Older workers stay in the labor force – By The Week Staff (The Week) / Dec 20, 2023
And more of the week’s best financial insight
America’s biggest money gripes
When Americans complain about prices, college is no longer at the top of the list, said Simran Parwani in Axios. From 2012 to 2020, college was the top subject Americans wondered about when they asked Google “why is ___ so expensive?” according to a recent Google Trends analysis. It was replaced by “lumber” in 2021, “gas” in 2022, and “eggs” this year. Search queries varied by state. For instance, “Connecticut was most curious about ‘Hamilton tickets’ in 2017.” The cost of “insulin” was also a hot topic in 2019, briefly. Zooming out, “the most globally searched item” this year related to costs was “flights.” But “overall, people in the U.S. asked about the high cost of ‘college’ more frequently than any other country.”
The real lessons of fake money
Handling lots of fake bills has given Hollywood prop masters some perspective on money, said Joe Pinsker in The Wall Street Journal. Juan Amaya, whose prop-money products have been featured on shows like Billions, was taken aback by the underwhelming appearance of $1 million in fake dollars on a table in his office. “I remember thinking that a million dollars was going to be from the floor to the ceiling,” Amaya said. “And that was not the case at all.” Amaya said he now uses prop cash as “a powerful budgeting tool,” laying out piles of ersatz bills “to visualize monthly expenses.” Another prop-business owner said a lot of his customers are just “teenagers who post pictures of themselves holding up fake cash on social media.” It’s taught him that not everything with money is always as it appears.
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