Episode 174

full
Published on:

13th Feb 2026

Why 59% live paycheck to paycheck now.

59% live paycheck to paycheck—worst since Depression. Political funding truths revealed. Summary: 59% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, the worst since the Great Depression. Former Congresswoman Marie Newman breaks down the income gap and its causes, shares her transition out of office. Jerremy Alexander Newsome and Dave Conley hit on political funding, defense spending, and mental health's tie to gun ownership.

Timestamps:

  1. (00:00) Income gap hits hardest – 59% live paycheck to paycheck since Depression
  2. (01:53) Congress exit exposes gaps – office transition reveals funding flaws
  3. (03:16) Action falls short – final thoughts show defense spending ties
  4. (04:35) Lessons ignored daily – mental health links gun ownership truths

Connect:

  1. Marie Newman – Website | Bluesky | Facebook | Instagram | Substack

🌍 Connect with us: Instagram | YouTube | X

🎧 Listen to Episodes → Here

Transcript
Alex:

This is where the numbers stop being “policy” and start being PERSONAL.

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Congresswoman Newman lays out the

income-gap chart Jerremy wants burned into

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Congress’s brain—then the conversation

flips to what she learned leaving office,

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and what leaders still refuse to see…

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Jerremy: What's one policy

you would stake your name on?

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So it's probably the same one, huh?

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Marie Newman: That and

getting money outta politics.

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So the Anti-Corruption Act I, both,

the Medicare for All Act and the

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anti-corruption Act I would put

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all my money on and all my reputation.

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Jerremy: Love it.

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If you could force Congress

to look at one chart for 60

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seconds, what chart would that be?

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Marie Newman: income gap.

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Jerremy: Tell me more.

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Marie Newman: So if we look at the

income gap from the:

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unions have gotten so beat up that we

created our middle class through the

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unions in the 1950s through the 1980s.

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Then then they were beaten up a

lot, taken away, all their rights

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taken away and things went down.

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So now people that work a really

hard 40 hour week intellectually

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and physically work really hard.

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Are making a lot less and

their wages have not gone up.

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Similarly, all of the middle

class wages have not gone up.

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And then of course our minimum

wage has stayed at 7 25.

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And if we look at it from a pure economic

standpoint, it should be $25 an hour.

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So people that work at 40 hour, 40

to 60 hour week are making 50% less

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than they did even 20 years ago.

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Literally, legitimately in

each other, their households.

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And then also with the, in that same

chart, you would see that it is now it's I

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think 57 or 59% of the country, 59, 50 9%

of the country lives paycheck to paycheck.

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That is the worst it's been

in since the Great Depression.

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So that's the chart I want them to see.

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Jerremy: Okay.

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Thank you.

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Thank you for sharing that.

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After leaving Congress, you went

straight into running little city.

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What's the biggest lesson from

that transition that you wish

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more elected officials understood

about turning policy into real?

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Marie Newman: I really enjoyed that job.

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I only did it for about a year because

we went in and they had some budgetary

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crisis that I resolved and then some

systemic and then they didn't have any

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branding, what I learned because there,

there's a professional learning and

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then there's a policy learning policy.

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Was that people that are in government

so can be so helpful in helping

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other folks understand policy.

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So everybody from families of

those that are being served,

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those that are being served.

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The public rich writ large.

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And then government.

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So you can be very powerful as a

CEO or an executive in a nonprofit

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because you have this knowledge.

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And I had the crazy benefit and honor of

being in business, nonprofits, government,

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then going to a large nonprofit.

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So I was cra I was so blessed

to have that knowledge.

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But then what you learn is I will tell

both of you, and this is a I tell this

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to people all the time, so it's not

news, is that I'm addicted to learning.

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And

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so once I learned everything and solved

a bunch of problems, I was like, I'm

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a little bored, so I'm a little bored.

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So then I moved on.

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But great place and great opportunity.

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Former government officials

have a lot to offer too.

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Nonprofits.

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Jerremy: that.

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Love that.

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Thank you so much for sharing, and

we really appreciate your time.

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This has been a true pleasure

to, for me, Congresswoman.

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It's so lovely and bright to see

someone who is sassy and fun, but

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also incredibly smart and motivated

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Marie Newman: Oh, aren't you

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Jerremy: and aware.

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Marie Newman: Oh, I'll

just stay here every day.

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You guys are so nice.

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Jerremy: We can.

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I heard you mentioned Substack.

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I'm also on Substack.

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I would love to follow you.

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Can you promote or share something

with our listeners on how they

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can stay involved with your work?

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Marie Newman: You're so kind.

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So my substack is easy.

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It's Marie Newman on Substack, and

it's called Marie Newman Studio.

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But you can, if you throw in the

my name and the search bar which is

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Marie Newman, you'll get on Substack,

you'll get to my Substack right away

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Jerremy: Perfect.

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Marie Newman: And Jerremy, tell me yours.

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Jerremy: The Wealth Alchemist, same thing.

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You can just type it in

there and it'll pop up.

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Marie Newman: Okay, I'm on.

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You

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Jerremy: Yep.

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Marie Newman: Got it.

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Jerremy: Beautiful.

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Marie Newman: yeah, and we maybe

we'll do a collab one time.

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We'll write something

together on the income gap.

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Jerremy: That's gonna happen.

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That's 100% going to occur.

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Marie Newman: Fantastic.

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Jerremy: Yeah.

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Thank you so much Dave.

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Anything else?

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Dave: No, this was fantastic.

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Thank

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Jerremy: So

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Marie Newman: Oh my gosh.

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And thank you for all that you do and

keep talking about all the tough topics.

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And glad to help if I can

be supportive in any way.

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So thank you to all your listeners.

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Jerremy: Yes, absolutely.

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Thank you so much.

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Marie Newman: Okay, take care.

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Dave: Wow.

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White House Congress.

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I think we're moving up in the world.

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Jerremy: We're moving up my man.

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Yeah, we're moving up.

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Makes me happy.

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It's good.

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Dave: So what'd you learn?

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Jerremy: I learned that you and

I are not as altruistically crazy

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as some people might think we are.

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We gotta take money out of politics, man.

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That's that's what's all stemming

from, going down that ginormous list

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because I didn't wanna derail the

conversation too much and it did end

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up happening because it was like.

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Here's all the ways that every,

she said everyone, right?

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Everyone in Congress is receiving money

from all different types of organizations,

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and the NRA is absolutely one of them, is

stuffing the pockets of tons of people.

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And so if there's not something that

should be getting passed that we all

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believe that should be getting passed,

the reason it's not getting passed

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is because there's money behind it.

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Dave: Yeah.

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Jerremy: That's what I heard.

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That's what I learned.

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And I knew that was obviously there,

but I didn't, everyone, dude it's

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just this is, everyone's getting

money, everyone's getting paid.

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Take our money, don't vote,

don't make any changes, please.

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Dave: Yeah,

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And raise money on the other side of it.

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Jerremy: Exactly.

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Exactly.

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And then, man, I liked how she

said I'm a raging Democrat.

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I like that a lot

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because she is, and she, and it's

really refreshing because I like I

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like understanding and just sensing

where she's at and it's, I like

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hearing the perspective from the

democratic viewpoint because so many

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of, so much of my feed and news.

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That's thrown at me is so conservative in

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nature and is so Republican in nature.

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And so I, I really do respect hearing

both sides and for her to address the big

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notion that our defense bills weight, our

defense bill is way our defense spending.

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Department of Defense is way too high.

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Way too high, and you could take a

hundred billion of that and spread out

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and solve pretty much almost anything.

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I was over there like that.

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Does that make me a Democrat?

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Dave: I think we represent, right?

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We represent the unanswered middle,

a little bit right of center, a

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little bit left of center, but

it depends on the issue, right?

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I can be a Trump MAGA person on some

issues and I can be a communist on others.

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Like it's, how America works.

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I don't know about this one.

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I love Congressman Newman.

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I thought this was a

fantastic conversation.

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I want to have her on every time we're on

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Jerremy: Yeah.

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exactly.

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Dave: and this I feel like we I, and

I also love that we went off, went off

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into the world of politics because.

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So much of our politics

feels so anti-democratic.

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See, it feels, again, back

to my term, anti-human.

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Like the vast majority of people

are saying, fix our healthcare and

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nothing's happening and, fix violence.

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Nothing's happening.

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We're spending too much money on defense.

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Nothing's happening.

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It's going up.

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So we, we heard it in our voting

reform that all of these, all of our

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Congress people are picked at the

primary, by a few thousand people,

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and then it's just flooding money.

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So there's a little bit of part

of me that it's like getting

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a little black pilled on this.

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It's oh, we have the illusion of

democracy Now, saying that when we talk

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about solutions, I do keep on coming

back to suicides as being fundamental

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and 50 zip codes being fundamental.

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And if we learned anything from

Trump is that simple matters.

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And it also Bernie Sanders, like

he's speaks very plainly, very

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simply and straightforward so

that everybody can understand it.

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And I believe future leadership

like yourself is making

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this, just powerfully simple.

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It's like we're just gonna solve suicides.

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And then with that you get

all the gun stuff right, or

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we are just going to solve.

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Youth violence in these 50 zip codes.

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And that's gonna solve

a, another ton of this.

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So attacking this indirectly, because

as soon as we get into seizing all

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the guns, now she didn't say that.

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But, as soon as we get into this

world of education, which I love as

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soon as we get into waiting periods

and red flag laws and all of that.

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Where I've seen the Democrats really

falter is that they're too smart and

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they're over overcomplicating this,

and it doesn't resonate with 300

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million Americans when we can say,

look, we're just gonna solve suicides.

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And that's where the veterans,

or we're gonna solve, we're gonna

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make our cities not suck, right?

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Like those two phrases would

resonate with everybody.

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And with that you get gun violence solved.

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That's, so that's, what I

heard was a little bit of, I

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dunno, that's what I heard.

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That's what I learned.

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Jerremy: Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Dave: Does that make sense?

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Jerremy: It does and I think

ultimately what we also learned

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and are continuing to learn, but

the big portion of it certainly is.

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The gun debate is very well funded.

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I did love love, love how our

girl Maria's bro, love guns.

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They're awesome.

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So

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cool.

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Let's have all of them.

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Let's do all, let's do

all the things, right?

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Should we have assault, assault weapons?

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Probably not.

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Not a huge need for those,

but you wanna go hunt great.

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Incredible.

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You wanna go shoot some at a range.

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Awesome.

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But mentally, are you

healthy enough to have a gun?

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I mean that,

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that's really what I heard her say.

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And man, I think the real topic

there, probably like deep under

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arching is like, are you mentally

healthy enough to do insert anything?

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Dave: I think that would

probably outlaw all of us.

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Really.

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Jerremy: Ki

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kind

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Dave: I don't know if I'm mentally

healthy for this podcast sometimes.

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No podcast for you, Dave.

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Jerremy: yeah, no podcast for you,

but you're not, you can't physically

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hurt anybody with this either.

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Geez, man, like ul ultimately,

yeah, that, that's a big one.

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That was a very obvious.

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Can we have, is there a mental

health protocol that we can have

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people go through that we can

have people check in that we can?

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Oh man.

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I'm just trying to think of

if Universal healthcare would

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actually would solve that problem.

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Because I don't think it, I don't

know if it would like it because

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the veterans that I know that have

faced and struggle with suicide are

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too proud to go to the VA anyway.

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Or to get care or, so it's probably,

it probably starts earlier than that.

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Again, obviously I know that

there's no perfect press this

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button and all problems are solved.

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But ultimately it just seems to me

like there's an in-depth conversation

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that happened at an earlier place,

an earlier stage in someone's life.

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Where they know that,

number one, it's okay.

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And then number two, they have the

resources and it's available to them.

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'Cause reality man, again, like

she mentioned, Tricare a bunch.

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Like I, I have 412 very close.

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Friends that are all veterans

and dude, they got awesome care.

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Like they can go essentially into

all, any va they can do anything

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tomorrow and it's taken care of

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medically if they want to.

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And the question is, will they now

granted, will they get prescribed pills?

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Maybe are they gonna be

prescribed holistic things?

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Probably not, but that really is the

medical health system of the us, right?

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If you go in and they're, you're gonna

get treated for a common cold, they're

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gonna give you a Zack, they're, they're

not gonna give you garlic or whatever.

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Yeah, man it's just, it is, it's

an interesting viewpoint, the

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mental health of having a gun.

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Dave: Back to your favorite topic,

I we talked about a lot of solutions

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that are way down the road, right?

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These are for adults and these are

focusing on the problems we already have.

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And, certainly education

being a huge component of,

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but again, that's for adults.

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And we've heard over and over

again how our education system has.

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Taking opportunities out of the hands

of our children, like they're not

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getting resources, they're not, they're

not learning emotional regulation.

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They're not learning how to deal

with problems interpersonally.

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And, that's leading to

violence in our youth.

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And despondency and I get back

to certainly look healthy.

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People don't shoot other people.

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And it's really at our, it's,

we're doing a huge disservice to

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our kids and we keep on doing it.

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It's that's where, and this is a

generational thing, so I think getting

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some social media out of the hands

of our, and oh, that was my point.

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And it's young boys, like girls

are not shooting each other.

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Young boys are.

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And the men who are veterans, I

don't think that's selection bias

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of just that most men are veterans.

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I think it's that they're men again.

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So bit of we've done a big disservice

by, not by focusing on other people,

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but focusing on other populations

at the exclusion of young men.

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And I keep coming back to this as a topic.

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What do you, what are

your thoughts on that?

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Education.

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Education around our young boys.

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Jerremy: Yeah.

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That's what needs to change, man.

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That's it.

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Because me knowing again, the veteran

community very well, the majority of

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individuals that become veterans or

sorry, I should say that join, is because

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they don't know anything else to do

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initially.

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They're like, what else do I do?

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I don't know.

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I'm just gonna do this.

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And it has a good,

reward system at the end.

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You get all these benefits, you get all

these opportunities, you can do all these

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things and then they enter this global

workforce taskforce watchdog that is gonna

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send them all over the place just because.

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Whoever is the current president wants

them to do whatever the president

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wants them to do for whatever power

he wants for this country to have.

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And it's almost like if, would they

have made the choice to become a

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veteran if there was, or, to become

an active military participant.

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If there was a different alternative

or different choice or something

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that they were definitely aware of

that they would've learned through

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a better educational system.

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And maybe yes, maybe no.

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And then at the same time, like from the

ground, from the top down, do we go to

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war as quickly or do we solve problems as

quickly as we solve them with violence?

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If there's other.

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Thoughts or perspectives or awarenesses

or alternative solutions that have

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been pondered over for a longer

period of time, other than just seeing

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it from a lens of rage and anger.

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Are there other ways to solve these

problems that does not involve military?

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So there's tons and tons

of questions for sure.

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Always be muddling over, but I do

believe vhe and inherently that.

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Knowing my personal bout with anger and

rage and frustration in my life as a

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young male and knowing how to not only

take it out safely and non-threatening

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ways, but to do it and to heal and to come

into a place where I know how to channel

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certain whatever rage moments that I have

so that it doesn't hurt anyone at all.

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And feel better and to heal

both internally and externally.

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That's something that needs to be taught

and needs to be taught in a large way.

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And I absolutely agree that

it is a huge shift to take a

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stepping stone towards finding.

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Very direct ways for both men and

women, but for sure men to heal.

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And to come to a place of alignment

and to purpose and to spiritual

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enlightenment so that they don't have

to create so much chaos and animosity.

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Dave: Love it.

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Jerremy: Boys and Girls,

friends and family team, and

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fans from around the world.

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Thank you so much.

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Make love to that subscribe button.

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Drop us a five star review

and share this episode.

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Tag us, solve USA Pod on X or Solving

America's Problems Podcast on Instagram.

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I have subscribed to Marie Newman's

Substack, and she has subscribed

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to mine, and I will be connecting

with her and hopefully co-creating

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an article at some point together

as well about the income gap.

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That sounds amazing, but

for all of our listeners.

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I would love for this episode to gain more

traction because it should, it needs to.

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It creates an amazing awareness of

really where the problems can and are

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stemming from in this country, and also

who has the vitality and the awareness

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and the energy to actually create

the change in solve those problems.

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This has been another episode

of Solving America's Problems.

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About the Podcast

Solving America's Problems
Solving America’s Problems isn’t just a podcast—it’s a journey. Co-host Jerremy Newsome, a successful entrepreneur and educator, is pursuing his lifelong dream of running for president. Along the way, he and co-host Dave Conley bring together experts, advocates, and everyday Americans to explore the real, actionable solutions our country needs.

With dynamic formats—one-on-one interviews, panel discussions, and more—we cut through the noise of divisive rhetoric to uncover practical ideas that unite instead of divide. If you’re ready to think differently, act boldly, and join a movement for meaningful change, subscribe now.