched. But this is also where I feel we've got to step up. We've got to commit ourselves to poverty abolitionism. We've got to

get skin in the game. And so I don't want to point the finger at Congress. I don't want to absolve them, but I don't want to absolve us either. I often think of the 60s. And so Julian Zelizar, the historian, has a great book called The Fierce Urgency of Now, where he talks about, all right, in the 60s, Congress was a mess. The Dixiecrats were aligning with Republicans to block reform. Government inaction was the goal. And he's like, but we got major pieces of civil rights legislation and we got the war on poverty and great society. So how do we do that? And his answer is just massive social pressure from the labor movement and the civil rights movement. And I feel like there's a lesson for us. I'm just glad that folks in those movements didn't look at Congress and be like, well,

we'll wait for the next election. Maybe we'll get them next time. I feel like we got to jump in no matter what Congress looks like. Well, again, part of the apathy and turning your head is absolving your own responsibility in the process. And so you just tell yourself you don't have a role in it. It's easier. Yeah. Or you blame the other political party or you blame your favorite group to blame. You point to government dysfunction and you have this kind of, I'm with you, but I don't know what to do. Yeah. It's just confirmation bias. It's just, it's one more piece of data to prove you're correct about your opponent. At the end of the day, does that help any more than just what your opponent is doing? What this book is trying to do is give everyone a clear roadmap about how they can get involved in little ways and in big

ways. Look at the holiday season. We bought a lot of stuff. Did we pay attention to where our money was flowing? Did we support companies and businesses that were doing right by their workers? Or did we just not? You know? Yeah.

I'm so embarrassed to ask you this, but like, how would I know? You got to do your homework. Is there like an easy to use website? There is.

There is? There is. What is it? So you can go to B Corp. They evaluate businesses in terms of economic and environmental standards and they give them grades it? So you can go to B Corp. They evaluate businesses in terms of economic and environmental standards, and they give them grades. And so you can reward companies that are doing right by their workers.

And that's effortless. You're going to spend your money somewhere. Just do a little homework. Take a little step. You can go to Union Plus, which curates a list of union-made products. You want to buy some sneakers. You want to buy some candy. You want to drink a beer.

This is union-made stuff right here. I wish companies bragged about this more. Yes. Why do you think they don't? Maybe it's polarizing. I think it makes them left. Yeah. That's woke snap. Yes. You walked in the streets of London and there's these stickers on doors and they're like, this shop pays a living wage. Our doors, we have a lot of stickers. Yes. But often we have no idea how much the workers are getting paid. I got to tell you, I feel great when I go to Costco because I shot a movie in a Costco. I got to know all these people that work there. I found out that they're all making very good money in New Mexico. They have the lowest turnover.

They don't lose any employees. The manager's making like $300,000 a year in Albuquerque. And I'm like, this fucking company rules. Somehow you can do it and it doesn't go under. Yes, it's still affordable. And it's profitable. Yes. I'm not paying any premium to shop there. Absolutely. So we could do that. And then we can talk about it. That matters.

We saw this with environmentalism. We got big congressional action, like the Inflation Reduction Act. Would we have got that action if millions and millions of Americans weren't like, what are you eating? What are you driving? You need to take that flight? And I think that builds up. So that's one little way that we could start becoming a poverty abolitionist just by voting with our wallets.

Yeah. Oh, well, Matthew, I enjoyed this so much. I'm so delighted you wrote Poverty by America. And I'm glad that, you know, unlike me, you didn't walk away from Skid Row and just go like, yeah, that's an addiction problem. I'm delighted there's people much better than me on the planet and you're one of them. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much for this conversation. Yeah.

All right. Well, be well. I hope everyone reads Poverty by America. You will love it. It'll be eye-opening. It'll be jarring and it'll have solution, which is almost never available in a book like this. So thank you so much and good luck with everything. Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong. One of my keys doesn't work well. The H.

I mean, you don't need an h you obviously don't type i just was typing as a matter of fact let's see yeah h was the very first letter i used exactly in the document i just printed could you replace it with back-to-back eyes oh okay well anyone that loved you and did business with you would come to know, oh, her computer's broke. It could be a cool thing about me. Two eyes means H. Unfortunately, a lot of people I'm communicating with don't love me yet. Okay, but

they don't know me yet. But they don't need to love you. They could be incentivized to deal with you in a business capacity. They should. Also, as you're typing, it'd be cool to go, I, I, for your H. Pop, pop. Like, pop, pop. No, I-

Okay. Or like I-N. Oh. I lower, capital I lowercase N. Whatever. Okay. Okay. This is, I need a new computer, I guess.

I'm coming across an H again. Are you emailing right now? I was, yeah. Because, yeah, I was just checking my emails. Well, hello. You, I was just checking my emails. Well, hello. You and I are so sensitive. Like, that was just sensitive that I said, are you sending an email?

We also know each other. Let's be real about that. Sure, so, I just was curious what you were typing, and you took it as, why aren't you concentrating on the fact check? And then you said, well, I was checking my emails, which was saying you were late. All that happened in one second. It did.

Yeah. And then we're just going to blow by it. Yeah. We should have blowed by it. No. I don't want to blow by it. But there's no reason. We don't have to.

I don't know. In 2024, I don't think you have to dissect everything. Okay. Because some things are just fine to blow by. Assuming the person really blows by them and it doesn't taint anything going forward. Yeah, exactly. I'm about to be on someone's podcast as a guest. Tonight?

No, but soon. And you eat in the podcast. I've done that. Oh, you have? Probably not the same one, but I've done a podcast? I've done that. Oh, you have? Uh-huh. Probably not the same one, but I've done a podcast where there's eating involved. And I'm just like,

I'm kind of overwhelmed with like, why don't they have to deal with people with misophonia and we do? Like, we can't even have nuts on here. I know.

And I'm going to go have like a big juicy hamburger and french fries and a salad. Look, everyone has their own hurdles in life. I guess it's cool. They just go like, yeah, this show's not for you if you have misophonia, but we still want to do one where we're chowing down.

They might not know how many people have it, which is a lot. Rob, type in what percentage of the population has misophonia. This is because you have to self-report. No, because at this point, they actually would know from the data set of people who have. Only people who have done 23. Which is now millions of people. So you could make a pretty damn accurate guess. Estimated to be close to 20%.

Oh my Lord. Well, they just said goodbye to 20% of their audience, I guess. Yeah. I guess maybe they just want their audience to be people who love the sound of food eating. The opposite of misophony. What freedom though? Just be able to chow down all the time.

Like if you and I, if we weren't conscious of this misophonial crisis epidemic, we'd be snacking all the time during these fact checks. Yeah, we would. I might even like bring my lunch in. Definitely. When I'm under a time crunch. Yeah, so often I don't eat

because we're in the weird timing. Well, there's another thing you and I share in common with our sensitivity, and maybe it's related. Oh, hangry? We'll just go forever without eating. I know. I think it's, I want to be better about that in the new year. Okay.

Lay that on. Like blowing by things. I also want to be a little more on top of making sure I have energy calorically. Like, I think it's adding to why I slept energy calorically. Oh, right, right, right. I think it's adding to why I slept till 10 today. But wait, that's related to blowing by things? Well, just like in 2024, these are things I do. Oh, okay.

So this is added. Yeah. Okay, to the list. Yeah. It's growing. The further we get away from the new year. And of course, haven't read my book or written. Don't throw in the towel yet. We still early i'm not and i this is the problem with resolutions if you don't do it the first couple days often you're

like well fuck it and then you don't even try uh-huh as opposed to being okay with not a full hundred percent but yeah I missed a day. So I'm supposed to be back to writing prose, at least a page a day in the morning. And I definitely missed a day. Yeah, my first thought was like, well, now that's ruined. And now it's all gonna crumble. And then the next morning I woke up and I said,

that's ridiculous, you're gonna write today. And then three days in a row I have, so it's fine. Yeah, it's fine. But I can't have that policy with dip. That's true. How're going to write today. And then three days in a row I have. So it's fine. It's fine. But I can't have that policy with dip. That's true. How's it going? Good. I'm on day eight.

And how do you feel? I feel good. If I had to give it out of 10, four or five. Like it's how you feel or how? No, like how hard it is. Oh. Yeah. There's like a handful of moments a day where I'm like, I need a punch of nicotine.

Not this stupid two milligram bullshit. Yeah. I'll tell you where I really miss it the most. Where? Duty time. Because that is just. You love it there. Nicotine's a very powerful bowel activator.

That's the clinical and medical term for a bowel activator, PA. Wow. And this is now fucking with my morning routine because normally I plot it all out. Yeah. I generally am on the can. I give myself 10 minutes on the can before I drive the kids to school. Yeah. Plenty of time.

10 minutes. It flies by, actually. It really does. Yeah. Especially if you're zipping through Instagram or something. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Plenty of time. 10 minutes. It flies by actually. It really does. Especially if you're zipping through Instagram or something. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But that used to be no sweat.

But now that I don't have that punch, that pop in the morning of like a couple hundred milligrams of nicotine. Okay. As I'm journaling, I'm like, where are the pangs? I need that like frantic. You want it to hurt? I'm like, where are the pangs? I need that like frantic. Because when I dip, as I'm journaling, generally like I've got four or five lines left and I'm like, I gotta get these lines out. Sure. And I have a superstition about pausing to go to the bathroom.

Sure. And then I do occasionally in a real- Disaster. Disaster. I bring the journal with me. Oh, and you might get poop particles on that. I'm not terribly concerned about that. My issue is more to right on your lap.

You have to have your knees very close together. And when I do my private business, I like to be a little more splayed out than that, probably 35 degrees. Yeah, knees together is an actually good posture for evacuation. Because you're supposed to be squatted, hence the squatty potty. Right. Unless you're my height, again. Not to fucking have to run all through this. No, we're never getting up.

But my knees are at the angle yours are on a squatty potty naturally. I'm not so sure. We'd have to take a picture and see. Well, Rob will take them. But I think mine are higher. That's the point. I'm not so sure. We'd have to take a picture and see. We'll take some pictures. Well, Rob will take them. But I think mine are higher. That's the point. It's to get it. Elevated.

My legs are enormous and they're above. Why is your floor that high? Do it like it's a real floor. I can't because this fucking Lazy Boy is about 13 inches higher than Komodo's. Okay, so it's probably like the toilet. Well, we have a toilet with Adoraboo. Okay. Why do you think we even have this? This is perfect. Okay, this is where we'll take the photos.

Just go sit there for a sec. Okay. I want to see. Oh, this is great. Okay, yours looks very 90. I'd say it's above my anus. Well, sure. Sure. It's above your anus but your your leg is very much at a no don't cheat cheater okay mine are not at 90 they're like this that certainly brought up well

you go sit now on the toilet there's no squatty no squatty potty. I know. I just want to see, like, what angle you're at. A regular angle. It's not, it's actually not that different. Yeah, it's virtually the same, which is really hard to understand because my legs are so much longer than yours. But then look, the potty. Where are you? Where are you guys? Where's everybody?

Monica, someone had to be on the microphone. Let me show you about where the squatty potty is. This is an auditory experience. All right, you want to take a look? That's absurd. It's a little less. You're not supposed to get it above your areolas. Yeah, maybe it's more like that.

For the listener, Monica's knees on the squatty potty are above her shoulders. Yeah, this is about right. Can you see it? Hold on. Okay, I'm back. You can sit in my seat. Her knees are higher. Yeah. Much. Oh, hold on. Okay, I'm back. You can sit in my seat. Her knees are higher. Yeah.

Much. Oh, luckily you didn't experiment. Real-time experiment. That was cool. What? Why? Oh, because my knees are in such tremendous pain. It's insane.

It's truly a once-in-a-lifetime body pain. Do you want to tell people? It's once in a lifetime, you say? I think it's worse than all the broken bones I had. What? Yeah, just like real time pain and then being woken up all night long, like every 12 minutes because I either have a new cramp or a new sharp pain. Oh boy, okay.

Okay, it's because my birthday party was this weekend. Yeah. And my very favorite communal sport is grass volleyball, which is very specific. Sand volleyball is not for me. Yeah. It's too hard to jump. Too much work.

Although your knees might feel better today. Hard to know. Yeah, so I love on the grass volleyball. It's what we did at every family reunion. This entire yard was designed with the intention of having a volleyball court. I put pretty over the top outdoor lighting up years ago. Yeah. And the contractor was like, what are you doing with this?

Stadium lighting. Stadium lighting. And I said, well, it's my dream to have nighttime volleyball tournaments. Like Keith Raniere. Oof. I know. I just thought that was like someone's probably remembering that that was his obsession too. Haven't played it in at least 15 years.

Oh, wow. Put up the net Saturday morning and proceeded to play. And you witnessed this. Yeah, I was there. I didn't participate. I was very sad about that, but. I'm sorry. It's okay. I still love you and you should feel no judgment. Well, I don't, I don't, because I don't think you want me to participate in something I don't want to participate in. But the problem is I think you think you wouldn't enjoy it. And I'm pretty certain you were because I've never seen anyone who tries it who doesn't love it. But you have a peer pressure thing. No, no.

I've played volleyball many times. And I really don't like it at all. Because the gym is different and so is the sand. Okay, maybe not the grass. It's not that part that's bad. Can I tell you why the grass is perfect? Okay, yeah. It's firm enough that you jump

and you actually, you don't lose yourself in the sand. And then it doesn't hurt when you fall down. Yes, it does. Asterix next to that. But depending on from how you jump. I think that how we started this conversation is you've never been in more pain in your entire life. Yes, but again, I don't think it's from falling,

although I did fall a ton. I dove so many times from like full height, arms extended, as if I don't even worried about my bones. But proceeded to play 13 games in a row with only like a two-hour gap. I was already stretching my back during the first game. Middle of the first game, I started trying to loosen my back because I realized this is tight already. Yeah, you didn't do any stretching. Right. Because Lane Norton had recent posts where they did all the meta-analysis and stretching has

absolutely zero impact on injury. So for me, I wouldn't have stretched beforehand. You reject that, I see on your face. I haven't read it, so I wouldn't have stretched beforehand. Okay. You reject that I see on your face. I haven't read it, so I don't know. So at any rate, then there's a whole thing that could be way too long, but it was amusing everyone because we have a big thing with all the boys who we all exercise together. Occasionally, someone will start doing stretches in the middle of a weightlifting workout, and we've come to find out you're already injured. You're like, oh, I just need to loosen my back before I do more squat. It's too late. If you have the impulse to stretch at the gym,

you need to leave the gym. Yeah. So of course, everyone was laughing quite a bit at the fact that I was stretching mid game, first game. But anyways, I think that's my favorite birthday party I've ever had. Great. I had so

much fun. Suffice to say, I wouldn't even say the next morning, that evening, I was like, I am in such major trouble. My knee was clicking. I'm like, the ball's way over my head. I'm jumped in the air and I just hyperextend my arm behind my head. And then as hard as I can bring it forward, I don't do that range of motion ever in real life. Yeah, yeah. Plus you add in the dives and this and that. So anyways, yeah. So for the last few days, all I've been trying to do is like rehab.

But is this making you want more dip? Because like it could ease some of this pain. The suffering. Yeah. No. That's good. Yeah. Maybe volleyball can be your new dip.

That is how the addict's brain works. It's like, well, I have an excuse now for something. Exactly. Because I now deserve this because I'm suffering. Yeah, some suffering from the birthday party. Yeah, but I'm glad then. That's great that you're not doing that. Yeah.

Oh, this is the last thing I'll add on my campaign to get people to start playing grass volleyball. The reason the game is so wonderful is like all the kids were playing. Like what game can you all play where everyone's playing as hard as they can and having maximum amount of fun? And it's the same game and there's nine-year-olds serving. Yeah. You can't play pickup basketball with children. It would be not fun. You'd either be just mowing them over.

That's true. But everyone's got their little zone, their position, and they play it. Yeah. God's game. That's what they call it. God's game. They do? Mm-hmm.

Wow. I'm learning so much. God bod's game. Probably not God bod's game because it's trying to tear apart the body, the God bod. But just can you even imagine how strong my body's going to be after like a month of playing nonstop? I think I'm going to be impervious to everything. Wow. I'll be able to throw my body in any crazy position.

That's an interesting logic. Full commitment. Okay. We'll see. Last thing, promise. Also, I played side by side with my little Lincoln all 13 games. We played right next to each other and she did a very, very good job. Good.

Yeah. She'll probably want to keep playing. She played last night. Great. You also made, there's a lot of treats. Your favorite treats. All my childhood favorite meals. Meatballs, tuna noodle and beans, twice baked potatoes and wedges. And shit on a shingle. and shit on a shingle shit on a shingle aka shitty biscuits aka hanky pankies oh that was the original name that's what

they're actually called my family always called them shit on a shingles brie forgot the name and accidentally said shitty biscuits which was so cute we it. And only to find out last year that the technical name for him is Hanky Panky. Oh. What's really funny is like right before Christmas, we were trying to remember the name because it was because we only cook them at Christmas. Yeah. And then my birthday. And so as it was approaching, Kristen was like, we got to get we got to find the little

rye breads for the shitty biscuits. And then we're like, wait, what's the name of the, the whole family's trying to remember. And I just goes, yeah, I think they're called like Oopsy Daisies. And everyone's like, yeah, is it Oopsy Daisies? Because Hanky Panky is very close to Oopsy Daisies. They're kind of onomatopoeias, but they're not. And they mean nothing, either of them.

Oopsy Daisies. Well, Hanky Panky means. Funny business. Yeah. The devil's workshop. Hanky panky is also the brand of underwear it is pricey panty high-end pankies i did my like kind of semi-annual me undies order like a refresh yeah and i noticed they're making a size now that is in between my normal boxer oh whatever the fuck they call the other one. Boxer brief?

The trunk or something. Oh, yeah, yeah. And a tighty-whitey cut. There's now a midway point. And I was like, I'm going to try these because they can bunch up a little bit on my thighs when I get super active. Interesting. This might alleviate that. So I got a big bundle of those.

And how are they going? They're pretty sexy. You like them? Yeah. They're certainly, if I'm going to be moving a lot, are ideal. Oh, wow. I had this whole fantasy where I was, because we got to talk about Jeremy Allen White. He's got a Calvin Klein underpanty.

He does. Underpanky campaign. He does. Campaign. And I'm so overwhelmed with how gorgeous his body looks. And it's treading this weird line between like, most of the time when you see a body that good, it just reeks of, well, that person's in the gym nonstop and they only eat perfect. And they're a model. Yeah.

His though, and it's because he's got like the perfect amount of hair. And you can almost convince yourself that he just genetically looks that way. Of course he doesn't. But you know what I'm saying? And look, you can almost convince yourself that he just genetically looks that way. Of course he doesn't. But you know what I'm saying? He just did that wrestling movie, which I think why he's in that shape. Iron Claw. Him and Zac Efron.

They both look like that. Jeremy's is still in the zone of it. Like a man that works outdoors a lot might look like that. Should we get Rob McElhenney on the phone? And Kumail? Yeah, we do. We need to do another Men's Bodies Part 2. We got some new entrants.

We do, we do. Jeremy Allwhite, though. Calvin Klein looks great. It makes you harken back to Marky Mark. Sure. Right? Good old days. That was kind of the last really memorable earthquake launch of a panky. A male's pank panky yes and he's a very short gentleman and i was thinking in the same way that i learned in that model's doc that they want them

tall because they actually need to show the fucking outfit better yeah right that there's like a science to it and maybe i was like mind you there's only two data set points marky mark i'm gonna throw one in you aren't going to like. Kutcher? Yeah. Yeah, he's 6'3". Very tall. Very tall.

And was an underwear model. That ruins the whole thing. I won't even proceed. Okay. But I did start wondering, do shorter men look better in tighty whities? I don't think so. I think it just depends on what they look like. Okay.

Their proportions and their like thighs. Proportions make a big difference. I think everyone looks great. You do? Mostly, yeah. Most of the time. If you're confident, you kind of look great. Yeah, that's 100% true.

I believe in that. I didn't finish my thought. When I saw those, I thought like, I'm going to call me panties. Me undies. Yeah. That's my brand. Yeah. And I'm going to say, we need to do something photoshoot wise, but with MeUndies.

Sure. Right? Yeah. Like the underdog and a different take on it. Oh, that's interesting. Go ahead. No, what's your, like, pitch it? I don't have it yet.

I just know that, like, that was such a thing. There does feel like a great opportunity for some counter-programming of that thing. That's true. Yeah. So would they be joking? No, you would never make the product look bad. Right. That's the trick.

But maybe the activity would be ridiculous. That they're in there under a drain. Because even, and I am, I'm number one Jeremy Allen White fan. And I think I'm the horniest for these pictures. I was so excited. I called you immediately. Have you seen these pictures? Yeah, and you brought it up again recently.

Yeah, and I'm now bringing it up here again. Yeah. So number one fan. Yeah. But I'm also, they're so awkward. It's like, okay, Jeremy, so you're going to run over here and then run. Have you seen the video? No.

There's a video. And I was thinking like, oh yeah, you're going to have to like climb this ladder and you run over here and then pop your shirt off and then get your pants halfway down. It's like, none of it makes any sense other than because it's in an underwear commercial, but yet they're trying to make it make sense. And then I just thought, God bless this this dude i know what that day was like on this shoot and that was probably a hard one to commit to yep so running up some stairs and now he's on a catwalk he's gotta get rid of his top and now

he's gonna pull us and he going to do some pull-ups. That's why he took his pants and shirt off, which is semi. Oh no. And now he's got to, and now he's got to climb. This is what I was thinking of. He's got to climb the staircase

to get even higher so that he can climb up to this couch, stretch out, get the lats loosened up so that he can ultimately, I think lay, does he lay down in the couch? Oh yeah, now he's got so that he can ultimately, I think, lay, does he lay down in the couch?

Oh yeah, now he's got to lay down. So, I mean, my hat is so off to him. He did such a great job. He did do a great job. He did a great job, full commitment, but that's a hard shoot, right? So I saw the video and then I thought, can't me undies, aka me pankies and I- You could. Capitalize on this moment.

You could. Capitalize on this moment. You could. You gotta be careful not to make enemies with Jeremy because you don't want to make it seem like you're making fun of. But I'm being so vocal that I am the biggest fan of this campaign. I know, I'm just, you gotta keep saying it. It is like got me so excited. Yeah. I love it.

He looks so radical. Really good. It got me so excited. Yeah. I love it. He looks so radical. He does look really good. Okay. Now, this is for Matthew Desmond. And I was not here for, he was the same day as Paul Giamatti. Uh-huh. So I was not here for this one.

Back-to-back solo interviews. Mm-hmm. And he was great. Yeah. I found his statistics to be so mind-blowing. I've been repeating nonstop some of the- He was really compelling, I thought. He says, like, this book isn't telling people to give any money. Right, right.

Which I liked. It wasn't like, give all your money away or things that people just won't do. Felt a little more practical. And he seemed very lovely. I was sad to have missed do. Yeah. Felt a little more practical. And he seemed very lovely. I was sad to have missed him. Yeah. I liked him a ton. Yeah.

Also, Paul Giamatti won his Golden Globe. Big congrats to him. And also, if you're in the listening community and you're campaigning now for an Oscar, I mean, we got a good track record going. That's what I said. It's like, if you want to get your nom on there. Willem got nommed right after.

He did. And then Giamatti won. Not after, but he had done it. The gods knew he had done it. Exactly. I am so happy he won. Yeah. The photo of him after at the In-N-Out with his golden glove.

No. That's great. And eating with it at the table with him. Oh, that's so cute. Fun. Okay, yeah, Matthew, Matthew Desmond. So I felt like I learned a lot, which I really liked. I did too.

Yeah. I mean, the thing that I have been repeating nonstop is the notion that the U.S. economy is bigger than two through 10 combined, including Japan, Germany, England. Like it's bonkers. Because we're, if you're here, you already know this, but if you're outside of the country,

which we have lots of listeners outside, our most, some of our most valued are in India. Ding, ding, ding. Thanks, India. We are internally being told and have been told since I was born that we are losing our footing. At first, when I was a kid, when I was very young, it was Russia. We were in the height of the Cold War and it was Russia. They were going to surpass us in all these ways. And then next was Japan.

And in the wake of Japan, you had, oh, they were cheating at the Olympics, all these like allegations. Then you had Rising Sun, the Sean Con connery movie you had the japanese were buying nakatomi tower and die hard we had like total japan phobia and they were telling us japan was gonna blow past us economically oh and they were buying up all of hawaii that was the other thing and we all like you just buy into it you're being told this on every you know fucking media outlet there is and then yeah for the last 10 years it's been China's gonna blast by you guys. And it's like, it's just all to get us more fucking neurotic about working

even longer and harder. This fear of losing first. It's true. And the reality of some of these other countries is that they've changed a ton. They have changed a ton. But now when you look at what's happening to China's economy, which if anyone had a not fear-based evaluation of it over the last 10 years,

they'd be like, yeah, that writing was so on the wall. They have like a very old population. They haven't been having like all this stuff. Any first-year economist would be able to look at that and go, they're not passing you guys. Yeah. But India has a very young population. They do. They're expected India has a very young population. They do. They're expected to pass China's economy soon.

But again, put it right there. India's in the fucking other nine that you can add up that aren't as big as ours. Yeah. It's so colossal yet we're being told we're losing it and it's slipping away and we don't manufacture and all this stuff. Yeah. So that to me was the most shocking. Like, really?

Yeah. Also, because India is going to be doing so well, it's really good that they're listening to us. I hope they keep listening more and more and more. Me too. Okay. The Eagles song, Take It Easy. Take it easy.

Because standing on the corner of Winslow, Arizona. Well, I'm running down the road Trying to loosen my load I've got seven women on my mind Four that want to hold me Two that want to stone me One says she's a friend of mine Take it easy

Take it easy Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy. Lighten up while you still can. Don't even try to understand. Just find a place to make your stand. Take it easy. Take it easy. Take it easy. Here we go.

I'm standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona. Such a fine sight to see. There it is. It's a girl my heart in a white bed board. Slowing down to take a look at me. Oh, slowing down to take a look at me. What a tableau he painted. What a great song.

That is so fun to have your hometown in a song. Yeah, especially when your hometown is, like I've been. Yeah, it's tiny. It's cool enough when it's your state. Right, that'll get it done. Sweet home Alabama, that's enough. George on my mind. Right.

Yeah. I can only think of one song that's Michigan. although Bob Seger's songs are all about Michigan. Right. But where it's actually said, which is the wreck of the Edmonds Fitzgerald. Michigan seems like a young man's dream. It's aisles and it's bazaar for a sportsman. Sufjan has a whole album. Sufjan Stevens.

Stevens. I like Sufjan Stevens. Greetings from Michigan. Oh. Oh, that's cool. Well, I have Chattahoochee. There's lots of songs about the Chattahoochee. Oh, the Hoochee way down, yeah? Yeah.

You love that one. Remember when we were in Georgia? I listened to it nonstop. When we were in Georgia? Yeah, when you were very first babysitting. Oh, God. Yeah. I don't remember that.

Oh. I mean, I remember babysitting, but I don't remember you listening to the song. I don't think we didn't know each other that well then. That was the first kind of clue that you were very special, which was the date lines. Oh, I cataloged. You cataloged all the date lines. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, okay. I'm sure it was trying to impress you.

It worked. As we sit here, it worked. Yeah, well, there's so many and you need to know which, because you only like certain ones. I really need Keith Morrison involved. You do. I love him so much. He's a friend of the pod. I mean, he's, people often ask this.

They do? Okay. Yeah. Stay tuned if you dare. It's Keith Morrison. That's right. Of Dateline fame. Oh, Pew. Not Florence, but Pew Research.

Party affiliation among college graduates by state. Party affiliation. Of college students. Because I think you guys had said 20% of current students are conservative. Right. Does anyone want to pick a state? Connecticut. 34% are Republican or lean Republican. Oh, of the, not the college graduate.

Yeah, among college graduates by state. That data is for people who live in Connecticut who graduated from college. Oh, yeah, that's true. And they're adults, and adults slowly become Republican as a curve. So it's really the campuses is what's vital for that conversation. Okay, let's see. Let's add on campus.

Or college students. College students didn't work. Among Gen Z, so this is in 2020. Great. Among Gen Z, the breakdown is 42% liberal and 19% conservative. You said 20. 19%. And then the current number of homeless people in LA.

And this is as of June 2023, 75,518. That is like a very good sizedsized city all over the country. I know. Anyway, well, I thought it was a great episode. Me too. I loved it. And I think he's a wonderful human being. And that's it.

Um, I love you. Love you.