shierholz and michael strain. and later dr. claire boogaard will be onto talk about the covid-19 vaccines on children. ♪ host: good morning. welcome to the "washington journal" on this monday, november 8. president biden is pointing to his policies and taking credit for an economic recovery, with 5.6 million jobs added since he took the presidency. and an unemployment rate at 4.6% , the lowest since the pandemic began. we want to hear from you about what the job market is like where you live. if you have lost a job, dial in at (202) 748-8000.

if you have changed jobs, (202) 748-8001. and if you have kept a job, (202) 748-8002. all others dial in at (202) 748-8003. you can also use that number to text us with your first name, city, and state. or join the conversation on facebook.com/c-span or send a tweet with the handle @cspanwj. has your job status changed during the pandemic? that is our question and conversation with you this morning. let's listen to the president on friday talking about the latest jobs report. [video clip] pres. biden: our economy is on the move. this morning, we learned that in october, our economy created 531,000 jobs, well above expectations. we also learned that job growth over the prior two months, august and september, was nearly

250 thousand more jobs than previously thought. in total, the job creation in the first full nine months of my administration is about 5.6 million new jobs, a record for any new president. that is a monthly average of over 60,000 new jobs each month. 10 times more than the job creation the three months before i took office. new on employment claims have fallen every week in the past five weeks, down by more than 60% since i took office, and are now at the lowest levels since the pandemic started. and people continue to move from unemployment rolls to work. host: president biden on friday. he is taking credit, saying his policies are why we are in an economic recovery. this morning, it is your turn to tell washington with their job situation is like and what it has been during this pandemic. so if you have lost a job, (202) 748-8000.

changed a job, (202) 748-8001. or kept a job, (202) 748-8002. and all others, your line is (202) 748-8003. here's how republicans reacted to the latest job numbers. kevin brady, republican of texas, top republican on the ways and means committee, saying this, with the end of president biden's lab agenda implement bonuses and stimulus checks finally spent, more americans are finally coming back to work. that is a good sign, but our economy is still missing 4 million workers and inflation keeps taxing families. the deficit is 729,000 jobs short of the american rescue plan promises. the labor force participation rate is the lowest since 1977. nearly half of americans believe a recession will occur in the coming year. if congress ramps through his $4 trillion tax and spending binge, we can expect more job losses, fewer workers, and higher prices.

let's go to john in brooklyn. share your thoughts on the job market. caller: this job market, it is the economy, period. i do not know why they do not go through every entity in that will and explain how doing new things up to modern time, today, won't generate more revenue. if you have something built in the 1950's, with global warming, that levy is not sufficient. that has to be a larger one or a longer one, and i want to know why they don't explain the revenue -- everything that would bring in more money for our economy, more jobs. host: you might be interested in the washington post this morning, talking about the infrastructure bill that did

pass in the house on friday and the president signed it on saturday, and this is what they note. oxford economics predicts .5 percentage point higher growth in 2022 and .9 percentage point higher growth in 2023. moody's analytics predicts stronger growth and 2.4 million jobs by the end of 2020 five as spending ramps up on road construction and increased schools. later it says, not all models agree that biden's agenda will result of the big gains. this is the kin wharton budget model, predicting it would have a slightly negative impact on growth over the coming decade, largely because it estimates that some proposed but not agreed to text sex and big corporations and wealthy individuals will be a drag -- agreed to tax hikes and big corporations and wealthy individuals will be a drag on the economy. to the next call, what are your

thoughts? caller: good morning, and thank you for taking my call, c-span. i want you as i can, and i appreciate everything that c-span does, giving a voice to the citizens. i am retired and have still been able to stay retired thanks to the economy and stock market going up. there are some of my friends who are struggling because of the pandemic. they have no option other than to leave their job because of religious or medical reasons that they do not want to take the vaccine. and i feel hurt for them. there are others who do not think twice and are getting the vaccine. but we must try to have compassion for everybody, not

just for those who are working. there are those who are working and are at the brink of losing their job. we need to find ways, solutions for them. host: your friends that quit their jobs because of a vaccine mandate, what are they going to do? have they told you? caller: well, they are struggling. some of them are trying to switch jobs. some of them are filling out forms. but whatever it is, it is a struggle that has little compassion on the other side of the mandate. and this is what we are missing. we are human beings, and we should act like human beings to others. we should not be thinking we are all machines and self-service centers. so i feel sorry for them all.

and i also feel the pain. i think joe biden is doing the right job, and i hope that those people who have job status change realize this is something that america can get through. we can get through it. we are a strong country. and we are the best country. and we are trying our best. and i think we will get through it. thank you. host: joe in texas, good morning to you. your turn. caller: yes, ma'am. how you doing this morning? host: morning. caller: just trying to deal with this stuff going on. you know, i mean, a lot of stuff has been going on around here, especially down in texas. and you know, with this job economy, people be saying all these jobs turning around --

that is really not true, because a lot of these jobs that are being offered, they are only offering applications only, turning around basically not actually hiring. i'm going to be honest, i was turned down two jobs -- actually three jobs, and these people turned around and told me, since biden turned around and got in there, i was actually turned down by three different jobs because i either wasn't spanish arete could not turn around basically speak spanish. they refused to hire me because i was not bilingual. that is something that is disrespectful towards me as a american citizen. host: what kind of jobs were you applying for? caller: i was actually applying for construction jobs. i was actually trying to go to work at different businesses, you know, like restaurants and stuff like that.

yeah, i was turned down because i cannot speak spanish. you know -- host: do you have a job now? caller: i am actually out of work and have been out of work. everybody be doing this supplement check. i am going to be honest, ma'am, my dad just passed away, a united states navy veteran. money was taken from him, you know, and i am going to be honest, without the supplement checks, i have never got my $600 from the government since has -- since biden has been in there, never got my $1400. but everybody else out there, certain people has been getting their money, and i cannot even turn around and take care of my family. i had to turn around and basically sell my vehicle because of what the government turn around and basically did. you know, it is disrespectful. you know? it is sorry because this is why

this economy is going. host: joe, how are you paying the bills then? you sold a car, but what are you doing? caller: i am sitting here, i've been borrowing my mom's truck and trying to make ends made by going around and cleaning up little shops or picking up aluminum cans on the side of the road. it has been bad. and it hurts, because i cannot even take care of my family. host: do you have kids, joe? caller: no, i do not. i just never really had the chance to really meet the right person to have that. but my mom, she has been struggling. she has lost part of her social security. that has actually dropped because of everything going on in the country.

and it is just sad. and it really hurts, and i'm just tired of struggling. i do not know what else to do. host: joe, what about the infrastructure bill -- it has passed and in the coming months, there could be more construction jobs. does that give you some hope? caller: i am hoping, but the construction jobs i have been doing is, you know, they refused to hire me, these jobs, these new businesses turning around and going up in the world, they refused to hire me because i cannot speak spanish. host: right, we heard that point. joe in texas there. jim in grand forks, north dakota . you changed jobs during the pandemic. what were you doing? caller: yeah, can you hear me ok? host: we can. caller: i feel for the last guy. quite the opposite up here the midwest is hopping, desperate for people.

maybe if he wants to head north. it will be getting cold, so i can be pretty brutal appear. i was the same as that guy come about as low as he was in 2012, 2013. i was in a position where a lot of the meatpacking plants, they did not even want to talk to you if you were a white dude or black dude. they were recruiting in spanish. there is a story i have told many times on the show, i was a roofer and worked with a lot of different people in my life, and i remember when the first mexicans came in about 30 years ago. so the displacement is a true thing, happens to working-class blacks and whites, but nobody cares about that. i do not dwell on it. i was down and out, drinking,

depressed, but i went west to north dakota. i went to the oil fields. then came back to grand forks, and agricultural kind of town. i was working at several of the mills. something happened here that never happened since the early 1980's. i'm 57, and early 1980's, i remember with ronald reagan, you would walk into a place and they would ask you, do you have a neighbor, do you have a brother, we need them, bring them. now it is full to that. unbelievable how desperate they are for help here, the entry-level jobs. this aircraft factory here, i think entry-level wages for unskilled people have gone from like $14 an hour to up to $18 an hour in some cases. host: in the grand forks, north dakota, how far does 17 dollars an hour take you? caller: the rent here is probably half of what it is in the suburbs of pennsylvania.

i have a two-bedroom apartment for 400, $500 a month. it is unbelievable. the only bad thing, of course, is the price of gas and meat. i'm starting to have to eat more pork, cannot even buy a steak. for the first time in my life, i had two companies fighting over me. i have a lot of soft skills, some hard skills, too. soft skills are more important, showing up on time, communicate, work with people. and i have worked with several different trade spirit two big companies here will go back and forth. they will call me up and counter offer, give you 20 having something, but the other company would counter offer. i had two big companies fighting over me, and it felt pretty good, and at the age of 57. but i give a good impression, take care of myself, but they do like older people. host: have you been promoted in

your time there? caller: promoted, yeah. i went out of the mill intuitive a position because i need a knee replacement and my back is pretty shut, so i had to take a job that was not so heavy. but all throughout the midwest, they are desperate for people to die have never seen anything like it. they are immediate hiring. you walk in for immediate interviews. i think people are kind of flooding in here. here is the final thing, and i not sing this in the amine way because i have worked with mexicans, costa ricans, and guatemalans, let me tell you some the, there is hardly any mexicans here. it is true about supply and demand. people think companies will not function -- a restaurant will not be able to function without a mexican to wash the dishes. that is crap. there are near reaching girls that drive tractors.

somali guys work in landscaping. nigerian guys come out here. nepalese buddhist girls work at the walmarts. also, white people do a lot of the trades. so displacement israel -- is real. that is a real fact, because i lived it. host: jim mentioned the price of gas going up, one of his concerns, while he is employed in north dakota. listen to the energy secretary on "state of the union" yesterday. according to aaa, the national gas prices is $3.42 a gallon. bank of america is predicting crude oil prices could soar another 50% by next june. to the average gas price in america be four dollars a gallon in the united states then? >> we hope not.

we will get the forecast this week. the president is all over this. every president gets frustrated because i cannot control depressive gasoline. you can call upon increasing supply, which he has done. opec, unfortunately, is controlling the agenda. opec is a cartel and controls over 50% of the supply of gasoline. >> is there anything that the biden administration can do about opec? >> he can call upon them to increase supply. they have shown they will not do that. that will increase the chokehold on access to affordable fuel at the pump. so the president is looking at the controls he has. >> what about strategic petroleum? >> he is certainly looking at that, and i think we will be looking at that in the upcoming forecast. >> americans this cold winter, should they expect to pay higher prices for heating their homes? >> yeah, this is going to happen. it will be more expensive this year than last year.

we are in a slightly beneficial condition, certainly relative to europe, because there chokehold of natural gas is very significant. but we have the same problem in fuels that the supply chains have, which is that the oil and gas companies are not flipping the switch as quickly as demand requires. so that is why the president has been focused on both the immediate term and long term, let us get off of the volatility associated with fossil fuels and associated with others who do not have our country's interest at heart and invest in moving to clean energy where we will not have this problem. that is so much of what these two bills are focused on. host: from sunday's "state of the union" on cnn, the energy secretary. has your job status changed during the pandemic? keep dialing in this morning and you can also text us at (202) 748-8003. you can send us a tweet with the handle @cspanwj.

join us on facebook.com/c-span. frank jones in a text from bend, oregon, saying, yes, i have had nine different employers this year. facebook, frank bama says, kept my job throughout this thing, joe's plan has created many new jobs, he has taken credit for many people going back to work. that is great, but don't misrepresent the numbers. new startups are rare in this economic environment. you would have to be nuts to start any business considering all the restrictions and costs. dan harris on facebook, retired this year but thinking about getting a part-time job because the cost of living and the hit to my 401(k) thanks to this administration. another text from chris in massachusetts, working at home since march of 2020, have had the double benefit of not commuting and working lots of overtime. that's go to calls. earl in california.

heavy changed jobs or done anything in this job market he would like to share? caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. far northern california, i am really retired. i have had agent orange, so my heart goes out to the gentleman who is so depressed and having trouble figuring out what to do next. you know, maybe he should take a little course, see if he can take the spanish course. internet, you can do that. but if that is a block. can i just say, let's be honest, this biden approach here has been a complete train wreck. i am watching it right hand -- i am watching your right hand to see if you are going to start for the phone. host: go ahead, give us your

opinion. caller: let me get it out. i just turned 71 in a few days. i was born on november 11. so you might think i am too old to go do something. we're getting a lot of mixed emotions. first of all, you cannot fool the american public, joe biden. then gentleman right before you took my call where the guy says he is taking credit for a job market that was completely shut down and now the benefits are over and people are having to go back to work. before they would get paid to stay home and made more money, let's be honest about it. i am paying four dollars a gallon for gas. the price of ground beef has gone up four times. and in the secretary talks about opec having control over our gas again. thank you again, joe biden. i cannot find a biden floater

out here right now. i don't want to make it -- i cannot find a biden voter out here right now. i don't want to make it about politics paired because of my health and agent orange, i found myself or that gentleman was many times. what i have had to do where i live is to start my own job. it is interesting, i was listening to a live broadcast on the internet, donald trump put his name on a college and everybody said it was a crooked deal and he branded that college with his name. but occasionally he would do a live call -- i cannot afford the $17,000 tuition online, but you could listen in to the calls. one time, somebody asked him, how do you get so many great deals, mr. trump? and the guy goes, well, you

know, they're not all great deals. what i do is find a good deal, and then i pull the trigger. i thought, pull the trigger, there had been an empty medical center in my town for three years for sale, and i had no money, my credit was only the garbage, and i pulled the trigger and purchased a medical center for -- they wanted $450,000. i said, i will give you $500,000 because i had no money anyway, and i went out and borrowed enough money to start that transaction. i said, i will let you represent me, too, to a broker, so now your commission has doubled. so i got his attention. you know what, i did over $1 million that first year. i bought it for half $1 million, and six months, right before 2008, in six months, the

business value doubled to over $1 million. so that is my donald trump story. host: all right, i will leave it there so i can talk to some other folks. earl talks about the job economy he believes is not doing great. npr did a recent piece -- why are so many americans quitting their jobs? inside this article, they write this, the u.s. bureau of labor statistics announced that 4.3 million americans, or two point 9%, of the entire workforce quit their jobs in august, a record-breaking month piggybacking on previous record months. the great resignation is real and can be seen across virtually all industries. it is common to see a surgeon quitting when the job market is tight and there is a cornucopia of open positions, but what is happening now is unlike anything we have seen before. so if you have quit your job during the pandemic, we want to hear from you this morning.

if you quit your job because of something to do with the pandemic, please call in and tell your story. changed jobs, lost jobs, kept jobs, we want to hear from you this morning. to jackie in colorado. good morning to you. caller: good morning. it costs too much to run semis, they turn people loose, and they just pushed everybody off to the side because prices have rised for fuel, insurance, and everything that goes with it, batteries, all that stuff. we need that to make stuff run. host: do you have a semi business? how many trucks? caller: i ran two semis, and it just costs too much to run them anymore. host: so what are you going to do? caller: i guess i will just let

them sit. because when you cannot run them, you cannot run them. and pretty soon, everybody else is going to sit them down. late 1970's, when i was a little younger, we had a farm strike that originated in southeast colorado. everybody took the tractors to washington. i do not know if you remember, probably pretty young for that. anyhow, we have got to all come together to make this work. and they keep talking about the price of fuel. let's go back to that. ok, they want to go solar. maybe they need to start figuring out a bunch of bicycles to haul that solar equipment around on because you cannot burn fossil fuel and rebuild the whole united states. it is going to burn a lot of gas for that. host: what were you transporting in your semis? caller: grain.

as far as the global warming, that happened with adam and eve. host: let's stick to the jobs though. so you're hauling grain. is there still demand? are people calling you up to haul this? caller: no, it all basically went back to family and whatever they have got to do to keep their costs low. but back to global warming, global warming, you know, you've got to -- host: let's stick to the topic. jerry in nevada. good morning. caller: yes, i was working in the casino business for a long, long time in las vegas, one of the very fortunate ones that has lived in america and worked for 50 years and was going to retire the last year, the pandemic came. i was able to collect full unemployment for over 70 weeks, able to keep my family, pay my

rent, clothing, even save a little money. i hear these people having very hard times and feel sorry for them, but those in the grind for 50 years, personal responsibility, take care of yourself, do what do you have to do, be a good citizen, and i think things will work out for you. seems like all of these people have a lot of things to complain about emma but really they just need to get a job, stick with it, work with it. you will rise in your job. and have faith in america. no place else in the world can we what we have here. look at what was done, and look at the rest of the world. we are very, very lucky to live and work in this country. host: your story echoes a headline in the "new york times." a piece from yesterday. americans are flush with cash and jobs. they also think the economy is awful. he notes that americans have $2.3 trillion more in savings in the last 19 months then would

have been expected in the pre-pandemic past. median household checking account balance was 50% higher in july of this year than in 2019. james in buffalo, kentucky, you have kept a job. tell us your story. caller: yeah, i am from an area that is kind of depressed, but there are still jobs here. every man has to get out and work whatever they can work and then do better as they can do better. the problem with a lot of people that voted for biden and the job situation is that everything was going good under trump and the majority of people that voted for biden are getting something for free. so if they are drawing something for free, they cost us all kinds of problems. it is amazing. you know, they could have easily voted for trump. they had money in the system for them. so i don't know why all of a set

and they are voting for somebody like that. it is just crazy. you know? like i say, you have got all these people coming in late for mexico. let me tell you, when they finally absorb this will entire country, ain't nobody going to be able to get any word because they are going to be hungry and will want to work. then they will put everybody out of work. it is really sad, but that is just the way it is. host: let's take a look at what democrats on the joint economic committee are saying about the economy today. here is a graphic that they have put out on november 5, new job state data from the bureau of labor statistics so the economy added 531,000 jobs in october, bringing the total to 5.6 million, averaging 620,000 per month. the economy has added back 81% of the jobs lost since the peak of the pandemic. he also put this tweet out, the

n up limit rate filter 4.6% -- the unemployment rate fell 4.6%. 7.9 percent for black workers, five point 9% for hispanic workers, 4.2% for asian workers, and 40% for white workers. this is our labor market is still operating well below potential. the vaccine mandates will only make our return to work more difficult as many americans face a cruel ultimatum. get vaccinated or lose your job. this from fred upton, republican in michigan, great news, this really is the result of indic the $300 enhanced and up limit benefit another reason why we should be spending $2 trillion on top of the five children -- we should not be spending $2 trillion. tax hikes and reckless spending our recipe for disaster for our economy and job creation. this was from "meet the press,"

defending vaccine mandates for businesses. [video clip] >> before i let you go, i want to ask about the court ruling yesterday on the vaccine protocols that osha is putting out, the soft mandate. i do not want to call it a hard mandate because of the testing option. there is a freeze. what does that mean for the federal government's efforts? do you stop preparing for january 4 in the moment? how does this work? >> i think what it means for the time being is the effectiveness of that vaccine requirement is frozen. i think it will certainly be well litigated well before january 3. i am not sure it has much practical effect in the short run. look, these vaccine requirements have been litigated up and down the courts i'll over the country. state requirements, for example. every single court were about this one ruled that they were valid. the supreme court has turned back several times already their

efforts to enjoy other vaccine requirements. i am quite confident that when this finally gets fully adjudicated, not just a temporary order, the validity of this requirement will be upheld. if osha can tell people to wear a hard hat on the job, to be careful around chemicals, they can put in place these simple measures to keep our workers safe. host: has your job status changed during the pandemic? that is our conversation this morning in the first hour of "washington journal." on facebook, this says, retired but quit substitute teaching because cases were reported in my classrooms daily during october. even though i am best -- vaccinated and boosted, i decided sharing a small classroom with 25 kids where the fires was spreading and no one was masked, i just decided i do not need the extra cash for a while. lara on facebook, yes, home with the kids, she says. greg on facebook, yes, i lost one job, got a second job, and

found one full-time job with benefits to replace the other two. i am marching much less and making a little more with full benefits, so i am better off than before. this text from new york, worked through the whole pandemic. in august, starting a new job with a $10,000 increase in pay. as someone hard-hit by the 2009 recession, this is a real boon, he said. let's go to calls. larry in maryland, you kept a job. caller: yeah, i kept my job even after the pandemic. i was only laid off for two months, went back to work. but i know people here, some people have committed suicide. i listened to the man about this case with his father. a lot of people hurting. you do not need illegals. americans will do the job. but it is hyperinflation that has kicked in, paying more for

fuel and for food. and you got cargo ships, over 70 cargo ships just sitting there. we will go into financial collapse. host: gallup poll and a people found people are very pessimistic about the economy, despite the numbers that we are seeing. joann in new york, you lost your job. welcome to the conversation. caller: we had to shut down our whole company. host: what was the company? caller: trucking. we had 12 rigs. host: why did you have to shut down? caller: we cannot afford the fuel tax, the mileage taxpayer this was before things got really bad with this covid. host: when was this? caller: the fuel tax, the mileage tax, just before covid hit actually.

fuel tax, mileage tax, compensation, insurance and so this is not going to get better anytime soon. when you hire a new driver, unless you are a big conglomerate trucking company, those drivers, the insurance companies require them to be insured, that they have at least two years of driving tractor-trailer under their belts. we did all the port work and stuff, i know what i'm speaking of. this is not going to change anytime soon. and with the mileage and fuel tax we had to pay, obscene amounts of money. did you see any roads and bridges get fixed? not me. we could not keep it going. host: have you found a new job? caller: no. no, i don't know what to do at this point. host: have you tried? caller: oh, yeah, yeah. i am lucky enough or i am at the age where i can take retirement.

we're going to be living under one of those bridges soon. we are under bankruptcy right now. yeah, yeah, this has been coming for a long time. the trucking companies tried to tell the government for a while that you are making it so difficult to be able to even hire anybody, to put them in the truck, and then to keep them there. and nobody wanted to listen. host: sounds like you owned this company. caller: yes, we did, and we had to shut our company down. host: you said you tried to get another job. what are you trying for and what feedback are you getting from people? caller: brokerage and with the trucking because i know the industry, the loss and regulations -- know the laws and regulations we did this over 20 years. host: why haven't you been able to get a job in that industry? caller: i think because they're such a shortage on the trucks right now, they don't need my help.

any trucker can pick up the phone and say you got a load for me, wham, he's got it. he does not need the m between guy. i ripped as she does not need the in between guy. i really think that is my problem right now. just letting people know the trucking end of things is not going to change anytime soon. host: how old are you, if you don't me asking? caller: i am in my low 60's, so i am taking an early retirement to just keep the food on the table, which is getting difficult, too. we know all those laws and rules per we worked the port speared my drivers had a swift card. host: explain that. caller: it is what a driver needs to get in and out of the ports, kind of like a little credit card they have to have background checks and everything they will not let just everyone in. it cost you so much per year,

per driver. host: thanks for sharing your story with us this morning, and i hope the situation gets better for you. to sheila in bristol, connecticut. caller: hi, i am just surprised nobody is talking about all the baby boomers that have retired. i know so many people that retire during this pandemic. i know people that were working into their late 60's, 70's, and they just said i'm just going to retire. it is time anyway, they had been thinking about it anyway. and the next generation did not have as many kids. host: do you know anyone who has done that? do you know anyone who was working well into their 60's, 70's, and said -- caller: yeah, i do. i have a sister, and have a couple people in my family. i have a couple nephews that changed jobs, went to cdl.

also, there are a lot of jobs but a lot of them are part-time jobs. my grandson, for instance, he had a job and was working two days a week because they do not want to give full time because then they have to give benefits. you know, it is a mess out there, but it is going to work out once everybody gets back to normal and with the pandemic, get it under control. host: i do not know if you missed the numbers at the top, but this is a snapshot of the economy, according to the labor department. in october, the unemployment rate fell from 4.8% to 4.6%, the lowest since he pandemic. and 531,000 jobs were added. the unemployment rate by race breaks down this way, 7.9% for black americans, 5.9% for hispanics, 4.2% for asians, and

4% for whites. look at the jobs gains by sector. leisure and hospitality sector, 106 the 4000 jobs -- 164,000 jobs. 100,000 jobs in professional and business services. 60,000 in manufacturing. transportation and warehousing's on 54,000. in health care, 37,000 jobs added. has your job status changed during the pandemic question mark evident in ohio, you kept your job. go ahead. evan, good morning. are you with us? caller: do you mean kevin? host: oh, i am sorry. go ahead. caller: seems like the pandemic has distracted people from the fact that globalization and

financialization has already created this problem. the pandemic is only helping reveal that there is this problem with not only jobs in america but identity with work and what kind of job people want to work in our society. also, you were showing the tweets from the congresspeople. i just think that there is a very easy way to pay for these things for our country, these spending bills. this taxing speculation and financialization, when these financial institutions -- they are not reinvesting when they get their profits from the financial sector. that is one of the biggest problems with what is going on.

obviously, the pandemic has exacerbated this issue, but this has been going on long before, and it started in the 1990's my free trade and globalization. host: doug in wilmington, delaware. caller: thanks for taking my call. first of all, the biden administration has been wanting to initiate mandates for all the jobs. so my question is, how come he hasn't mandated testing on the border? host: and your point? how does this impact drops? caller: ok, and my second point was, we used to be energy independent. right, so we were the number one exporter of oil, and we were taking care of all of our energy problems. now the biden administration is begging opec to produce more

oil. and tear holman, she does not have any clue on what is going on with energy. host: ok, virginia, don, we will go to you next. caller: i have a deep defense against the contra virus, separation of church and state. what we do with the virus, all we do is set it on fire, put it in a cemetery, very it, use a religious cross, and feel the lord be my shepherd walk in the valley of death. host: all right. on "face the nation" yesterday, a former commissioner was the guest come asking about the effect of the u.s. decision to lift border restrictions for fully vaccinated international travelers. [video clip] >> for the first time in the 18 months, vaccinated travelers were adults and children will be able to enter the united states.

travel is picking up. will this feed into the delta wave you're talking about? >> i do not think the travel coming in from outside the u.s. is going to feed additional infections or a lot of additional infections to really change the equation. first of all, they have to show that have been vaccinated. a lot of them will make sure they're not carrying the infection with them and will not want to be in a foreign country with the infection. i suspect a lot of people will be cautious about coming into the u.s. with the infection. this delta virus will play out of the country. not much we will be able to do to interrupted. we have seen the south be engulfed with the infection and it has recovered. it has spread to the midwest and the mountain states. now levels are going down there, now it is starting to spread to the great lakes region and new england. there is a stall and cases but not because we're seeing a pickup across the country, but this delta infection is moving in less populated areas and hitting more populated areas

like michigan, minnesota, wisconsin. so it is showing an overall stall and the decline. this has to play out. this delta infection is going to capture most people who remain unvaccinated. we have done a phenomenal job vaccinating the adult population. almost 81% of those over 18 have had at least one dose. for those not getting vaccinated, they will get infected with this delta variant. host: the former fda commissioner. on the ban on international travel being lifted today, the headline on cnn right now. we are talking about your job status during the pandemic and whether or not it has changed. we have about 10 minutes left of this conversation. keep dialing in a have you lost a job, cap to job, changed jobs? all others, you can call in, as well. you can text your first name, city, and state to.

or you can go to facebook or twitter. in the last month, 11.6% of employed persons telework. down from 15.2% in the prior month. 3.8 billion persons reported they have been unable to work because their employer closed or lost businesses due to the pandemic, down from 5 million in september. does this resonate with you? we want to hear from you. jeanie, you kept a job in north carolina. caller: hi, thank you. i am thankful that i do have a job. i still see a lot of help-wanted ads. but i will he turn off with all of the negativity. i think that the country is

going in a good direction. the president is doing a very good job. i do think the media is too negative, and it really is adversely affecting things. i do hope that we can all get the media to make a turn, because all of this negativity really isn't helping. thanks. host: ok. steve, keyport, new jersey. your thoughts on the job market? caller: good morning. i am a registered nurse who is currently 60 years old. my plan was to work until about the age of 65 and then retire. but of course, the pandemic hit. i am a guy in an women's profession. i have to say, women do an incredible job being nurses, and the environment of the hospital during covid became almost like a dictatorship. we lost our autonomy.

we were put into conditions that were, i would say, very adverse. of course, during a pandemic, you could expect that, but they started to rotate our shifts. i was a person who had not had intensive care unit experience for about 15 years, but the hospital decided they were going to throw was in there because it is not this corporate kind of hospital, a major hospital in new york city. they think a nurse is a nurse is a nurse appeared they did not train us. they put us into this environment, which was overwhelming. and then they decided to rotate our shifts, which had not been done since the early 1980's. so imagine, 60 years old, working day shift for the last 20 years, and now suddenly on a weekly basis they rotate us nights to days. and a lot of my colleagues are in our 60's and up, we all decided we are not being treated fairly, we are getting out of this. so we decided to retire.

meantime, we had a contractual agreement to health have -- to have health insurance benefits if you met certain criteria. all of a sudden they pulled that away and said we cannot pay for it, so now a lot of us are 60 to 65 without insurance. no we decided to go back to the hospital, and they say they do not want to hire us anymore and we're in this limbo. we can get jobs elsewhere and probably make equal the money. but i have to say, the pandemic forced a lot of nurses to retire, mainly because of the conditions that were put forth. nurses were never asked what do we think about what we should do, how we should handle this crisis. a lot of us got to the side and said certain people worked nights, certain people work days, and the hospitals shut us down completely and treated us so disrespectfully that a majority of the nurses my age, 60 and older, who met the qualification, we jumped ship

and said we're not going to do this anymore. host: so you are retired. will you have enough money? caller: actually, nursing in new york city paid very well. i was able to pay off my home before i reached this age and also put some money away. so yeah, i am ok with it, and i actually get a pension. it is a private pension, not a public pension, private pension with the new york state nurses association. able to retire, we do get a pension. but we do not do nursing for money. we do nursing because we love what we do. and what happened during the pandemic is we were treated with such disrespect by these big corporate -- the hospitals have become corporations. not the priority of care. so we jumped ship. i need to get health insurance now, so i started to look at different jobs. i am looking, but i did not retire by choice, i was kinda

forced out of it because of the pandemic and the conditions. and then we get to this year, and people are being told you are killing people inside there, such disinformation about covid and what the health care professionals are doing inside hospitals. so i am actually kind of glad i got out of it. disappointed because i did love the profession. host: a nurse there in new jersey. the house late friday passed the bipartisan infrastructure and bill that had already passed in the senate, by a vote of 228-2 06. democrats lost five of their own -- six of their own, but that deficit was made up by 13 republicans who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill. here are the 13 house republicans that voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill. it passed in the senate, so then

this bill went to the president and he signed it on saturday. the speaker of the house was able to bring this to the floor after getting an agreement from a handful of moderate democrats that they would vote for the build back better plan, the social spending proposal, if it is put on the floor by november 15. so progressive's, most of them, went along with voting for infrastructure further last week. and moderates, at least five of them, saying we will vote for the social spending proposal if the cbo score comes back in line with what they are being told and if it is put on the floor before november 15. brittany in washington, d.c., you kept a job. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call.

yeah, i actually also work in a hospital but in a more administrative role, a regulatory manager. so i am a one-man shop, and it is a needed role, so i managed to keep my position. my husband is a police officer in the metropolitan area, and he also, because he is an essential worker, kept his position. i think being in that type of place sort of helped us, and we have been very busy during the pandemic to keep combating things. host: and have either one of you been -- have you had to deal with any covid either with yourselves or with your family? caller: actually, we have also been very blessed there that even though we are around the

community and public, we have had appropriate ppe and precautions taken by both of our employers. we have not been exposed. our families, both sides, took everything very seriously. isolated, did not go out if they did not need to, wore their masks, and got vaccinated as soon as they can. so i almost feel an anomaly in this conversation, but thankfully we have been very blessed. host: thanks for sharing. robert in sanford, florida. you kept a job, as well what do you do? caller: good morning. i actually own a business, a human resources consulting company. i kept my job and kept my employees. i have to admit that last year, ppp was very helpful for that, but it has come back tremendously for us. host: robert in sanford,

florida, good to hear. humble, texas, susan. go ahead. caller: good morning. i was working at the airport in the beginning of the pandemic. and we went home and made our family sick and they died, which is not really work-related -- host: sorry to hear that. caller: we did our best. one lady lost seven family members. we did not know about the virus yet. anyway, i worked at the airport, and when we came back, when business started up again, they only hired half of the staff. so i eventually decided to leave that job, and now i have been working a temporary covid-related health job. it has been quite a ride. but i did not mind getting my vaccination card. i was not upset about that.

some people same to be. but everyone has a different expectation. host: how much were you making at the airport job versus what you are bringing in now? caller: in the beginning, it was minimum wage, $7.25, and miscellaneous tips, if we did get them. i was a wheelchair attendant, so we handled the sick or elderly or incapacitated passengers. and now it is a temporary job, and i making $25 an hour, but i will be paying taxes severely on that. host: and do you have as much work? caller: no, no, it is intermittent. as of now, i just finished a job, and i will hopefully be looking for another one similar to it. host: on our facebook page, a

viewer says, i help people find work in their more jobs than bodies to fill them. been working from home since march 2020, no commute. my recommendation for joe and anyone, seek out a paid apprenticeship through state employment agencies, the department of labor. this was from marilyn. robert in virginia, you lost a job. what were you doing? caller: yes, i did. i was a field technician mapping utility grids, and i lost my job in the pandemic. and i went home and managed a sandwich shop for a few months while i gained licenses and certificates. left that job and now doing environmental geology. i know some people have had it really rough out there. but at the same time, if you seize the opportunity and work on bettering yourself, getting the licenses and certificates

that pertain to your field, you can increase your marketability, and if you're willing to relocate and chase them dollars, it is out there forit is out th. host: robert, did it cost you money to get these licenses and certificates? how much did you have to invest in yourself? caller: a couple hundred dollars. i took the job that was available, which was managing a sandwich shop. it is not what i went to school for, but when you have bills due, you do what you do. i started looking around, contacted some old professors and talked to people in the industry, used some of the online social advantages to talk to people in the career fi elds.

what makes you desirable? does it make it marketable? what about git licensing? gela just training for whatever state you are in, etc. -- geology training for whatever state you are in, etc. take a little bit out of each paycheck to do those things, to get your python certification or whatever it is, depending on your field. it takes time and effort and money, but as you increase your profile, you put it out there, and eventually you start to get feedback. host: how old are you, if you don't mind me asking? caller: i'm 30. host: and when you put yourself out there, to get back into this job sector that you had training

in and education in, are you making more money than before the pandemic? caller: absolutely. i left texas, it can be hard sometimes to get those well-paying jobs. some other states where they have higher minimum wage. when you bring the floor up, everything goes up. that has led to higher pay for sure. host: robert in falls church, virginia. thank you for calling in, and tweeting and posting on facebook and sending text messages and being part of this conversation. we will continue talking about the economy. up next, a roundtable discussion on president biden's build back better agenda. we are joined by economic policy institute president heidi shierholz, and the director of the american enterprise institute, michael strahan.

later, the covid-19 vaccine was approved for children five to 11 years old. we will talk to medical director dr. claire boogaard. we will be right back. ♪ >> this morning, the supreme court hears oral arguments in a case on the state -- conducted on a muslim community in irvine, california. watch live coverage at 10:00 p.m. -- 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span or our new video app, c-spanow. >> a panel of political analysts discuss 2022 midterm elections today. live coverage from the american enterprise institute getting at 12:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, online at cspan.org or on c-spanow, our new video app. >> -- will be part of the

conversation on the 2021 election results and the biden administration agenda. live today at 10:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, online at cspan.org or on c-spanow, our new video app. >> presidential historian craig fairman calls the autobiography of calvin coolidge the forgotten classic of presidential writing. the new authorized expanded and annotated edition of the coolidge autobiography has just been published. editors quote coolidge and their introduction as saying, it is a great advantage to a president and a major source of safety to the country, for him to note

that he is not a great man. we ask amity to give us some background about the released coolidge autobiography, which was originally published in may of 1929, 92 years ago. >> chair of the calvin coolidge provincial foundation is on this week's episode of footnotes plus. what does plus is available on the c-span now app or wherever you get your podcasts -- footnotes plus is available on the -- book notes plus is available on the c-span now app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> a wyoming republican who serves as the vice chair for the house select committee investigating the january 6 attack on the u.s. capitol will be the featured speaker at the -- school of communication in manchester. you can watch live coverage at 4:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, online at c-span.org or on c-span now, our new video app.

>> get c-span on the go. watch the days biggest political events live or on-demand anywhere, anytime on our new mobile video app, c-span now. access top highlights, listen with c-span radio and discover new podcasts, all for free. download today. >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back. joining us this morning is heidi shierholz, president of the economic policy institute, along with michael strahan, economic policy director -- number policy studies director at the american enterprise institute, here to talk about the state of our economy. i want to talk about the latest numbers put up by the bureau of labor statistics. 531,000 jobs were added in the month of october. the end of limit rate at 4.6%, the lowest since the pandemic began.

the unemployment rate by race, for black americans is 7.9%. hispanics are seeing 5.9%. asians, 4.2%. heidi shierholz, how would you describe the current state of our economy? heidi: there is so much going on, but i think in broad strokes, we are coming back fast , solidly but there is still a massive gap in our labor market. we added 531,000 jobs in october. that is not as strong as the growth we were seeing pre-delta. we also saw upward revisions to prior month data. we actually didn't get hit as hard by the delta variant, as far as job growth goes, as we had originally thought. that is good news and a reminder to never freak out about the monthly numbers, because there

is always changes and month-to-month volatility. the solid growth is very good news. the less good news is that we still have a massive gap in the labor market. depending on how you count where we would have been if covid hadn't happened, the gap in the labor market is somewhere between 5 million and 8 million jobs. we are still really far down, but we are heading in the right direction. another quick thing i will say, you pointed out in the beginning, the unemployment rate at 4.6% masks enormous disparities by different groups. because of things like occupational segregation and discrimination and other labor market disparities rooted in structural racism, we see the black unemployment rate at almost twice the white unappointed rate right now.

that really underscores the need to put in place things that will help lead to a really equitable recovery. host: let me ask you about this massive gap, 5 million to 8 million jobs. why is that? heidi: we lost 22 million jobs in the spring of 2020, when covid first hit, and we have been steadily, with some bumps in the road, as there have been surges of the virus, we have been steadily adding back and we are just not there yet. workers of this country want to be there immediately but that kind of hiring to ramp up just takes a little bit of time and that is what we are facing now, we are digging out of it, but it was an unprecedented coven driven hole in the labor market. host: michael strahan, your perspective -- michael strain,

your perspective on the economy? michael: 1.i would underline -- one point i would underline, i think the picture of the last three months looks a lot different today than it dead at this time last week with the revision to the prior two months . i think fundamentally, the economy is imbalanced. there were lots of figures can point to that suggest the labor market is really tight, that the economy is really strong. the number of unemployed workers per job opening is very low. the number of job openings is extreme we hi, indicating that employers really do want workers. workers are quitting their jobs at record rates. what this says to economists is

this it is -- is that workers are feeling very confident about their position in the labor market. perhaps most significantly, wages are growing extremely rapidly. wages are growing around 5% and in some industries, growing as high as 11% or 12%. unlike many previous episodes where you would hear employers say they can't find workers, and this case employers are putting their money where their mouth is and they are significantly and rapidly raising wages to attract workers. at the same time, the participation rate for the labor force, the rate at which adults are leaving -- has not really

improved. we still have 6 million fewer jobs in the economy than we should. those indicators suggest a very weak labor market and my concern is that because we pushed the demand side of the economy so hard, the $900 billion in stimulus that president trump signed, the one point $9 trillion in stimulus that president biden signed in march of 2021, combined with all sorts of pandemic related factors, my concern is that we pushed the demand side of the economy so hard that the economy is going to be overheating before the 6 million workers can be reabsorbed into the workforce, and then we are left with a really big problem and we are

not able to reincorporate all the workers that we should, without putting the broader economy at risk and i think that is the big story of the labor market going into 2022, and i think it is a major problem. host: and your thoughts on the unemployment rate by race? almost 8% for black americans, 6% for hispanics. much less for asians and whites. michael: that's right, and that has historically been the case. unemployment rates vary by race. one thing that we happens is lower wage workers get hit harder on the way down with reductions in employment and other labor market indicators, and then they catch up faster on the way up, so they are just more sensitive to the cycle.

we are seeing that right now. wages for lower wage workers are growing faster. host: we want to invite our viewers to join in on this conversation. democrats, dial in at (202)-748-8000. republicans, (202)-748-8001. independents, (202)-748-8002. text us as well, at (202)-748-8003. please include your first name, city and state. we can also go to facebook or send a tweet. heidi shierholz, the associated press did a recent survey that found only 35% of those polled say the economy is good. why do you think that is? heidi: that is a really good question, and i think a lot of it has to do with the question of rates of change versus where

we actually are at a given point in time. the fact that we are getting better at a relatively rapid clip right now is little solace if you are one of the people that can't find work right now, so i think the fact that we have a big gap in the labor market is the thing that is driving that as opposed to the fact that things are getting faster at a rapid clip. we don't expect this to last for years and years like it did in the aftermath of the great recession, like congress actions could actually invest in a stronger recovery and we are on track right now to get to a state of recovery five times faster than we did in the aftermath of the great recession. we are doing this completely differently and better, but

again that -- where does that land if you are someone who does not have work right now? another thing that is on people's minds and i bet callers will talk about is the question of inflation. we are seeing inflation actually hitting people's paychecks, and that is an issue. one of the things that i think -- i wanted to respond to and what michael had said, when i look at the data, i don't see that the actions that congress took earlier in the year to provide relief and recovery as being a source of the inflation uptick we are seeing right now. i think the inflation uptick we are seeing right now is the result of two things. a massive reallocation of what people are buying. in covid, people stopped buying

face-to-face services. spending on those services went way down and then people massively increased their spending on goods and so demand for goods went way up. that was the reallocation and then you combine that -- nobody thought that would be coming. businesses weren't ready for it and when you combine that with covid related supply chain disruptions, port disruptions, all of those kinds of things, that is what has caused the increase in inflation in the recent period. it is not that the government put in place things that made the economy overheat. it is not that higher wages are leading to these higher prices like what we all know. the thing that has gotten a ton of intention -- 10 of attention is restaurant wages and that has absolutely happened.

they are at an extremely low level but they have come up a lot over the course of this year. no one is talking about massive inflation in the restaurant industry. there is inflation in the auto sector that people are focused on. host: let's get michael strain's perspective. michael: i agree with heidi that there are multiple factors. when i look at the drivers of the inflation, one of those drivers is the pandemic ending and people wanting to go out and spend money. another driver is certainly the kind of reallocating process that heidi is describing, where some industries shrink and some expand, some grow and some go out of business. that process leads to upward pressure on prices. a big factor is that households are sitting on about $2.5

trillion, savings above and beyond what we would expect in the absence of the pandemic. that is driven by two things. one is that in 2020, and for a lot of 21, households didn't spend as much money because they were locked in their houses. there was less opportunity to spend that money, so they save more. best of -- it was also partially from the generosity of the government, supporting households with significant lead better on women benefits the normally offered. maybe it is a good policy or bad policy but it certainly contributed to excess savings and excess savings are also starting to fuel price inflation. some of the things we think of as supply-side issues actually are driven by excess demand.

take the supply chain pickups for example at ports, being unable to process the flow of goods that they are receiving. there are so many more ships because americans have bought so many more goods, because demand has been induced so strongly. if the normal volumes that are ports had to process was currently in place, they'd be able to do it. the problem is that households have so much money in their pockets that they are buying so many goods and ports have to process much higher volumes than a normal -- then they normally do. if you look in the labor markets, in my view, unappointed benefits have kept workers on the sidelines, some workers on

the sidelines. that means there are fewer workers to fill job openings. that means employers are pushing up wages and that is showing up as wage inflation. another factor that is keeping workers on the sidelines are the amount of savings they have. that savings is fueling extra demand for goods and services and also making workers choosier about what jobs they take it since they have some money in the bank. they don't need to take the first available job. but also leads to look wage inflation. this is a pandemic for sure. this is also public policy and figuring out -- i wouldn't want to say the public policy is the main factor but i think public policy is a significant factor in both the demand and supply side of the economy. host: the associated press poll

that we reference said 47% of americans expect the economy to get worse in the next year. this question was posted in a tweet to us. has the u.s. wage growth kept up with inflation, especially at the lower income levels? heidi shierholz? heidi: we don't have the october inflation numbers out yet, but it is sort of neck and neck and inflation has been greater than nominal wage growth over this period. this has been an extraordinarily strange period in terms of giant wage growth for some unlikely workers like restaurant workers that have seen real wage stagnation for four decades, but also experiencing high inflation related to the things that we've

been discussing so far. it will be interesting, these things move so much month-to-month. this is always a question of we don't want to make too much out of individual months of changes but when all is said and done, when we look back, i don't think we will say people solve real wage decline over this general period, but what we are seeing is wage growth for workers, not quite keeping up with inflation growth. and again, that is temporary. the kinds of inflation we are seeing right now, what michael said notwithstanding, it is very much connected to a covid recession like extraordinary circumstances we are in right now and as covid gets in the rearview mirror, i have zero doubt, and this is from goldman

sachs to jay powell, it is like the kinds of inflationary pressures we are seeing right now are the result of extraordinary circumstances and that when covid is in the rearview mirror, they will be too. host: michael strain, i will give you our first caller, dennis in ohio. caller: i have a question for your guest, either of them. i am elderly, retired, on a fixed income. i look around and inflation is going crazy. i'm going to get a social security increase but everybody knows it is not going to be enough to cover inflation. my question is, how come everybody is getting help from the government except people like me? we are not getting any help. this person is getting $300, wages are going up for other people but we are sitting here

and if this keeps going the way it is going, i'm going to be broke in a few years. i am not getting nothing to keep up with inflation, so how come the government isn't helping elderly people like me? thank you very much. host: michael strain. michael: i think the government has helped elderly americans throughout the pandemic, depending on the income of retirees. i think the caller is correct that the president's infrastructure bill, which passed the senate is really geared toward longer-term supply-side growth. that is not going to offer direct or immediate help for retirees in the caller -- the build back better agenda is geared more toward families or

retirees. there is a provision to expand the generosity of medicare, so that people -- my real interest with the caller is to pick up on a remark that heidi made just a moment ago, which is that the problem with the economy many arcs during seeing right now, it is likely to be temporary. i expect elevated inflation throughout the course of 2022 and then moderate. i think that retirees on fixed income will need to kind of brace themselves for a tough period, but can look to the end of 2022 and see a light at the end of the tunnel. host: let's get a caller for heidi, democrat caller. caller: hello.

first of all, i am a democrat and i've always been a democrat. i am 78 years old from the 82nd airborne veteran and i am retired. i have a couple questions. the infrastructure, the heart infrastructure -- hard infrastructure. how much of that money is going to end up in china? let me finish my thought here. and not against the chinese, but when main capital bought out the kansas city steel and recycling, they closed down, they shut it down and they were drilling oil in iran, but here is my question. unless things have changed, they were importing prefab bridge sections from china to the united states. this was before the infrastructure thing. now they are chopping up cars,

putting them in container, -- containers, sending them to china, processing them and sending them back in the form of finished steel products. why don't they put a little excise on that and make it harder to do that? i can't believe it is cheaper to chop up these cars and put them in containers and send it to china and then send them back. host: heidi shierholz? heidi: i would be super interested in michael's response to this because he has more background on this but the thing about the infrastructure, the physical infrastructure aspect that just past the house and the senate earlier in august and president biden will be signing it very soon, by all accounts. it includes funding for bridge repair, road repair, cleaner drinking water, high-speed internet. those things are very place based.

michael might have more information about more particulars to your question, but we know that those things are inherently focused in the place that they are and it really minimizes any kind of leakage and it absolutely does transformational -- that will actually boost our global competitiveness, by making us more productive as a country, having much more solid infrastructure. it is not everything we need, but it is a really important step for our global competitiveness among other things. i think that is where the rubber meets the road. host: michael strain? michael: the president has championed so-called buy american. some of those things that the

caller was concerned about, president also championed. i grew up in kansas city, so i have known firsthand what he is describing. i don't favor those sorts of initiatives. i think what is best for the economy as a whole is to get the highest quality goods that we can from these sorts of projects at the best cost to the taxpayer and i agree with heidi that these investments really should help boost the longer-term productivity of the american economy, and that is going to accrue benefits for all americans. it will take some time and will have to filter throughout the system, but i think that the basic strategy, making investments in car infrastructure or making investments in broadband, doing things like getting led out of

pipes which we should also think about as an investment in our future workforce not to mention the health of our citizens, and doing that as cheaply as a -- cheaply and efficiently as possible for the taxpayers to reduce the overall cost and allowing the fact that it is now easier to do business in the fact that business as a whole is more profitable. that is going to strengthen the economy as a whole, and i think the right way to think about these kinds of programs is how can we strengthen the economy as a whole? host: derek in arizona, republican. caller: i am curious from the last time either one of your guests actually worked a day in their lives not using their fingers or their mouth. host: eric what is your point?

we lost him. we will go to ted in north carolina, mccright caller. caller: -- democrat caller. caller: i only worked 60 years, but the first thing i advocate is let's look at what and how we are going to do the rebuild. i have a quick suggestion. barry all the power lines, put them in pcv -- put them in pvc tubing. think of the fires you will eliminate and the cost of maintenance. let's get rid of the entire tax code. let's break it down. we'll say if a living wage is 65 -- $65,000, we will start with 5%, double that and then double the money, double the rate, until i get to a 70% tax rate

and there are no exemptions, no deductions and all money is treated the same. host: let's take this recommendation on taxes. heidi shierholz? heidi: that is a really interesting proposal. one of the things we have been -- some changes by some senators ' unwillingness to move like kyrsten sinema, putting the kibosh on some changes. not the changes you were talking about but like the one we went into really -- the idea was to really have tax changes that would address part of the really increased inequality that we have in this country. the fact that that is not happening is firmly at kyrsten sinema's feet. the bill that is under consideration, we were talking about the kinds of things this

caller bought up at his far as what i thought and many people thought were the kinds of directions we need to go in, a lot of that was just really halted by a couple really obstructionist centers, but it still does make some transformational changes. spending would be paid for by one of the key things is a surtax on people who make more than $10 million a year. it will help with rising inequality, but it is by no means the transformational tax policy changes that we all want. host: michael strain, i will have you respond to a tweet from ajay. he writes what role do you think the childcare shortage plays in the supply of labor and what

solutions do you think or suggest for filling these critical jobs? michael: i think it plays a role and is an example of the concept that heidi and i were talking about earlier, how big a role does public policy play in the current state of the economy? i have a child at home today who had a teacher who tested positive for covid over the weekend. is that child going to be out of this classroom for the next two weeks? how are my wife and i going to handle that? that is not a function of the government putting money in people's pockets. that is a function of the pandemic and public health policy and it is definitely keeping workers on the sidelines and that is making it harder for society workers. even when the pandemic is in the rearview mirror, the affordability and accessibility of childcare is a real issue and i think it is great that president biden is looking into

childcare as part of the build back better framework. i don't think the way the president wants to pursue fixing our childcare system is the right way to do it. i am concerned the presidents -- there were concerns the president's plan would make things worse. how can we lower the price of childcare, and if we can do that, we can make it more available, that is going to help people participate in the workforce, which i think should be our goal. host: pat in cedar falls, independent. good morning to you. caller: i am calling about the government and how it is run. how much money that these people make and have no idea what the average person makes. it is probably under $100,000

and we are living on budgets. we are trillions of dollars in debt and we have all of these people in government that own homes and we pay for their vacations and we pay for their retirement and they hardly worked 200 days a year. they put us trillions in -- chileans of dollars in debt and they are supposed to be helping us. and then try to convince the people that they are helping. they care less about us people than anybody could imagine. it is a worthless government. the majority should be replaced. there are so many that are too old to even be running. host: heidi shierholz? heidi: pat, i just wanted to say i am in iowa and because when she said cedar rapids, i lit up. you bring up a really interesting point. this build back better act is

about creating an economy that works for regular people. it is about getting childcare, about getting health care, about getting -- making sure that the overall fruits of economic growth don't just accrue to keep up the very top. it accrues for people across the income distribution, that we see more broadly shared prosperity, that we have things in place that make it possible for people , childcare, pre-k, those kinds of things that without them, life can be filled with chaos and putting them in place just helps make sure that the fruits of our economy are broadly shared and not captured by the top. the best idea behind the build back better act, what actually comes out of that is an

interesting question. it is not going to look like the really transformative legislation that i just described in the sense that we have senators like joe manchin and kyrsten sinema that have systematically held it hostage and are wood -- and are willing down what that legislation would do, but the intent of that, the idea of that legislation is to address exactly the kind of things we were talking about, to make sure that we build back towards an economy that works for everyone and if we don't get there, i can't tell you enough, it is firmly at the feet of joe manchin and kyrsten sinema. joe biden would have signed a much larger package, nancy pelosi would have brought a much larger package to the floor, but these senators really have kept us from -- kept it from being able to be the kind of really

transformational legislation that would have addressed any of the things the caller has described. host: and the social spending proposal is slated for a vote before november 15. michael strain, do you agree that this build back better agenda will help the middle class and lower income americans? michael: i am not nearly as enthusiastic about the agenda as heidi is. there are a few provisions in the agenda that i think would be really helpful. but on the whole, i think the build back better agenda would move the country in the wrong direction. to really unpack that, i think you have to look at a lot of the specific provisions and ask yourself, what is the goal of these provisions? the caller spoke about the

national debt, spoke about how programs aren't really benefiting people who need them. one of the things the president wants to do is expand medicare. expanding the medicare program by adding on additional benefits or provisions or -- doesn't do anything to put that program on solid footing. building onto a broken program is only going to serve to put the health security of seniors at risk. we talked about childcare earlier. i would love to see a vigorous debate about how to lower the cost of childcare and how to expand access to childcare. unfortunately, one of the things the plan would do is sibley offer an open-ended subsidy, to help households pay for commercial childcare.

because it is open-ended, this means that higher income households are going to get a bigger dollar benefit than lower income households come up to a point. there will be a bunch of households left out of the program entirely because of the cut off. it is going to lead to a large increase in demand for commercial childcare which is going to push up the price. you'll have a bunch of households that don't qualify for a subsidy, while facing a higher price of childcare. then you do have a subsidy in place for other households come about that subsidy -- households, but that subsidy isn't really doing anything. households really need help with childcare, they don't want to use commercial daycare's. they worked the night shift, they work on weekends. commercial declares -- commercial daycare's are closed at night and weekends. we need a solution for them.

the child tax credit that has been discussed so much, that would give assistance with income, the vaster majority -- of the majority of dollars that the build back better agenda would spend on the child tax credit, it would go to households will above the poverty line. i see a lot of good intentions here in the build back better agenda, but i see a lot of programs with unintended consequences, programs that will move the country in the wrong direction. heidi wants to blame senator manchin for that and i understand that impulse, but there are 50 other u.s. senators in the senate as well, and the fact is that this program sibley does not command the majority of support in the u.s. senate. there are 100 senators. 52 of them are not on board, and i hope that the fact that the

democrats have had such a hard time moving the ball forward on this program, unlike the interchurch or package which passed with a large bipartisan support in the senate, the fact that crew -- that democrats have had such a hard time moving the social bill forward, i hope it can leave them to think how can we make this program better, how can we attract some support for people who don't currently support it question mark count we make the program more popular ? i think a good place to start is by designing policy better. host: keith is a republican in palm bay, florida. you are next. caller: thank you for answering our questions. the build back better has a lot of noble ideas to it, but i am trying to figure out -- cnbc is reporting right now, we already

had shortages of truck drivers and daycare and stuff before covid. there are 10 million jobs open right now, 4.6 unemployment, about six to 7% dissipation -- about 67% participation in employment. we have all of this money going into infrastructure and stuff, and want to bring back manufacturing and stuff for medicines. who is going to build this? who is going to drive the trucks? who going to do the daycare, when people have record amounts of savings right now, and spending? we are going to get more money back in this. it is a cycle to inflation and disaster if you asked me. host: i want to take that point. heidi shierholz? heidi: that is a really good question.

we have to think about labor force participation rates. they are depressed. it has not really budged over the last year, so people see the un-appointment rate improving -- the labor force participation rate staying steady and it is reasonable to think does this mean -- when you dig into the data, the answer to that is an absolutely resounding no. for example, millions of people report still being out of the labor force because of ongoing health concerns. when covid is in the rearview mirror, we won't see that. we still have childcare and michael made very good points about how we need to boost

childcare well above we were before covid hit, but we aren't even up to the childcare we had before covid hit. this fall already, thousands of schools have closed as a result of covid. parents are still -- that is keeping many parents out of the labor force who would otherwise be in, and they will come into the labor force once covid is in the rearview mirror and then the cherry on top of all of us is the aftermath of even normal recessions, the labor force participation rate recovers much more slowly than the overall unemployment rate. people not coming back right away is a very standard thing that happens in the aftermath of a recession and i absolutely think we haven't done this before but in my mind we have every reason to believe that lag

may be even greater because we are emerging from a pandemic recession as opposed to a regular recession. there are a lot of things that are keeping people out of the labor force right now, but they are transitory. i don't believe we are going to have a permanently depressed labor force and many of the very investments we are talking about with build back better like the childcare investments, pre-k, they will actually increase labor for proof -- labor force participation. we know participation of prime age women,, 25 to 54, so that the labor force used to be very

similar to other countries around the world but it has steadily eroded in recent decades as p countries have done more and more to pull prime age women into the labor force through things like excellent childcare provisions. we are really far behind on that as a country, but the build back better act will start moving us in that direction, so all of that is to say that i think that not only once the pandemic situation resolves, will we get back to the waiver force participation rate we had prior to the recession, i think it will go even higher if these investments go through that will have a meaningful impact on boosting labor force per dissipation -- labor force participation. we are looking at this longer run and there are hiccups right

now and we are trying to climb out of this enormous gap we are in, but over the long run, i am really optimistic about the direction of our labor force participation rate. host: let's hear from a republican in florida. caller: your guests need to respect that they need to keep their answers shorter so people can get their thoughts and. anybody who believes that the build back better plan is going to be paid for the leaves in the tooth fairy. our national debt is already approaching $29 trillion. it is growing at the rate of between one million to $2 million a minute. here we are, talking about throwing more money and more money and more money into the economy which is one of the major causes of the mess we are in, on a financial and fiscal

basis. if you look at history, all the great empires and states have had the basis of their decline in national debt, and we are on the same road. host: i'm going to have michael strain respond to your point. caller: i agree that we should keep our answers a little shorter and i think that there will be tax increases in this build back better agenda. i agree with the caller that it will likely not be enough to cover the entire cost of the new spending, so i do think this will end up adding to the deficit. my concern is with some of the tax increases that have been discussed. also some of the tax cuts that have been brought up. the democrat spent a lot of time last week debating whether or

not they should do a giant tax cut that would benefit the top 1%, the top 1/10 of 1%. one reason to include that big tax cut, one of the budget gimmicks that lawmakers in both parties use to kind of rigged the score of the bill, because of a arcane budget accounting rule, that would actually show up as a way to reduce the overall cost of the bill, even though it would be a massive tax cut for the very highest earning households in the country. one thing that i think is missing in the president plan is a carbon tax. it would raise tax revenue and in addition, a carbon tax would help to fight climate change more effectively in my view than the sprint -- of the spending

provisions that the president is pursuing. if the president does not want to increase the deficit, here is a tax. the president wants to fight climate change. here is a tax that would actually do more to fight climate change than many of the things that the president wants to do. this would allow us to avoid harmful tax increases on corporations, harmful tax increases on the kinds of things that we really need to help move the economy forward. host: andrew in new hampshire, republican. caller: good morning c-span. i am not real optimistic about this new bill, even though infrastructure is an easy way to get money through congress because it always sounds good. it also shows what a failed system we have as far as fixing

our potholes. all of that was supposed to be paid for by gas taxes for the roads and bridges, but it seems that it was reallocated by politicians for whatever reason and just never solved that problem, so here we have just more money being thrown at a problem without a long-term solution to it. that is one point. the other point is the build back better. i agree with senator manchin when he said that we have so many social programs including social security and medicaid and medicare that are in big trouble and we can't even take care of those social programs, not even addressing the problems with those programs and here we are starting new social programs which will only add to the national debt, which will only further increase the problem down the road as we have to pay off that debt because i believe

that interest rates will increase because i believe inflation is not transitory and it is here to stay. host: heidi shierholz, respond to that caller. heidi: that is a good point you make about the infrastructure. nobody debates that and that is never in question, the fact that we have just let our infrastructure slide by not investing in it for decades is incredibly well documented but what is going on right now is not going to solve the longer wrong things. we have to keep revisiting this because our infrastructure needs constant updates, constant attention. that is a really good point. the fact that it has -- that investment in infrastructure -- that we have under invested in it for decades doesn't mean we shouldn't do this. we absolutely need to do this kind of investment, but the fact

is that we also need things in place to make sure that we don't get to this situation we are in right now with such eroded infrastructure and get a thing i will say quickly is this question of whether or not the build back better act is paid for, i mean it is technically. the root assumption of people worried about -- discussing the fact it is not paid for is the concern that debt financing of any of this bill will be economically damaging and i think the answer to that is a resounding no. there is just no evidence that that is true. interest rates remain at historic lows. they have been low and falling for decades. environments like that, debt financing makes a ton of economic sense.

the bill as written is paid for but even if it weren't, this is exactly the kind of thing that we would want, that it would be appropriate. i like the tax provisions that are in there. we should keep the men, and it is paid for but the underlying concern that if we debt finance this that it be problematic, that is the thing that we don't have evidence for. host: ray in indiana, independent. caller: good morning. i agree with the prior two callers. i have nothing against the build back better plan but the thing of it is we don't have enough money to take care of our own people, how are we going to have the money to pay for this and also pay all of these illegals crossing our border? host: michael strain, is this paid for?

michael: no. i don't think it's paid for. i think heidi is right that technically it is paid for, but there are a lot of familiar budget gimmicks being used. you have a 10 year bill, what is the full cost over 10 years? how much revenue will tax increases raise over 10 years? in that sense, it may end up being paid for but some of the gimmicks that are used for example, are to allow programs to only exist for one of those 10 years or for four of those 10 years. that reduces the cost of the bill, the estimated cost. of course the goal is for the program to last for 10 years, not one year and then the

long-term goal is for the programs to last much longer. there are similar gimmicks being used on the tax revenue side and i want to be clear, this is something that both parties do, so this is not intended to be a partisan statement. republicans did very similar things when they passed the tax cuts in 2017. this is just kind of the way that washington works, but for a straightforward answer to your question, will this increase the deficit, the answer is yes, it is very likely going to lead to a larger deficit. host: we have to leave it there. heidi shierholz and michael strain, thank you both for your host: we're going to take a short break. when we come back, we will talk

about covid vaccines for kids ages five to 11. joining us is the children's hospital covid-19 vaccine medical director. ♪ >> you can be a part of the conversation by participating in c-span's video competition. your opinion matters. if you are a middle or high school student, we are asking you to create a five to six minute documentary the answers the question, how does the federal government impact your life? your documentary must show supporting and appointing points of view using c-span video clips, which are easy to find and access at c-span.org.

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vaccinated recently. we have a couple of pictures we can show our viewers, what has been the overall reaction? guest: there has been a lot of positive reactions. this is something we have been working very hard for for a couple of months. as of a few weeks ago, with the independent advisory panel recommending to the fda we get this emergency use authorization, we were able to start putting our plan into motion. last wednesday was the first day we started being able to vaccinate children. for the most part, we are seeing a lot of emotion, a lot of relief from parents. kids are really excited, they know their is a lot of freedoms that come with it. it has been an exciting week for us. host: our appointments getting booked up? are you full or are you seeing a lag? guest: we have invited thousands of patients, we have scheduled hundreds. there is certainly some hesitancy, but we expected that.

just like with the other rollouts throughout both the adult and adolescent population, we know there is a group of people that just need more time to think about it and hear more information. that is why we are here today, to ease some of those concerns. host: what advice would you give someone who is concerned? guest: i would ask them what their concerns are, because there are plenty. i am the parent of a six-year-old, into this vaccine is safe. it is effective. it is going to allow my daughter to feel physically well and keep her in school, it will give for the social life she wishes she had. there are a lot of good things coming with it. host: what if your child has already contracted covid? what advice do you give to the spirits? -- parents? guest: we still recommend vaccinating children. even though your body builds an immune response when you are sick with the virus itself, we do not know how long that immunity lasts. in fact, there is evidence your body does not keep the immunity

as long as it does after a vaccine. what we have found is that if you are someone who did contract the virus and then you get the vaccine, you have more protection than other people. host: we want to invite our viewers to call in join the conversation. we are talking about the new age group of kids who can get vaccinated, it ages five to 11. if you are parent, dial in at (202) 748-8000. all others is (202) 748-8001. we want you to read to dr. ben carson on fox news sunday, october 31 talking about vaccinating kids. [video clip] >> do you agree with the decision to vaccinate children five to 11 with the pfizer vaccine? >> absently not. mortality rate for children from covid-19 is .0 25, which is

similar to the rate for seasonal flu. we have been going through all of these things for seasonal flow. plus, we do not know what the long-term impact of these vaccines is. so this is really sort of a giant experiment. do we want to put our children at risk when we know that the risk of the disease to them is relatively small, but we do not know what the future risks are? why would we do a thing like that? it makes no sense whatsoever. host: dr. boogaard. guest: first of all, i respectfully disagree with dr. carson. the flu vaccine is something that we as doctors also promote every year, because it does kill kids every year. we are lucky the mortality rate in children is as low as it is. i couldn't imagine how stressed i would be if it was higher. what i can say is yes, the risk of getting coronavirus and getting seriously affected by it is much lower in children than it is adults.

which is why i think they are the big superheroes throughout this pandemic, they have really sacrificed a lot of their life so they can protect the older loved ones. now, they have the chance to feel the protection themselves. for all of the parents out there, there are children that get hospitalized. 1% to 2% of children who get the infection or hospitalized. the third of them have never had a pre-existing condition. a third of the children hospitalized end up requiring life-saving treatments. luckily, children are resilient, both physically and mentally. but we have seen pretty devastating consequences. the other thing i would say is that the acute infection is not the only medical concern i have about coronavirus. children experience to symptoms that are unique, we still do not totally understand. they can have the post-covid syndrome, which is long covid people talk about, meaning some symptoms are lasting longer than four weeks, which is not typical

with any other virus. the other thing is that kids, particularly in this age group between five and 11, can come down with a life-threatening illness called multisystem inflammatory system. we call it mis-c. that is one of the big concerns i have is apparent, it is life-threatening and very scary. it is usually after just a mild case of covid. that is a very small risk, but it is something that i don't want my child to have to endure, especially if the other option is getting a safe vaccine. what dr. carson said about the safety of this vaccine, he seems to be saying he is afraid there will be long-term consequences to this vaccine. there are no vaccines ever created that have any late onset side effects. so there is no reason to think this one would as well. the way vaccines work is we trigger your immune system to build a response against something that is harmless so it can really fight off something

that is harmful. in the case of the pfizer vaccine, we give a little bit of what we called messenger rna, which is a recipe for your cell to build a protein. if you seen a picture of the coronavirus, the ball with the spikes on the end, the messenger rna tells your body to build one of those spike proteins. spike protein itself is not harmful, even on the virus. it just helps it stick to your cells. what is nice is every coronavirus wears the spike protein. so if you are body feels the spike protein, recognizes it is not yours and spends three to five days building a big antibody response, those antibodies will not be floating around your system so that if someone does cough or sneeze on you, or you are in a public space and breathed in the coronavirus itself, your body now has an army of antibodies floating around that will recognize it, tag it, and your white blood cells will heated up before can get you sick. -- beat it up before it can get you sick. so there is no reason for your body to have long-term

consequences. host: what is myocarditis? guest: myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle. there is also something cope eric carr died of, which usually gets talked about in the same setting -- paracarditis. the reason people are concerned, including the fda, is because that is one of the very rare side effects they found when they took the pfizer vaccine out of the initial trial participants into larger groups of patients, and found that particularly adolescent boys between 12 and 17 or more likely to get this inflammation around the heart, usually within two weeks after the second dose of the pfizer vaccine. what is interesting is that group of patients, adolescent boys, are most likely to get myocarditis than younger children at baseline. myocarditis is something that sometimes we can pinpoint the

cause, sometimes it is caused by viruses. sometimes, we do not know why it happens. but we do know it tends to happen in older boys. after the pfizer vaccine, what they found is that you need to develop it, it was self resolving. it was not life-threatening. and the children have all returned to normal, which is great. when you compare the myocarditis from the vaccine to the myocarditis we see with the true coronavirus infection of the coronavirus infection can also cause myocarditis at higher rates and can be much more devastating, requiring a lot more prevention and hospitalization. host: have you seen children at children's national with covid and in the intensive care unit hospitalized because of this? just because of infection. guest: yes. we are seeing what we are seeing around the country, which is children who are admitted to the hospital, a third of them end up

in the icu. host: what is the overall impact not only to their health, but to a family? the bills, the strain, the stress that goes with having a child hospitalized. guest: this is no secret to parents out there. if you have a sick child, whether they are just at home and need more attention and care or they are hospitalized, this has a huge impact on the family. at minimum, it is going to take the child out of school. it is going to disrupt your workflow, whether you are working inside or outside the home. it is going to cause stress, because you're going to want your kids to feel better. if your child is hospitalized, you are right. it comes to financial complications, it comes with a ton of fear and anxiety. it comes with a lot of people interacting with your child in a lot of decisions you have to make. sometimes, those decisions get harder and harder. because the more intensive your care is, the care you require is, the heart of the choices.

because medicine comes with risks and benefits itself. if you have to choose between your child getting a new therapy or child getting a breathing tube down their throat and being sedated for it, it is scary to parents. these are things none of us want to dream about, none of us think it happens our kid. but it does happen too many children out there. we want to keep them safe. host: can you give us an idea of a medical bill you might receive, general ballpark cost? guest: it could be tens of thousands of dollars. health care finance in this country is very dependent on what your health insurance is and which plane you may or may not have. but i can tell you there is no cheap way to visit a hospital in this country. so the hospital bill would come your way. host: how much do you charge to give people the vaccine? guest: the vaccine is completely free. there will be no charge to you as a patient. host: from silver spring, good

morning. caller: good morning. and good morning to dr. boogaard , thank you for this. i wanted to encourage everybody to listen to the october 26 advisory panel with the fda. listen to the comments of the doctors and scientists and pfizer and fda folks before the vote and especially following the vote, so that we all make informed decisions. because the doctors made -- they had questioned some serious concerns, they wanted to make sure -- they had a choice of a binary vote. i wanted to make sure they did not deny a child that would be especially in need, but we do need to compare. also, they brought up they didn't know about preventing transmission of the virus, remember that is what dr. fauci said almost two months ago.

the vaccines do not stop transmission of the virus in the fully vaccinated. it is still important, even for those vaccinated. masks. host: we covered the fda advisory panel discussion, you can find on our website for those that want to listen in. but dr. boogaard, what about the transmission question. guest: it is a great point. right now, we do still need to wear masks. the vaccine like we described, it is just going to build your antibody response. it is not a magic medicine that will prevent me from being exposed and prevent the virus from entering your body. it is just how well your body will be able to fight it off once it gets there. our recommendation is you follow your public health guidelines. we hope that when more people get vaccinated, those will loosen. for now, once you're fully vaccinated, you can remove your mask with other fully vaccinated people. but anyone, vaccinated or not, could develop symptoms.

that is why we want to make sure if you have symptoms, go out and get tested and isolate yourself until you know it is not coronavirus. host: stephanie from tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you? host: i am well. your question or comment. caller: i have a question for missboogaard. she is saying there is no long-term side effects. this vaccine has been made less than two years. no years of study on it. you are saying all the statistics that are being put out here, even by the cdc. the point of a vaccine is to help control. this vaccine does not help control. so how can she say there is no long-term side effects? guest: there is no vaccine that

has ever been created that has late onset side effects. outside of a two-month period. all children study in this were monitored for up to two months, they are going to continue to be studied all the way for two years. keep in mind, as we expand this from the thousands taken in the study to the millions across the country, doctors are mandated and really want to report any side effects we see. so whether it is a headache or your knee hurts afterward, we are required by law to document that. the cdc is reviewing it very strongly. keep in mind, when we did this back in the spring and johnson & johnson identified the clots that people were talking about, after six cases of that, the cdc decided to stop the administration of that vaccine throughout the country. knowing that would heave a huge impact on how comfortable people were to take it after they review the literature, but they wanted to make sure it was safe. then, they were able to again let people get that vaccine, if needed.

so i have full faith that our reporting structures are in place into the cdc will take it very seriously. host: greg from wisconsin. caller: good morning, thank you for c-span. my wife and i are fortunate to be grandparents for two wonderful young children. that this pandemic, we were trying to educate ourselves and work with our daughter in family . my question is, with these mandates or what is coming up to be mandates, perhaps for vaccines, under emergency use authorization, because there is no therapeutic that has been approved, what is going to happen when this new pfizer product -- which is such a modest test results -- when i comes to the market, how will that affect the mandates and vaccinations for children? we are thinking with the lack of long-term studies, we would rather see a therapeutic to care

of it as opposed to a vaccine which is still being explored, if you will. host: the pill that the president talked about last week, that could come to market soon. could you speak to that? what is it and what are they talking about? and compare as greg would like you to do with a therapeutic versus getting a vaccine. guest: i think it is excellent we have both options. vaccine and a therapeutic to treat people who get it. very similar to the flu vaccine, because we have tamiflu that can help. the pill he is talking about is an antiviral pill, it is supposed to stop the symptoms of coronavirus and help prevent hospitalization and death. that is all really good news. i think there are two things i would like to speak to. one, it still needs to be reviewed by the fda and get cleared. once we hear that science, we will have more answers for you. the other thing is, i'm a

pediatrician. i believe in prevention. if we can avoid it, why go through the hassle of getting sick, having the consequences to your health, academic life, your child's social life? i hear a lot of fear in these questions about the vaccine itself being very scary, but what i do not hear is the fear about the therapeutic. i think both are going to go through very good safety profiles, but there is no reason to think the vaccine would be more harmful than the therapeutic itself. host: ricky in michigan, good morning. caller: hello. thank you dr., for the job you are doing. because it is so much false information around. kids are our future. these parents -- i had vaccines when i was a kid. and we got governors that spread

false information, and we need you to be more on tv, telling the parents the right thing for their kids. i used to work up in the school district, but i am not going back until next year because i want to see how this year goes with the kids up in school. host: are you looking for a mandate from the school for kids that kids had to be vaccinated if they want to come to school? caller: i'm hoping they do mandated. the only way we are going to get out of this is if the kids are vaccinated. host: dr., do you agree? should there be a mandate of kids getting the covid vaccine before they can go to school? guest: this is an important question i know a lot of communities around the country are dealing with. as a pediatrician, i want to share information. thank you for your comments.

i value the patient partnership i have an clinic, i value patient autonomy. for everyone out there who is scared, i hear you, i empathize with you. it is your choice. i want to do is give you the information so you feel safe that if it is mandated, you do not feel like it is being forced or this is scary. we as a medical community strongly recommend this vaccine. we wouldn't -- if there was no coronavirus in your community, this a be discussion. to the point of the earlier caller, that is with the fda was trying to decide. is this important now in this context? and it is. for the patients i see, for the parents out there who have kids, i really want you to remember that coronavirus is out there and it has consequences. if there is a safe vaccine you can get to protect her child, i still strongly recommended. host: what type of children are you seeing contract the virus and end up hospitalized?

what type of underlying conditions are more prevalent in those kids then in kids who get coronavirus, who get covid-19, but are not hospitalized? guest: like i said, a third of the patients hospitalized have no pre-existing condition. when you look at the kids more at risk, it is not what i expected. the top-tier kids at risk are neuromuscular disorders, kids with chronic conditions like sickle-cell. the other things that fall into there are obesity, which is a large group of our children threat the country. asthma does not put you at as much risk as obesity does. diabetes gives you a lot of risk. there are conditions -- this is still a virus we are learning and turned to figure out why it impacts kids more than others. just keep in mind, no one is complete safe. a third of children, big percentage, get hospitalized but never had a pre-existing condition. host: betty in louisiana. caller: yes, good morning.

i was calling because i don't hear anybody doing any risk assessment. the risk assessment to children is .03 or 003, something like that. the risk is very very low to children. why do you want to mandate a vaccine? the risk of taking a vaccine is higher than the child -- that the child will get something like an illogical defect or heart problem. that doesn't make any sense. host: is that true? guest: it is not. i'm not sure we got the information, it is not true. you are right, the risk of death is very low, which is good. but if you talk to parents, they would highly consider it. with that being said, the vaccine itself, the only side effects that have been reported are the side effects we expect from the immune system response. you're going to get sean the arm, your arm is going to be a little swollen, your body builds an immune response which causes

some fatigue, may be headache, muscle aches and pains. sometimes swollen lymph nodes, because that is where your body is building the immune response. however, there are no vaccines that have long-term side effects. i don't want you to -- i would like you to reconsider that research you are reading and figure out -- if you are risk assessment at home, the risk we have associated with the current vaccine is very low, which is why the fda and cdc gave authorization. host: charlie in arkansas, good morning. caller: hello. i was just wondering about the population control and this greenhouse effect. 12 years is all we've got left to live. maybe this is some sort of a sterilization method -- host: alyssa in virginia, we will move on to you. caller: me? host: yes, we are on to you.

caller: hi, ok. i would like to follow-up with the risk assessment. how it is so low. there is a worse risk, so much more so, for covid-19. i am going to get my booster shot today, actually at 3:00. i had my first shot in april and may 2 and may. and i had no reaction at all to the covid vaccine. but last month, i got my flu shot, i had a much worse reaction to the flu shot. sorry, i'm a little nervous. host: it is ok. caller: i would just like to say i believe i had covid before we were testing people, i had hundred four degrees fever -- 104 degree fever for four days. i thought i was going to die. i couldn't walk up stairs i was crawling. it was miserable.

and the shot, the vaccine does not cause anywhere near -- you are going to have a much worse long-term side effect from getting the virus as opposed to getting the vaccine. host: dr. boogaard? guest: i would agree. it is not my opinion, that is what the science is showing. the vaccine is very safe, we are going to continue to study it. what makes me feel better is this is the same pfizer vaccine that was given to older kids and adults. it has been given to millions, it is just now in a smaller dose going to children. as a parent, that makes me feel better. it does not feel as experiment as it might have felt earlier in the pandemic. i am with you, i think the vaccine is very limited side effects and the side effects show your body is building an immune response, whereas the virus itself has a lot of side effects, both acutely that makes you very sit -- sit, requires hospitalization or can cause long-term covid complications

intimacy, like i talked about. -- mis-c. kids have sacrificed so much for over 600 days. they've given up birthday parties, school -- that was very difficult. now they are back, this is a gift we can offer them to give them a bit more safety and more normalcy. host: randall in texas, good morning. caller: good morning. and thank you for the doctor coming on today. just a brief question about why no one talks about the overall statistics. we are going into two years and everybody pretty much agrees that 100 million, plus or minus americans, have contracted covid-19. as tragic as those deaths are, it is only about 350,000 plus or minus per year. statistically, you have a 99.90%

chance of survival of covid-19 if you contracted. so my question is, why does no one talk about those statistics in order to alleviate some of the fear? thank you both very much. i will take mansur answer off the phone. guest: no problem. i think that is valid, i hear people talk about the statistics. i think what is really scary is if you put a group of people together and said come out of a thousand of you, one of you might die from this, then blow it up on a larger scale, you are now effecting so many more. hundreds of thousands, like you said, families have lost someone. that does not account for people who have the trauma after long-term hospitalization, required rehab. this pandemic has affected us more than just medically. this is turned our economy upside down, it has affected our ability to go to work, go to school.

there are a lot of things that contribute to this. the pandemic is not going to end until we don't continue to spread the virus in the community. the vaccine is the safest way to do so. otherwise, it requires a lot more people to get sick. we will -- it will inevitably solve -- and in more deaths. host: does the dosage amount for five to 11 euros the same as 12 to 17 -- year old same as 12 to 17? guest: it is a third of the dose. host: what if you are 11 and a half? guest: we recommend you get the vaccine as early as you feel comfortable. you will get the 10 microgram dose as an 11-year-old. let's say you turn 12 before the second dose, you will get the 30 microgram dose when you are 12. there's nothing magical that happens to your immune system on your 12th birthday, they are

both safe and effective doses. we just give it to you based off of age. host: as the medical director in charge at children's national, what goes in to getting the supply you need, handling that supply and having the resources to keep it viable and making sure you get the supply out? guest: we have a lot of partners that help. children's national being a large health system in the area, works closely with the local health department. we have one of those triple freezers at our hospital, which gives priority to get some of the earlier doses. what we did was say and only do we not -- not only do we want to be able to offer vaccine clinics, we want to be able to offer to patients at as many touch points. all of our primary care locations now have vaccines they can offer instant specialty clinics as well. host: richard in montreal, good morning.

caller: good morning. what do you have to say too many parents who say their children have been injured or died from the vaccine, like mr. ramirez who said that pfizer killed his 16-year-old son? there are many parents like him, but what about all the icu nurses who are saying they will never take the vaccine because they are witnessing themselves horrific injuries in the emergency room? why are doctors covering this up? guest: i would say haven't heard of any of those cases, i'm sorry to the ramirez family that they lost their son. but i can't speak to that because i do not know. but i can tell he is pfizer pays me know many to be here. my salary does not change whether you take it or not. i am just tried to give you -- i am just here to try to give information to feel safe. just be cautious, because there is a lot of false information. the medical community at large, the staff i work with, we are all very supportive. we do not have a secret agenda,

we want to help keep you interfamily safe. host: from new mexico. good morning. caller: hi, i'm a little nervous. i've been watching this whole thing unfold. i get my booster wednesday. but i'm curious about one thing. nobody, none of you -- you are talking wear masks, get vaccinated, wash her hands. but i've yet to hear any of you, not one, talk about a fact that our diet is so bad with processed foods. none of you got out there and said we will do this with washing your hands and also try to eat healthier so that if you do get it, your body has a fighting chance. but none of you mentioned the diet. host: let's talk about it. guest: taking care of ourselves is so important. we've all learned over the last year. it can be really difficult when we are stressed out. yes, we would encourage everyone to exercise, we encourage everyone to eat healthy to try to decrease stress.

over the last year, type 2 diabetes has tripled. i had patients that have gained 20, 60, 100 pounds over the last year. these are some of the side effects that are medical that are not related to the virus, but are related to the pandemic. so please take care of yourselves, because you are right. your body will be stronger. host: from new york. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. i thought there was a missed opportunity a couple callers before me. commented that this vaccine is only two years old, but my understanding is the research and technology has been there for years, over 20 years. it was just the speed of getting it all to the fda, that is the fast process. i just feel like that needs to be talked about, that this is not a new vaccine as far as the technology and research. guest: that is true. that research has been in place

for a 15 to 20 years. again, the vaccine itself, i try to describe how it works. it is not that complicated. we just want to introduce something foreign to your body that is not going to hurt you that your body can respond to so it can prevent -- it can protect against the virus. this is a technology that has been used multiple times before and back in the spring of 2020, the essentially got a copy of the virus and were able to start making millions of these vaccines that likely were tested and they did correctly, so they were effective and safe. host: dr. boogaard, twitter asks this. 70 pound kids are getting the same dose as 120 pound kids? guest: yes. your immune system changes more with age then waits. so we go based off age. host: alan in hawaii, good

morning. caller: good morning to both of you. i was going to throw a few questions at you. first, i hope they will still ask -- i know everything is about vaccine, but it would be great to have more discussion about the testing and issues with getting over-the-counter testing supplies into the strategy for most effectively using them with and without vaccinations. on that line, he discussed issues including antigenic seniority, maybe we can discuss that. and of course, the issues regarding the way the vaccines could be utilized rear you are being vaccinated -- where you are being vaccinated you can take an antibody test to determine if you have a natural infection to determine if you need a second shot or maybe a

combination of the initial infection and the vaccination adequate? and i will listen to you. guest: both a natural infection and the vaccine will cause an antibody response in your body. what is hard to say is what is an adequate antibody response from natural immunity, because we know it wanes faster than that from the vaccine. it is a similar conversation we have when we talk about pregnant women and breast-feeding moms. when you are pregnant, you can share your antibodies with your unborn child. as a breast-feeding mom, you can do so through your milk. even antibody testing is out there, when you get your antibody tested, it means you've either been vaccinated or you got the infection yourself. what it cannot necessarily tell us in the case of natural immunity, which means after you got the virus, is how well protected you are. host: mike from maryland. caller: hi, good morning. thank you for taking my call.

i wanted to make a quick comment, i've been listening for a couple of years now on this discussion and the vaccine hesitancy out there. i meet a lot of people in my travels. one of the things i've explained is if the vaccine was developed to quickly, my response is this. those projects require, for lack of a better term, man hours. a typical vaccine may be developed over a couple of years with a team of 20 or people -- 20 or 30 people working eight to five monday through friday. this vaccine had a worldwide team effort with hundreds of thousands of man-hours put in in a very short period of time. that argument has convinced many people i've been talking to. because no one has explained that eloquently. it is all about hours put into a project.

the hours were put in, vaccines are safe. i have my booster, so does my family. fortunately, we have not have any -- had any serious side effects. many of them feel comfortable being out and about now. host: dr. boogaard, take that, also what is the criteria that the fda has in place before they would even release a vaccine? guest: that is a really good question, think for eloquently stating that. i hope some people heard that. this vaccine has been -- the pfizer vaccine in total has gone under the most stringent safety profiles and monitoring any vaccine in u.s. history has. first, they have to pick the vaccine does they think is appropriate, tested on hundreds of people, then expand and compare it to groups that did not get to see how efficacious it is, which means how well it works. then, they have to test for side effects. in the case of this does for the

five to 11-year-olds, they had enough people in it originally to test for the safety, and the fda new parents were expressing concerns, especially myocarditis. so the increase to the end of the summer the amount of people they needed pfizer to enroll in order to be able to make a decision on the vaccine, which they now have. they all said this is a good vaccine and the one we should release to the public so that people can feel safe. host: dr. claire boogaard, medical director for covid-19 vaccine program at children's national hospital. we appreciate the conversation with you this morning. guest: thank you. host: when we come back, we will open up the phone lines into be in an open forum. what is on your mind this morning, public policy, political issues. there are the lines on your screen, start dialing in now. ♪

>> congressman liz cheney will speak at a free-speech awareness event in new hampshire on tuesday. wyoming republican serves as the vice chair of the house select committee investigating the january 6 attack on the u.s. capital. should be the featured speaker at the nike lobe school of communications in manchester. you can watch live coverage at 4:00 eastern on c-span, online or on c-span now, our new app. >> a panel of political analysts discuss next year's 2022 midterm elections today. live coverage in the american enterprise institute beginning at 12:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, online, or on c-span now, the new video app. >> a conversation on the 2020 one election results and the biden administration's agenda.

the institution host the event live today at 2:00 eastern on c-span, online at c-span.org or on c-span now. download c-span's new mobile app and stay up-to-date with live video coverage of the day's biggest political events, from live streams of the house and senate floor and key congressional hearings. to white house events and supreme court oral arguments. or a live interactive program, washington journal, where we hear your voices every day. c-span now has you covered. download the app for free. >> washington journal continues. host: we are back in an open performance of the top of the hour at the end of today's washington journal. we want to hear from you about what is on your mind related to public policy and politics this morning.

democrats (202) 748-8000. republicans (202) 748-8001. independence (202) 748-8002. textus with your -- text us up with you first name, city and state at (202) 748-8003. the supreme court will be hearing a case about the f vi surveillance. -- fbi surveillance. you will be able to watch it online or with our new video app , c-span now. it is free, you can download it on any mobile device. an open forum, you are a republican in montana. what is on your mind? caller: yes. one of the problems and listening to your discussion and other discussions as we politicized our health care system.

we did that with the affordable care act, we have done in other ways. all we have to do is look at the democrats that wouldn't get the vaccine in october 2020 until they got elected, now republicans are the same way. i think it is important we do politicize the cdc and all of the things that are happening in our health care system, i think would be a whole up better off if we listen to our physicians that we deal with and the physician we select, not the one the government selects, that would be a whole lot better off. host: what does your physician recommend? caller: i got the vaccine. i got my booster. but i also listen to my doctor, i've had the same doctor forever. we have to pick health insurance plan, they are going to pick the doctor for us. the doctors that are really good

are not even practicing anymore. it is important that we have trust in our health care system. it sounds like we trust the vaccine more. host: from california, democratic caller. caller: good morning. i would like to say something about the people that: with statistics -- that call in with statistics. the only thing effort from any of them concerning cobit is it would be an acceptable risk for their families. i am still waiting to hear that and it has not came across because they spit out 000.1%, you're going to be ok and all of that. i still haven't heard any of them say that is an acceptable risk for my five euro child -- five-year-old child or seven-year-old mother.

-- 70-year-old mother. the next time someone calls in, give me what i want. say that is an acceptable risk for your family. host: in our previous ours, we talked about the economy, several of you mentioned inflation. the cost of goods rising. on cnn's state of the union yesterday, the energy secretary was asked about the cost of gas. here's what she had to say. [video clip] >> according to aaa, the national gas averages $3.42 a gallon. bank of america is pricking crude oil prices could soar another 50% by next june. could the average gas price in america before dollars a gallon in the u.s. soon? >> recently hope not. the energy information agency is going to put out the forecast this week. the president is all over this, every president is frustrated because they cannot control the price of gasoline. it is a global market.

opec is unfortunately controlling the agenda with respect to oil prices. opec is a cartel, it controls over 50% of the supply of gasoline. >> is there anything the administration can do about opec? >> he can call upon them to increase supply, they have chosen not to do that. that is going to increase the chokehold on access to affordable fuel at the pump. the president is looking at all the tools he has. >> what about strategic to trillium -- petroleum? >> he is looking at that, we will be looking at the forecast on tuesday. >> it will be a cold winter. should they expect to pay higher prices for heating homes? >> this is going to happen. it will be more expensive this year than last year. we are in a slightly beneficial addition, relative to europe. there chokehold of natural gas is very significant, they are going to pay five times higher. but we have the same problem in

fuels that the supply chains have, which is oil and gas companies are not flipping the switch as quickly as the demand requires. so that is why the president has been focused on both the immediate term and long term. let us get off of the volatility associated with fossil fuels and others who do not have our countries interest at heart and invest in moving to clean energy, or we will not have this problem -- where we will not have this problem. that is so much of what these two bills are focused on. host: the energy secretary on the price of gasoline in the country. new york, democratic caller. we are in open form, what is on your mind? caller: hi, thank you so much for taking my call. i was just following up listening to the conversation with the doctor about the covid vaccination. i wanted to say, i just got my booster into me -- and to me, the vaccine represents freedom

from fear of death and the freedom to work, the freedom to travel. keep school safe and open. i mean, i love the fact the doctor, your previous guest, said -- because everybody talks about long-term side effects. they are afraid of that, and she explained that there is no vaccination that after two months have side effects. i also wanted to comment or confirm, is it not true 85% to 90% of the deaths are those that are unvaccinated? host: on climate change, former president barack obama is speaking at the climate summit in glasgow today. he is a tweet from him. we have done important work since the paris agreement was signed six years ago. we are still nowhere near where we need to be on climate.

before we read with the former president had to say was a tweet about what he is expected to say, this is from angela, first on cnn. obama is excited to express regret for trump's four years of active hostility toward climate science, but he will also express a deeper worry that politics globally is falling short of what needs to be done. then, there is this from zeke miller, who covers the white house. obama saying he hit russia and china hard during his speech for absence of urgency on climate. pamela and michigan, independent. good morning. caller: hello. host: good morning. caller: i was just wondering, why they are not talking about the vaccines are genetically engineered.

they keep saying we've always had mandates on vaccines for kids in schools. the difference is, those were natural vaccines. they were not genetically modified. this is the first time we have used genetically modified -- host: are you sure you have the right phrase when you say genetically modified? caller: genetically engineered. host: ok. and you are worried about that? did you listen to what dr. boogaard had to say? caller: i understand medicine. i was just wondering why they never include that in their commercials and explain to people what the difference in genetic engineered. host: mike come indianapolis. democratic caller. caller: caller: i think most of the blame for the vaccine this

information comes from social media and facebook and people who only get their news from social media and facebook. host: doug, wyoming. independent. hi doug. caller: good morning. thank you for dr. boogaard. i have two points. first, especially for congress members, it would be as redundant for me to refer to a woman as a gentlelady as it would be for me to refer to a man as it gentle gentlemen. an article published by forbes on july 2 of 1990 -- 1919, excuse me -- july 2 of 2019 says women have been earning more college degrees than men since

the 1980's. now, there are more college women in the workforce than college-educated men. but i have little doubt men will continue to dominate the occupation and sewers, trenches, grudges, construction sites and garbage dumps. thank you for washington journal. host: a new poll, here's the headline. usa today this morning, the landscape for democrats and midterms is bidens -- as bidens approval drops to 38%. there also this headline about the infrastructure vote that took place on friday. gop lawmakers facing backlash over how they voted, 13 republicans joined the majority of democrats to vote for the legislation.

it already passed in the senate and the president signed it. here is a look at the 13 republicans that join democrats to vote for the bipartisan infrastructure bill. we will look at those names all we hear from richard in oceanside, california. emma credit caller. -- democratic caller. caller: i just wanted to take this opportunity to call in, i love your service. my concern is all of this hatred, there is so much hatred between the two political parties. i am 75 years old, i've seen a lot of elections and been here for many republicans and democrats. i just try to vote for who i think is the best person, regardless of party. i think most everyone else can get on the same page, because i see all these people i think are fairly good people acting irrationally, they get emotional. because of stuff they have heard about that is not even proved.

they all heard about, hate does democrats. i hate joe biden. joe biden is working his tail off, he just did a great job on the bill he passed. i think he is going to be a good president, it is wonderful he decided to sacrifice his latter years to do this job. i wouldn't have done it. that is all they wanted to say. everybody, get on the same page and quit the hatred. that is all. host: william, independent color. good morning. -- caller. caller: wayne. correct. i was just wondering why have never heard nobody talk about -- i hear everybody talk about how safe the vaccine is, i was wondering why no one mentioned how many people have died directly from the vaccine? host: where are you reading that information? caller: i'm not reading at nowhere, i don't need to read it nowhere. i lived it.

my great-niece died within hours of taking the vaccine. i see a published report the other day that the vaccine has killed close to 47,000 people. my niece was in the first 5000 that died. she took the vaccine, she tested the day before she took the vaccine, she was negative. she took the vaccine. within 24 hours, my niece was dead. the autopsy, the death certificate clearly states cause of death covid-19 vaccine. host: i'm sorry for your loss. cecelia in alabama, republican. caller: yes, i just had to comments. regarding the virus. i don't know why the border has

not been shut down if they are really trying to get the covid under control and why they just opened up all the travel to the u.s. from other countries. that was one thing -- it seems like biden -- they are not really trying to help the american people. but my other comment is, with the gas prices, why don't he transfer -- just for six months open up the gas lines they shut down? just to help everybody pay their fuel bills, lower the cost of food, be able to unload from the ports, helped truck drivers. just help everybody through the winter months while they are working on their green in new deal, the infrastructure deal. host: i'm going to squeeze and greg, from illinois.

democratic. we've got about 30 seconds. caller: i'm just wondering how come trump is just not disqualified? he tried to overthrow the election, he's been caught trying to rig and they are still letting him run. that's my question. host: gregory in illinois, democratic caller. the supreme court is hearing oral argument today and a case involving the state secrets privilege and fbi surveillance program conducted on a muslim community in irvine, california. you can listen to the oral argument right here on c-span, it will get underway momentarily. you can also go online to c-span.org or download the free c-span now video app. it is free on any mobile device. live coverage right here on c-span.

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