Now anybody could take this stage and make miracles for minimum wage
In which I contemplate a side hustle as a subversive personal finance columnist
A note: I know this post isn’t exactly timely. I started drafting it last Thursday, the day the article came out, and was going to pull together some sources and finish it off Friday afternoon. Then I got a call telling me that my Uncle Bill, a wonderful family man who did so much good in the world, had passed away after a struggle with cancer. I would be honored if you’d take a moment to read his obituary and then come back to this. I wasn’t much in the mood for silliness, so set this draft aside, but a conversation about tenants unions today made me want to come back to it, and perhaps the Hoey-Cattaneo family members who kindly read my writing could use a little comic relief now.
I wasn’t really planning on writing anything until after the New Orleans trip, so I could come back to The Word Cloud with stories about all my adventures. Unfortunately for those plans, I saw something that frustrated me and it gave me Ideas, which would not rest until I wrote them down.
The impetus was an article in The Cut, "How I Fell For An Amazon Scam Call and Handed Over $50,000". I wish I could recommend the article, but I can’t, really. It’s long on the emotional impact of being a victim of a scam like this, but very short on practical advice on how to avoid scams like this. The author ignored a whole lot of red flags (enough that there was substantial speculation on social media that either it was fake or the author had to be very privileged), but there’s little reflection on that or tips on how to avoid it in the future in the article. A few that jumped out at me, definitely feel free to drop others in the comments:
Amazon does not call people, same as the IRS. They are famously averse to it, even in situations where calling would be helpful - authors and sellers have had nightmare experiences trying to get ahold of actual humans at Amazon to fix issues. If there’s an issue with your account, they will email you. If someone is telling you they’re calling from Amazon about your account, they’re full of shit.
Credit reports are free to check on sites like Annual Credit Report and Credit Karma. If you’re being told that you’ve been a victim of identity theft, hang up the phone, go to one of those sites, and take a good look at the accounts there. Did you open all of them? Do the account balances listed in the report match what they should be? If so, you’re probably good on the identity-theft account and can tell the scammer to go fuck themselves.
The CIA is not going to investigate identity theft or bank fraud. Not their job.
Amazon, the CIA, and the FTC are not all going to be on the same call. Any multiple-agency investigation is likely going to be a mess of bureaucracy.
You’re not going to get a text message with sensitive photos from an investigation. In a real investigation, you’d be called in and shown the photos during an interrogation, and if that were impossible they would find a secure way to transmit those pictures.
“You can’t spoof government phone numbers” is not even close to true. If someone purporting to be from a government agency is calling you, here’s what you do: look up the main phone number for their office, then ask them for their extension. Hang up the call you received from them telling them you’ll call them right back, then you call the main line, dial their extension, and reach them. If they’re legit, this will only take a minute or two and they’ll understand. If they balk at this, refuse to give you an extension, or tell you that they can’t help you if you disconnect, they are, to use the technical term, shady as fuck.
I know I’m in law school and a bit biased, but my loves, if anyone, ever, for any reason, tells you that you shouldn’t be talking to a lawyer, that is exactly when you need a lawyer the most. This is true regardless of whether you’re talking to a scammer or an actual law enforcement official. They have something they want from you, whether that’s money, information, a confession, or something else, and they aren’t acting in your best interest. You need someone looking out for you.
But that’s not why I’m writing this. The thing that’s jarring to me, and that led to a lot of online discussion about this, is that the author is actually The Cut’s financial advice columnist.
I’ve written before about this, but I have a bone to pick with a lot of what gets written about as personal finance advice. A lot of people who write about getting out of debt for a living - the Dave Ramseys of the world - talk about people in debt like they’re frivolous idiots, obliviously spending $5 a pop on lattes until they were drowning in debt, eating avocado toast at restaurants so they couldn’t afford a home. Sure, some people really do have out-of-control spending habits (often due to some deeper psychological issues that need compassion and good care, not shame, to be overcome) and need help to manage that, and almost all of us have spots we could be more frugal, but it really bothers me that people in debt get talked down to.
Financial advice that goes beyond getting out of debt can also be really tone-deaf, like a recent Washington Post "quiz" about how to build wealth. A lot of the questions assume that you have oodles of money lying around and just don’t know what to do with it, and another treats all debt as bad debt, even if it was necessary to buy a home or attend college and earn more money down the road. I would love it if everyone had enough money in their checking account to stay out of debt and invest, but for a lot of people, that’s just not reality. And don’t even get me started on the “look, this young person bought a house and is super successful!” clickbait that always seems to have the crucial detail of “they got a giant pile of money and/or a property from a relative” buried somewhere around the 12th paragraph.
I find this attitude really frustrating because it’s a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality that doesn’t address the financial realities people face. There are reasons it appeals and even some good advice in the mix - I’m certainly happy to endorse cheerfully giving banks the middle finger by not taking on too much debt and/or an anti-consumerist message of not buying more than you need. But the thing is, if you’re struggling financially for reasons that go beyond lattes and avocado toast, you can follow this advice and still struggle. When that happens, the powers that be are eager to tell you that you were the one who failed, that you weren’t frugal enough. If you’re ashamed and blaming yourself, you won’t look too hard behind the curtain to see who benefits from you not making enough money or having too many expenses.
In my own journey to get a handle on my finances, I realized two important things, neither of which makes for a pithy book title but I’ll share here anyway.
First, by far the easiest way to be “good with money” is to make more money. Period. Full stop. When you make more money, you can open a free checking account knowing you won’t have to worry about overdraft fees, so you don’t lose even more money to check-cashing services. You can buy in bulk to save money and replace your items when you find a really good deal instead of when they’ve broken beyond repair and you need a new appliance/good clothes/car/etc. right now. You can buy high-quality items that will last a long time instead of cheaper items that are all you can afford right now, but won’t last nearly as long. You can save for a down payment on a home and then not only not have to worry about fluctuating rent, but often pay less for a mortgage than you would to rent an equivalent home. You can qualify for and pay the yearly fee on a fancy rewards credit card that comes with a ton of cool perks and rewards. You can hire people to help you cook, clean, and take care of other life tasks so that you can spend more time working. You can put extra money in the stock or bond market and make more money without doing any extra work. I could go on, but I think you get the point.
Second, most of the time, it’s the big, structural expenses (channeling my inner Elizabeth Warren, sorry not sorry) that do the most to hold people back, not the lattes. Housing, transportation, healthcare, and loans (especially student loans) are major budget line items for most people my age and play a much larger role in financial well-being than how you get your morning caffeine fix. My rent went up $82 a month in December when I renewed my lease, which I could cover by cutting out one vending machine Diet Coke purchase a day…if there were 35 days in a month.
All of this got me thinking. What if I started writing a column that portrayed itself as a run-of-the-mill personal finance advice column, but was actually rabble-rousing about how people could work together and engage in activism to tackle the big things that really hold us back financially? I imagine I’d have a hard time getting it published in the big newspapers and magazines that are just fine with the personal finance status quo, but surely there’s a lefty publication out there that would like it.
So this is my pitch: someone hire me to write a subversive personal finance advice column that’s actually about how we can make life a little less miserably expensive for us all and build an economy that helps more than just the rich. Here, I have a handy list of initial column ideas, and I’m happy to come up with or accept ideas for more:
Side hustles are cool and all, but you know what’s a really great way to make more money? Unionize your workplace! Union members earn 18% more than non-union members working comparable jobs while paying much less than that in union dues. Talk to your coworkers about forming a union and bargaining for better wages and working conditions. And it’s illegal for your company to fire or punish you for talking about or trying to form a union! If this happens to you, contact your nearest National Labor Relations Board office for help.
Pay transparency is good for everyone…except the bosses, who benefit from being able to cheap out on employees who don’t know how much more their coworkers are making. So talk about salaries with your coworkers and others in your field! If someone is earning more than you for doing the same work, you can use that info to negotiate for more. Plus, it’s also illegal for employers to fire/punish you for discussing pay! So if they do, go straight to the NLRB, do not pass Go, do not collect $200 (at least until you get the pay you deserve).
A bonus - if you realize while doing all this salary chatting that people of a certain race, gender, age, or similar group are routinely getting paid more for doing the same/similar work at your company than people outside the preferred group, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and your state’s discrimination agency (in Connecticut it’s the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities) would probably love to hear about it.
Housing costs are out of control, and while developers and landlords deserve a bit of blame, the primary culprit is that we simply haven’t built enough homes in the places that need them. One of the reasons housing doesn’t get built is that long-term homeowners will often loudly oppose newer, denser housing being built in their neighborhoods, fearing it will lower their home values (because it’s lowering housing costs for all, a desirable goal). But here’s the thing: zoning decisions on what can get built where are made in local government, and you are just as capable of contacting your local councilman/selectman/etc. as they are. When someone wants to build new apartments, duplexes, or other multi-family homes, show up to the town meeting or give them a call or email and say you support it. Ask for funding for subsidized affordable housing and enough housing built to lower costs naturally for middle-class people who wouldn’t qualify for subsidies but still struggle. Find your local YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) Action chapter and see how you can get involved. We know this works: reforms in Minneapolis have helped keep housing costs from rising as quickly as in similar cities.
A different, equally valid approach for renters to take to housing costs is to start or join a tenants union. (You can do both if you want!) This is a concept that’s been around for awhile, but gaining steam in the U.S. recently. The goal is to collectively bargain with landlords, like a labor union would, for lower rent, better living conditions, and protections for renters. It’s not easy to organize one’s neighbors, but it can bring great rewards, like a Hamden, CT tenants union stopping a 42% rent increase.
Cars are a major expense for most people, but the U.S. is shockingly car-dependent compared to much of the rest of the world. Our size poses challenges for inter-city high-speed rail, but we could do so much more to make it easier to get around our neighborhoods without a car by investing in public transportation, building bike lanes to make cycling safer (especially with the rise of e-bikes), and sidewalks for pedestrians so that people don’t need a car if they don’t want one. And like housing, this is mostly handled at the local and state level - and those people are often way more likely to pay attention to your call, email, or hearing testimony than a member of Congress!
Even if you like owning a car (I do!), we can and should make them cheaper - by making them smaller. Car bloat has become a huge problem in recent years. The giant cars drive up the cost of owning a car and guzzle gas, as well as being very dangerous for pedestrians and other drivers, but we can put pressure on the government to tighten regulations and incentivize smaller, cheaper, more fuel-efficient cars.
Look, I know there’s a lot of good reasons to be mad at Joe Biden right now. But y’all need to vote for him in November, if for no other reason than the Supreme Court. (If you want to vote against him in the primary, have at it, but he’s very likely to be the Democratic nominee regardless.) Let’s start with student loans: Biden acted to cancel $10,000 in student loans for everyone and $20,000 for people who received Pell Grants to go to college, which would have wiped out about half of borrowers’ balances entirely and given other borrowers a bunch more breathing room. The Supreme Court struck it down 6-3, with all Republican-appointed judges siding against the plan and all Democratic-appointed judges favoring it. Biden’s doing what he can within the confines of that decision to cancel debt, and I appreciate that, but we need more - which means we need to take back the court.
If student loans aren’t enough, let’s talk about abortion as an economic issue and one that makes it so vital to change the makeup of the Supreme Court after Bush and Trump’s appointees overturned Roe v. Wade. Kids are wonderful and adorable, but they’re also expensive. About 1 in 4 American women will have an abortion during her lifetime, and by far the most common reasons for choosing to end a pregnancy are that having a child would interfere with work or education and that the woman cannot afford to have a child (often another child, as many women who have abortions already have children). Political pundits like to talk about social versus economic issues, but the right to choose is an economic issue.
Health insurance is a massive expense for many of us. To help with this, Obamacare expanded Medicaid, making affordable insurance available for the first time to people who were struggling to get by but not quite in truly dire straits. However, the Supreme Court struck yet again, ruling states could refuse the Medicaid expansion while still participating in the original program, and many did as an anti-Obama move. However, this is starting to change, especially as rural hospitals close in states that refused the expansion but stay open in states that accepted it. If you live in a state that hasn’t expanded Medicaid, you can and should contact your state legislator to ask them to support accepting the expansion.
Childcare is a classic example of an industry that badly needs subsidies. For families with young children, childcare can cost tens of thousands of dollars a year, but even while families pay huge sums, childcare workers (overwhelmingly women and often young) are badly underpaid - most earn less than $30,000 a year. In Europe, this isn’t how it works - childcare is heavily subsidized by taxes so that the cost of caring for children is spread among all of us instead of the handful of families with young kids at this exact moment and childcare workers can be paid a living wage. We should ask Congress and state governments to do the same here.
So that’s my pitch to be a subversive personal finance advice columnist. If anyone wants to pay me to write all this in much more depth, you know how to find me!