EconoFact Chats

Over 10 million children in the United States live in poverty. Poor children tend to have worse physical and mental health, worse educational outcomes, and lower lifetime earnings than their peers. On this episode of EconoFact Chats, University of Maryland professor Melissa Kearney joins Michael Klein to discuss the scope and causes of child poverty in the U.S., and the policy efforts to alleviate it.

As President-elect Joe Biden takes office, his administration faces challenges with little precedent in recent memory; a pandemic which shows few signs of abating, a vaccine that has been developed in record time, but has seen a slow rollout, and an economic downturn not seen since the 1930s. All of this comes at a time of deep political divisions. On this episode of EconoFact Chats Michael Klein is joined by four of the country’s leading economic journalists; Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times, Scott Horsley of NPR, Greg Ip of the Wall Street Journal, and Heather Long of the Washington Post to discuss the key economic challenges the incoming administration will have to address.

COVID-19 serves as a warning of what we are likely to face with future pandemics. What incentives can governments use to accelerate vital vaccine development and deployment? Are there differences in the incentives that would help combat something like an annual flu, and a raging pandemic? How do the benefits of vaccinations to individuals fall short of the benefits to society at large? To discuss these issues, Michael Klein interviews Michael Kremer, University Professor at the University of Chicago, and the 2019 co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Stephen O'Connell of Swarthmore College joins Michael Klein for a discussion on the impact of COVID-19 on emerging markets, focusing on trade, remittance flows, and foreign aid; as well as the potential delays developing countries face in accessing a COVID vaccine. O'Connell served as the chief economist in the United States Agency for International Development from 2014 to 2015.

Florida overwhelmingly voted to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour; and nationwide surveys suggest that two-thirds of Americans support increasing the federal minimum wage. As broad support for this policy grows, understanding who benefits from increases to the minimum wage becomes more important.

On this episode of EconoFact Chats, Michael Klein speaks with Jonathan Meer at Texas A&M University, whose research spans many areas of economics, among them, the effects of raising the minimum wage. The discussion focuses on whether minimum wage increases help low-income workers, whether they lead to job losses or reductions in other job-related benefits, and which policy options might do more to help workers at the lower end of the wage distribution.

This week on EconoFact Chats, host Michael Klein talks to Jeffrey Fuhrer about the role of the Federal Reserve in responding to crises, its recent focus on addressing inequality, and the changing nature of inflation. Fuhrer recently completed almost four decades of work in the Federal Reserve System.

Current strategies to address climate change include subsidizing clean energy production, raising minimum efficiency standards for buildings and factories, and even instituting outright bans on gasoline-powered automobiles. But another strategy, one advocated by many economists -- the carbon tax -- harnesses market forces to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

On this episode of EconoFact Chats, Tufts professor Gib Metcalf and host Michael Klein discuss what a carbon tax would look like, the bipartisan support for it, and how it could affect jobs and businesses. They also discuss broader opportunities for the new Biden administration to address climate change.

The conversation draws on Metcalf's experience in the United States Treasury, as well as his recent book Paying for Pollution: Why a Carbon Tax is Good for America.

The notion that through hard work and diligence, people can better their stations in life is at the bedrock of the American dream. But there's a growing sense that inequality is a persistent feature of this country. This week on EconoFact Chats, Michael Klein, and Harvard professor Karen Dynan discuss wealth inequality, and the policies that can help address it. They also discuss the future of social security. Karen has served as Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy and Chief Economist at the US Department of the Treasury.

Michael Klein is joined by Bill Gale, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and co-director of the Tax Policy Center, to discuss the government's large budget deficit, tax policy, and issues of redistribution. They also discuss Bill's book, "Fiscal Therapy: Curing America's Debt Addiction and Investing" in the Future.