In this episode, Jadrian wanted to know about Matt’s favorite topic to teach students. Much to Jadrian’s surprise, Matt landed on: poverty, inequality, and discrimination. These topics are serious - and often terrible - but the economic insights are fascinating. We talk about all the weird ways that the U.S. measures poverty and how it becomes tough talk to about poverty and solutions to poverty. We look at what economists mean when they talk about discrimination, and we can discuss the types of discrimination markets should eliminate.
In this episode, we discuss:
How the US government defines income and poverty
What is meant by economic discrimination
How markets help combat economic discrimination
Some thoughts on economic inequality
Pop culture references
And much more!
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Some show notes:
Jadrian continues his quest to only drink Virginia-based beers. This time around it was an Ardent IPA by Ardent Craft Ales. Matt grabbed a beer from a nearby local brewery: a Carabiner from New Trailing Brewing Co. in Williamsport, PA.
Matt’s Principles of Microeconomics course at Susquehanna is a 4-credit course instead of a traditional 3-credit course. It means he gets an extra day each week to cover interesting topics, like poverty, discrimination, and inequality.
Curious about those income thresholds that are used to determine poverty in the United States? Check out these tables from the Department of Health and Human Services.
This week’s pop culture references:
Jadrian’s pop culture references come from a Buzzfeed video (yes, that Buzzfeed) looking at hiring discrimination. They didn’t realize it when they posted it, but they were summarizing how economists use resume studies to measure discrimination:
Matt opted for a Star Wars reference because of his work on the Economics of Star Wars website with Ben Smith, Bailey Hackenberry, and now Brian O’Roark. In Mandalorian, there’s an episode related to droid discrimination wherein Mando pays extra for a human driver.
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#11: Poverty, Inequality, and Discrimination