C-SPAN’s Washington Journal Open Phones reveals a Marist poll (Dec. 23) showing 61% of Americans—73% Democrats, 64% Independents—feel the economy fails them, while Republicans (37%) disagree. Trump claims wage surges ($3,300 for miners) and $18T in tariff-driven investment, but NBC fact-checks expose slower growth (3.5%), lingering inflation (3%), and disputed figures ($9.6T or $7T). Callers highlight housing crises ($120K→$300K), childcare costs ($12K/year), and wage stagnation, with Moody’s economist Mark Zandy noting the bottom 80% barely outpacing inflation since 2020. Meanwhile, Tremaine Lee’s A Thousand Ways to Die opens with his heart attack at 38, framing systemic violence’s toll on Black lives as a silent economic and health catastrophe. [Automatically generated summary]
After years of record-setting falling incomes, our policies are boosting take-home pay at a historic pace.
Under Biden, real wages plummeted by $3,000.
Under Trump, the typical factory worker is seeing a wage increase of $1,300.
For construction workers, it's $1,800.
For miners, we're bringing back clean, beautiful coal.
It's $3,300.
And for the first time in years, wages are rising much faster than inflation.
Remember that wages, just look at it.
Wages are going up much faster than inflation.
How big is that?
Very importantly, there are more people working today than at any time in American history, and 100% of all jobs created since I took office have been in the private sector.
Think of that.
100% of all jobs have been in the private sector rather than government, which is the only way to make a country powerful and great.
This historic trend will continue.
Already, I've secured a record-breaking $18 trillion of investment into the United States, which means jobs, wage increases, growth, factory openings, and far greater national security.
Much of this success has been accomplished by tariffs.
My favorite word, tariffs, which for many decades have been used successfully by other countries against us, but not anymore.
Companies know that if they build in America, there are no tariffs, and that's why they're coming home to the USA in record numbers.
They're building factories and plants at levels we haven't seen, AI, automobiles.
We're doing what nobody thought was even possible, not even remotely possible.
There has never, frankly, been anything like it.
One year ago, our country was dead.
We were absolutely dead.
Our country was ready to fail.
Totally failed.
Now we're the hottest country anywhere in the world.
Mr. President Trump, and we have that full address to the nation on our website, cspan.org, if you missed it.
We are asking you, how are you feeling about your finances, your personal finances going into the new year?
Do you feel optimistic?
Do you feel pessimistic?
How are things going for you personally?
The numbers are on your screen.
So Republicans are on 2028-8001.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
And Independents, 2022-748-8002.
Our phones are open.
We're taking your calls.
And you can also text us if you can't talk on the phone.
It's 202-748-8003 to send us a text.
Well, there's some fact-checking here from NBC News.
It's fact-checking Trump on the economy, wages, and immigration, and more.
Few of those we can go through from the NBC News article.
Trump said, quote, wages are going up much faster than inflation.
It says wages are outpacing inflation, but much is up for some debate.
As the pace of wage growth has slowed significantly this year, in January, average wages were increasing at a pace of 4.1%.
As of Tuesday, when the BLS released the October and November jobs report, the pace had fallen to 3.5%.
Inflation is currently at 3%.
It says, Trump said this is about inflation, so we'll about immigration, so we'll skip that.
He said the price of eggs is down 82% since March, and everything else is falling rapidly.
That assertion is false.
The price of eggs is down 43.9% since March, according to government consumer price index data.
Prices for some items in the BLS's inflation report may be falling, but prices broadly continue to increase.
He talked about gas.
This is about, he talked about the price of a Thanksgiving turkey was down 33% compared to the Biden last year.
It says that claim is false.
The price of a Thanksgiving turkey this year was down by, but only by 3.7% for national brands, according to data from the Wells Fargo Agri-Foods Institute.
It continues about record-breaking $18 trillion of investment in the United States.
It says that that figure is $9.6 trillion on the website.
That's from the White House website.
The figure is $9.6 trillion.
And a recent Bloomberg news fact check found the real figure closer to $7 trillion.
Again, that's bringing in investment into the United States.
Let's take your calls now.
John in District Heights, Maryland, Democrat.
Hi, John.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning to you, and thank you for taking my call.
I am so sick and tired of this man's lies.
It's just unbelievable.
How in the world, America, people can't believe anything this man says.
He's a piece of true.
It's unbelievable.
That's number one.
Number two, when the first time he took office, he came in, he deregulated everything.
Every safety net that Barack Obama put on to protect American consumers, he took it away.
He came back this time with that dose, and every safety net that was on that Biden tried to put back on is all gone.
This inflation is not going to go away because he's deregulated everything.
After I retired from the police department, I went to private security to have my social security.
But as far as I'm concerned, right now, my age at 81, I'm not doing bad, but my family members, my nephews, my nieces, my grandchildren, they are in horrible condition.
I have to help them.
And I go into my savings to keep them from going under with the cars, the rents, the health care, and everything else.
See, so it's unbelievable what is happening here.
And he's lying like that.
I don't want the American people to believe anything he says.
And the Republicans, that Judiciary Committee, they all should be kicked out of office.
And Mark Zandy is a chief economist for Moody's Analytics.
He was on CNBC, and he talked about his views on the economy and consumer spending.
unidentified
Well, it's been okay.
I mean, if you look at, you got retail sales for the month of September, that looked pretty tired.
But abstracting from the ups and downs of the monthly data, it feels like real consumer spending is kind of 2%ish, which is kind of right down the middle of the strike zone.
But that hides a lot of differences.
The folks at the top end of the income and wealth distribution, they're doing quite well.
Spending is very strong.
Folks in the lower parts and the middle parts of the income and wealth distribution, not so much.
I mean, just to give you a statistic, looking back since the pandemic, if you look at the spending by folks in the bottom 80% of the income distribution, it's just barely kept pace with the rate of inflation.
So their real spending, their real purchasing power has gone nowhere.
All of the action has been at the high in the top 20%.
That's where all the growth has been.
So yeah, the aggregate number is okay.
In the middle of the distribution, you don't see a whole lot.
But if you look at the distribution and the tails of the distribution, you see some pretty big differences.
So what do you see as the primary reason or driver?
Well, I mean, the affordability crisis has been long in the making.
I mean, I think the pandemic and the Russian war go a long way to explain the higher prices for everything from food and health care, rent, child care, elder care.
But I think the thing that's really brought this back to the fore as an issue is the acceleration in inflation that we've seen since the beginning of the year and the weakening in the job market and income and wages since the beginning of the year.
And I think that all goes back to deglobalization.
It goes back to the tariffs and immigration policy.
How are you feeling about your finances going into the new year?
And here's Eric, Eastern Shore, Maryland, Independent Line.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
Yeah, I'm just, this is another issue that I'm just very confused about.
Have people call in.
And I mean, I work very hard.
Eric, are we losing you?
You know, I'm doing very well.
And, you know, I keep hearing this.
You just talked about inflation.
I mean, there is no inflation.
Stop talking about inflation.
Get on the country's side and stop trying to talk bad about the country and lead the president, you know, trying to say the president is bad and doing a bad job.
He's doing a great job.
If you compare it from when Biden's numbers were worse, were the worst, he's doing awesome.
I mean, if you compare it to the nine, what was it, nine percent when Biden was president to now, there is no inflation.
It's down.
It's down a lot.
I mean, the stores, the shelves are filled.
People are buying.
Now, there are particular things that are high, beef, okay?
So you don't buy the $15, $16, $25 cut.
You buy the $6.99 cut.
You buy the $7.99 cut.
You go to a local butcher in a rural area and you support them.
And you can get a whole pig for $400.
You get a whole quarter cow for $800 and stock your freezer of.
You can make choices and put yourself in a good position to do very well.
But if you make bad choices and you don't put yourself in a good position, you're just going to be where you are and you're going to be crying about stuff.
I was listening to a sorry to cut you off, but I was listening to an economist talk about how on the upper scale of the income level, they're doing very well.
The stock market is doing well, so they're making more money on capital gains and things like that on their investments.
It's the lower side of the economic scale that is really suffering.
What do you make of that?
unidentified
I make that people need to work harder.
You need to put yourself in the situation to grow.
I am the person that you're talking about.
I started at $2.35 an hour in 1987, I think, when I first got my first job.
It was like $2.35 an hour, something like that.
And I took out trash and I washed dishes.
And in five years, I was running my own little strip mall restaurant for the company.
In another year, I was training every manager in the place before I was 20 years old.
Okay.
I went to college.
I didn't do great in college the first time, you know.
So I went back to work.
I worked hard in the construction industry and I was, again, gave up my body.
And I'm busted up.
Okay.
I'm disabled.
I had my leg snapped into.
My back is killing me.
But I keep going.
I don't claim disability, although I could.
And I work hard for what I have, and I get what I deserve.
What I don't understand is all these ships they're building.
They're going to build all the Navy new ships.
But yet, that was on the planning board.
They knew he was going to do this, but they sell U.S. steel to Japan.
Why?
Instead of dusting, he'd rather tear it down and sell it than investing into an American company where now Japan still is going to be building all our Navy ships.
This morning, the American people got more proof that Donald Trump's policies are a disaster for them.
This morning's jobs report show the unemployment rate rode to 4.6% in November.
That's the highest level since 2021.
The highest level in four years under Donald Trump's leadership, or lack thereof, more appropriately.
This is what Donald Trump's so-called golden age looks like in all its ugly glory.
Higher costs, more tariffs, and the highest unemployment rate since COVID.
And make no mistake, this unemployment number didn't just come out of the blue.
It didn't just come because of external forces.
This high, awful unemployment number, the highest since COVID, is a consequence of Donald Trump's failures, his reckless tariff agenda, his draconian cuts to basic services like health care, and his refusal to listen to Americans who are already struggling to pay for what they need.
Donald Trump can try and spin these job numbers all he wants.
That's his nature.
That's what he does.
He doesn't care about the truth.
He just cares about his own ego.
But Americans aren't buying his fantasy.
They're fed up with his agenda, and the damage is beginning to set in.
Actually, he's referring to the November jobs rate.
We don't, the jobs report.
We don't have December yet.
Here is Rick.
Ackworth, Georgia, Republican line.
You're on the air.
unidentified
Good morning.
Thank goodness for C-SPAN.
And hopefully everyone will have a Merry Christmas.
It's a beautiful day in Ackworth.
I am doing okay.
I worked hard.
I got married.
Struggling to Buy Home00:15:26
unidentified
I had children and supported all of them.
And things are good.
When I go to Walmart, the parking lot is full.
When I go out to dinner at Longhorn or whatever, I'm back.
The place is crowded with all types of different people.
That's in this, whatever, different types of people.
One thing, though, is the Democrats and the media does a good job on spinning all this because, you know, you're asking how you're doing, Bob.
If you can, the Democrats and media doesn't want you to think that anybody can afford to eat or live, but everyone has their cell phone, so things are going pretty well.
That's my opinion, and thank you very much for allowing me to speak.
And this is Stephen, Lexington, Kentucky, Independent.
Hi, Stephen.
unidentified
Hi.
Good morning, Mimi.
Thank you for having me.
Good morning, America.
Thank you for C-SPAN.
It's always great to speak your opinion.
I guess I'm very pessimistic about the economy.
Personally, I'm a millennial, so a lot of people calling in are older, getting their Social Security.
Maybe they had one job supporting three kids and a wife like Homer Simpson, bought their house for $50,000.
That's very far from the reality right now.
When you guys talk about the economy and how they're affecting people, we rarely hear about the people with children in daycare or in childcare, how expensive that is.
I'm going to say a number that's on the low end.
$12,000 for child care a year.
$12,000.
I'm talking to the elderly people that maybe paid $50 a week.
It's not the same, guys.
It's not the same.
And I am not looking forward to tax season coming up because it's just going to be ridiculous.
Everybody's going to be suffering except the top percent, the billionaires and the millionaires.
I just don't understand where the difference is between the elderly people, like the guy from Maryland saying, work harder.
No, you have to have two jobs now.
A $100,000 salary is not the same as it was 10, 15, 20 years ago.
You need two incomes now to support a family.
And so you want us to work harder while you guys are all just collecting your social security and we're supposed to raise the next generation with less.
Next year, you will also see the results of the largest tax cuts in American history that were really accomplished through our great, big, beautiful bill, perhaps the most sweeping legislation ever passed in Congress.
We wrapped 12 different bills up into one beautiful bill.
That includes no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on Social Security for our great seniors.
Under these cuts, many families will be saving between $11,000 and $20,000 a year.
And next spring is projected to be the largest tax refund season of all time.
I just got a job in a nursing home at 71 years old taking care of elderly patients.
I have over 30 years in the medical field.
Okay.
Where else could I get a decent wage?
In a deli?
No.
I thought I was done with health care when I retired six years ago.
I'm not.
My Social Security doesn't near make it.
It's $1,500 a month.
Look what our increase was this year.
Look what our increase in Medicare is, almost the same amount.
Okay?
So I just want to say many of us boomers, 24% increase, are working again like me.
And I was so thankful that this nursing home gave me a chance to go in there and work 24 hours a week and make enough so that I wouldn't end up going bankrupt.
And speaking of senior citizens, PolitoFact has this.
Older Americans get a tax deduction, but no elimination of Social Security taxation.
It says the bill, the One Big Beautiful bill, does not end Social Security taxes.
It provides many older Americans who qualify for Social Security with a tax break.
It says a quirk in Senate rules made fully ending Social Security taxation impossible under the massive bill stuffed with policy priorities.
So Republicans use a workaround that achieves a measure of tax relief for older Americans while falling short of a full repeal of taxing Social Security benefits.
That's at PolitiFact if you would like to see the rest of that.
And this is an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal that you might be interested in.
It says AI means the end of entry-level jobs.
It starts this way.
This month's lackluster employment numbers spurred talk that artificial intelligence is destroying jobs.
It says: data shows rising unemployment since 2022 among 22 to 25-year-olds in AI-affected sectors, even while employment for older workers remains stable.
The traditional bottom rung of the career ladder is disappearing.
We need to think about how younger workers will be affected in an AI-driven future to ensure that we have enough talent to replace retiring workforces.
It says it ends this way: the rising, the missing lower rung in today's career ladder isn't a problem to be solved.
It presents an opportunity to build something better.
Organizations that act now to create these new pathways will define what success looks like in the emerging AI era.
So, that's in the Wall Street Journal on the opinion page.
If you'd like to read that about AI replacing these entry-level workers and some things to do about it.
Sean, Columbia, Maryland, Republican, you're on the air.
unidentified
Hi, Amy.
Merry Christmas to everybody.
I think that there's a lot of answers to what's going on, and a lot of people aren't going to like the results or are not going to like how to fix them.
One, if you dump 12 to 20 million undocumented people into a country, they have to live somewhere.
So, of course, the demand for housing is going to go up.
So, we've got to address that problem.
Two, like the previous caller, the taxes.
Nobody's talking about the taxes.
We are getting taxed in Maryland damn near for everything.
And that's fine, okay?
I choose to live here, so I've got to bite the bullet and live with it.
Electricity, we have got to continue Trump's plan and reopening these non-environmental ways of producing electricity.
If you want a green planet, you're going to pay for high electric bills.
Gasoline's the same way he opened it up, and I'm now paying $2.50 a gallon of gas.
He's not going to be able to turn around what happened in the previous four years and a year.
It's not going to happen that quick, and people are going to have to bite the bullet.
You just mentioned artificial intelligence, these hubs that they're building, these data centers, they're crushing us with electricity costs.
People have got to look at what is the cause of what's happening now.
Yeah, I was going to say, did you see the news about the wind offshore wind projects?
So, I'll just show it real quick.
Here's the Washington Times.
It's on the front page.
Trump halts five offshore wind projects, cites national security and radar risks.
Yeah, go ahead, Sean.
What did you want to say?
unidentified
Well, you know, I'm all for generating any other kind of energy we can, but I'm not at the cost of shutting down traditional ways of producing electricity.
If we're going to pull off this crap with the artificial intelligence hubs that are just turning energy and needing energy at the cost of people that are living in these communities, that's insane.
And it's insane to think that the windmills are going to be the replacement.
And unfortunately, the way artificial intelligence is going, it's going to outweigh all of our rights.
They're going to crush us with this crap.
And it's scary and it's dangerous.
But anyway, I feel optimistic.
I'm optimistic that as long as I can get up and go to work, I'll be fine.
It was followed by housing costs, then tariffs at 15%, job security, 10%, interest rates at 9%, and then stock market volatility at the end at only 4%.
Franklin, Washington, D.C., Independent Line, you're on the air.
unidentified
You know, thanks.
You know, I think I am optimistic because I'm 40 years old and I grew up sort of in an easier, a little bit of an easier time that I think we're experiencing now.
And I always believed that America was a land of opportunity and a melting pot, and we should help each other out and all those sort of humanistic, decent, sort of, you know, Christian values that we hear everyone talk about, used to talk about.
But I've been paying attention the last couple of years, and I think these Republicans are really on to something.
You know, we need to take a much harsher view of society.
We need to look out for ourselves, and we need to trim the fat.
And you're absolutely right.
We can't have people hanging as anchors around our neck.
We don't need these people coming in here.
And so I think we need to do, and why I'm optimistic, is we need to take all of these boomers, everyone over 65, we need to round them up and get them out.
No, and quite frankly, that's probably the only reason I'm able to make it.
Unfortunately, I'm disabled.
I'm not able to have children.
Me and my wife are not able to have children, so we don't have kids.
But these people my age, who do have kids, they're completely underwater.
You can't afford children these days.
So blessing and curse, I can't have kids.
If I could, we probably couldn't make it.
But no, I mean, I'm optimistic.
We're doing fine.
I think, you know, there are corners of the economy that work.
But no, but I mean, also, all sarcasm aside, let's be serious.
How far do we want to pull the thread on the sort of moral view that everyone's been espousing the last 10 years under Trump, which is nobody can have anything?
Everyone, you know, a survival of the fittest.
Nobody helps anybody.
Well, then why are we, when are people my age and younger?
We started a year and Donald Trump promised that this would be the golden age in America.
We're ending the year, and the overwhelming majority of the American people, including many so-called Trump supporters, know that this year has been a disaster for the American people.
Last night, Donald Trump once again made it clear to the American people that he apparently still believes that the affordability crisis in this country is a hoax.
It is not a hoax.
The affordability crisis is very real.
And one of the reasons why this year has been such a disaster for everyday Americans under complete Republican control of government, they have the House, the Senate, and the presidency they've had all year.
They've had complete control of the government and they've done nothing to lower the high cost of living in this country.
Now, Donald Trump and Mike Johnson and John Thune and House Republicans and Senate Republicans repeatedly promised to the American people last year that they were going to lower the high cost of living.
In fact, they said that costs would go down on day one.
They lied to the American people.
Costs haven't gone down in the United States of America, and everybody knows it.
Costs have gone up.
Housing costs are out of control.
Grocery costs are out of control.
Electricity bills are out of control.
Child care costs are out of control.
And health care costs are out of control.
And about to get worse because of the Republican health care crisis that has been devastating everyday Americans throughout this year.
And that was Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Leader of the House.
We are going to be talking, we are going to continue our conversation about how you're feeling about your finances ahead in the new year, whether you're optimistic or pessimistic.
Just a quick update for you on some breaking news.
From ABC News, it says five dead, one missing after Mexican Navy plane crashes near Galveston, Texas.
Eight people were on board the small plane when it crashed, according to officials.
There's a picture there of first responders.
It says out of the eight, five people died.
Two people are alive and one person is still missing, according to the Mexican Navy.
The aircraft that crashed was conducting a humanitarian mission focused on specialized medical transport.
And it says that the crash occurred on Monday near Galveston, about 50 miles southeast of Houston.
Here is Richard, South Carolina, Republican Lion.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
I'm optimistic about next year.
I think Trump's tax plan will really kick in next year.
Also, the tariffs, of course, the tariffs have not, the latest numbers have not had the inflation that everybody thought they would.
I think that the problem with tariffs, of course, is a long-term investment economic decision, and people live from week to week.
So I think the tariffs had to be done at some point.
The balance of trade deficits were terrible.
And as far as Hakeem Jeffries, you had the White House for four years, 9% inflation at the top.
That becomes the base.
So even if you get inflation down to 2%, you still got the base plus 2%.
So it's extremely difficult to do away with inflation.
Inflation breaks the backbone of middle-class society.
So I think Trump's cut in regulations, especially for smaller companies, and is going to have great benefit.
Surviving the 70s, 80s Wage00:05:07
unidentified
The affordable health care plan, why did it become unaffordable?
A dollar an hour after graduation after having taken a business course and learning how to take shorthand typing, business machines, run an office, do everything.
I'm making a buck an hour with an insurance company, and I finally went up to $1.20 an hour working for lawyers, builders, apartment people, and everything else.
My first home when I got married was $13,000 for an all-brick, brand new home in a new area.
We managed on less and we expected less, but we were a hell of a lot happier than all the people that came after us that needed this and needed that, and they didn't need it, and they didn't need that.
Insurance Costs Skyrocket00:12:35
unidentified
They just wanted to live large and be impressive to people.
Hey, get off your high horse, folks.
Get down to the level that life is livable.
You'll be a hell of a lot happier.
And then when you go out for dinners to family and friends and everything, everybody won't have to take a dish in order to put a meal on a table.
Get over it, folks.
Stop living so damn pretentiously, and you'll be a hell of a lot happier.
I'm doing what no politician of either party has ever done, standing up to the special interest to dramatically reduce the price of prescription drugs.
I negotiated directly with the drug companies and foreign nations, which were taking advantage of our country for many decades, to slash prices on drugs and pharmaceuticals by as much as 400, 500, and even 600 percent.
In other words, your drug costs will be plummeting downward.
And I use the threat of tariffs to get foreign countries who would never have done it to pay the cost of this giant dollar reduction.
They stop ripping us off.
And it began as of four days ago.
There has never been anything like this in the history of our country.
Drugs have only gone up, but now they'll be going down by numbers never conceived possible.
It's called Most Favored Nation, and no president has ever had the courage or ability to get this done until now.
The first of these unprecedented price reductions will be available starting in January through a new website, trumprx.gov.
And these big price cuts will greatly reduce the cost of health care.
I'm also taking on the gigantic health insurance companies that have gotten rich on billions of dollars of money that should go directly to the people.
The money should go to the people.
That's you.
So they can buy their own health insurance, which will give far better benefits at much lower costs.
It will be far better health insurance.
The current Unaffordable Care Act was created to make insurance companies rich.
It was bad health care at much too high a cost.
And you see that now in the steep increase in premiums being demanded by the Democrats.
And they are demanding those increases.
And it's their fault.
It is not the Republicans' fault.
It's the Democrats' fault.
It's the Unaffordable Care Act, and everybody knew it.
Again, I want the money to go directly to the people so you can buy your own health care.
You'll get much better health care at a much lower price.
The only losers will be insurance companies that have gotten rich in the Democrat Party, which is totally controlled by those same insurance companies.
I am a naturally optimistic person, but I am very pessimistic about what we're going into.
Now, I am a boomer.
I'm retired.
I'm 77.
And it took four generations of my family to go from the factory floor to management.
And Trump has basically reversed that in a year because there are a lot of people my age who are now decimating their savings if they're lucky enough to have retirement plans to help the next generations, their children and their grandchildren who are trying really hard, who have done everything, quote unquote, right.
And between AI and the economy are just having such bad breaks.
And these people who say, oh, you know, I pulled myself up by my bootstraps.
Well, you know, my family benefited from government programs from rent stabilization.
I went, was the first in my family to go on college with a state scholarship that doesn't exist anymore, with a work study program that doesn't exist anymore.
And this person who said, oh, you know, we paid $13,000 for our first house, and these people just want more and better that they can't afford.
Well, I've traced my first apartment after college.
I earned $6,000, and it was $90 a month.
Now it is a co-op that costs almost $300,000.
You have $300,000.
It's a little studio in Brooklyn.
And somebody just out of college, if they were lucky enough to get a job, they couldn't even afford that little studio apartment.
I live in New York, Long Island, and we're being invaded, and they go into hospitals, and they get free treatment at my expense.
So, and the other thing is I want to say, people could say what they want about Donald J. Trump, but let me tell you, I tell people, sit in his shoes after the last four years.
God bless Donald Trump.
He's doing the right thing.
He's making people held accountable.
That's what we need to be done.
With healthcare, he's doing the right thing, insurance companies.
And Glenn, are you still working now or are you retired?
unidentified
No, I'm retired.
I'm retired.
I'm doing well.
And I just, you know, I go out and I help my family is doing well, but I have a little extra money.
So I help with, you know, watching kids help my family out with a little grocery money and stuff like that.
Just take a little added pressure off of them.
But as far as back in the day, yeah, my house, I was able to pay for it, you know, but if college was in, I couldn't afford to go to a four-year college.
I finished with electrical engineering, but I couldn't afford to go to four-year.
If it wasn't that the tuition was almost like layaway, I don't think I would have been able to do it because I had three kids.
So for like the housing thing that the guy mentioned earlier, the thing with the generation we're in now is that the number we see for the housing market is so much higher than when, you know, like the guy who said he was making $2 an hour was making.
He was $25,000.
Now, yes, we have a little bit higher rates because, you know, he was looking at like six and a half years for his $25,000, but he was only making $4,000 a year on his $25,000 house.
And we can be able to, unless you, at a baseline job, you can make $40,000 a year.
And for a $400,000 house, you're making like $10,000.
So I think for my generation, I'm, you know, early 20s, I think that people just, it's a bigger number and it's really daunting and it's really scary.
And that's our last call for this segment, but we are going to revisit this same question later in the program.
So if you weren't able to get in now to share your thoughts, you will definitely have time later in the program.
Up next, Washington Journal's annual Holiday Authors Week series continues this morning.
Nine days of authors from across the political spectrum whose books shine the spotlight on an important aspect of American life.
This morning's featured author is journalist and filmmaker Tremaine Lee on his book, A Thousand Ways to Die, The True Cost of Violence on Black Life in America.
We'll be right back.
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On this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
This week's encore interview is from Book Notes from September the 21st, 1997, 28 years ago.
Our guest was Peter J. Gomes, former minister of the Memorial Church at Harvard.
His father was from Cape Verde Islands, and his mother was an African-American.
In 1991, he identified himself as gay, but says he remained celibate.
Professor Gomes passed away in 2011 at age 69.
During his lifetime, he received over 40 honorary degrees.
Professor Gomes was a registered Republican for most of his life and offered prayer at the inauguration of Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
However, in August of 2006, he changed his registration to the Democratic Party.
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We revisit an interview with Peter Gomes and his book, The Good Book, Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart.
BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb, is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
American History TV, Saturdays on C-SPAN 2, exploring the people and events that tell the American story.
This weekend, as the nation celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding, join American History TV for our series, America 250, and discover the ideas and defining moments of the American story.
This week at 11 a.m. Eastern, a ceremony in Boston marking the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill held by the National Park Service and other groups.
And then at 2 p.m. Eastern, North Carolina high school teacher Valencia Abbott receives the 2025 History Teacher of the Year Award from the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History.
Historian Stacey Schiff headlines the award ceremony.
And at 5 p.m. Eastern, prepare to ring in the new year with addresses from Presidents Ronald Reagan in 1983 and Bill Clinton in 2000.
Exploring the American story, watch American History TV, Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find the full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history.
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold new original series.
This Sunday with our guest Pulitzer Prize winner, Stacey Schiff, author of biographies, including Ben Franklin, Samuel Adams, and Cleopatra.
She joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubenstein.
So writing a second book on Franklin, you must admire him.
I assume you don't want to write two books on somebody you don't admire, but you do admire him.
I feel as if he is in always admirable in so many ways, just the essential DNA of America.
His voice is the voice of America, literally.
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Watch America's Book Club with Stacey Schiff.
Sundays at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific.
Only on C-SPAN.
America marks 250 years, and C-SPAN is there to commemorate every moment.
From the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the voices shaping our nation's future, we bring you unprecedented all-platform coverage, exploring the stories, sights, and spirit that make up America.
Join us for remarkable coast-to-coast coverage, celebrating our nation's journey like no other network can.