editor paul peterson talks about "the education exchange." join with your calls, facebook comments, text messages and tweets. washington journal is next. ♪ host: good morning. it is saturday, july 9, 2022. the economy added over 300,000 jobs last month. the unemployment rate is steady for a fourth month but inflation is at a 40 year high and consumer confidence at record lows. this morning we want to know if you are optimistic or pessimistic about the economy. do you think things will get better or worse? give us a call. if you are optimistic,

(202)-748-8000. pessimistic, (202)-748-8001. if you are not sure, (202)-748-8002. you can send us a text at (202)-748-8003. we are on social media, facebook.com/c-span, and send us a tweet @cspanwj. welcome to washington journal. we start with the new york times. strong jobs data blunts concerns about recession. room to fight inflation, wage gains seen. the u.s. economy powered through june with broad-based hiring on par with recent months, keeping the country clear recession even as inflation eats into wages and interest rates continue to rise. washington and wall street had keenly awaited the new data

after a series of weaker economic indicators. the june jobs growth exceeded forecasts by roughly 100,000, offering reassurance a sharper downturn is now underway, at least not yet. you will see on your screen the numbers again for calling in. optimistic, pessimistic, or not sure. you can also send a text or tweet. here is president biden who talked about the jobs report and those numbers yesterday. [video clip] >> today the labor department reported we added 372,000 jobs last month. 372,000. here is why it is important. our private sector has recovered all the jobs lost during the pandemic and added jobs on top of that. we have more americans working today in the private sector than any other date under my predecessor.

more today than anytime in american history. today. and the second quarter created more jobs than any quarter on under any predecessor. think about that. at a time when critics said the economy was too weak and we already added more jobs my first year as president of any president, who still added more jobs in the past three months than any administration in nearly 40 years. i know times are tough. prices are too high. families are facing the cost of living, but this confirms the fact that my economic plan is moving this country in a better direction. the unemployment rate is near the historic low of 6.3%. jobs are at a record high. gas prices are still too high, but have fallen 25 days in a row.

this week we saw the second largest single day decrease in gas prices in a decade. we still have a lot of work to do. i am not suggesting there is not work to do, but we are making progress. the program is working. host: that is the president saying the program is working. here is kevin brady, republican and ranking member of the house ways and means committee. he says red flags abound in the june jobs report with the worker shortage persisting, layoffs rising, and unemployment shrinking two of the last three months. sorry, employment shrinking fueling empty shelves and hurting the economy. small businesses are struggling and american families have been wiping out their savings to keep up with rising prices, and president biden's cruel economy punctuates slow growth. what do you think? we will start taking your calls

and nancy is first from canton, ohio. you are not sure. caller: no, the situation is this. you watch tv, you pay for cable, you see these commercials. my concern is they are creating jobs online. however, a of these jobs are not trademarked or registered and you will notice a little circle beside a certain job if they are trademarked or registered. my concern is these are task free if they are not registered. how is it possible they are getting away with this? i believe this has made the problem where people are not going to jobs.

nobody is hitting these jobs but they are creating jobs online. host: i am wondering what your situation is. are you working? how are you doing? caller: i am retired, but i have worked, i mean, i have worked since i was 15 and i am able to be retired and comfortable. but my concern is they are offering all of this money an hour. when i quit working i made an $11 an hour and i still struggle. however, these people are not picking up these jobs but they are creating jobs online, and as i keep saying over and over, for them to be legal they have to be trademarked or registered. host: got it.

let's talk to betty in south carolina whose pessimistic. caller: i think everything that our president has done, everything he touches, everything, i have never seen anything like this before in my life. all the presidents i have ever seen, i have never seen it with this president. host: do you think it is going to get worse or do you think it could get better? caller: yes, everything just keep on wanting this, wanting that, just like the january 6 committee. every one of them, they are not

going to tell the truth. host: here is the washington post headline about the economy, strong jobs expansion continued into june. economy shows mixed signals, including concerns over recession. a new federal jobs report released friday showed the u.s. labor market maintained its torrid pace, even as the federal reserve raised interest rates and worries of a hiring slowdown or possible recession. but with inflation spiking and other indicators more mixed the new data leaves a confusing picture of what exactly the economy is doing, and what policymakers, businesses and consumers should do to prepare for the future. what do you think? let's talk to tom in rio rancho, new mexico who is optimistic. caller: hello. i am more optimistic than i was

years ago when i lost my job. unemployment is low and i am optimistic about every economy. as far as inflation, in the mexico, the price of gasoline is coming down. we were approaching five dollars and now we are down to $4.16. i think there is a push as far as inflation and prices are coming down. i am optimistic this will hold true and keep on going. host: tom mentioned the gas prices and here is the wall street journal that says gas prices have fallen for 24 straight days. the relief might be temporary and it says the e e e e gasoline in the u.s. has fallen

24 days after hitting a record last month. but analysts said prices may rise again if demand from drivers increases and supplies are constrained. the average cost of a gallon of unleaded gas was $4.72 yesterday. that is down 6% since prices hit the highest of $5.02 june 14. it is primarily because of diminished demand at the pump, according to aaa. let's talk to sandy in columbus, ohio who is optimistic. caller: how are you? i am calling to say that, to me, i am encouraged. america has a short memory. i do not think they remember we were shut down for months due to covid. we also had long food lines.

they did raise your income so at least you can be able to buy some food. the gas prices, i remember when reagan and bush were saying they were up just as high and i remember people are forgetting they gave money out. people had funeral costs during that time. we are coming out of a bad time and i think for us, people are still traveling, you see lines on the highway, airports filled up. they are still doing most of what they want to do. i would like to see prices go down, but to come up and say this is the worst i have ever seen when the last potus let 800,000 people die and did not tell them it was airborne so they could try to protect themselves. i am optimistic. thank you. host: brian is next in fulsom,

pennsylvania, pessimistic. caller: very pessimistic. as a world power that the united states is, if we never really make steel or refine oil and petrochemicals, we are going to lose our power. i think the left is leaning us toward this anti-fossil fuel world and they are selling this mandate climate change. i think there is a tiny bit of truth to it, but they make it seem like it is the biggest problem in the world. the biggest problem is shutting down fossil fuels. we need fossil fuels, we need natural gas to heat our homes, we need gasoline to be refined in this country so we can have

freedom and liberty. i am pessimistic and i feel the left is leaning away. we have to fight this. host: how are you doing personally? given the gas prices are you changing your habits? are you cutting down on your travel this summer? tell me about what you are doing. caller: a little bit on cutting back on travel. i work in the private sector. personally i have not gotten a pay raise in 10 years. i could use more money, but we manage to get by. i am just worried about who is leading and dictating the policy? this climate change stuff is going to destroy us. we need to still use fossil

fuels. host: let's hear from joe in georgia, optimistic. caller: hello, c-span. i have been calling for 30 years. i have never been more optimistic about the economy. i think we are going to take over the house and senate and i think brian kemp and herschel walker are going to win huge victories in georgia. i have been buying blue-chip stocks. i think the stock market will break all records as we let the republicans take over. i think they will win the presidency in 2024. i have never been more fired up. i think things are great. love america, greatest country in history, and i am energized. i love c-span. you all do an incredible job of promoting the news and telling the great american people what is going on and i appreciate c-span. host: thank you, joe.

let's look at some tweets. cynthia says, judging from the hundreds of dollars worth of fireworks that went up in smoke last week i would say the economy is working for many. people are still out on holiday and enjoying the summer. here is a text from ken in florida who says, 250,000 jobs were taken by people to sustain income. check the report. another viewer says, we have entered a recession. our federal government is wastefully spending massive amounts of money we do not have. anyone who is not pessimistic is not paying attention. we are in deeper trouble than we have been since the 1930's. we are taking your opinion and your calls this morning until 8:00 eastern. jim is next in fond du lac,

wisconsin, pessimistic. jim? caller: i am very pessimistic. there are so many things going on at one time that it has to be an engineered collapse. it has to be engineered because of all of the fuel problems, we have adequate fuel in this country, adequate oil, adequate coal. the supreme court made that when decision that west virginia won. all these people are coming across our border which is almost to an invasion level. with the way they had covid and all the payments for the people to stay-at-home, and now those people will not return to work and there are help-wanted signs

everywhere, this was a design collapse of the united states economy by a globalist regime. and george soros and all these people are doing a color revolution on this country. host: do you think it will get worse or better? caller: we are in the beginning of the spiral down. all it is is circus until the whole bottom falls out. they cannot sustain this. we are so fall into collapse and it is unbelievable. host: donald next in denton, texas who was optimistic.

caller: hello, c-span. host: hello, donald. caller: can you hear me? host: yes, we can. caller: the economy is doing good. some previous callers said people are still going on holiday. fireworks were lit like mad. it is not really the government trying to change us to the green energy, it is the auto industry. they are realizing there is a market for electric vehicles so they are going for that market, just like people who sit there and say, disneyland is woke. no, disneyland saw another market they could sell to, the lgbt community, just like every company. they see you newmarket, they are going to cater to that market. we are going in a good direction. i mean, the recent supreme court

decisions, we are not going in a good direction there. host: but you are optimistic about the economy. caller: yeah. pretty much we are an industrial war machine economy. we have a war in ukraine we are supplying. we are going to be cranking out weapons to help ukraine, which they need. putin totally kicked to the pooc h on his invasion. slava, ukraine. host: glenn is in corpus christi and he is pessimistic. caller: hello, c-span. we heard joe biden lie about his

policies and they are failing around him. he has never done anything good for the economy. take petroleum. he is trying to shut that down. do you know how many jobs are in that part of texas? you will watch fuel prices go through the roof again and joe biden cannot lie his way out of this. the american people need to take joe biden's jet fuel away from him and ground him. host: here is a couple of tweets from members of congress. these are republican tweets. the first is jody heise, 372,000 new jobs thanks to american employers. the unemployment rate hunter biden the same. this is representative tim walberg, and more worrying trends from the june jobs report. inflation continues to wipe out the savings of hard-working

american families while lingering workforce shortages continue to plague supply chains and leave shelves empty. richard hudson says, today's jobs report shows wages are failing to keep up with biden inflation. the white house says, we are stronger economically then we have been in history, but folks know that is not true as prices continue to skyrocket. american families cannot afford the biden price hike. let's talk to jerry in martin, north dakota who was optimistic. caller: good morning. i am very optimistic. i am 86 years old. this is the third inflation i have went through and made it through and done well after all of them. i can remember my mom telling me

in my younger years they could not even buy anything unless they had stamps. americans are very spoiled. they want instant gratification and they complain. how many of those republican senators gave those chips back because they did not need them? host: how long do you think it will take things to turn around inflation wise? caller: probably another year. host: that is what you have seen before? caller: parting? -- pardon? host: that is what you have typically seen? caller: republicans want to be conservative and put the money in their pocket, not yours. the last four years when trump was in, look at the world and the mess he has created. more hate and more conflict than anybody else. he is the mob boss.

he will get his hand slapped and they will pay for his wonderful law, things he wanted done. host: let's talk to carol calling from new britain, connecticut who is pessimistic. caller: i would like to say somehow we are not taking global warming seriously by hollering about the price of gas and doing nothing about it, especially republicans. let me tell you about meat. it is so expensive. over 2000 cattle died because of heat exhaustion in the midwest. also, another state was talking about -- the representative said he had to sell one third of his cattle because there was not enough grass to graze his

cattle. tell me why you would not have the high price of meat? that is one item. tell me about the drought. it is a drought and people cannot farm. can you tell me why the prices would go up? another thing is to get crop insurance costs more because of all that. people are going to think that price will go up and we will not have an increase in our commodities? host: tell me what we have to do. caller: we have to get out of fossil fuels once and for all. we were told during the carter administration about this. why are we burying our heads in the sand and saying, we need more energy, we need more renewable energy.

get out of this fossil fuel dilemma we have around the world. host: all right, carol. let's go to indiana to david who is pessimistic. good morning. caller: good morning. i live in southern indiana. we have beautiful crops growing. i don't see a drought. as far as the oil, this lady speaking about oil, how are the farmers going to operate their equipment when the prices so high? i am pessimistic. you ran a clip of the president giving his speech yesterday. i don't know how anybody can be optimistic when he was reading the speech and reading the instructions at the same time and not knowing. he said end of quote and repeated it.

the man is senile and if you have somebody at the top of the leadership who is making these policies, another war in ukraine. we dumped billions of dollars into ukraine when they are losing the war. why is that? it is very hard to be optimistic and that is why i am pessimistic. the price of gas is going down because the high price cut demand. that will come back when demand increases. host: let's look at a couple of tweets from members of democrats. here is representative paul who said, the u.s. added 372,000 in june meaning 9 million since potus took office. the american rescue plan is working. now it is time to keep up them went to an fight inflation by

lowering costs for everything. let's get this done. chris murphy says, the unemployment is crazy. representative david trown says, 372,000 new jobs are created in june. we have generated record job growth and our unemployment rate has reached near historic lows. we are on the path to building our economy back better. wonder if you agree? we are asking if you are optimistic or pessimistic about the economy. what do you see coming in the future? if you think things will get better, or worse. let's talk to randy in millington, michigan who was optimistic. caller: good morning. i would like to start by thanking you and all the other men and women it takes to bring us this great program.

you are doing a great service to the nation. i am optimistic. we are facing a lot of headwinds. fertilizer shortages, grain shortages because of the war, the war will cause inflation and is causing inflation. the current administration has come a long way without much help from the other side. we need the other party. between their little coup attempts and blocking everything by filibuster, you know, things do not get done quick. we did not get here overnight. it took a year of a shutdown. it is going to take a wild to get back into it. i believe we are on the right

track and with some of the decisions the republicans have done and the supreme court have done, maybe we can finally get people in there that actually believe in democracy. have a good day. host: let's look at a clip from cnbc. white house counsel of economic advisor chair addressed concerns about the willingness of americans to spend money in the current economy. [video clip] >> we know americans are continuing to spend. yes, there was a decline in retail sales, but overall we know consumption and expenditure remain rather robust. frankly, i suspect that the sentiment numbers reflect we have had two really hardy years. this pandemic has been a challenge both personally for many people in terms of the health emergency, and then the

affects that had on the labor market and employment. now what we have is the knock on of inflation which is why the president has spoken on reducing costs for families through prescription costs, childcare costs, focus on reducing the deficit which helps with inflation. so, i think it has been a hard two years but what this report reminds us as we have a resilient economy, that the labor force and employers are continuing to add jobs, and there are opportunities across a variety of industries. even leisure and hospitality which still needs to see recovery, still gaining jobs. this report reflects that the bones are good in our economy and it has got the resilience for the challenges we are going to be facing ahead. host: we are talking about the

economy but there is other news happening in washington. one b the assassination of the former leader -- one being the assassination of the former leader of japan, shinzo abe. president biden had some comments. [video clip] >> this has not happened in japan in decades and decades. i am told all the way back to the late or mid 1930's. it was a homemade weapon. the justice department will give me more details as they find out the details. the fact is one thing did get my attention. this is the first use of a weapon to murder someone in japan and i think we have some 3000 -- let me look at the

number. between 3000 and 4000 cases in one, one, one. we will learn more as time goes on but the prime minister is a solid guy. japan is a very stable ally and i do not believe it is likely to have, i do not know yet, but any profound destabilizing impact on japanese security or solidarity. host: that was the president talking about the big news of the former prime minister of japan being assassinated and commenting on that. we are talking about the economy until the top of the hour, asking if you are optimistic or

pessimistic. let's go to california to manu? did i pronounce your name right? caller: it was close. good morning. host: good morning. caller: for two years, we have only had one story rented. we try and we try and we did not get it. if president biden say the economy is good, we cannot see.

we are really bad. it looks to me as if president biden is in that position for so many years, i cannot believe it is for one year. he make a lot of problem, a lot. host: let's talk to pete in baton rouge, louisiana who is pessimistic. caller: good morning. yes, i am pessimistic. several decades ago general mccarthy said the government is being infested by the communists. it is being infested. in fact, it is already infested with communists. george soros backed people, bolsheviks who thrive on chaos,

chaos, chaos. that is what they want. the crime rate in this country is incredible. joe biden does not know what state he is in. he is in the state of confusion. host: but what do you think about the economy? i hear you saying your pessimistic. why are you pessimistic about the economy? caller: because there are people in the government who want to go the way it is going now. they want chaos. host: but why would they want chaos? caller: well, there are some people who do not like this country. they do not like our stability, which we had stability, but there is no stability anymore. you cannot go downtown shopping without thieves putting a gun in

your ribs or something. that is all we got around here, thieves, communists, bolsheviks, just like mccarthy said. host: let's talk to sabrina in asheville, north carolina who is not sure. caller: hi. i think the gentleman the call before his right. we used to be a great, thriving country because we had an income tax that stimulated the economy. the economy is not capable of growing if it is not stimulated. what we are going through right now is a huge jump and how much they pay people, which was needed anyway, because the cost of everything was increasing but the pay raise was not. what we need to do right now is stimulate the economy as much as possible so we can recover these businesses. that is why these stimulus

checks were freeing up the american people's money and is so important right now. they can tell me those jobs are increasing all they want, but i am looking for a job and there are none. host: how long have you been looking? caller: i have been looking for the last two months for a job. to be honest, when i am going to look, i cannot work -- i know up north they pay a lot more -- but in the south, we do not get paid that much. before the pandemic the average pay down here was, i think $12 was a good job, $10 was your average. but when you look at the paycheck in the old days, it was how much the government was taking out on you. host: what kind of job are you looking for, if you do not mind

me asking? caller: i have been a server over 25 years and i have pulled out of the service industry because they only want to pay you $2,18 and that is unacceptable. but i am in customer service. i have over 25 years of customer service. those are the jobs i am looking for but i am a jack of all trades. i can go into factories, i can go into construction, i could do anything. host: good luck with the job search. here is the breakdown of the jobs added in june, according to the labor department. the professional and business services led the list at 74,000, than leisure and hospitality at 67,000, 57,000 added in health

care, and transportation and warehousing was 36,000, and at the bottom was manufacturing at 29,000 new jobs. let's talk to paul in charleston, south carolina. why are you optimistic? caller: i am optimistic that, in november, everybody will come to their senses and vote republican. this is the most inept government. they made poor decisions to overturn everything because they hated the man. they overturned every aspect of what he did, not that everything was right, but did not think whether it was good for the country. i am optimistic we will return and stop this foolishness and inept president. host: what do you think the republicans are going to be able to do for the economy? what are the policies you want

to see happen from republican leaders? caller: things like being independent for oil, energy, that is one of the big things. we will return that and that is one of the big things. gas goes up, everything goes. host: quick programming note. coming up on c-span, the january 6 committee holds their next hearing tuesday at 10:00 a.m. eastern and we will have live coverage on c-span. you can also watch on the free video app, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. let's talk to john in troy, michigan who is pessimistic. caller: hi. i am pessimistic. it seems like the government, whether it is republicans or democrats, keep boasting about job numbers.

right now, we are seeing jobs come back from a decline that was so radical because cities were being shut down, people were being put out of work. some people are returning to work but they have not gotten the numbers that were pre-pandemic. this number that we are getting is nonsense. it is absolute nonsense. we are seeing a gain back of jobs that were lost. these are not new jobs. these are not some miracle that came about by biden's administration. we are getting false information from the government. they talk about the unemployment number. the unemployment is nonsense, too, because they only count those on unemployment. they do not count the people who are not working. we get nonsensical numbers from the government from both sides

when it serves their purpose. but they are not actual numbers. i want some honesty out of the government right now and that does not seem to be coming from anybody. in the november elections, while it might stop some of the stuff going on, it will not stop everything because executive orders are going to go wild. they will go absolutely wild. host: let's talk to joan in california who is not sure. caller: hi. we used to be a country of laws, now we are a country of nothing but outlaws and i do not see it getting better. and all those old people in congress got ago, they got to go. host: ray is next in michigan. ray, are you there?

caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: i am here. good morning. i wondered about the economy with all the retirees on social security? we are sort of frozen in time. nothing goes up on this end. i think they forgot about the seniors because they are spending so much money in ukraine. i am not saying we should not help them, but they are not part of nato. are we supposed to try to rule the world? why are we over there? host: you called on the optimistic line. do you think things will get better for the economy? caller: not in my lifetime. maybe later on if god gives us

enough strength to survive. going green, it is ok to do this, but don't force it on us. they smacked us in the face. they don't give us an opportunity. people that own two cars, maybe we want to buy one electric car. give us the choice. but they don't give us a choice. they are going to run gas prices up as much as they need to to force us to buy electric cars. then again, the rest of the world overseas, they went back to coal. the other side of the world is destroying the planet. host: al in silver spring, maryland who is not sure.

caller: i want c-span to show the bankruptcies. i think bankruptcies are a good measure of how people are actually doing. these are good filings and the rate of bankruptcies have decreased considerably. business bankruptcies, they have decreased 24%. for personal bankruptcies, they have decreased 133,000. these are numbers you need to show because these are good indicators for how the economy is doing. if you show that, people will realize the economy is doing very well. host: ok. let's talk to ray in pleasant view, tennessee. why are you pessimistic? caller: well, the whole thing is

a mess. we elected the wrong person to run this country and the people that are backing him are against getting things done the right way and the honest way. the numbers are wrong. these 372,000 jobs, that is just people going back to work. we are still 5 million people that should be working that is not working. we have 12 million jobs that are not filled. all these numbers that you're getting now and he put so many people back to work, they had to. once the free money stopped they had to go back to work and that is what is happening. until november and we get people with some sense in leadership

positions, things are not going to get any better, because biden don't know what he is doing. he got people around him that don't know what they are doing. nobody pays for what they do. that debacle in afghanistan, those people should have been fired. host: this poll from the associated press shows us 40% of u.s. adults specifically name inflation in an open ended question as one of up to five priorities for the government to work on in the next year, according to the june poll. that is a sharp rise from 14% in december and less than 1% the year prior. americans increasingly call personal finances a major issue. 44% mention it up from 24% in december and 12% the year before. that includes more mentioning gas or energy prices and food costs.

what do you think? we are talking about the economy. let's talk to john in quincy, illinois. why are you optimistic? caller: i am not too sure on the question of why i am optimistic. i just got eight months worth of research. the money is in esg bonds. esg bonds are where the individuals are translated into energy resources and they are invested. that is why his name is biden, because we are bidding. i am here for everyone.

i do not know what is going on with us but, let's go brandon. host: sarah is next in north carolina who was pessimistic. caller: i do not understand. this climate change, people need to stop worrying about this. this was stuff from 2005 and 2006. you need to get on the computer and see what is going to happen. the housing market is already starting to slide now that the interest rates went up. once that happens all the values will come down, you are going to see short sales, people are going to find out they paid too much for the house and walk away. it is a vicious cycle. it happens every, what, seven to 10 years?

look back at what happened see what is going to happen next. host: you think this is a normal process that the economy is going through? caller: oh, yeah, we are in a recession. it already started. the housing market will collapse which it already has. you will not see this next summer. you will see houses at a lower prices or if at all. you will start seeing short sales. people will start getting laid off because none of these people want to pay $19 an hour for people to work at chick-fil-a or $14 an hour to work at burger king. those wages will never last so people will get laid off so they can bring in other workers who will do it for less money because there is to be less jobs. this has to happen. this has been a long time coming, this recession. it has been put off and off and

they used covid to bring it in. we are just at the start of this. it is going to get worse. people need to keep money. if you do not need it, don't buy it. sit on your cash, put it where you know you can find it because if we have a bail in, which could happen this time around, you need to be able to get your cash. host: sarah mentioned we are in recession. here is the new york times with an article, what is a recession and when is the next one going to begin? it says, a recession is when the economy stops growing and starts shrinking. some say that happens when the value of goods and services produced, known as the gross domestic product, declines for two quarters or half a year. it says according to the national bureau of economic research, a recession is a significant decline in economic activity. typically that means not only

shrinking gdp but declining incomes, employment, industrial production and retail sales. arley is next in mustang, oklahoma. caller: i think you guys do a great job of letting people give opinions and that is all this is, an opinion. but the oil and gas issues are basically driven by the oil companies and that the government. i live in a state that is drilling like crazy. the reason why i do not know what is going to happen is because we need to get together and work together like we used to. that is all i have. host: let's look at what nancy

pelosi said. she is the speaker of the house. she said, june's robust jobs report shows after creating 9 million jobs in 17 months america is continuing its steady job growth. today our nation has reached an important milestone. under the leadership of president biden and our democratic majority, we have recovered the total number of private sector jobs lost the beginning of the pandemic. let's talk to pam who is optimistic in gardner, maine. caller: good morning. i am optimistic because we are always developing new technology and a lot of people are just scared of new things coming down the pipe. but we have always progressed in this country and there's always

the next big thing. as for the jobs, there is a big problem with our daycare system in this country and i know a lot of women who are having difficulty getting that to work because at the daycare situation. we also lost over one million people and a lot of them were still working. a lot of people took early retirement because of fear of covid or being burnt out. i am in the health care field and we have a big problem with trying to find people to work in that field. if you can find people to come, the housing is a problem. i just feel like even if we have a small downturn going forward, things are getting better.

as for the oil, we have never been independent. we were still getting oil from russia when trump was in office. host: let's get another call in from moira in madison. caller: i am pessimistic and nobody is talking about asphalt. shutting down trillium, gold, asphalt uses petroleum. this push for energy and electric vehicles, we will not have the roads to drive them on if we do not have the petroleum for the asphalt. but there are so many things going on at once. all of the blackouts that are probably going to come with this shutting down. there are so many byproducts

from petroleum. solar is such a small part of it. i am pessimistic because of the petroleum situation. thank you. host: david is in glasgow, connecticut who is optimistic. caller: i am in kentucky. host: sorry. caller: that's ok. i just read this morning that turkey has 79% inflation, most of the countries in europe are running around 11%, 12%. around here they are talking about driving. it never slowed anybody down. there are more cars on the road. nobody is talking about how high gas is. yesterday i was in glasgow and it was like, $4.29 a gallon.

they are not talking about jobs. every place here has signs up. convenience stores, restaurants, everything. they are building a battery plant in glendale, kentucky south of elizabethtown. ford is going to invest, like, $1 billion or more. bowling green is building one for 200,000 people. they are already moving dirt to these places. i am optimistic. i cannot figure out why people are so pessimistic. we are the most fortunate, blessed country on earth and we need to be counting our blessings and work together. people watch fox and they come up with this idiotic garbage and it is stupid. that is my comment. thank you so much. host: let's talk to pat in meridian, idaho. caller: thank you for having me on. the gentleman that spoke before,

maybe it is great where he lives, may be pay is better, but for what i have seen when i go to the grocery stores there is more automation, there is more self-serve checkout. you may have two clerks working where the rest are machines that you use. i do not understand how employment has increased or how great it is. i think we have a problem in this country. we need to have more jobs being brought back from other countries or jobs that went to other countries, bringing them back, get people with little education to work in. host: that will be our last call. up next, alex mccourt of the johns hopkins bloomberg school

of public health discusses how states are responding to the supreme court ruling that struck down new york state's concealed carry gun law. later, education next senior educator paul peterson will discuss his podcast, the education exchange. we will be right back. ♪ congress returns next week from the july 4 holiday break this senate is back monday at 3:00 p.m. eastern. senators will vote later in the week on the net -- nomination. legislative work in the house resumes tuesday, members will spend a week on the spending program. including a bill to protect the right to travel for abortion services. members will consider a bill to

create an amber-like system for active shooters. watch live action from the house on c-span and c-span2 in honor live video app c-span now or c-span.org. but tv every sunday on c-span2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books at 8:00 p.m. eastern the author of liberalism and its discontent discusses the latest liberal attitudes. formal education secretary betsy devos talks about her book "hostages no more." she is interviewed by jeb bush. watch book tv on c-span2 and

find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online any time at book tv.org. american history tv explores the people and events the tail the american story on the presidency, the white house historical association looks at how the white house as change, updated and preserved over several administrations and the national world war ii museum highlights martha gilmore on how she started her career during the spanish civil war and went on to cover world war ii. exploring the american story, watch american history tv every weekend and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/history.

join washington journal every sunday for our special six parts city -- series on legislation. each week experts will explore legislations how we get around, educate our kids, how we get around and welcome new citizens to our country. this sunday we will explore the immigration legislation. watch land more legislation on washington journal live at 9:00 eastern on sunday morning on c's and or c-span now our free mobile app. washington journal continues. we are here with alex mccourt he is the head of research at johns hopkins bloomberg school of public health.

alex, welcome to the program. guest: thank you. host: first tell us about johns hopkins bloomberg school of public health, what do you do and is there a political or ideological leanings? guest: it focuses on evidence. we try to do rigorous research that evaluates how gun policies work and how different mechanisms for reducing gun violence might be effective. the center does its best to stay ideologically neutral. we are focused on evidence and the public health implications of gun violence in gun policy. host: if ewers would like to join the conversation you can call in. our phone lines are going to be if you support stricter gun laws or if you oppose stricter gun laws. if you support that number is (202) 748-8000, if you are

against stricter gun laws that number is (202) 748-8001. the supreme court ruled on a major concealed carry gun case. tell us about that, explain it and how the justices ruled. guest: the court issued an opinion a couple of weeks ago and in this case the court was really looking at one aspect of new york's concealed carry law in that aspect required applicants for a permit to carry a gun on public to show that they had a proper cause for wanting to carry that gun. when people applied for that permit, they had to say why they wanted to carry in public. that reason had to be very specific. it could not be a general fear or a need for self-defense.

it had to be based on a rational need. the court looked at this law and determine whether it complied with the second amendment. ultimately, it decided it does not. the court struck down the opinion -- or excuse me, it was a 6-3 opinion written by justice thomas. it expanded its opinion of the second amendment to carry areas outside the home. it protects the right to carry in the public in changes how courts will evaluate second amendment cases going forward. it struck down just this one piece of the carry law. people still have to get a permit to get concealed carry weapons in new york but they don't have to show this proper

cause element anymore. they just have to meet the other criteria. host: i wanted to ask you about that proper cause, under the original law, who decides that proper cause and if it is proper enough? guest: the parties in this case noted that this was highly discretionary. it was licensing officers such as law enforcement officers, outlining the reasons listed by applicants. they tried to be consistent, but there was limited guidance for these officials. a lot of it came down to whether individual officials thought it was a proper cause or a proper reason. host: let's take a look at justice clarence thomas's opinion in that ruling and i will ask you to comment on it. he said the second and 14th amendment protect an individual's right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside

the home. we know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating government officers a special need, that is not how the first amendment works when it comes to speech or religion, it is not how the six amendment works when it comes to a defendant's right to confront witnesses against them and it is not how the second amendment works when it comes to public carry for self-defense. what are your thoughts on that? guest: it seems to me that one of the main problems justin thomas and the other justices have with the statute was the discretionary piece. there was no specific law seeing that these are the specific reasons. it felt like he was more concerned about the discretion. in terms of justifying that specific reason.

the comparison to other rice is instructive, we can learn a lot about that but there are differences when we are talking about the second amendment and carrying guns in public. host: where does this leave states because the ruling says that this was unconstitutional to make people have concealed carry permit show a proper cause. what are the options now for states? guest: there are a handful of states, six states that have a proper cause or good reason requirement like new york's. new york's is the subject of this case, under court order they will have to change that law. the other states have tried to act proactively before their litigation so they have tried to change their statutes through legislation or they have tried

to issue statements from the states attorney general saying that these laws will not be in ours. those states like maryland, new jersey has said that they will no longer enforce these proper cause or good recent requirements but all other requirements will remain the same. it does not mean that states don't require licenses anymore. all of those provisions are in place with the sole exceptions of this good clause requirement. host: this is what you said, research has found that increased carrying of guns is associated with increased violence. can you tell us about that research and how it was conducted? guest: there are several different studies that have looked at these laws. there are laws that facilitate the permitting of concealed carry. there are some states that

incorporate discretion like new york, maryland and new jersey but these states are called may issue laws because these states may issue permits if you meet the criteria. there are states that have shall issue laws. there is limited to no discretion about. there are also a handful of states, 25, that allowed carrying without a permit. they have done away with that specific requirement. researchers found that as you move along that continuum to the most to least restrictive you see increases in certain measures of gun violence. recent work led by my colleague at johns hopkins also found that moving towards this permit list carry or allowing carry without a permit it is associated with increased shooting by police.

many of these shootings have found increases in aggravated assault and violent crime as case removed this discretion and make it easier for people to get licenses to carry. host: will this ruling encourage states to tighten gun laws and other areas or change gun laws not only related to concealed carry but in other types of areas? guest: i think so. we are already seeing a new york, there was a recent bill that was passed and signed by the governor that tried to tighten concealed carry and designate places where guns could not be carried. we see states try to innovate and pass laws that are evidenced-based that try to reduce gun violence. given the court's opinion, there may be some efforts to frame these laws as based in history and tradition.

the court found it important to evaluate whether laws were rooted in american history and tradition. whether these are historically valid in constitutional law. as the state adopts new laws they may try to train it as a continuation as historical legislation to try to protect it from second amended challenge. host: let's talk to some viewers now. let's talk to philip in west virginia. caller: i would like to make a comment first. when i heard your guest from johns hopkins bloomberg school of public health say, they tried not to be biased and have a data driven approach i had to laugh out loud because no sooner has he gotten into his spiel that he is handwaving saying these typical phrases "study shows,

many states have found" and when you dig into those you find out they are bogus, pseudoscience. they are specific time periods, special years, they don't look at the overall crime situation, overall murder statistics. it is the cherry picking of the cherry picking. i wish you would have somebody on that was an honest source of information. host: let's get a response, alex he is questioning your research. guest: this is not just our research. we engage in rigorous methods. there is no bias inherent in our methods. we use methods to generate inference to determine whether these laws are associated with

changes in gun violence. sometimes we find that these laws make gun violence wears, sometimes we find there is no change and sometimes these laws are protective. our laws is to communicate that to the public. in this case there is a long series of studies that have found that these laws are associated with increases in violence. these have used different methods that have been checked and repeated by other people. they have been peer-reviewed by others in the field. there has been strong evidence associated with these laws. host: karen is next in alabaster, alabama. caller: i am confused whether this guest wants us to have more gun laws or he opposes them. i oppose stricter gun laws specifically those red flag laws

because they are not enforcing them and everyone is worried about mass shootings right now. most of those people were on antidepressant so it is more of a mental health issue. but new york is outrageous with their gun laws and they are putting in all of these laws where they decide whether you should be allowed to carry a gun. they will look at your social media account. it will not be an objective process. it will be subjective, if they don't like your politics they won't let you have a gun and that is not fair. let people have their weapons, let them have weapons to protect themselves. let's address the mental health issues and i think that would work. guest: you raise a couple of important points. first of all, mass shootings are

significant problems in we know of some solutions that can help prevent those and those include red flag laws that are known as extreme risk protection orders and those laws allow courts to examine whether or not someone is having a crisis. whether they are a risk to themselves or to others and to temporarily take guns away. these are not permanent removals from guns but a temporary thing. the role of mental health is important to discuss here. there is often the conflation of mental health in gun violence. the role of mental health and most gun violence is very small. research is shown by duke that if we were to snap our fingers and magically cure all mental illness or mental health issues that would only change gun violence by 3%. there are many other factors that go into leading to

violence. while mental health care is certainly important, we have to have a more particular approach to violence. you raise the new york law that will allow an official to look at social media history to examine whether should receive a permit. it will be interesting to see what work -- what the courts do with that. the kurds may see this as similar to the proper cause ruling. there have been recent mass shootings, including the shooting that just happened outside of all go. there were concerning social media posts. it may be that the more appropriate thing is that red flag laws as a more temporary

solution. there is no doubt that sometimes toxic or threatening can be a sign of future violence. host: that new laws that new york just past, does that comply with the newark ruling? -- new york ruling. guest: it is up to future courts to determine whether this law complies, there will certainly be litigation. there is no doubt that individuals in new york will file lawsuits to challenge this provision and it may work its way up to the supreme court. under the courts new tests that have been articulated in this case is whether there is an analog history.

whether looking at someone social history behavior can be analogized to something governments did in the past at the time of its founding or during reconstruction. courts have a difficult job in determining if there was something in the past that is comparable to social media. host: alex, since we are talking about social media. let's take a look at some of the tweets that have come in for us. this is from cynthia, she says more guns in public equals more gun violence who would've thunk it? a gun cannot raise your

child or pay your rent. a gun cannot sustain you during retirement. ban guns. what do you think of that? guest: both of those comments are emblematic of the tension that we see. there are people who feel very strongly that we should ban guns in there are people who feel we should have free and easy access to guns. because of the second amendment and because of the provisions and state constitutions in the political environment in the united states, we are not going to do either one. we will not ban guns, there is no feasible way to ban guns and no way to make it a free-for-all where does easy to get guns into carry them and use them. what we need to do is find the middle ground where we

acknowledge and protect the second amendment but we protect the ability for people to live their lives free of danger from those who might use guns in violent ways. this includes people who might have access to guns who have a crisis and use them and acts of self-harm. most gun deaths are suicides. when we talk about banning guns or not banning guns we should really talk about this middle ground where we find a way to collaborate and get evidence-based solutions that reduce violence while recognizing and protecting rights. host: here is that new york state law that has just been passed it says it will require gun owners to have proper cause to carry concealed weapons.

it enhances safe storage of guns by increasing the age limit so that safe storage laws apply. what is considered a sensitive place and what is not? guest: in its opinion the court acknowledge there are sensitive places where the government has an interesting keeping guns away. these include places like polling places, places of worship and government buildings. it stopped short of defining how we can define sensitive places. we are going to see future evaluations and a new test for evaluating this. the idea is to identify places where carrying a gun might be unsafe in that it might lead to

violence. places where alcohol is consumed or stadiums where tensions might run high. also places where it might but up against the expression of other rights. the first amendment right to congregate, protest and public parks. states are trying to figure out where the line is. it is difficult to do. host: you mentioned maryland, larry hogan has asked the state police to suspend the substantial reason standards. do you think other states will follow and if those laws that other state laws could also be challenged in the supreme court? guest: other states will follow suit. jerzy has also issued an

attorney general's opinion that there substantial reason will not be enforced. we have this immediate response where governors and attorney generals are saying we will not enforce this specific provision. but, states will want to make sure that they are actually changing the law itself to protect against future litigation. if you have future administrations that will change the law again, that will be problematic. there also may be efforts to change other parts of gun laws. to loosen them up, to affirm them, to identify discretionary elements and get rid of those to

prevent litigation that could cause larger chunks of their gun laws to be struck down. host: i want to let viewers know we are having trouble with our phone lines. i am not avoiding you. we will try to get back to the phones as quickly as that is fixed. we are working on that now. here is the new york times, an article that says states rush to revamp laws after the supreme court gun ruling. after some restrictions, legislators announced plans to craft new laws that honor the ruling while still creating limits. last month the house and senate signed bipartisan gun safety bill. the first in three decades. talk about what that law focuses on and the impact it could have? guest: that was a fascinating

day when the law passed because it was the same day that the court issued its opinion and both of these are rare events. the court does not take second amendment cases often and congress doesn't pass gun legislation often. this was a major step and there are many researchers and advocates that were hoping it would go further. there are some important elements. among other things, the legislation tried to encourage states to adopt red flag laws. it offers funding to states to try to set up these policies that can help identify and limit access to guns for people who are having temporary crises. it also closes the oil friendly boyfriend loophole. if

you are convicted of domestic violence you are pro hibited from buying guns. it excluded dating partners, so dating partners could be convicted of domestic violence, but they were exempt from this federal prohibition. congress has tightened this so dating partners are now included in that prohibition. it also freed up funding to try to help with mental health programs in school safety. it is not clear how that will work out and how it will affect gun violence but mental health funding is never a bad thing. it will increase public health

and enhance public health even if it doesn't have an effect on gun violence specifically. there are many other aspects of this bill that are important, but there were some that were hoping it would go further. host: we got a tweet from sheila, she says please ask alex what they will do about opening juvenile records that are sealed so they can find possible clues to severe mental illnesses. what do you think of that? guest: there are some prohibitions for certain serious juvenile offenses. one of the elements of the new federal legislation is to do more thorough reviews of individuals between the age of 18-21. to provide the federal government to do these checks and more rigorous records. records are only as good as

record-keeping practices. there are time when those records are not entered into the system. if they are not in the system they cannot be caught. many of these reporting requirements are voluntary. some states only report limited data and some only reported in an aggregate form. there is a difference between juvenile offenses in terms of criminal offenses and juvenile mental health records. it is difficult to determine how they will relate and how they will affect these background checks. when mental health records are included it is because somebody has been adjudicated a danger to themselves or others or involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility. those are the records we are

talking about here. not mental health records like a diagnosis but more of an adjudication or official determination. host: here's an opinion in the wall street journal it says that new york's massive resistance to the supreme court's ruling on guns. albany passes a law that defies its ruling. in virginia, opponents of the court's decision called it resistance. these day, the massive resistance is on the political left as exemplified by new york state's gun law that defies the supreme court's june ruling that tries to solidify gun rights. what do you think of that? guest: it is important to think

about what the court did here. it expanded its interpretation of the second amendment. it identified for the first time that the second amendment expands outside the home and protects the carrying of guns in public. but they said that this right is not unlimited. it is subject to limits and regulations just like any other constitutional right. they were not saying anyone can carry in public for any reason at any time. in general, we have to look more closely at laws that regulate concealed carry to see if they comport with american history and tradition. there is this idea that we need to look at gun laws differently but the only law that is categorically unconstitutional was this proper cause or good reason requirement.

it would expand to a number of places may end up being struck down but as of now, it doesn't get to the heart of the court opinion. what it does is it will ask future courts to evaluate whether they are constitutional. host: here's an article from the examiner, the governor of new york enhances gun safety laws. she signed legislation that bolsters restrictions on concealed weapons. one of two initiatives approved in a special session held last week by the state legislature and the second action amends the state constitution to guarantee

reproductive health care as well as elevating the rights of millions of residents in terms of their lgbtq status. host: what does this do in terms of the supreme court? guest: we will see a flood of litigation and challenges to gun laws. it includes gun laws that have already been upheld in the second amendment test between the court's opinion in heller and now, most gun laws have been upheld when the court has evaluated them they have said that the government has an interest in public safety and these laws advance public safety.

now, even some of those laws that were upheld under that previous test will be challenged and probably struck down in some way. we will see many new cases that will change the landscape for gun policy. we also will see test continue to legislate in this area. there are many things states can do to reduce gun violence. this includes introducing red flag laws, background checks, sensitive places for public carry. there are things that have a long history like background checks and certain limits on public carry that states will continue to legislate. the state will try to innovate like with red flag laws.

the state will take new approaches. we will see both of the things, litigation and enhance policy innovation. host: we are still having trouble with our phone lines. i apologize that i'm not able to take your calls but we are doing our best trying to get that fixed. we are taking your tweets. we have a tweet that says opening medical records perplexes me. how do we have civil laws and gun records in tandem. if somebody has mental health issues and they want to buy a gun how does that work? guest: we are not talking about opening up medical records.

so somebody taking medication for a serious mental illness, that does not mean they are at a high risk for violence or should be prevented from doing anything. what we do look at, what records are collected are thought of as administrative or court records. so when someone is determined by a court as a danger to themselves or a high risk to society or perhaps they are threatening people in their family or community where they are determined by a court to not be able to manage their own affairs. these kind of orders and records are the kinds of things we are looking at. when those records come up, courts will look into mental health records if possible to determine whether this thread is legitimate or not. determine whether somebody can

access guns. the treatment of a mental health condition will not affect your ability to purchase a gun. host: and has this comment, the second amendment does not support open or concealed carry. people should keep their guns at home. they should be responsible for those guns. police who approached people with guns don't know if they are a good guy with the gun. open carry increases danger for everyone. and this is the text that came in from keith of florida, the first gun law that should be passed is that politicians should not have armed protection. that would ensure that violent criminals are helped immediately.

instead of talking about studies less talk about facts. when a law is passed that requires everyone to have guns, crime went down by 80%. currently the city is 85% below u.s. averages. guest: the last one you mentioned, there is a lot of research that when more guns are available there is increased risk of suicide, accidental shootings and violence. there are many factors that go into that. including, gun availability and other factors including socioeconomic factors. it is difficult to compare ke

nnesaw, georgia to other cities and states. there is substantial data that shows data that people who are high risk who don't have access to gun can help with gun violence. with the second amendment not including public carry. the supreme court has not indicated that it does not agree with. you. it has never said that it extends to public carry, but now that it has states have to be more careful with how they regulate it. carrie and public will complicate things for interaction -- carry in public

will complicate things for law enforcement. law enforcement has to determine whether or not someone is legally allowed to carry without examining if they have a permit. host: steve says this in a tweet, the dred scott decision brought us closer to the civil war. the current supreme court is doing the same thing. do you think gun control laws impact national unity and how people feel about each other? guest: there is a disconnect between the political discussion of gun rights and gun violence on what the public thinks. there are many gun policies that are very popular. policies that require a permit

to purchase or background checks are supported by a majority of people including republicans and gun owners. policies like requiring training to get a concealed carry permit. it is supported by the vast majority of people and gun owners. we have cold people from all over the country in specific groups, including democrats, republicans and gun owners and in general, people support these policies. they also expressed some trepidation or fear about carrying in public. open carry out protest is something people are nervous about and wanted to be regulated. in some ways, the discourse between politicians is out of step with the public. host: another tweet from jim he

says there are 18 million permits in the u.s.. how many of them committed gun violence last year? there are a lot of people who have permits and there were not 18 million incidents of gun violence. guest: that is an important point. the vast majority of permit holders are law-abiding, nonviolent. they carry a gun for their job or self-defense or some other function. in many cases, they don't end up using their guns. self defensive gun use is relatively rare. people don't often have to use their gun in self-defense. there are other mechanisms that might lead to increased violence by loosening concealed carry

restrictions. if more people are carrying in public, that may lead more people to feel like they need to carry as well because they feel like they need to be protected. that may lead law enforcement to think more people have guns and more likely to use their own gun. there is significant evidence that when states relax their concealed carry laws, more guns are stolen. these guns are stolen from cars and other places in public because the guns are not as limited to the home. they are more in public and stolen more often which could lead to more crime and violence. a recent study by john donahue found some of the increases in crime are linked to increased on

thefts and police behaviors. police clearance of crime decreases as these laws pass and this could be because they are more hesitant to approach people. it could be because they are not sure who has a gun. host: there is a new york times article that says after another mass shooting, new jersey titans gun laws. legislation will make it more difficult to obtain a handgun license and obtain high-capacity magazines. the measures approved by the governor on tuesday signal a coming flog of piecemeal legislation as they deal with

the lachlan legislation. what do you think of that? what is going on in new jersey. guest: they have taken some actions to look at carry and possession specifically. some of that has been a reaction to the supreme court's decision including stopping there proper cost equivalent. some of this includes prohibition on large capacity magazines on rifles. the long-term advocacy and research finds that mass shootings are less common when states adopt bands on large capacity magazines.

the way we define it, a magazine that holds 10 or more rounds. these are magazines that allow somebody to fire many rounds without stopping to reload. this can be a significant problem when someone is engaging and acts of mass violence. there may be states that are responding quickly to the supreme court's decision, but many of these actions are still rooted in evidence and have a strong potential to help reduce deaths. host: that brings us to the end of this segment. i apologize that we were not able to take more phone calls but i appreciate you being on. the director of gun safety solutions at johns hopkins bloomberg school of public health, thank you so much. guest: thank you. host: i'm next, we will try to

take more calls but we are certainly working on getting that fixed and later in the program, paul peterson talks about his podcast education exchange and the loss of learning during the pandemic. >> the january 6 committee returns for his seventh hearing. watch as they examined the role extremist groups played on the attack on the capital and their relationship to the trump white house. watch live tuesday at 10:00 a.m.. you can also visit our website c-span.org/january 6 to watch previous hearings and other videos related to that day. c-span, your unfiltered view of government.

c-span now, the mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in washington live in and on demand. keep up with events like earrings from the congress, the courts, campaigns and more from the world of politics. all that your fingertips, we hope to stay current with episodes of washington journal. c-span now is available on the apple store, google play, downloaded today. c-span now, your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. the tv every sunday on c-span two features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. at 8:00 p.m. eastern, the author of liberalism and its discontent

discusses the current state of classical liberalism and critiques it from the left and the right. then at 10:00 eastern, former education secretary betsy devos talks about her time serving in the trump administration and her book. she is interviewed by jeb bush. watch book tv every sunday on c-span2 and find the full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at book tv.org. join washington journal every sunday for our special six part series on landmark legislation each week there is an expert who explores a piece of legislation that helped shaped today's america. how we get around, educate our kids, and welcome new citizens to our country. we will look at the immigration

reform and control act of 1986 which imposed fines on employers who hired undocumented immigrants and offered pass to citizenship for those already living in the u.s.. watch now on c-span or c-span.org. c-span has unfiltered coverage on the u.s. is response to the russian invasion of ukraine. we also have international perspectives from the united nations and statements from foreign leaders. all on the c-span network, the c-span now mobile app and c-span.org/ukraine. our web resource page where you can watch the latest videos on demand and follow tweets from journalist on the ground. go to c-span.org/ukraine.

at least six presidents recorded conversations while in office. hear those conversations in season two of our podcast presidential conversations. they are 100% unfiltered. >> the main thing is, my heart goes out to those people who with the best of intentions are overzealous. i am sure you know, i tell you if i could've spent a little more time being a politician last year in less time being president i would have kicked thereabouts out. join us for season two on the c-span mobile app or wherever you get your podcast. >> washington journal continues. host: welcome back to washington journal. we are going to be asking you

about the same question we asked earlier in the program which is, are you optimistic or pessimistic about the economy? we are having trouble with our phone lines. we are working diligently to get that fixed because i do want to hear from you directly. in the meantime, you can send us a text. that phone number is (202) 748-8003. make sure you tell us your first name and your city, state. you can also tweet us we will be watching our tweets pretty closely and that is http://twitter.com/cspanwj. in other news, the former leader of japan was assassinated just yesterday. here is the article from the hill. biden orders the white house flags at half staff to honor abe. he ordered flags at the

white house and military installations to be flown at half mast as a sign of respect to shinzo abe after he was assassinated at a campaign event. the longest-serving japanese prime minister he was a servant of the japanese people and a faithful friend to the united states. that was a proclamation signed by president biden on friday. he worked with american presidents of both parties to deepen the alliance between our nations and advance a common vision for a free and open and pacific. -indo-pacific. you can see the picture here of people putting down their flowers. their murder of shinzo abe

stones a mostly gun free nation. we have the new york times talking about eight measures slowing the u.s. economy. this article talks about several. one of them is retail sales. the other is consumer confidence. the university of michigan survey of consumer sentiment hit its lowest level in his 70 year history with half of its respondents saying that inflation is eroding their standard of living. other factors were startup funding, investments in startups have declined to their lowest level since 2019 dropping 23% over the last three months to

2.3 billion. the s&p 500 had its worst first cap year since 1970 and it is down nearly 19% since january. every sector of the index besides energy is down since beginning of the year. that is the new york times. the jobs numbers did come down, 372,000 jobs were added, 3.6% is the unemployment rate. let's hear from the president about those job rates. >> the labor department report is that we added 372,000 jobs last month. the private sector has now recovered all the jobs lost during the pandemic and added jobs on top of that. we have more americans working today in the private sector than any day under my predecessor,

more today than any time in american history. in the second quarter of this year we created more jobs than any quarter than any of my predecessors in 40 years before the pandemic. at a time when our critics said the economy was too weak, i have already added more jobs than any president in history. we have still had more jobs in three months than any president in 40 years. i know times are tough. prices are too high, today's economic news confirms the fact that my economic plan is moving the country in the right direction. unemployment rate is 3.6%, private sector jobs are at an all-time high, past prices have fallen 25 days in a row. this week we saw the second

largest single day decrease in a decade. we have a lot of work to do, i am suggesting that we are making significant progress. host: that was the president talking about the jobs numbers that came out yesterday. we are having some trouble with our phone lines but we are going to give it a try. we are asking are you optimistic or pessimistic about the economy? let's go first to north carolina. north carolina are you there? caller: yes. host: lewis? caller: i feel like i won the lottery, i got through. host: you did won the lottery. caller: i feel like president biden has done a wonderful job despite what he is going against.

he is going against food companies, these fuel industries. i don't know if you guys have seen it, or maybe you have because c-span is on top of everything. there was a documentary where they had ceos from the food and fuel industries and they talked about how we didn't know we would make this much money in recession. they are holding back products to make biden look bad and put money in their pockets. they are trying to make people hate biden. the biden administration is doing a great job. host: do you think the biden administration could do more to impact the food and fuel industry? caller: i look at it this way,

if biden could, i think he would. if you look at arsenic, the republican senators will not vote on anything for the american people. you have two democrats and republicans undercover. he is trying to do deals that will only last is so long. if the senators would all fall behind the american people i guarantee you that america would be a whole lot better if some of the republicans would go along to help their constituents, help their people in their states but they won't do that. host: let's go to mark who was in indiana, mark, what do you think? pessimistic or optimistic? caller: i am pessimistic in the short term for the next six months to a year. we are in a recession right now.

the gdp was down in the second quarter will probably be down 2.1% in the consumer price index is 10% inflation and that will be followed by 8%. on the short-term, we lost just about 20% in the stock market. i have lost my income from trucking because we were hauling tractor-trailers and nobody wants to move them on the highways, it is so it's pensive and sales have plummeted. short-term, it is really bad. my aim is to get all the democratic party out of office

so we can have a sound policy of producing more oil and products in the united states. if you have plenty of product, the price goes down. it is simple. the economy goes back to a simple thing i learned in college and high school both, that if you produce more, your prices go down and if you print more money, your prices go up and they cannot break the law of economics and expect the economy to run right. host: let's talk to ron calling from florida. are you there? caller: i am here. host: go ahead. caller: good morning. your first caller, i just turned on your show. i like the show. it is great. but your first caller, i do not know what planet he is living on.

anyone who is an average consumer has come to realize this country is going down the tubes under president biden. they do not care about the average person. look around you. you are a consumer. you have to see different. it is ridiculous. the democrats are destroying this country and i do not think it will ever come back and let the republicans get power. if they don't, we might as well be in russia. host: this is an interview on cnbc with white house council of economic advisors chair and she talked about concerns about the willingness of americans to spend money in the current economy. here it is. [video clip] >> we know americans are continuing to spend. there was a slight decline in retail sales but overall, we know that consumption and expenditures remain robust. frankly, i suspect that the

sentiment numbers reflect that we have had two really hard years. this pandemic has been a struggle and challenge both personally for many people in terms of the health emergency and the pandemic and the effect that had on the labor market and employment and now what we have is inflation which is a challenge for household which is why the president is focused on reducing costs for families through prescription costs, childcare costs, a focus on reducing the deficit, inflation, and prices. i think it has been a hard two years but what this report reminds us is that we have a resilient economy that is a labor force and employers are continuing to add jobs and there are opportunities out there across a variety of industries. even leisure and hospitality which needs recovery is gaining jobs. this report reflects that we have come the bones are good --

this report reflects that the bones are good and is resilient for the challenges we will be facing. [end video clip] host: we are asking you that same question. are you optimistic or pessimistic about the economy? jobs numbers came out yesterday. the u.s. economy added 372,000 jobs in june, defying slow down fears. you can see that chart on your screen. this is a monthly change in jobs . along the bottom is the month and the article says the u.s. economy powered through june with broad-based hiring, on par with recent months, keeping the country clear of recession territories even as inflation eats into wages and interest rates continue to rise. employers added 372,000 jobs according to the labor department. the unemployment rate is 3.6%.

it was unchanged from may and near a 50 year low. what do you think? ron in pennsylvania, are you optimistic or pessimistic? caller: i am optimistic and i will tell you why. the infrastructure bill was passed. that was something that trump promised but never came through with. i think we will have an economic boom. inflation is everywhere and we have the lowest inflation rate in the world. i think we are doing ok. my only worry is the republicans get the house and the senate. that would be a disaster. we need to democrats to hold the houses. if we can do that, we will have a tremendous eight years and hopefully next 12 years. thank you. host: let's talk to john in south dakota. what do you think? caller: i think the last caller

is living in a virtual reality world. i do not understand where the democrats are coming from and what fantasy world they are living in. they think they can be unicorns and transgendered and whatever else they want. the economy is terrible. everything costs more. nobody can afford anything. everybody's savings has gone down to nothing. i could not afford to go to a festival i have gone to for 10 years in around in scranton, pennsylvania because i could not afford the gas to get there. i already had to get the concert. i cannot afford the gas. people cannot afford to get to work with the gas. it is ridiculous. it is not just gas prices. it is food prices. what world are these people living in? they want to just keep paying more prices. host: do you think it will get worse or -- tell me what you think about the future. caller: it is obviously going to get worse.

this guy does not know what he is doing. dementia joe needs some person to help him. the guy should be an elder care. he cannot get a sentence out. he cannot even read the teleprompter. what is going on? what comes to -- kind of country are we living in? host: go to another john in virginia. caller: hi. thanks for taking my call. i would say that i am not sure about how i feel about the economy because one thing that i have not really heard talked a lot about is the relation between inflation and wage growth. i work from home and i have not really felt the increase in gas prices since i do not travel a lot. i know that is different for a family of five.

also as we saw earlier in the month, job growth still remains strong. just trying to figure out that balance seems to be tricky for me and trying to assess the outlook of the economy. host: let's go to clyde in oklahoma. caller: hello. good morning. host: good morning. what do you think? optimistic or pessimistic? caller: i'm optimistic is going to get better. we cannot get worse. that is the economy. covid-19 try to kill us and now the economy is trying to break us. it will straighten itself up. that is all they can do. thank you. host: in an interview earlier this week, federal reserve

governor remember christopher waller expressed concern about the impact of inflation. take a look. [video clip] >> if we do not get inflation under control, we all worry about the un-anchoring of expectations and something we cannot have done. the president last week made the point that from a risk-management point of view that they might be coming unanchored and make sure we get them back down and to assume they are angered and then get away from us. it is critical that we try to get inflation down. if we take a lot of aggressive action now, we will have a quicker impact on inflation. if we keep delaying the hikes. hopefully at some point, some of the supplies side effects will help us out. i am not worried about that anymore. if they help, they help. if not, we have to keep going on

policy. i am advocating for the frontloading approach for one important reason. the labor market has been strong. the economy has been really strong although we are getting these negative readings recently on gdp. doing the big rate hikes when the economy is strong, the labor market can take it. down the road, when everything seems to be weakening, it is not obvious we will ever carry them out. there is a lot of concern about over tightening, possibly causing a recession, but i want to remind people that inflation is a tax on economic activity and the higher that tax, the more it suppresses economic activity. if we do not get inflation under control, inflation could put us in a really bad economic outcome down the world -- down the road, whether we respond to it or not. host: that was christopher waller talking about inflation and that interview is available

on our website at c-span.org if you would like to take a look. we are asking you are you optimistic or pessimistic about the economy and we are taking your calls for the next 5, 10 minutes or so. give us a call and let us know what you think. next up is brian in michigan. hi, brian. good morning. caller: good morning. you guys are having some phone problems. host: we have been having some problems but we can hear you. go ahead. pessimistic or optimistic? caller: ok. definitely pessimistic. 1975, this country after all it had been through, world wars, vietnam, social security, setting it all up, we were only $450 billion in debt.

now look at us. now we are leveraged out at 125%. you are at over $30 trillion in debt. this is obscene. we cannot handle all the debt of the european nation and nato. i have worked with nato from years back. they need to handle their own business. we are not the answer to everything on this planet. we are here to help. this is the biggest dream that we have. we cannot handle everything in the world. we are not that special. we need to get over ourselves. we are serious in trouble monetarily and definitely i am pessimistic and i am one of the most positive people you will run into. we are fiscally obscene, the way

we are doing things. we are not capitalists right now. definitely pessimistic. but it is a bit day in michigan. the sun is shining. i will get some things done. but we are in trouble. we are in serious trouble. host: all right. our last call will be debbie in tennessee. what do you think? caller: i am very optimistic. i think joe biden is doing a wonderful job with what he has been left with. and people that are on here bashing him, it is all from the red states. i just think he is doing a wonderful job and i hope he gets another four years to complete what he started. host: all right. that is going to bring us to the end of this segment. up next is education next senior editor paul peterson.

he discusses his podcasts and the loss of learning during the pandemic. we will be right back. ♪ >> congress returns next week from the july 4 holiday break. the senate is back monday at 3:00 p.m. eastern. senators will vote on the nomination of president biden's nominee to serve as director of the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives. legislative work resumes tuesday. members will spend most of next week on 2023 defense department programs. whoever the house plans to take abortion-related legislation including a bill to protect the right to travel for abortion services. members are expected to consider for a second time a bill to create an amber-like system for active shooter events nationwide. watch live coverage of the house on c-span, the senate on c-span2. you can watch on our free video and, c-span now app or online at

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congressional directory. this book is your guide to the federal government with contact information for every member of congress including bios and committee assignments. also contact information for state governors and the biden administration cabinet. order your copy today at c-span shop.org or scan the code with your smartphone. every purchase supports c-span's nonprofit operation. >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back. i am joined by paul peterson. he is the host of the podcast called "the education exchange" and he is education next's senior editor. welcome to the program. guest: it is a pleasure to join you early in the morning on the pacific coast. host: we appreciate you getting up early for us. tell us about the podcast. what is it about? why did you start it? guest: i started it because we

wanted to find a new avenue to reach out to our education next audience. it is been around for the last 20 years and has become well-known in the academic committee and the policymaking community. people are listening to things now. they are not just reading things. we decided we needed a new mechanism to reach a broader audience. i am pleased to say our podcast are getting more listeners with every passing month. host: talk about your educational background. what is your background and how does that help influence and inform your podcast? guest: i think it is important to understand that i come from minnesota, a little town about 120 miles west of minneapolis. i went to a public school in a little town and i had the most wonderful set of elementary school teachers a young boy could ever wish to have.

i went to a little college in minnesota called concordia college where i just had wonderful professors and then i went to the university of chicago, earned my phd and i teach at harvard university. i have been learning education guides for a long period of time and i decided that our educational system needed to have constant attention if it is going to be an effective and constantly improving school system. i decided to devote the last 25 years of my life to trying to achieve that. host: if viewers would like to call in and ask a question to our guest, you can. here are the phone lines. if you are a parent or a student , a student or a parent of a student, give us a call at (202) 748-8000. if you are an educator, the number is (202) 748-8001. all others, (202) 748-8002.

we will be watching our text line. that line is (202) 748-8003. you can also send us a tweet at c-spanwj. what are the topics you discuss on your podcast and what are the topics that you like to look into? guest: the topic that has been dominating our podcast in the last couple of months has been the question as to whether or not the pandemic and the measures taken by schools to medicate the pandemic have had an adverse effect on children. there are a lot of stories about that in the news media but we wanted to look at if there is any actual hard-nosed data on this. our poll at education next is showing that at the height of the pandemic parents were extremely distressed at the apparent learning loss their

children were suffering because so many schools had switched to online learning and schools had switched to hybrid learning and parents were unhappy about that and they were talking about, especially the social and emotional problems that their children were having and academic ones as well. host: there is an article here from "the washington examiner" i want to show people. it says the education department said 250,000 tutors needed to undo damage from virtual learning. it says the biden administration says it will take at least 250,000 tutors to address lost learning during covid-19 school closures and the department of education on tuesday announced the national partnership for student success and initiatives to spur academic recovery including plans to recruit the colossal amount of tutors needed to address lost learning.

do you agree with that? is that to the extent that we are looking at, 250,000 tutors? guest: i do agree with the idea of tutoring. tutoring has been shown to be the most effective way of generating improvement in student performance. i play the piano, not very well anymore, but i did play in high school and i had a piano teacher. i saw that teacher once per week. that was essential. i could not have possibly played the piano had i not been tutoring. that is a really hard thing to do, learn how to play a musical instrument. it is also difficult to learn how to read, not nearly as hard, so we do not need tutoring ordinarily. but if we are going to catch up, tutoring is a good way of doing it. 250,000 is a drop in the bucket. we have 50 million children. 50 million students k-12 in the

united states in the public education system. 50 million. 250,000, it is a drop in the bucket. there is no way that kind of remedy at that scale is going to make the massive problem that we are documenting in these broadcasts and our conversations with a lot of different people, is across-the-board affecting students in the suburbs, rural communities, especially in cities. it is affecting white students, especially black students, especially hispanic students. it is a massive problem. you just do not know how you will make up all these effects of these closures. host: do we have any data on that as far as how much it impacted students? guest: the best data is from the state of north carolina. the state of north carolina just did an incredible study which they do not want to talk about. this is not being discussed

widely but it is there on their website and it is a great study. what they did is they said we will look at every child in north carolina and we will say how much do we expect that they will learn during the period 2019 to 2021 based on what they were learning before that. they can project out how much every kid is going to likely learn based on how much they have been learning in the preceding two year period. when they did this analysis, they came up with a finding that showed that every student, not every student, but groups of student throughout the state were consistently declining and the declines were very substantial for those who were online and those who were in hybrid educational modes. the ones who did not suffer so much of a decline where those who kept going to school. in north carolina, some students

were still going to school all the way through the pandemic. covid did not affect them. they did just fine. covid does not affect children very much. unfortunately, our educational system shut the doors onto many children and we are paying the price right now. host: i think we can start taking some calls. i think our lines are going to hold up for us. let's talk to tom in michigan who is a parent. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a lot of sympathy for what was just said. i am a father of five and seven-year-old. we took our older child out of public school to put them into private just to make sure they got as much face-to-face learning as possible. i wish we would have taken the sweden route, which shown to be a far better approach to children, particularly since we have seen that prior to vaccines being available, over 70% having

antibodies to the virus, we did not protect them to being exposed. i am a past president of the american board of specialists and i tried to link the fact that cardio metabolic health is a major risk factor for covid, diabetes, and otherwise and the nutrition in schools is horrifying. it is not something you will see manifest early in childhood although we are seeing dramatic increases of child obesity and type two diabetes so maybe i should take that back. the kind of legacy we are laying down by allowing, and i like comfort food once in a while. the excess of calorie rich foods and woman schools is a real problem and we should be teaching nutrition to kids early on besides just feeding them better nutrition. those are my perspectives. host: what do you think? guest: great perspective's. i agree that nutrition especially in very young children has been extremely important. we now know that students in

mathematics are doing a lot better than they were 50 years ago. and a lot of people think the main driver of that is improvement when a child is a fetus in the very early weeks of childhood, where if you do not have high quality nutrition, you can have long-term consequences. the thing is the reduction in contagious diseases. we have reduced contagious diseases. before, mumps and chickenpox and all the things i had, children do not suffer those. all of those things work to the benefit of children. but we need to send kids to school. you are absolutely right. i just read about the norwegians who also kept their schools open throughout the entire pandemic and they have had much lower rates than in the united states. you might say, they are a rural area. we saw much higher infection

rates in the united states than places in europe that kept their schools open throughout the entire period. how do we make that up? if you look at the world war ii studies that show that countries like austria, which did not suffer any direct damage from world war ii, but their schools were closed for two years, those kids suffered the rest of their life. that cohort that was in school at that time, never make it up. they do less well than life in a wide variety of ways. this is a massive problem. we need to take strong intervention. the first intervention we must do is make sure our schools are open next fall. we should not have a single school clothes fall. -- a single school closed next fall. host: i want to share a tweet with you.

"teachers unions fought to close schools, some for years. now we are surprised that these children have been failed by our system? the new congress should investigate this collusion between unions and government." what you think about the role that teachers unions played, many of them were very vocal about keeping schools closed. guest: i blame society more generally. you can blame a lot of people for not appreciating the importance of education, for not really seeing that if we do not have schools open and serving children, this is a serious problem. we have lost faith in our schools. i think that is what happened in the last decade. i did not think 20 years ago we would have closed our schools because we really believed in education. but we have somehow lost our faith that schools are really delivering something very important. i think that is what we have learned from this covid, that

schools really are important. i am not going to let the unions off the hook because there were too many unions and to many parts of the country who were saying we do not want our people to go back to work. it was up to the school boards really. school boards, really, to say, there is nothing in your contract that says you don't have to go to work just because there is risk of infection. the people at grocery stores are going to work. everybody who is serving the public in critical ways, the people at the fire department and police department, and all the other public services, those people are going to work. you go to work, too. it was up to the school boards. host: michael in florida who is an educator. caller: yes, i am in broward county and we are under desantis rule. we have not lost our faith. we were hoodwinked by intellectual sellouts to the

corporate elite. this is all about corporate interests. you are bringing up covid in relation to education, mentioning death and other countries. they are looking at a european court to go after genocide because we had both trump, desantis, and azar said out loud they were interested in keeping schools open for the express purpose, and to ban vaccines, and mandate other things like masks. they did that on purpose to increase the rate of spread. that is the literal definition -- there will be another impeachment and they will look for desantis. historians are not just going to not look at this.

you do not mention that is a far right extremist. just because the extremists say that normal people are extreme, that is what fascism is. imagine an institution to say to be anti-fascist is negative. host: let's not get off the subject. paul, would you like to respond? guest: we are going to have data next month in august, learning loss by state. based on the study that was done by a group of economistss led by tom kane at harvard, who is a good friend of mine, i had him on my podcast. he identified the states who are likely to have the least learning loss during the pandemic, and florida is going to be up at the top probably. we do not know how far toward the top, but they did not close their schools in florida. that is going to be a big payoff

for the young people further downstream. i think desantis is going to be looking good when the story is read. host: here is what harvard did a study on the pandemic and remote learning. they said, in districts that went remote, achievement growth was lower for all subgroups, but especially students attending high poverty schools. in areas that remained in person, there was modest losses in achievement but no widening of gaps between high and low poverty schools in math and less widening in reading. paul, why was there a bigger impact to low poverty schools? guest: well, the schools are especially important for those that come from disadvantaged families. a family that has a variety of resources, they can find ways to make it up. maybe mom and dad spend more time with the kids, maybe they

bring in a tutor, maybe they bring in neighbors. we don't know all the ways in which families have means and good education and are able to supply the education needed. it is sort of important that even those families did suffer losses, according to the study you cited, and i talked to the person who led that study on my podcast. it is true that everybody across the board suffered but it is also true the losses were twice as large for those who came from disadvantaged backgrounds and minority backgrounds. that is why this is such an important issue. host: let's go to jerry in illinois who is an educator. good morning. caller: good morning and thank you for c-span. great program. paul, it seems like you answered part of my question with the harvard study.

but in regard to the top end students, the highly competitive students, the brilliant students and how much loss they had compared to the average student. it sounds harvard may have a take on that. the other would be private schools. yes, it is a small percentage, but as we saw in chicago, for example, the public schools were closed. many of the parents considered moving their children to private schools. they did not close during the pandemic. i am curious if you would be looking at how private schools have absolutely overcome this learning loss. thanks. guest: that is a really great question because we do not yet have any data from private schools that is much more difficult to get data collected. not all of them cooperate. the catholic schools cooperate, so it will be interesting to see

if they report out any data on this front. they are pretty reliable in the information they distribute. but they do not necessarily tell you everything you would like to know. so, what we know from parents and the polls we have taken -- we have interviewed parents of kids in public schools, charter schools, private schools -- and the private schools remained open more frequently. not the rich private schools, nothing fancy once, not the one you pay $50,000 a year. they closed. believe it or not the very wealthy private schools, especially new york city but around the country, those fancy schools closed. the schools that were serving ordinary people where tuition is not so high, where the school really needs the money to keep going, they have to have that tuition, they have to serve the students, those schools stayed

open. we have a big difference between the private and public sector in the same community. private schools stayed open, public schools closed. i have two grandchildren who left the public schools for catholic schools because boston public schools shut down in the private schools stayed open. that happened across the country. host: we have a text that came in from pam in north dakota and she says, our public school teachers need to be paid higher salaries. the nation is struggling with the teacher shortage and in response, we are creating alternative paths to the classroom which frequently means paths that bypass courses in the critical preparation needed to teach our children. what can we do to raise salaries to attract future teachers? what do you think of that, paul? guest: i am all in favor of higher salaries for teachers and thank you for calling from north dakota. that is where i come from, where my wife comes from, shout out to

you for the great state of north dakota. which has a great educational system, i will say, and we have had commitment to education. yes, we should have higher salaries for teachers, but we should concentrate the salary increases on the effective teachers. right now, we are paying all teachers the same regardless of effectiveness in the classroom. two things we need to do. we want to concentrate any increase in teacher salaries on beginning teachers because those are the ones -- the ones around for a long time, they have a decent salary in most parts of the country. but we should concentrate salary increases on the youngest teachers and for those who are high-performing teachers. host: let's talk to ted in north carolina and is a parent. hi, ted. ted, are you there? caller: i believe -- yes, i am.

can you hear me? host: go ahead. caller: hello? host: ted? caller: i would change the entire educational system. treat it like a business and take the money you collect through the state, do not give the rich schools more than the poor schools. the other thing is, you want to stop the shootings? let's get serious about bullying in school. let's give it an offense they have to call the police. from now on, if your child is accused of bullying, they are going to have a police record. and i think teachers definitely are entitled to much higher pay. i would start them $75,000

beginning wage and i would go up on the basis of seniority and cost-of-living plus. host: let's get a response. paul, he talked about running the school like a business. what you think of that? guest: i do think -- the big issue the listener brought up was the fighting and bullying going on in schools. we are seeing an uptick in that. we just had a conference at harvard on this that i ran and we had a lot of experts come in. they are all agreed there has been an increase since kids are gone back to school. this is part of the emotional distress and social disengagement took place during the pandemic. it is a very serious issue and there is no one solution. you do need to maintain order in the school. whatever teachers and

administrators think is necessary for kids to learn needs to be put into place. at the same time, you have to have a variety of approaches to meet the needs of individual children that have suffered particularly during this time of crisis. host: ok. we have a tweet from michael who says, even today most media avoids or tap dances around the subject. time is the crucial thing for the youngest. tutors, there is not even a common understanding of what a tutor is. it may have been better for them to repeat at least one of the school years. paul, what are schools doing in response? guest: you know, i don't think there is any general solution. holding back for a year might make sense. parents did that. a lot of parents said, i am not sending my child to first grade, i am not sending my child to kindergarten. there is no point.

it will be a total waste of the child's time. they can start next year. schools were not really doing their job. i am not against that as a potential solution for some children. but i also am not going to say tutoring is not helpful, because we know the best possible way of teaching somebody is on a one-to-one relationship. that is why parents are so important. when mothers sit down and read to their children, more learning takes place there than any other place. and when a dad takes on that task, it is just as invaluable and important. one-on-one from mom and dad and tutors is really a very effective way of addressing this crisis. host: and the mlb agrees with you. even if one tutor is working with three or four students, it is a daunting task. unless parents and grandparents help out with students at home, tutoring is not possible.

private schools use public services for tutoring and special education programs. let's talk to chris in new york. good morning. caller: thank you. i would like to ask about dr. peterson's views on two subjects. one is criticism from the right on the curriculum of elementary, junior, and high schools and the banning of books. on the left, student activism on college campuses that is stifling open discussion. i will take the answers off-line. guest: [laughs] you are hitting on topics dear to my heart. i believe the best way to educate people is to expose them to the full range of ideas. i am not saying pornography in our schools, i am against that, but i think anything that is open to debate and discussion

should be available. students are going to find that information if they want it in any case. banning books is something that was done 50 years ago. i guess it is still going to happen today. the banding is going on on the left and the right, the rewriting of stories is taking place across the board for all kinds of reasons. but my feeling is, is that kids are resilient. but the most important thing is they not be deprived of opportunities to learn from all points of view. i do worry about what is going on in our universities. i think it is very unfortunate that small groups of people on campuses are able to keep large groups of people from being given access to ideas and perspectives that this small group disagrees with. host: sidney is a parent in florida. good morning.

caller: good morning. one of the things i find i am really enjoying about the conversation, but also for a lot of students that have had some loss, we were going through a pandemic situation where even a lot of the teachers that went to school and a lot of the essential workers, a lot of them actually expired. you have some parents that died from covid. those who were working in the hospitals and they were parents. their children are left when they are sick and ill. you had a lot of that going on and a lot of things shut down because of that reason. a lot of those going to work, a lot of them have lost in terms of deaths involved. when it comes to what is happening now it has become a

real political issue for individuals instead of it being, like you were talking about, having kids exposed to real education and history. all of that stuff is really important but now it is the political thing to make everything an issue. it is no different if kids were caught up if there was a war here, like they are in ukraine. the kids are impacted. the migration and stuff, kids are impacted. it just becomes a thing where you have to deal with the resilience of your children and trust that. and then provide the guidance and instruction as parents or

guardians or whatever your position is, we just have to serve better, harder, more effectively instead of trying to parcel out blame and pick and choose to push certain people forward and hold others back. that is how i look at this thing. it is not a normal situation we are coming out of. host: let's get a response. go ahead, paul. guest: i agree with that. it is really important to keep our focus on the central point. we need children to have the opportunity to learn and we need to give them the resources so they can learn. and we don't want to take away learning opportunities from them. the covid virus is a very serious matter, there is no doubt about it. you have to balance your health measures against her education measures. there is no civil solution. you have to find balance, and that is what i hear you saying. host: janice is next in

louisiana. caller: hello. mr. peterson, thank you for your work for education. education is very much on my mind. no one should be allowed to drop out of schools. let's see if you agree with some of the things i think. parents should be fined if their children are not in school, uniforms in school, and music training. corporations should help the government to train and educate to compete with other countries to make, and care for, products. thanks again, mr. peterson. i have not spent much time in minnesota but my favorite stewardess i put up with for years is from minnesota and i hope she can hear this. host: all right, janice. guest: reminds me of the singer

that came from louisiana up to my town when i was a little boy and saying. we had so much fun with them in our home because i am such a music fan. your emphasis on music is something that appeals to me, but i also want to say one thing. dropouts is an increasing issue because of covid. adolescents, those who were 15, 16, they saw no point in schools. online learning did not appeal to a lot of kids at that age and they said, you know what? we are not going to go to school. jobs are quite plentiful for teenagers all of a sudden. they said, i actually like working better than going to school. i don't know if telling kids to go to school is the right idea. we have to do things that will make them want to go to school. host: she also talked about uniforms in public schools.

where do you stand on that? guest: uniforms i don't think are the be all, end all, but there is the charter school movement, especially in urban areas where they are striving to maintain orderly environments in the school. the uniform has been the tool for achieving that. i don't think every school has to have uniforms, but any school that would like to have uniforms, i think they should certainly be given -- they should not be denied that possibility. host: martin is an educator in ohio. caller: hi. thanks for having me on. a couple quick things. i have been an educator for 12 years. i have not missed a day that entire time. my kids have been healthy, i have been healthy, thankfully, and i enjoy going.

we have to take a bigger look at this. this was a global pandemic. both of the last two callers have made excellent points, but this is something that affected the whole world. i mean, the education researchers, we need fewer of those people. we need more people in the schools. i don't know if this guy has been in a classroom in a long time, but we need people in the schools, doing the work, starting from square one and getting it done. i just feel like there is an industrial complex. all of these people come out with a book during the pandemic, another book, they are making money and they have no clue how to do it. no one has taught virtually through a pandemic before. and the virtual learning was terrible. i teach seventh and eighth grade age group reading. of course, you know, the virtual learning was terrible.

you do not know if they are on the other end, if they are disengaged. the better we can get back to the way it was. we have had state testing in ohio and other states for a long time. this follows the influence of the place they are from. we do not have to do it anymore because we realize if you are from an affluent suburb or address or zip code, your score is going to be better. if you are from city schools where i teach, your score is going to be low because the school becomes the only place those kids learn. as opposed to a kid from an affluent area. there learning is going on all the time, not just when they are in the school building. but the kids i teach, they are not really learning anything that will help them in the wider world until they get to that building. if they are not in that building, then they are going to fall back. this is not rocket science. host: let's get a response.

go ahead, paul. guest: actually, i could not agree with you more. we need to get a lot of teacher training programs into schools and out of academic classrooms. i think the way you learn how to teach is to teach on-the-job. if you are going to become a teacher, you should be in a program at university where they have you teaching in the school most of the time and opportunities to reflect and discuss and share among your fellow students under the guide of an expert. you are dead on with respect to why it is we have twice the learning loss among the disadvantaged. you have to have that building open and i agree completely, online learning -- you know, 10 or 20 years ago i was thinking, maybe online learning is the way of the future. i said we should think about

this in addressing the problem. but what we learned during covid 's you do not learn over the tv set. host: we have a text that came in from bill in new york and he said, how has injustice and the decrease in funding in public schools impacted inner-city schools like in new york? guest: well, it is not a funding issue. new york has an enormous amount of money per pupil. it is the way in which the funds are being used that makes the difference. we do not, in new york city, and i follow new york city fairly closely, we do not pay teachers according to their ability in the classroom. we pay every teacher the same amount. we pay the older teachers a lot more than the beginning teachers. the beginning teachers do not get a pension until they have been there for 10 years. they do not get any help. it is as backward a system as

you can imagine. no, i think more money is not the solution. we have to change the way we use our money if we are going to be effective. host: staying in new york, alan is a parent. good morning. alan, are you there? caller: good morning. i will try to itemize some things that are important for schools. there should be an afterschool program where tutoring and homework from students from the local colleges to help tutor, coach, guide. they could be set up so the student studies for 30 or 40 minutes and goes into a ballet or music class. the second point is there needs to be supervision of the beginning teacher. most schools -- and i have worked in a lot of schools -- as

a teacher, guidance counselor and parent. straight out, the majority of schools i worked in in new york city are slave ships of the 21st century as they were of the 20th century. the supervision of the teachers by the principal is so weak. the secretary of education with the last president was so in conflict with what education values are about. that is what the reflection of the country's education. there is a very important point i want to mention. in the charter schools, every school should be a chartist school. -- charter school. i would love president biden to

say education is one of my top priorities and have every school set up like a charter school. a place where kids love to be. host: alan, there is a lot there. let's get some response. guest: a lot of good things and some things i disagree with, but one idea i think is good is can we make every charter school -- every school a charter school or choice school? could all schools be a place you go to because you choose to? that is a really interesting idea, but of course, we have to have good schools. if you have a choice of schools and there are no good schools, the choice does not make much difference. if we could give parents the opportunity to pick the school they want to go to, then we should pour more money into those schools that are effective and allow them to grow and expand. maybe that is the way out of the

morass we are in, but it is a complicated issue. host: paul peterson, host of the education exchange podcast and education next senior editor. thank you for being on the program. guest: thank you for having me today. host: that is it for our spotlight on podcasts segment. if you like podcasts, check out the c-span podcast. they are available on our website, our mobile app, the spin now, or wherever you get your podcasts. that brings us to the end of today's "washington journal." thank you for your patience earlier with the phone situation. we will be back again tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. in the meantime, have a great saturday. ♪ announcer: c-span is your

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jobs last month. the unemployment rate is steady for a fourth month but inflation is at a 40 year high and consumer confidence at record lows. this morning we want to know if you are optimistic or pessimistic about the economy. do you think things will get better or worse? give us a call. if you are optimistic, (202)-748-8000. pessimistic, (202)-748-8001. if you are not sure, (202)-748-8002. you can send us a text at (202)-748-8003. we are on social media, facebook.com/c-span, and send us a tweet @cspanwj. welcome to washington journal. we start with the new york times. strong jobs data