Paid Sick Days for Lady Gaga (and Everyone Else Too)
Optimist Economy
Kathryn Anne Edwards and Robin Rauzi
4.9 • 829 Ratings
🗓️ 29 April 2025
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the category of low-hanging policy fruit, why won’t any politician pluck the ripe, juicy goodness of federally mandated paid sick leave? About 30 million American workers not only don’t get a paid day off when they have the flu, there’s no law on the books to prevent them from being fired if they call in sick. Economist Kathryn Edwards points out that research has found that the job-protection aspect alone is worth $2,000 a year to vulnerable working moms. Of course this also keeps communities healthier because who needs to be exposed to baristas with bronchitis?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | When you're talking and you hear that crackle on the line, |
| 0:02.1 | it's me opening up the cookies and eating them in front of you |
| 0:05.2 | as you tell me you have flip-flip-flat sugar. |
| 0:10.3 | So, on that note, co-host and friend. |
| 0:20.1 | Hello, and welcome to Optimist Economy. I'm Catherine. I'm Robin. |
| 0:24.2 | On this show, we believe the U.S. economy can be better, and we talk about how to get there |
| 0:28.0 | one problem and solution at a time. |
| 0:36.8 | So, it's time for retcon. |
| 0:38.3 | Katherine, do you have anything that you have been thinking about about AI and jobs since we spoke on that topic at some point in the past? |
| 0:47.3 | I was thinking back on the AI episode and I couldn't help but think that so much of what we end up talking about on the show is just this |
| 0:55.4 | myth-making and boogeyman that gets created in economic narratives that often are meant to instill |
| 1:01.9 | fear. Like you should be afraid of AI. And if someone told you, like if you went back in time |
| 1:08.0 | and dropped yourself into 1960 and someone said, listen, right |
| 1:13.7 | now computers take up an entire gym, but one day they'll just be on your desk and you need |
| 1:19.2 | to be afraid of what they're going to do. |
| 1:21.8 | It really just makes you wonder like who benefits from fear versus optimism. And I'm not saying there aren't negative consequences |
| 1:31.0 | to progress or evolution, but it's an instinct we have to lead with fear. And I don't love it. |
| 1:38.8 | I have obviously no idea what's going to happen in the future, but I know it's not great |
| 1:42.7 | when you're afraid of it. Yeah. Yeah. I was reminded about the conversation that we had because shortly after that, |
| 1:49.1 | a piece ran by Heather Long in The Washington Post, again, with one of these fairly alarmist headlines |
| 1:54.2 | saying, essentially, AI is going to kill all these jobs. It's kind of an interesting read, but it also, |
| 2:00.2 | speaking of fear, just |
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