Axios Re:Cap

The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 per hour since 2009, which works out to just about $15,000 per year at 40-hour weeks. Congress is now debating an increase to $15 per hour as part of the next round of economic stimulus, but there is plenty of opposition. Dan and Axios chief financial correspondent Felix Salmon dig into the economics and politics of the federal minimum wage, on which it seems everyone has an opinion.

The most significant stock market story of 2021 isn’t Robinhood and Reddit. It’s SPACs, blank check acquisition companies used to take private companies public. Dan talks with Victoria Grace, CEO of a $300 million SPAC called Queen's Gambit Growth Capital, about how SPACs work, why there are so many of them right now and if it's a bubble.

Three quarters of America’s K-12 public schools are either closed or partially closed right now. Even if the White House manages to unstick the vaccine bottlenecks and get a new economic stimulus passed with money for in-school COVID-19 testing and HVAC updates, ultimately, schools being open or closed comes down to negotiations between local school departments and their teachers unions. 

Dan digs into negotiations, what will happen this semester once teachers have vaccination access, and what next fall could look like with American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten.

Clubhouse has become social media's newest darling, eschewing text and visuals for an audio-only experience whereby users can hear discussions on a multitude of topics, plus even the occasional 40-person Broadway musical performance. Dan goes deeper into what Clubhouse is, why it matters and where social media goes from here with Katie Stanton, an early Clubhouse investor whose resume includes time at Twitter, Google and the Obama White House.

Tampa Bay defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh will be on the field this Sunday, trying to win his Buccaneers a championship. Off the field, Suh has been quietly building a business empire that has nothing to do with sacks or touchdown dances.

Dan speaks to Suh about the trend of pro athletes forming non-sports careers well before retirement, his thoughts about the big game and his favorite NFL quarterback to hit.

Jeff Bezos this week announced plans to retire as CEO of Amazon, which he founded and helped turn into one of the world's most successful and significant companies.

Dan digs into what’s next for Bezos and for Amazon — and Bezos’ place in the innovators pantheon — with Steve Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson, a former Time Magazine editor who put Bezos on the cover in 1999 and who more recently penned the forward to a collection of Bezos’ writings.

The GameStop stock saga was mostly viewed through the lens of small retail investors finally putting one over on big hedge fund managers. Dan speaks with Ray Dalio, founder of hedge fund giant Bridgewater Associates, to get his perspective on the past week and whether it reflects a fundamental rot in the stock market and broader economy.

The House Financial Services Committee on Feb. 18 will hold a hearing titled “Game Stopped? Who Wins and Loses When Short Sellers, Social Media, and Retail Investors Collide." Among those expected to testify is Vlad Tenev, CEO of stock trading app Robinhood. Dan speaks with Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), the committee's ranking Republican, on what he hopes to learn and what legislation or regulation might follow.

American labor has long been stratified into blue collar and white collar, although the hues have never shone so brightly as they have during the pandemic. Dan digs into our changing relationship with work and what might come once things get back to “normal” with Sarah Jaffe, author of “Work Won’t Love You back.”

 Americans fortunate enough to receive vaccines right now, outside of clinical trials, are getting ones made by either Pfizer or Moderna. But newly released data from Novavax and Johnson & Johnson suggests that more vaccines could be on the way. Dan digs into the news and why it matters, especially as COVID-19 variants begin to spread, with Tom Frieden, former head of the CDC.