From California to Washington to New York, states are trying to tax the very rich. The press keeps rehashing whether millionaires and billionaires will flee those states. Wrong question. The more important one is why we’re improvising tax policy state to state when it’s the federal government that should be dealing with health care, child care and affordability—all of which are national problems. Meanwhile, some Senate Democrats are proposing to take even more people out of the tax system entirely. None of these specific proposals make income taxes simpler or fairer, but they do suggest there’s an appetite for reform.

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Chapters:

00:01:18 Announcements

00:02:33 Retcon: Occupational Licenses

00:06:16 Terms & Conditions: Progressive

00:07:59 Big Pilcrow: Everyone Wants to Tax Millionaires

00:38:23 Executive Orders: Unreadable Menus and Tax Complainer Merch

00:41:42 Spiritual Sponsors: Dream Robin & the Nobel Laureate’s WNBA Contract

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Got economics questions, anxieties, or executive orders? Send them to optimist.economy@gmail.com

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

Chapters:

00:00:33 Opening

00:01:45 Retcon: Trump Accounts & Career Pivots

00:07:27 Terms & Conditions: Spatial Equilibrium

00:09:55 Big Pilcrow: Does it Matter to the U.S. Economy if We Don’t Move from Place to Place?

00:39:10 Executive Orders: Frances Perkins miniseries; Sleep Shaming; Election Day Weekend

00:43:07 Spiritual Sponsors: The National Consumers League motto ("Investigate, Agitate, Legislate"); ACFC’s winning start

READ MORE:

The increasingly mobile US is a myth that needs to move on | Aeon Essays

Who Moves? Who Stays Put? Where’s Home? | Pew Research Center

Job Changing and the Decline in Long-Distance Migration in the United States | Demography | Duke University Press

The Economics of Internal Migration: Advances and Policy Questions

Population & Migration | Economic Research Service

Stranded! How Rising Inequality Suppressed US Migration and Hurt Those Left Behind

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• Faces visible on the Optimist Economy YouTube channel⁠⁠. We’re also on Instagram at ⁠⁠@optimist_economy or TikTok at ⁠⁠@optimist_economy.
• Where’s the party? On our Substack chat.
• Represent your optimist side: https://merch.ambientinks.com/collections/optimisteconomy
• Email your economic questions, concerns, or executive orders to optimist.economy@gmail.com

Fourteen questions. Zero softballs. Listeners from Tacoma to Montreal wrote in to ask about retirement savings, taxing capital gains, home-buyer assistance programs, corporate profits in the tariffs era, what one state employee can or cannot accomplish, and whether meaningful economic reform will arrive before Millennials drop dead. And more. The inbox did not disappoint.

00:00 Announcements

01:59 Is a retirement savings crisis brewing?

04:32 Tax credits for first-time home buyers… good idea?

08:10 What if tax breaks for capital gains only applied to new investments?

13:39 Explain the $1,700 tax credit scholarship program in OBBA?

16:23 Are institutional investors wrecking the housing market?

21:37 What quick policy moves could reverse worsening inequality?

27:32 Will meaningful reform arrive before Millennials retire?

30:56 Is a hotel tax the right way to fund a stadium?

33:05 Can I move the needle on labor policy from inside the system?

35:08 Why has the responsibility and risk for employment shifted onto workers?

37:50 Is fixing the care economy easier than we think?

40:47 Do rent caps work?

44:50 Can we prevent price gouging by companies?

47:53 If states roll out good policies, does the federal government need to do it too?

• Still have questions, concerns, or worries? Send them to optimist.economy@gmail.com
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• See our faces on the Optimist Economy YouTube channel⁠⁠.
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• We’re on Instagram at ⁠⁠@optimist_economy or TikTok at ⁠⁠@optimist_economy.

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https://merch.ambientinks.com/collections/optimisteconomy