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Biden-Powell Duo’s Macro Policy Revolution · Trumponomics

0:06
Speaker 1: Madam Speaker, the President of the United States. Thank you,
0:15
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, bring me back. Hello, and welcome
0:28
Speaker 1: to Stephanomics, the podcast that brings the global economy to you.
0:31
Speaker 1: And what we heard after that confirmed that President Joe
0:34
Speaker 1: Biden wants to turn the page on four decades of
0:37
Speaker 1: US tax cuts and talk of shrinking government with a
0:40
Speaker 1: call for not just more government, but higher taxes to
0:43
Speaker 1: pay for it. He celebrated his first hundred days in
0:46
Speaker 1: office this week with yet another massive spending package, this
0:49
Speaker 1: one squarely aimed at taxing the rich to give money
0:52
Speaker 1: to everyone else. Or told, he's proposed nearly six trillion
0:56
Speaker 1: dollars in new spending since taking office, paid for by
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Speaker 1: at least four trillion dollars worth of higher tax revenues
1:03
Speaker 1: now as it happens. The US central Bank, the Federal Reserve,
1:06
Speaker 1: also met this week to consider its next move. Its
1:10
Speaker 1: policymakers looked at the ocean of new government spending coming
1:13
Speaker 1: down the track, the booming stock market, and the rapidly
1:17
Speaker 1: recovering US economy, and decided interest rate should stay at
1:21
Speaker 1: rock bottom and that the bank should continue to push
1:24
Speaker 1: money into the economy at a rate of a hundred
1:26
Speaker 1: and twenty billion dollars a month. All in all, it
1:30
Speaker 1: seemed like a good time to consider whether we really
1:32
Speaker 1: are seeing a revolution in US economic policy under the
1:36
Speaker 1: man that Donald Trump used to call Sleepy Joe. A
1:39
Speaker 1: little later, will also hear why Americans rich and Paul
1:43
Speaker 1: are retiring earlier these days thanks to the pandemic. And
1:47
Speaker 1: that's the opposite of what we were told was going
1:49
Speaker 1: to happen with the population aging and most of us
1:52
Speaker 1: expecting to work a lot longer. But first, let's have
1:56
Speaker 1: that talk about Biden's first hundred days and there's big
2:00
Speaker 1: new plan for American families with two of Bloomberg's smartest
2:03
Speaker 1: analyst of US economic policy, Federal Reserve reporter Rich Miller
2:08
Speaker 1: and White House reporter Nancy Cook. Rich Nancy, thank you
2:18
Speaker 1: very much for doing this in what I know has
2:20
Speaker 1: been a very busy week. Nancy, maybe just kicking off
2:24
Speaker 1: with you, can I ask you quickly just to tell
2:26
Speaker 1: me about the plan for American families and how it
2:30
Speaker 1: fits in with the president's other massive spending plans since
2:34
Speaker 1: becoming president. Well, Stephanie, I think that's the key operative word,
2:37
Speaker 1: massive spending plans. This latest bill that he's talking about
2:42
Speaker 1: is a one point eight trillion dollar plan that includes
2:45
Speaker 1: one trillion dollars of government spending and another eight hundred
2:49
Speaker 1: billion dollars and tax cuts and credits for families. It's
2:53
Speaker 1: a very sweeping plan that would try to expand preschool access,
2:58
Speaker 1: access to community car college, set up a national paid
3:01
Speaker 1: family leave program, expand and extend the child tax credit
3:06
Speaker 1: through It's really a liberals wish list. And it comes
3:11
Speaker 1: on top of the other two major plans that Biden
3:14
Speaker 1: has proposed, the one point nine trillion dollar COVID relief bill,
3:18
Speaker 1: which has past Congress, and then the infrastructure package, which
3:22
Speaker 1: is two point to five trillion dollars, which Congress hasn't
3:25
Speaker 1: even taken up yet. So basically, he is proposing about
3:28
Speaker 1: six trillion dollars in spending um in a very short period.
3:33
Speaker 1: And if you add and as you suggest, you know,
3:35
Speaker 1: if you add the one point I tried in for
3:36
Speaker 1: this package, and then about to each for the short
3:40
Speaker 1: term stimulus and infrastructure, I mean you're talking real money.
3:45
Speaker 1: I mean rich is it? Is it remotely realistic that
3:49
Speaker 1: all of that spending is really going to come through?
3:52
Speaker 1: I mean, where are the deficit hawks that we used
3:55
Speaker 1: to hear from. Well, first of all, you got to
3:57
Speaker 1: remember the different time frame from these bills. The first
4:00
Speaker 1: one that Nancy was referring to is, you know, getting
4:03
Speaker 1: going to get spent very quickly. We already have, you know,
4:05
Speaker 1: the checks are in people's bank accounts and are being
4:09
Speaker 1: spent the judging by what we've seen with the trade
4:12
Speaker 1: deficit shooting up. Um. But the other other two packages
4:18
Speaker 1: are more longer term. The first one, the infrastructure one,
4:21
Speaker 1: is more of an eight year plan and the families
4:24
Speaker 1: one is more of a ten year plan. So it's
4:26
Speaker 1: not all coming all at once. And as far as
4:29
Speaker 1: the deficit hawks, um, you can't see them in the markets. Uh.
4:33
Speaker 1: The treasury yields went up a little bit, but now
4:36
Speaker 1: I've come back down. You can't really. I mean, the
4:38
Speaker 1: Republicans are grousing a little bit about this, but with
4:42
Speaker 1: interest costs so low, Treasury Secretary Janet and Yellen is saying,
4:47
Speaker 1: now is the time to go big and we don't
4:49
Speaker 1: have to worry about the deficits. Well, and it's interesting
4:52
Speaker 1: you say that. I mean, philosophically, we are that we
4:57
Speaker 1: remember that the Volca Reagan paradigm we had in the eighties.
5:02
Speaker 1: You know, not only the sort of tax cuts, small
5:05
Speaker 1: small government philosophy of Ronald Reagan, but also Paul Veoker
5:10
Speaker 1: coming in as a very muscular anti inflation central bank governor,
5:16
Speaker 1: and the two of them kind of defined an era
5:20
Speaker 1: for you. I guess Richard would be fair to say,
5:22
Speaker 1: you don't quite go back to the Vulcar fed but
5:24
Speaker 1: you certainly have. You've been around the block for for
5:29
Speaker 1: a while. You know this is this is It is
5:32
Speaker 1: not overstating it to say this is overturning a very
5:35
Speaker 1: long time paradigm, but not just the role of the
5:39
Speaker 1: government but also the central bank. Yeah, I think, I mean,
5:42
Speaker 1: I think it's right Vulcar and and Reagan together. You know,
5:48
Speaker 1: there was a tremendous change in in the way in
5:52
Speaker 1: the economy went from the government to the markets. The
5:58
Speaker 1: emphasis was on efficiency not equality, and and the power
6:03
Speaker 1: also went from a labor to the owners at capital.
6:06
Speaker 1: And it was monetary policy that was premier, not fiscal policy.
6:09
Speaker 1: And all of that we're seeing, you know, turned on
6:12
Speaker 1: its head. You know, Volker wanted to get inflation down,
6:15
Speaker 1: power wants to get inflation up. I mean, and Nancy,
6:19
Speaker 1: we just heard there about raising efficiency. If you look
6:23
Speaker 1: at these packages together, particularly, I guess the Infrastructure and
6:26
Speaker 1: the Families Act, you know how much of it is
6:29
Speaker 1: about raising the growth rate, making the economy stronger, and
6:35
Speaker 1: how much is just classic redistributive big government. I think
6:41
Speaker 1: that the first plan, the COVID Relief Plan, was really
6:44
Speaker 1: about raising the growth rate and making sure that the
6:47
Speaker 1: economy could crawl out of the whole from COVID nineteen.
6:51
Speaker 1: I think these next two packages, the Family's Plan and
6:54
Speaker 1: the Infrastructure Plan, are really huge government programs that are
6:59
Speaker 1: trying to reshape, ape and re orient the economy in
7:01
Speaker 1: a completely different way. They're trying to redistribute some of
7:05
Speaker 1: the wealth that we saw, you know, rich people gain
7:08
Speaker 1: during the pandemic. They are trying to give money to
7:14
Speaker 1: communities like African American communities that have typically had more
7:18
Speaker 1: of a wealth gap. They're trying to create new jobs
7:21
Speaker 1: in clean energy, raise the wages of workers for things
7:25
Speaker 1: like home health care aids and childcare workers. And so
7:28
Speaker 1: it really is a massive government program to try to
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Speaker 1: reshape the economy for what the Biden White House argues
7:35
Speaker 1: is sort of the things we need to do to
7:37
Speaker 1: prepare for climate change and to make sure that there's
7:40
Speaker 1: a stable middle class. Of course, Republicans are very against
7:43
Speaker 1: these ideas, and the two parties are interestingly sort of
7:47
Speaker 1: going back to their most extreme positions, where you know,
7:51
Speaker 1: Democrats are really proposing some of the most sweeping redistributive
7:55
Speaker 1: policies that we've seen in decades, whereas Republicans are going
7:58
Speaker 1: back to many of their all arguments, not about the deficit,
8:01
Speaker 1: as you and Rich have talked about, but about the
8:03
Speaker 1: need for small government, um, you know, keeping tax cuts
8:07
Speaker 1: in place. Um. It just shows how polarized the politics
8:10
Speaker 1: are on the future of the economy, but about the
8:13
Speaker 1: politics of this though. I noticed with the infrastructure Bill
8:16
Speaker 1: that you know, a lot of it's paid for in
8:19
Speaker 1: theory by raising taxes on companies and business, and that
8:25
Speaker 1: seemed to be quite popular with the broader public. Is
8:29
Speaker 1: this can the same be said of some of these
8:31
Speaker 1: efforts to increase taxes on the very wealthy. If you're
8:35
Speaker 1: just fixing on how much people can inherit who are
8:40
Speaker 1: in the really the highest bit of the income scale
8:43
Speaker 1: and sort of closing loopholes for the super wealthy, I mean,
8:48
Speaker 1: isn't that quite politically popular? That's also politically popular? There
8:52
Speaker 1: has been a raft of polling done in the last
8:55
Speaker 1: several months that show that, you know, raising taxes on
8:58
Speaker 1: rich people, raising taxes on capital gains, these are things
9:02
Speaker 1: that gains so much political traction during the presidential campaign.
9:07
Speaker 1: And one thing that the Biden White House really has
9:09
Speaker 1: going for them is they are proposing dramatic chat tax changes,
9:12
Speaker 1: but those tax changes are not as dramatic as the
9:16
Speaker 1: ideas that let's say, Senator Elizabeth Warren put out during
9:19
Speaker 1: the campaign or Senator Bernie Sanders. And the White House
9:22
Speaker 1: feels like they do have some political cover because they
9:25
Speaker 1: can say to more moderate Democrats and Republicans, look, we're
9:29
Speaker 1: not going as far as some wings of the party wanted.
9:33
Speaker 1: And they're trying to make the argument that wealthy people
9:36
Speaker 1: gain so much during the pandemic, you know it's time
9:38
Speaker 1: to make them pay their fair share. How much of
9:41
Speaker 1: this actually has any chance of becoming law, Well, I
9:44
Speaker 1: think that that's the key question. People that I talked
9:46
Speaker 1: to think that these two bills are huge, and uh
9:50
Speaker 1: they're they're such big asks of Congress. Most people I
9:53
Speaker 1: speak to think that ultimately these two packages will be
9:56
Speaker 1: condensed into one package, and a lot of the things
9:59
Speaker 1: will be taken out, particularly things from the American Family's Plan,
10:03
Speaker 1: like potentially the paid leave aspect or um you know,
10:07
Speaker 1: universal preschool. I think the there's a lot of bipartisan
10:11
Speaker 1: interest in doing things like infrastructure, rebuilding roads and bridges
10:15
Speaker 1: in the US and spending money that way. I think
10:18
Speaker 1: some of the components of the Family's Plan or will
10:20
Speaker 1: be a much tougher left politically and rich. Just thinking
10:24
Speaker 1: about the economics of this, I mean, there's some bits
10:26
Speaker 1: of the US tax code which to outsiders seem extraordinary.
10:32
Speaker 1: I mean, the fact that when people die, when you know,
10:36
Speaker 1: someone very rich dies and there as inherit, you know,
10:40
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars, all of the capital gains
10:43
Speaker 1: or those get kind of counted in the inheritance and
10:47
Speaker 1: you can sort of start scratch if you're the person
10:50
Speaker 1: inheriting it. The fact that people would just never pay
10:52
Speaker 1: any tax on any of that or those capital gains
10:55
Speaker 1: seems crazy to outsiders, even countries that have relatively lower
10:58
Speaker 1: tax rates. I mean, do there is an economic case
11:01
Speaker 1: for some of these changes? Oh, there's definitely an economic
11:06
Speaker 1: case for some some of these changes. Um, not so
11:09
Speaker 1: much on the inheritance tax, which of course, the Republicans
11:11
Speaker 1: tried to rebrand as the death tax, and and actually
11:14
Speaker 1: probably succeeded in doing But on some of the change changes,
11:18
Speaker 1: like increasing educational opportunities, expanding childcare, all of that is
11:23
Speaker 1: aimed at both increasing the size of the labor force
11:27
Speaker 1: but also increasing the skills of the labor force, and
11:31
Speaker 1: that's aimed at lifting this sort of long term potential
11:34
Speaker 1: growth rate economy. Likewise, with the public infrastructure, it's it's
11:38
Speaker 1: you know, improving roads, improving broadband so that you improve
11:42
Speaker 1: productivity and therefore improve the potential growth rate accounty. So
11:46
Speaker 1: while Nancy was right in saying, you know, a lot
11:49
Speaker 1: of this focus is on redistribution, there is an argument
11:52
Speaker 1: they're making, sort of a little more sot voce that
11:55
Speaker 1: this is going to lift the long term potential growth
11:58
Speaker 1: rate of the economy. And you have Janet Yelling there,
12:09
Speaker 1: who was at the FED and is now Treasury Secretary.
12:13
Speaker 1: Um she used to have to worry about inflation in theory.
12:17
Speaker 1: The Treasury Secretary doesn't worry so much about inflation. But
12:21
Speaker 1: this this surely has to be a concern if you're
12:23
Speaker 1: looking at all of that spending and borrowing going down
12:26
Speaker 1: the track Rich. Yeah. I mean the White House has
12:29
Speaker 1: has gone out of its way to make clear that
12:32
Speaker 1: that this is something they're watching very very carefully. The
12:35
Speaker 1: the Council and Economic Advisors took the unusual step of
12:39
Speaker 1: putting out a blog sort of post, sort of taking
12:42
Speaker 1: apart the the arguments of people like Larry Summers are
12:46
Speaker 1: about inflation. But I think in the end, you know,
12:50
Speaker 1: if we do get inflation, Janet Yellen recognizes as a
12:53
Speaker 1: former FED it's going to be up to the Fed
12:56
Speaker 1: to control it. Fiscal policy is not nimble enough, and
13:00
Speaker 1: and all these fiscal depending on how much it gets done,
13:03
Speaker 1: all these fiscal policies will be in train, all the
13:05
Speaker 1: spending will be in train. And if we get inflation
13:08
Speaker 1: and there's there's needs to be something done about it,
13:11
Speaker 1: it's going to be the Fed and j. Powell or
13:14
Speaker 1: wherever his successor, is a job to make sure it
13:17
Speaker 1: doesn't get out of control. And we did have we
13:20
Speaker 1: had the novel backdrop for the State of the Union
13:23
Speaker 1: of two women sitting behind the President, the Leader of
13:27
Speaker 1: the House, Nancy Pelosi, and the Vice President. And you've
13:31
Speaker 1: got a lot of chairs changing at the FED in
13:34
Speaker 1: the next year or so, including the potentially the reappointment
13:38
Speaker 1: or not of J. Pow as the the chairman. Do
13:44
Speaker 1: you think do you think President Biden is going to
13:47
Speaker 1: want to make the US Central Bank look different as well,
13:50
Speaker 1: put in some different faces, maybe different color phases. Thanks
13:53
Speaker 1: for putting me on the spot set for me, um,
13:57
Speaker 1: I don't know. I did. On the one hand, it's
14:00
Speaker 1: hard to conceive of a more dubbish Central Bank chairman
14:03
Speaker 1: than we have now and J. Powell that argues for
14:07
Speaker 1: for for keeping him in place. Uh. On the other hand,
14:12
Speaker 1: there there's the big there's a progressive wring of the
14:15
Speaker 1: Democratic Party which is going to be pushing hard for
14:18
Speaker 1: someone as you say, maybe maybe you know a woman
14:21
Speaker 1: or maybe African American or so that would be the
14:24
Speaker 1: first the first black chairman of the FEN for sure,
14:28
Speaker 1: for sure. And while Powell has you know, probably more
14:32
Speaker 1: than exceeded Democrats wishes when it comes to monetary policy,
14:35
Speaker 1: he's been he's been more friendly, I would say, to
14:40
Speaker 1: some changes on the loosening the regulations on the banks.
14:45
Speaker 1: And you know, you have people like Senator Elizabeth Warren
14:48
Speaker 1: who really want to keep their thumbs on the banks
14:50
Speaker 1: and maybe do even more and attack private equity, etcetera.
14:54
Speaker 1: So that when I'd argue to for replacing him, But
14:56
Speaker 1: I mean, it's probably gonna be come down to a
14:58
Speaker 1: decision later this year. If the economy is going swimmingly
15:01
Speaker 1: well as a lot of people expect, it might be
15:04
Speaker 1: easier to replace him. So just stepping back. Finally, you know,
15:07
Speaker 1: we always focus, rightly or wrongly on the first hundred
15:10
Speaker 1: days relative to your expectations. You've both been in Washington
15:16
Speaker 1: a long time. How would how would you rate President
15:20
Speaker 1: Biden's first first hundred days. You certainly spend a lot
15:23
Speaker 1: of money, or try to spend a lot of money,
15:24
Speaker 1: but any surprises, Nancy, I think that his first one
15:29
Speaker 1: hundred days have gone well. I think that even his
15:31
Speaker 1: critics would say that that they have gone well because
15:35
Speaker 1: he basically did two of the key things that he
15:37
Speaker 1: needed to do, which is, um, you know, inject a
15:39
Speaker 1: bunch of money into the economy to try to improve growth,
15:43
Speaker 1: to try to improve unemployment, to make sure that you know,
15:45
Speaker 1: families have stable financial footing. And then he's done a
15:49
Speaker 1: good job. He and his team have done a good
15:50
Speaker 1: job of getting the pandemic under control, ramping up the
15:53
Speaker 1: vaccine nation rate, and so the first one hundred days
15:56
Speaker 1: have really been dealing with these crises. I think what
15:59
Speaker 1: has a prize me and many other political reporters is
16:02
Speaker 1: just how progressive and revolutionary his agenda has been. President
16:08
Speaker 1: Biden has always been seen as a real centrist, a
16:12
Speaker 1: creature of the Senate, and institutionalist. He did not run
16:16
Speaker 1: a campaign that anyone saw as hugely progressive, that all
16:21
Speaker 1: that attention went to Senator Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders.
16:24
Speaker 1: And yet once he has gotten into the White House,
16:27
Speaker 1: he has pursued policies that have shocked progressives and delighted them.
16:32
Speaker 1: And it's just much more of an ambitious, sweeping agenda
16:36
Speaker 1: in line with really the most progressive wing of the
16:40
Speaker 1: party then I think Democrats thought was possible just before
16:44
Speaker 1: we get to rich. I just wanted it is interesting
16:46
Speaker 1: that and that's obviously it's been striking to a lot
16:48
Speaker 1: of people. I guess that you could argue that if
16:52
Speaker 1: it's not going to if most of it's not going
16:54
Speaker 1: to get past in this Senate, that this is you
16:58
Speaker 1: know that he's not he doesn't really believe this, and
17:00
Speaker 1: this is all gesturing, this is all just sort of
17:03
Speaker 1: getting the left off his back. I think that that
17:06
Speaker 1: is there's some truth to that. With the American Family's Plan,
17:09
Speaker 1: this most recent plan, I don't think that I've been
17:12
Speaker 1: told that his heart is not as in this plan
17:15
Speaker 1: as it is with infrastructure. But I do think that
17:18
Speaker 1: he feels very strongly about the infrastructure package. I think
17:22
Speaker 1: that he feels very strongly that they needed to pass
17:24
Speaker 1: the one point nine trilliant dollar COVID relief plan, the
17:27
Speaker 1: Family's Plan. They unveiled the third because it is the
17:30
Speaker 1: last priority for the White House, and I think that
17:33
Speaker 1: plan is much more of one that has less support
17:37
Speaker 1: in the West wing or a bit more of a
17:39
Speaker 1: divided support among his top advisors and even from the President,
17:42
Speaker 1: and that is seen as something to get progressives office
17:45
Speaker 1: back and rich Bella, what do you think of the
17:48
Speaker 1: first hundred days and anything? Have you been surprised by
17:52
Speaker 1: by Button's radicalism or or anything else. I mean, I
17:56
Speaker 1: think I've been a bit surprised by his radicalism. But
17:59
Speaker 1: if you go back to the actual proposals that he
18:01
Speaker 1: laid out during the campaign, he is following along with
18:06
Speaker 1: many of them. I mean, if you go back and
18:09
Speaker 1: read the literature, what that was. You know, he was
18:11
Speaker 1: putting out at the time, even though he came across
18:13
Speaker 1: as as Nancy said, compared to War and and uh
18:16
Speaker 1: Sanders as a centrist, his his his proposals were pretty radical.
18:22
Speaker 1: I think maybe one thing that he might have learned
18:24
Speaker 1: from President Trump is if you promise something, try to
18:28
Speaker 1: deliver it. And I think that's what he's trying to do.
18:30
Speaker 1: And that's Uh. Whether as as you and Nancy pointed out,
18:34
Speaker 1: whether you know, especially with the second two packages, it
18:37
Speaker 1: turns out to be more aspirational than than actual, you know,
18:40
Speaker 1: remains to be seen. But I think he did. He
18:45
Speaker 1: did campaign with a pretty progressive platform. Maybe the rhetoric wasn't.
18:50
Speaker 1: The rhetoric was more I'm, you know, gonna cooperate with Republicans, etcetera.
18:55
Speaker 1: But if you if you, if you actually read the proposals,
18:57
Speaker 1: there was a hell of a lot of spending he
18:59
Speaker 1: would he was, he was putting out there interesting. Well,
19:03
Speaker 1: in a hundred days, maybe we'll come back and see
19:05
Speaker 1: how much more money he's tried to spend in the meantime.
19:08
Speaker 1: Nancy Cook, Richmond, thank you very much, Thank you, thanks
19:10
Speaker 1: so much. And now I wanted to bring you a
19:20
Speaker 1: different take on the recovery from US economy reporter Mike
19:24
Speaker 1: Sasso in Atlanta, who, together with his colleague Alex Tanzi,
19:27
Speaker 1: has been taking a look at why so many people
19:30
Speaker 1: at different ends of the US labor market are deciding
19:34
Speaker 1: one is a good time to retire. Economists speak for
19:41
Speaker 1: K shaped recovery in the United States, so named because
19:45
Speaker 1: many Americans with office jobs fared well during the COVID
19:48
Speaker 1: nineteen recession, and their fates resembled the upward slope of
19:52
Speaker 1: the letter K. Many others in the travel and restaurant
19:56
Speaker 1: industries have faired poorly, though, and occupy the downward slope
20:00
Speaker 1: that same dynamic as occurring in retirement. The pandemic has
20:04
Speaker 1: sparked a retirement russia sorts in the US, at least
20:08
Speaker 1: among those fortunate enough to have built up their savings
20:11
Speaker 1: and investments. A soaring stock market has boosted their retirement accounts,
20:16
Speaker 1: while the pandemic caused many to reevaluate their priorities in life.
20:20
Speaker 1: In Massachusetts, Melissa Martini put away her business outfits for
20:24
Speaker 1: good at the end of March. She's retiring five years
20:28
Speaker 1: earlier than she expected from her job as an administrator
20:31
Speaker 1: for the agency that oversees the Massachusetts Parks. I'm fifty
20:37
Speaker 1: eight right now, and I had it not been for
20:42
Speaker 1: the stresses of the pandemic and the cuts and my staff,
20:45
Speaker 1: I probably would have stayed in my position another five years.
20:48
Speaker 1: But I was looking at retiring, probably at sixty two
20:52
Speaker 1: or sixty three. I've seen so many people who have
20:56
Speaker 1: decided to wait too long to retire. And you know,
21:01
Speaker 1: many of my colleagues or older family members, and they
21:07
Speaker 1: get one year of retirement and then they get sick
21:09
Speaker 1: and they pass on, and it's just I don't want
21:13
Speaker 1: that for myself. Traditionally, Americans have waited to retire until
21:16
Speaker 1: they at least reached their mid sixties. That's when most
21:19
Speaker 1: are eligible for full retirement benefits from the Social Security Administration.
21:24
Speaker 1: The pandemic, however, has upended that thinking for the fortunate ones.
21:29
Speaker 1: After the global financial crisis of two thousand seven, the
21:32
Speaker 1: US stock market took more than five years to recover
21:35
Speaker 1: its losses. In this pandemic recession, it took only seven months.
21:40
Speaker 1: Many are getting out while it's getting still good. While
21:44
Speaker 1: the pandemic caused some Americans to delay applying for their
21:47
Speaker 1: Social Security retirement benefits, overall, it cost a net increase
21:52
Speaker 1: of one point seven million applications, according to the US
21:55
Speaker 1: Census Bureau. Some of those people retired willingly. Others lost
21:59
Speaker 1: their jobs and see little hope of getting a new one.
22:02
Speaker 1: Martini chose to retire after the state in Massachusetts kept
22:06
Speaker 1: cutting her subordinates during the pandemic, leaving her with too
22:09
Speaker 1: much work into little time. It's just there's too much stress,
22:15
Speaker 1: too much responsibility to UM to really handle without the resources.
22:21
Speaker 1: So my husband and I looked at our investments and
22:23
Speaker 1: our finances and UM, and we decided, you know what,
22:28
Speaker 1: I can survive on my state pension of my pay
22:32
Speaker 1: for the rest of my life because our investments were
22:36
Speaker 1: such that we could afford for me to do that.
22:39
Speaker 1: Six years ago, she and her husband bought a forty
22:42
Speaker 1: two foot sailboat. He's also retiring early, and they plan
22:46
Speaker 1: to put it to good use. And UM, we're hoping
22:50
Speaker 1: that at some point in the future, when we're not
22:53
Speaker 1: worried about aging parents, UM, we won't be able to
22:56
Speaker 1: sail to the Caribbean in the intertime and live on
22:59
Speaker 1: the boat or females a venture in the Virgin Islands.
23:03
Speaker 1: Probably to be sure, economists will spend years researching this
23:07
Speaker 1: most unusual recession and its case shaped recovery. While some
23:11
Speaker 1: recent national surveys suggest people are retiring early, others are
23:15
Speaker 1: being left behind. A recent survey from the Employee Benefits
23:19
Speaker 1: Research Institute suggests the pandemic in net terms, prompted more
23:24
Speaker 1: US workers to delay retirement than to speed it up.
23:28
Speaker 1: It's cited job losses in other stresses. Ultimately, the pandemic
23:33
Speaker 1: helps to shed more light on the gap between America's
23:36
Speaker 1: haves and its have not. So I'm delighted to talk
23:48
Speaker 1: now to Alex Tanzi, a senior editor for the Real
23:50
Speaker 1: Economy Team in Washington who worked with Mike pulling together
23:55
Speaker 1: some data to go with the story, but has also
23:57
Speaker 1: been thinking about broader quest of generational inequality. We tend
24:04
Speaker 1: to think that the last few years have not been
24:08
Speaker 1: great to young people relative too old, and it was
24:11
Speaker 1: sort of symbolized in that piece by the fact that
24:15
Speaker 1: you have older Americans actually able to retire sooner than
24:19
Speaker 1: they thought because of how well the stock market has done. Alex,
24:24
Speaker 1: do you have a sense that the pandemic has worsened
24:29
Speaker 1: generational inequality? The pandemic is um across the board, has
24:35
Speaker 1: created this case shaped recovery. So there's millennials and younger
24:40
Speaker 1: people that are doing exceptionally well, people that had a
24:44
Speaker 1: job and kept their job. Um. But at the same time,
24:48
Speaker 1: many people on that age cohort you know, I had
24:52
Speaker 1: service sector jobs and lost their jobs. So it's it's
24:55
Speaker 1: a it's a mixed picture. Um, it's very nuanced. But
24:59
Speaker 1: you did you did find some interesting data that suggested
25:02
Speaker 1: that the wealth gap might even be closing in some
25:05
Speaker 1: parts of the labor market. That's right. So the St.
25:09
Speaker 1: Louis Federal Reserve did the report, and they're showing that
25:12
Speaker 1: the the wealth gap for millennials is getting a little
25:17
Speaker 1: bit better. At one point they were calling it the
25:19
Speaker 1: Lost generation, but now they're showing that Um, while they're
25:23
Speaker 1: still less wealthy than they were expected to be at
25:27
Speaker 1: this age, they're closing the gap. And the oldest millennials
25:31
Speaker 1: are you know, they're approaching forty, so they're not exactly, um,
25:36
Speaker 1: super young anymore, but they are gaining wealth and they
25:40
Speaker 1: are um purchasing real estate, and the real estate markets
25:44
Speaker 1: don't exceptionally well in the US this year, so they
25:47
Speaker 1: have received equity gains and their real estate holdings and also, um,
25:53
Speaker 1: the stock market obviously has done um quite well. If
25:57
Speaker 1: I analyze the last three quarters of twenty twenty, people
26:01
Speaker 1: under the age of forty saw their biggest wealth gained
26:04
Speaker 1: ever of any cohort at any time. So they had
26:09
Speaker 1: a sevent annualized increase in the last three quarters, which
26:14
Speaker 1: um it was better than any other group has done
26:16
Speaker 1: it any other time. Just sort of thing through the
26:19
Speaker 1: logic of that, because obviously, if they have less money,
26:21
Speaker 1: it's more that they were they were able to have
26:23
Speaker 1: the biggest percentage increase. But in absolute terms, the older
26:28
Speaker 1: generations are still really the ones who are sitting on
26:31
Speaker 1: a big chunk of the wealth. Surely that's a that's
26:34
Speaker 1: exactly right. Millennials did see their assets well to over
26:38
Speaker 1: ten trillion dollars, but at the same time, you know,
26:43
Speaker 1: for example, of baby boomers have seven times that much.
26:47
Speaker 1: So millennials also hold quite a bit of debt, and
26:50
Speaker 1: the type of debt they hold isn't exactly the so
26:54
Speaker 1: called good debt. They are purchasing more real estate, which
26:57
Speaker 1: you know, what's good debt. Remind me what good is?
27:00
Speaker 1: Usually it's mortgage. Debt is considered good because it's appreciating
27:04
Speaker 1: asset most of the time. But millennials tend to hold
27:08
Speaker 1: quite a bit of consumer debt, which is credit card debt.
27:11
Speaker 1: So for example, UM, you know, like I just mentioned,
27:14
Speaker 1: baby boomers have seven times the assets as millennials, but
27:18
Speaker 1: baby boomers have less debt. So millennials have more debt
27:23
Speaker 1: than baby boomers. And you know, one type of that
27:27
Speaker 1: debt that's been making the news quite a bit is
27:29
Speaker 1: student loans, which is just um gone up by astronomical
27:34
Speaker 1: amounts in the last decade or so. And we've were
27:38
Speaker 1: earlier in the program, we've been touching on the potential
27:42
Speaker 1: for inflation. UM, if you're if there's a younger generation,
27:47
Speaker 1: as you point out, the younger generation isn't necessarily millennials anymore,
27:50
Speaker 1: but it's below younger than that, UM that's sitting on
27:53
Speaker 1: a lot of debt which is not tied to rising assets. Um,
28:00
Speaker 1: what does what does inflation mean for them? I mean,
28:03
Speaker 1: we tend to think that inflation is not so bad
28:05
Speaker 1: for debt is because it sort of inflates away the
28:07
Speaker 1: value of the debt. But I guess they'd also be
28:09
Speaker 1: paying higher interest rates, definitely be paying higher interest rates,
28:14
Speaker 1: and that's probably one of the biggest reasons for pessimism
28:18
Speaker 1: because wage gains really haven't been there. So if the
28:22
Speaker 1: other side of the the coin starts to increase a lot,
28:24
Speaker 1: if their debt payments are debt service costs increases rapidly,
28:29
Speaker 1: it's gonna put quite a bind on their disposable income.
28:34
Speaker 1: One problem, you know, in the past, people have always said,
28:38
Speaker 1: you know, a college education is needed and you can't
28:42
Speaker 1: really succeed without it. But at the same time, more
28:46
Speaker 1: and more people are receiving a degree, so that the
28:51
Speaker 1: value of a college degree is going down while the
28:54
Speaker 1: prices are going up. So they've gone into quite a
28:57
Speaker 1: bit of debt to acquire a college to agreed that
29:00
Speaker 1: appreciates and value. Well, it's one of those things that
29:04
Speaker 1: raises the stakes if and when interest rates do go up,
29:09
Speaker 1: because you're going to have this very disparate effects on
29:11
Speaker 1: different bits of the population. Alex Tangi, that's fascinating. Thank
29:14
Speaker 1: you very much, Thank you very much. So that's it
29:25
Speaker 1: for this episode of Stephanomics. I'll be back next week
29:27
Speaker 1: with more from around the world. In the meantime, please
29:30
Speaker 1: if you can take the time to rate the show,
29:32
Speaker 1: it would help us broaden our reach. For more news
29:35
Speaker 1: and analysis from Bloomberg Economics during the week, follow as
29:39
Speaker 1: Economics on Twitter. This episode was produced, as ever by
29:43
Speaker 1: Magnus Hendrickson, with special thanks to Mike Sasso, Alex Tanzy,
29:47
Speaker 1: Rich Miller, and Nancy Cook. Lucy Meekin is the executive
29:51
Speaker 1: producer of Stephanomics and the head of Bloomberg Podcast This,
29:54
Speaker 1: Francesca Levi