If you subscribe to The Elysian, you know I’m an optimist, but Kathryn is far more optimistic than I am that the United States will manage to become a social democracy in the near future. I hope she’s right!
A quick tour of her work for the uninitiated: One of my favorite articles is: “What MLMs and Stay-at-Home Moms Reveal About the U.S. Labor Market"
“There is a hole in the U.S. labor market; there aren’t enough opportunities for part-time work outside of the low-paid portion of the service sector… So women who are home with the children, create a part-time flexible job for themselves working for MLMs, or today as influencers in the popular tradwife vertical.”
She says other developed countries have better access to part-time work. “Both part-time access and part-time protection are associated with large jumps in women working. On average, 25% of women in other industrialized countries work part-time, compared to about 13% in the U.S.”
Other developed countries also provide maternal leave, subsidized childcare, healthcare, and other socialized benefits that in America we’d have to work full-time to be eligible for.
“Women in the U.S. are less likely to have jobs, but if they do, they are more likely to be working full-time than women in Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand. There are cultural differences between the U.S. and these other nations, but the public policy comparisons are much more clear cut: Those countries have paid family leave and highly subsidized child care.”
I also love her sister article (with a sassy title!): “Marry Rich: That's the Republican Plan for Moms”
She says that because public policy in the US doesn’t support mothers, our policy plan is for them to stay home.
The problem: Most moms stay home and it hurts them economically
Some moms stay at home because they can, but that’s because their husbands are wealthy enough for them to do so.
Her plan: “The one alternative to having a husband provide enough cash to stay at home would be for the government to do it — to pay moms for the work of raising kids.”
One of my favorite things about Kathryn’s work is that she is an economist, so she does all of the things economists usually do like look at a bunch of stats and charts and use those to tell us about the economy. But she also zooms out to the larger picture to see the things those “up close” charts don’t cover.
For instance: “A tale of two labor markets”
She says, yes the economy is doing great. Unemployment is low. Everyone who wants a job has one. BUT hiring is going down, which means no one is hiring for new positions. If a bunch of companies start laying people off, they might not be able to get new ones. THEN we’d be in a recession.
On TikTok, she answered the question “Would I work for the department of government efficiency?” with both a sassy take and an earnest take:
Sassy take: “No, I would get the contract in writing and then report it to the department of labor because it violates labor laws,”
Earnest take: “No, because the problem isn’t federal departments, it’s congressional productivity.”
Kathryn also tackles questions that are very human: “If poor people are so poor that they need a government benefit, then why do they have a nice car?”
She breaks down poverty, explaining how it’s not something we are born into and stay in our whole life, but something most people dip into for short periods of time, maybe for a couple months or a year or two. They might have had a good job and a good car, but then they lose their job and can’t find another one even though they still have the same car and house.
Kathryn is famous for her lapel microphone clipped to a pencil, and she answers economic questions in one take. It’s the kind of thing you think wouldn’t be popular on TikTok, and yet they really really are. And with good reason.
I hope you enjoy our discussion!
Share this post