Labor unions’ public approval has been increasing since 2009, and is now at levels not seen since the 1960s. And yet rates of union membership have been falling. Today just 10% of U.S. workers are represented by a union, and below 6% in the private sector. What if there were a less adversarial way to get the worker-protection aspects of unions without the brutal shop-by-shop campaigns? Enter “sectoral bargaining,” where boards with worker, employer, and government representatives hash out wages and working conditions for occupational groups. Think all fast food workers, janitorial staff, or health care providers.

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The Estate Tax is one that half of Americans worry about, but that affects only the richest 0.07% after they die. For nearly 25 years, the U.S. has – through loopholes and ballooning exemptions – undercut a tax that could pay for some nice things, like maybe a children’s trust fund. If we chose to just dent more big inheritances, it’d also reduce the concentration of wealth and power. In this episode, economist Kathryn Edwards gets to go way, way back to the Gilded Age and editor Robin Rauzi still loves a tax story, so the topic is a win-win as far as we are concerned.

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Newly minted college graduates are having a harder time landing that first job than in recent years. Is it AI? Is college useless? Is it a crisis? (No. No. And not yet.) College graduates under 27 still have much lower unemployment rates (5.8%) than their high-school-diploma peers (6.9%). What economist Kathryn Edwards finds worrying is that these new workers, who are typically a lagging economic indicator, may in this case be a bellwether of a weakening economy.

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