Support for WBUR comes from MathWorks,

creator of MATLAB and Simulink software

for technical computing and model-based design.

MathWorks, accelerating the pace of discovery

in engineering and science.

Learn more at MathWorks.com.

WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

I'm Magna Chakra-Bardi, and this is the Jack Pod,

where on-point news analyst Jack Beattie helps us connect history, literature, and politics in a way that brings his unique

clarity to the world we live in now. Hello there, Jack. Hello, Megna. Okay, Jack, it's episode

86. What's your headline for this week? A bold idea to help Gen Z and mayhap save the Dems.

Hmm, okay, Jack, as a member of Gen X myself, I'm like, why does any other generation need help?

But sell me on this idea.

What is this bold idea?

Well, I'm going to get to that.

I want to have that kind of be a teaser in the middle distance.

But first, I want to establish that the Gen Z Americans

need help. And those are people born between 1997 and 2012. And they have almost some unique

economic struggles as well as accentuated versions of the economic struggles that

all Americans undergo. Let's hear the voices of some of these young Americans.

I am in debt for education. Oh my God. I didn't know there was a word for it, doom spending.

I started getting overwhelmed about, okay, how am I going to pay this off?

...