Are the kids alright? Part 1

27:35Their wealth has been cut in half. This isn't by accident. It's purposeful. Consciously purposeful? Or how did this happen? Well, the demo in democracy is working really well. And that is old people vote for even older people who vote themselves more money. So we now spend about 40 % of our total government spending on programs for seniors. That's the greatest it's been in history. but way it gets worse in 10 years at the current rate it's going to be over 50 percent meaning the majority of our government spending and tax revenues will go to programs supporting seniors and this crowds out investments in technology and in education and things that are a little bit more forward-leaning show a greater return on investment and quite frankly benefit younger people so our democracy if you will is working well but it's a series of older people voting themselves more money.

28:27Old people vote. I guess what I find confusing about this is I recently read in The New Yorker that since 2020, U.S. growth per person has been more than 2%, and that actually people in their 20s are richer than prior U.S. generations were at their age. So why doesn't it feel that way for younger people? So I think the study you're referring to is the following. there's some nuance here. And that is, we have basically kind of the zeitgeist, and this goes to cultural mores. We have decided to embrace a winners and losers economy or a Hunger Games-like economy. The good news is, if you think it's good news, is that there are now millionaires in their 30s.

29:08When I was growing up, and I imagine when you were growing up, you didn't really hear about that. So the actual number of people in the top 10%, that number's gotten much higher. But if you look at the quote-unquote bottom 90, the vast majority of these individuals, two things have happened. Their purchasing power has gone down. Inflation and housing, inflation and education, two things that young people save for and need to get ahead, have skyrocketed. And their wages on an inflation-adjusted basis have consistently gone down. I used to make, on an inflation-adjusted basis, people in my generation made$85 ,000.

29:43Then 20 years ago,$65 ,000. This is at the age of 25. Now it's about$55 ,000. And so you have a lot of young people who've essentially given up on buying a home. The travel industry is booming. And my thesis is that people have just given up on saving for a house. And so they pick up and head to Thailand for a month or they go to Coachella. So live events and travel have never been stronger. But people are struggling to kind of cover, I think, the basics or the essentials, whether it's getting a college degree, paying off their student debt, saving for a home, or deciding to have a child. The great intergenerational theft took place under the auspices of a virus.

30:22I know. Let's use the greatest health crisis in the century to really speedball the transfer. This is the NASDAQ from 2008 to 2012. We let the markets crash. And by the way, you need churn, you need disruption, because it seeds and recalibrates advantage and wealth from the incumbents to the entrance. It's a natural part of the cycle. But wait, lately, no, a million people dying would be bad. But what would be tragic is if we let the NASDAQ go down and guys like me lost wealth. So we pumped the economy, which again, increased the massive transfer of wealth. The best two years of my life, COVID, more time with my kids, more time with Netflix, and my value of my stocks absolutely exploded.

31:06And who has to pay for my prosperity? not me, future generations who will have to deal with an unprecedented level of debt. Key to getting wealthy or establishing some wealth as a younger person is that in 2008, as an example, we allowed the markets to fall. We bailed out banks, but we didn't bail out the economy. And guys like me who were coming into the prime income earning years got to buy Netflix at $12, got to buy Amazon at$8. So when you bail out the boomer owner of a restaurant, all you're doing is robbing opportunity from the 26-year-old recent graduate of a culinary academy who wants her shot to buy a restaurant on the cheap.

31:48Disruption is a cycle and a churn that seeds advantage from incumbents to entrants. And so I think politics have become very much, I need to get mine. This happens across the entire ecosystem. In my industry, every year we take pride in rejecting more and more applicants, meaning that the incumbents who already have degrees see the value of their degrees go up. When I applied to UCLA, it was a 76 % admissions rate. This year it'll be nine. When you own a home, you get very concerned with traffic and you show up to the local review board and make sure no new housing permits are approved. We have one and a half million fewer homes than we need for household formation, which again has taken the value of homes way up.

32:31So we have embraced this rejectionist exclusionary culture that crowds out the opportunity for entrance. But at some point, all the old rich people are going to die. Is there going to be a redistribution of wealth happening then? So a lot of people say, but Scott, you're about to see the most massive transfer back to young people in the form of inheritance. I would argue that's a really unhealthy way to live life and build a society. What you're talking about is Downton Abbey, that, oh, you don't need to work or worry because you're going to inherit this estate. Waiting around for your mother and father to die so you can buy a home and have a family is just not a way to live a life, does not build a healthy society, and quite frankly doesn't work and just results in dynastic dynamics that the American culture has tried to avoid.

33:23When we come back, more with Scott Galloway and what he says is the link between economic uncertainty and Gen Z's politics. On the show today, are the kids all right? I'm Manoush Zomorodi, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR. Stay with us.

33:51This message comes from ServiceNow. People should do the creative work they actually want to do, not boring busy work. Now, with AI agents built into the ServiceNow platform, you can automate millions of repetitive tasks in every corner of your business, IT, HR, and more, so your people can focus on the work that they want to do. That's putting AI agents to work for people. It's your turn. Get started at servicenow.com slash AI dash agents. This message comes from NPR sponsor Zendesk. Introducing the next generation of AI agents built to deliver resolutions for everyone. With an easy setup that can be completed in minutes, not months, Zendesk AI agents resolve 30 % of interactions instantly, quickly giving your customers what they need.

34:37Loved by over 10 ,000 companies, Zendesk AI makes service teams more efficient, businesses run better, and your customers happier. That's the Zendesk AI effect. Find out more at Zendesk.com. This message comes from NPR sponsor Walmart. Did you know that Walmart is one of Fortune's 100 best companies to work for in 2025? It's no surprise. Walmart is investing$1 billion in training and development to help associates build lasting careers with or without a degree. In fact, 75 % of Walmart management started in hourly rolls. With benefits like health care, paid parental leave, and tuition support, Walmart isn't just a place to work.

35:20It's a place to grow. Learn more at walmart.com slash spark. Do you have a question that no one in your life can help with? Something that makes the people around you go, yikes, what a weird question. Well, Freak, here on How to Do Everything, we want to help you out. Each week, we get fantastic experts to answer your questions. People like U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limon, bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger, and rapper Rick Ross. Season two just launched. Go listen to How to Do Everything from NPR. It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manoush Zomorodi. Today on the show, we are asking, are the kids all right?

35:59And we were just talking to NYU professor Scott Galloway. Scott says that today, younger generations cannot afford to pay off their debt, buy a home, or invest in their retirement. And he blames older generations for withholding financial opportunities from them. The effects, he says, are more than just economic. Well, the repercussions are, at a very basic level, disappointment and rage. A lot of these folks are living at home. A lot of them have been told their whole life they can do anything. And then that 210 times a day, they get a reminder of their failure on their phones with a series of notifications where people vomit their personal possessions and amazing lives that they're supposedly leading.

36:46And they're reminded every day that they're not doing well. And also there's a false impression out there that everyone is vacationing at the Amman Hotel and owns a Ferrari. And if you don't have all of those things that you're somehow failing, it creates incendiary that is poured over every issue. And I think it just creates a general level of rage. I'm curious, you know, what young people think when you link their dissatisfaction with life and what feels like really big gaps between the generations, how do they respond when they hear these things? I think that sometimes that feels like I'm infantilizing or patronizing them.

37:24But what I've generally the feedback is, you know, thank you. You said the quiet part out loud. and who I really hear from is parents. If you're a boomer or if you're, say, not even boomer, but you're Gen X and you've done well, and you see your kid, your kid's a good kid. She's worked hard. She's graduated from the right schools. And her and her fiance have been saving for a house for 10 years, and they just have given up. They can't buy a house. They're thinking about not having kids. It's just not viable for them. I mean, this is what you want. The whole point of an economy is to create a middle class.

37:59The whole point of a middle class is to create a thriving society, a democratic society that's prosperous. But the reason we all want prosperity at the end of the day when we get a little bit older is we want our kids to do well. This is my last slide. It is an emotionally manipulative slide to try and get you to like me more. There's a moment in your TED Talk when you put up a slide of yourself and one of your boys at a sporting event. But it does have a message. This is the whole shooting match. Anybody here without kids, ask someone with kids. Your whole world springs to this. And you got pretty emotional up on stage.

38:38And you laid a lot of guilt on the people in the theater. You asked them, you know, do we love our children? Implying that if we do, they need to make changes. Will Minouche have children? I do. So without knowing you or your children, I'm fairly confident that you love your children. I bet you are fairly confident I love mine. The question I ask is, do we love our children? And that is, have we entered an economy where it's sort of a winner-take-most attitude and everyone's grabbing for their own? We ignore, because we all believe we're going to be in the top 10 % that's never done better than previous top deciles, that we'll be in that top 10%, and we're not willing to make the sacrifices and the hard decisions such that other people's children who might be in the bottom 90 do better.

39:28I think that America has kind of lost the script and that is, what is the point of any of this? You know, on your radio hour, you're going to talk about AI. You're going to talk about the environment. You're going to talk about the climate. Anyone who has kids, something comes off the tracks with one of your kids, you're not thinking about the climate. You're not thinking about AI. You're thinking about that kid. and economic anxiety is someone who went through economic anxiety as a kid i can tell you we aren't treating our children well we aren't treating other kids well this the resting blood pressure of kids in low-income homes is tangibly higher than kids in middle and upper-income homes there are more kids depressed more admissions of self-harm more anxiety so the question is what is the point of any of this if your kid is anxious or depressed?

40:18And people have this feeling, well, I'm going to be successful. I can take care of my kids. Okay, I know you love your kids, but do we love our kids? That was Scott Galloway. He's a marketing professor at NYU and hosts of the podcasts Pivot and the Professor G Pod. We spoke in 2024. Scott's latest book is called The Algebra of Wealth, a simple formula for financial security. You can see his TED Talk at TED.com. So despite what some technologists may be predicting, kids are still being taught to read. In the U.S., however, a third of eighth grade students don't meet national standards for reading comprehension.

41:02This is the largest slice of pizza in the entire world. The average teen spends nearly five hours a day on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. And so many suspect that books are taking a backseat to what's on their phones. Oh, you don't compete with that. That's where we lose. Right? You work with it. You work with it. And the truth is, there's no reason to fight against it. My job is to fight alongside it. This is children's author Jason Reynolds. You like two-minute videos, and two-minute videos is what's holding your attention. Cool. I get it. I'm going to write a book of short stories. I'm going to write a book that's in verse.

41:41I'm going to figure out how to use the thing that you already are interested in. So I can literally operate and live alongside. Reynolds has made it his business to meet kids, especially middle schoolers, where they are, in his books and when he talks to them in person. For three years, Jason served as the ambassador for young people's literature through the U.S. Library of Congress. There's so many not-so-young people here. and I'm trying to figure out how to best serve everybody. He asked him to kick off our conversation by reading us the first page from Look Both Ways, a tale told in 10 blocks.

42:19Stories from the perspective of 10 different kids as they walk home from school. This story was going to begin like all the best stories, with the school bus falling from the sky, but no one saw it happen. No one heard anything. So instead, this story will begin like all the good ones with boogers. If you don't get all them nasty half-baked goblins out your nose, I promise I'm not walking home with you. I'm not playing. Jasmine Jordan said this like she said most things with her whole body. Like the words weren't just coming out of her mouth, but were also rolling down her spine. She said it like she meant it.

42:58I said it with the same don't play with me tone her mother used whenever she was trying to talk to Jasmine about something important for her real life. And Jasmine turned the music up in her ears real loud to drown her mother out and scroll on, scroll on. If you don't take them ear pods, earbuds, earphones or whatever they called out your coconut head, it's going to be me turning up the volume and the bass. And I ain't talking about no music. That tone.

43:29Jason Reynolds, how many award-winning books do you think start with a description of bookers? One, for sure. I got one for sure, one for certain. That's the one. That was from your book, Look Both Ways. What was it that you wanted your readers to know about you, about this book, about the characters that they're going to meet right from the start? that they are just like them. You know, I'm constantly thinking about how we can explore the everydayness of childhood, the mundane idiosyncrasies that it is to be a young person, no matter where you are in the world. I thought it was so interesting, though, because you're having this light, it's this lighthearted conversation between two friends walking home from school or in middle school.

44:22And then you kind of sneak it in that, well, the reason why one of the girls' backpack was so heavy, why she had so many books and extra homework in there was because she'd been hospitalized with sickle cell anemia. You kind of sneak it in there that there's something very serious going on. I do. And I think to sneak it in there is the best way to do it. I think I'm always curious about the way that we portray young people and portray tough stuff for young people because I I think we sometimes lay the burden on the back of the child when really things happen in our lives, but children always find time to laugh.

44:59Children always find time to talk about boogers or to talk about potato chips or to crack jokes or to tease each other despite some of the heavy things happening in our lives. I think they have a resilience that actually shines brighter sometimes than we give credit to. And I think I'm always curious. And I think this is the reason why I write for kids so much is because I think as adults, what happens is when we go through tough times, we'll be bummed about it and we'll let it drag on for a moment. And we'll use the excuse of like responsibility as the thing that forces us to move forward. Young people don't always have the excuse of responsibility.

45:37They just have the excuse of life. And there's something about that that I find absolutely profound. that the reason that they continue moving forward is not because they got to go to work or take care of their kids or pay their bills. It's because they recognize that life is a thing that belongs to them and every day is a day that is new. That's a special thing. Can we talk about the kids, the people who you wrote the books for? Yeah. What do they tell you? Because correct me if I'm wrong, you have spent the last several years touring around the country, whether it's in real life or virtually talking to them, what do they say that they like about you?

46:19And do they ever tell you things they don't like? Oh, of course. What they say they like, I think, first and foremost, when I walk into the building, when I walk into the room, especially at the beginning of my career, they were always so surprised by what I looked like. Hello, hello, everybody, y 'all right? Y 'all good? I am a big guy, right? 6 '3". You know, a big man. I've got long hair, very long dreadlocks, and I have tattoos everywhere. I always have worn t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, right? I mean, this is it. I look like their older brothers. I look like their uncles and their older brothers.

47:01And that's just who I am, right? I can't pretend to be anything that I'm not. I just go into the school as me. We're going to talk about something else. We're not going to talk about books for a second. And then when we talk and when I give my lecture, when I give my speech, when we do my presentation, it's like talking to your big cousin. What's your favorite sport? What's my favorite sport? I grew up playing basketball and I was lucky to grow up in the time of Georgia. I'm not a formal person. I don't find value in formality, especially as it pertains to those I refer to as family. Don't make sense to be formal around family.

47:33And for me, these young people are my family. What's your favorite thing they like to do with your mom? You know what? So, like, my mom and I spend a lot of time together when I'm not all over the place. And, you know, we live, we like to do really simple things, you know. My mom, one of these people who live in Costco, you know what I'm talking about? And we laugh and we joke, right? Because what a young person wants to know is that you are who you say you are, so that I can trust you. But I can't come into a school and talk about reading some books and they're looking at me like, but who are you?

48:03Let me tell them who I am. Let me show them who I am. And then they'll show me who they are. And then we can talk about maybe reading these books. What was your favorite book that you ever made? What inspires you the most when you're writing? Like, where do you go for ideas? We're currently writing our own book. And, well, what I want to ask is, would you like to come to our book launch? How long does it take you to write books? And the truth is that they go and they read everything because they trust me. That's it. Simple. It was a very simple concept from the beginning. What advice would you give to future writers?

48:35What advice would I give to future writers? What they tell me is that they appreciate me speaking to them like humans. Whether you want to be a writer or whether you want to be anything is that excellence is a habit. Never forget this, okay? Excellence is a habit. It's not something you can turn on or turn off. You're either going to be excellent or you're not going to be excellent. Like human beings, not as half-formed things or whatever sort of pejorative coding we attach to childhood or to being a child, right? You're being childish. You're being kiddy. You're being a baby. Nah. I talk to them like human beings.

49:10And nine times out of ten, there's always one who says, man, I just appreciate you just giving it to us straight, just talking to us like people. We can handle it. Now, there have been moments in my career, valuable moments for me, when a young person will say, you know, for instance, when I was the greatest, a kid comes up to me and says, you know, I wanted to give you a note on when I was the greatest. And this is like a 12 year old, right? And this is good. And this is where I think some of us adults, I think this is where we lose out is that we sometimes forget to humble ourselves in the presence of children and take their critique, which is valuable.

49:47It's valuable because they know what they feel. They know what they think, right? And this kid says, you know, I read when I was the greatest, loved it. I wish that you would have given Needles, the character who has Tourette's syndrome, I wish you would have given him more speaking lines. He has Tourette's syndrome. That doesn't mean that he's mute. Right? That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with his ability to speak. Jason, sounds like a good note. It was a brilliant note. And the kid was absolutely right. And you know what I said? And they said that you do it on purpose because you're going to write a sequel.

50:20And in that moment, I could have lied to protect my ego. I could have lied. I could have said, yeah, man, I thought I'm going to work on another one where it just focuses on needles. I could have lied, but that would have in fact been a lie. And I don't believe that kids, I just, the kid deserved the truth. And so I said, you know what? Honestly, it was an oversight. It was a blind spot. And thank you. And every time I get those moments where a young person calls me to the mat, I'm grateful. I'm not offended and I'm not all broken up and sensitive. I know. I'm grateful that a young person could say, hey, man, I love you.

50:58And I know you love me. And that's why we're going to have this conversation about what I need you to do moving forward in your work that is meant to serve me. What a gift. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like you're getting as many ideas and feeling energized by them as much as they are getting something out of your visiting. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I get way more. you know it's uneven trust me you know there are occupations but this is vocational I actually just like to be around them I enjoy having conversations with them I like to be a child I like to be childlike I don't think we should ever lose it I'm too old to be childish even though I am sometimes but you're never too old to be childlike right and I think what they do is they remind me over and over again that actually we'll be okay.

51:51That the only reason that one can even begin to maintain an inkling of hope is because of the possibility that reside in the youth. And so to rob yourself of that is to rob yourself of the antidote to hopelessness. That was author and MacArthur Genius Award winner Jason Reynolds. We spoke in 2021. His latest work is an audiobook called Soundtrack. Next week, we've got the second half of our series where we're asking, are the kids all right? Psychologist Lisa Damore is a teen expert and parenting icon. She'll be here to talk us through what adolescence is really like these days. Today's teenagers are so much more aware of the world around them, what's happening politically, what's happening socially.

52:41And so if we talk about teenagers as fragile or lazy or totally at the mercy of their phones, well, then we're going to not do them justice and we're probably going to see more of that. That's next Friday. If you are into this episode, this series, please leave us a comment on Spotify. We would love to hear what you think. This episode was produced by Rachel Faulkner-White, James De La Housie, and Matthew Cloutier. It was edited by Sanaa's Meshkinpour and me. Our production staff at NPR also includes Katie Monteleone, Fiona Guerin, and Harsha Nahada. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Our audio engineer was Jimmy Keeley.

53:24Our theme music was written by Ramtin Arablewe. Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Roxanne Hylash, and Daniela Ballarezzo. I'm Manoush Zomorodi, and you've been listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR.

53:40This message comes from NPR sponsor, Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10 % of all e-commerce in the U.S. from household names like Mattel and Gymshark. Get started with your own design studio with hundreds of ready-to-use templates. Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store to match your brand's style. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Sign up for your$1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash NPR. This message comes from NPR sponsor Fixable, a podcast from TED. Hear unfiltered expert advice from CEO Anne Morris and Harvard business professor Francis Fry on how to build, regain, and maintain your confidence.

54:30Find Fixable wherever you listen.