The million-dollar starter home?
Make Me Smart
Marketplace
4.6 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 7 May 2025
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today’s episode: Marketplace’s Reema Khrais joins Kimberly to discuss two stories from opposite ends of the housing spectrum – cuts to rental assistance programs and the soaring cost of starter homes. Then, Kimberly explains yet another reason why the rest of the world is giving the U.S. major side-eye. And we’ll smile about a slimy substance that might help keep microplastics at bay and parrots connecting over Facetime.
Here’s everything we talked about today:
- “Proposed cuts to housing programs could affect millions, experts warn” from The Washington Post
- “Where starter homes cost at least $1 million” by Axios
- This Is Uncomfortable Season 11 from Marketplace
- “You Have a Message From Taiwan” by The Wall Street Journal
- “Why the Asian currency blowup matters” from Axios
- “Scientists Taught Pet Parrots to Video Call Each Other—and the Birds Loved It” from Smithsonian Magazine
- “Okra and fenugreek extracts remove most microplastics from water, finds research” on Phys.org
Got a question or comment for the hosts? Email [email protected] or leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, everyone. I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today makes sense. |
| 0:12.1 | Kai is out today. So host of Marketplaces, this is Uncomfortable podcast. Rima Christ is here with us today. Hey, Rima. |
| 0:20.2 | Hey, how's it going? |
| 0:21.6 | It's good to be back. |
| 0:22.6 | Thanks for joining us on this Wednesday, May 7th. |
| 0:25.6 | Right. So today we're going to do some news and some smiles. |
| 0:29.6 | Rima, what caught your news? What news in particular caught your eye today? |
| 0:33.6 | All right. So, um, couple things. I've been, you know, housing has been on my mind a lot lately. |
| 0:40.8 | And there are two stories in the news this week that stood out to me or rather this morning. So the first one, the Trump administration, it released its quote skinny budget proposal, right, last Friday. And one of the big headlines is a |
| 0:56.3 | it's a massive proposed cut to federal housing assistance. We're talking, it's like more than |
| 1:00.7 | $26 million. That would be slashed from programs like Section 8, which is about like a 40% |
| 1:06.7 | proposed cut. And the administration says it would want to give more control to states under this |
| 1:12.3 | proposal. So states would have a greater responsibility, but less money to design their own programs. |
| 1:18.3 | And I keep saying proposed because they're just proposed, but they would have huge impacts on |
| 1:22.1 | rental aid programs, public housing, housing for people with disabilities and for older adults. |
| 1:27.1 | According to what I read, I think, |
| 1:28.6 | in the Washington Post this morning, it would affect more than three and a half million people. |
| 1:33.5 | But, you know, again, these slashes might not actually happen because Congress has the power |
| 1:39.0 | to say, no, we're not doing this. But I do think it makes, I think it makes very clear the administration's |
| 1:46.0 | priorities when it comes to housing, right? Like, we've seen the administration already push out |
| 1:49.8 | thousands of HUD employees. It's canceled contracts that support low-income housing. It's obviously |
| 1:55.8 | spooking people in the housing industry. And, you know, we're obviously, we're dealing with a housing affordability crisis right now. |
... |
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