BONUS: 20% of young people say they’re not going to have kids: the latest

The podcast Campus Files is back with more stories of scandal, crime, and intrigue on college campuses. Campus Files, available now wherever you get your podcasts. Las Vegas was built for stars. And on August 22nd, two of boxing's biggest take center stage. Raleigh Romero never follows the script. This is my game. Tio Fimo Lopez has never needed one. This guy's got a big mouth. For years, they've had plenty to say. All your do is tall. But with world championship gold on the line, can they back it? Tio, I'm here. I'm going all in. It's time to put up or shut up. Raleigh Romero versus Tiofimo Lopez. August 22nd. I'll shut you up. Watch on DeZone and DeZone on Prime Video. Nerds! Today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast. Personal finance can feel like a pop quiz you didn't study for. This podcast is your study guide. On NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast, you'll hear from trusted journalists who explain the why behind major financial decisions. You'll get research-backed insights and clear pros and cons, whether you're planning a big purchase or just want to grow your wealth. Make your next financial move with confidence. Follow NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast on your favorite podcast app. The day's biggest stories, the people behind the headlines, the conversations you won't hear anywhere else. I'm Christy Strasser. You're listening to Odyssey's On Deadline. It's back-to-school season, which we'll talk about. But first, here's another angle. People choosing not to have back-to-school season, because it's one of the many things that happen when you choose not to have kids. Here's WWJ in Detroit.

Yeah, so for a couple of years, we've been researching this group called child-free. These are people who don't have children and don't want to have children. And we've been focused on Michigan because that's where we're based, and we knew there were a number of child-free people there. What's new about this study is we were able to map the percentage of adults that are child-free in every state in the U.S. And we were really surprised that Michigan came out toward the top. Seems like Michigan is sort of in the middle of the road on most lists. So it really caught us off guard to see Michigan was the state with the second largest population of child-free people right after California. These are adults, so 18 and up. who don't have children now and do not want to have children in the future. What can you learn and what can be taken from a study like this? For the longest time, it was sort of assumed that there weren't very many people in this category who just didn't want to have children. Most of the research in fertility and demography research focused on people who wanted to have children, but... couldn't have children, you know, due to biological barriers, things like infertility. And a few years ago we started a line of research on this group of people that didn't want to have children. And it surprised us that it was a fairly large population in Michigan. So we expanded it to nationwide and found that quite a few people in the United States say they don't want to have children, and the number of Americans who say they don't want to have children has been growing pretty fast. Over the last 20 years, that percentage has roughly doubled. What we didn't know was how this breaks down state by state. We knew a lot about child free people in Michigan, but we didn't know where else child free people were located. And that was really the goal of this study was to understand, are child free people clustered in certain parts of the country and what's driving that? So let's kind of talk about what is driving that. So part of the things that I saw that was kind of interesting in this is that when you start to look at the future workforce and declining populations in a state, that's when studies like this really become important because then you're projecting out what kind of problems a state could have with a declining population and knowing that there's not going to be another group of people to take over. people retiring in the future too. Right. So that certainly can be one implication for states that have a lot of people that don't want to have children. It doesn't necessarily imply that the state's going to have a declining population. So the people who do want to have children may choose to have multiple children and make up that difference. States can also still have increasing population sizes if they have a lot of in migration.

So this is one piece of the puzzle, but states that have lots of child-free people are not necessarily states that are going to experience population decline. They could, but it's not guaranteed. So why do you think Michigan is a place where the number is so high? You know, I wish I had a great answer for that. We tried to look at lots of different features of states that we thought might be important. We looked at a state's cost of living. We looked at, and this was on our radar because of some recent events in Michigan, state's laws protecting abortion. You know, we have a recent state constitutional amendment protecting reproductive rights. And as we looked at these different state policies and features, we really weren't seeing much of an association. So it seems like a state's cost of living has a very small association with whether or not people in that state are child-free, but it's really weak. It doesn't really explain everything. And we found no association between a state's laws protecting abortion and reproductive rights and the likelihood of its residents being child-free. So we've got these numbers, and we know where the child-free people are located now, but we're still not entirely sure why some states are really high and some states are much lower. And when you have kids or grandkids, you become susceptible to new kinds of fraud. Here's WBBM in Chicago. Identity theft and fake grandkid and trouble calls have caused students and adults millions in recent years. Back to school photos can also give scammers clues. Pictures of kids, school names, grade levels, uniforms, and activities may help fraudsters build profiles, open fake accounts, or target families with convincing messages. Always keep first and last names, school names, and identifying details private. Share special photos directly with family by text or email instead of posting them publicly. Speaking of Back to School, America is spending many, many, many dollars on education. Here's Newell Normand in New Orleans. Our next guest, Chad Alderman, education analysts and columnists for the 74 million a non-profit news organization, which covers America's education. Low energy, unfocused, foggy, you might be dehydrated. Gatorlight, with a specialized blend of five electrolytes, was scientifically designed to help move fluids into the body faster for rapid rehydration. With no artificial sweeteners or flavors. Shop now at retailers nationwide. Gator Light, hydrates faster than water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist. Las Vegas was built for stars.

And on August 22nd, two of boxing's biggest take center stage. Raleigh Romero never follows the script. This is my game. Tio Fimo Lopez has never needed one. This guy's got a big mouth. For years, they've had plenty to say. All your do is talk. But with world championship gold on the line, can they back it? Tio, I'm here. I'm going all in. It's time to put up or shut up. Raleigh Romero versus Tiofimo Lopez. August 22nd. I'll shut you up. Watch on DeZone and DeZone on Prime Video. Today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast. Personal finance can feel like a pop quiz you didn't study for. This podcast is your study guide. On NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast, you'll hear from trusted journalists who explain the why behind major financial decisions. You'll get research-backed insights and clear pros and cons, whether you're planning a big purchase or just want to grow your wealth. Make your next financial move with confidence. Follow NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast on your favorite podcast app. education system recently authored a piece for the Fordham Institute talking about the fact that in this country in federal state and local revenue for k through 12 public education for in the years 2023 to 24 school year We spent about a trillion dollars, which is a lot of money. So, Chad, let's put that trillion in context going back maybe a decade. Where does that number fall and how fast did that number grow? Yeah, it's been rising and it rose in particular in the wake of the pandemic thanks to one-time federal relief funds as well as state and local budgets that have been growing. The economy's been growing. But in schools, on an inflation and adjusted basis, schools had 22% more money to spend in 2023, 24 than they did a decade prior. And that means that they had more money to spend on things that they might want to buy, whether that's more staff, whether that's other expenditures. I think keep going into more of that. The biggest part is actually on staff of there are a lot more people working in schools than there used to be. So in general, that number that they're taken in going back over 10 years, how does that account relative to inflation? Are they ahead or are they behind? Yeah, that is 22% above inflation. So they've got more money than what inflation is. So as we look at this amount of money, you know, a lot of states are not having some of the gains like we're having in our testing scores. So it really highlights the importance of the evaluation that y'all did. Where's the money going? Yeah, a lot of it is going to more staff. So over the last decade, schools served about 500,000 fewer students, a decline of 1.1%, but they had more staff in a variety of different roles. So teachers are the biggest category of staff working within schools, but they didn't see the biggest increases. Most of the staffing increases have come from other types of support roles, whether that's...

administration or teachers' aides and paraprofessionals. There are almost every category of different types of staff have increased. The only one that's down is classroom librarians, but there are more bus drivers, more school-based administrators, district-based administrators, school counselors, school nurses, almost across the board. There's more people. Well... From y'all's perspective, that doesn't sound very promising to me when your administration has grown at a faster rate than the folks that are trying to deliver on the core services of education teachers. I think that's right. And to the earlier conversation you had, the scores might be better in most parts of the country if they had prioritized with their spending, spending more money on classrooms and putting that into teachers. So in the article that I wrote for the 74, I talked about more money, fewer students. People also might think, well, some of that money might be going to teachers. And it's actually not. The average teacher's salary has declined over this decade in real inflation-adjusted terms. And so teachers are also losing out. Their dollars are going farther or less, not going as far as they used to. And so that is just another symbol of the pie is growing, but it's being split among more workers. And the typical classroom teacher is not seeing some of those spending increases. We are visiting with Chad Alderman education analysts and columnists for the 74 million in nonprofit news organization covering America's education system, and he authored a piece for the Fordham Institute. This is a phenomenon that we see going on somewhere else, too, though, right? I mean, when you look at higher ed, I was reading a report the other day that said for every student, Yale has one administrator. And it seems to be a movement across the entire educational spectrum. Yeah, I'm not as much of an expert on higher as K-12, but yes, we'd see in other parts. And I think part of it comes from the lack of pressure on public education or education writ large on the cost side. So if a business loses customers, it loses revenue and has to adjust. Public education doesn't have that. So like I said, they've lost a lot of students over the last decade, and yet revenues are increasing. And so there's not the same pressure to change and be more cost effective in that way. And this is a long-term trend. It definitely accelerated over the last five years, but it's a long, long-term trend.

Thank you for listening to this special presentation of Odyssey's On Deadline. Subscribe to the daily podcast on your favorite platform. Low energy, unfocused, foggy, you might be dehydrated. Keep your family's dehydration levels in check with Gatorade lower sugar. Get this. It has 75% less sugar than regular Gatorade and no artificial flavors, colors, or sweeteners. Shop now at retailers nationwide. Gatorade. Hydrates better than water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist. Girl, let's get real. Some pads are just diapers with a good PR team, but not the new Kotex BioCare. That's because Kotex BioCare helps defend against odor and irritants. And it's the first and only pad with this pH-proactive system that helps optimize the pads pH. Just think of it as self-care for down there. Check out Kotex.com for more details on the all-new Kotex completely redesigned to meet your needs. You asked, we heard. Las Vegas was built for stars. And on August 22nd, two of boxing's biggest take center stage. Raleigh Romero never follows the script. This is my game. Tio Fimo Lopez has never needed one. This guy's got a big mouth. For years, they've had plenty to say. All you do is tall. But with world championship gold on the line, can they back it? Tio, I'm here. I'm going all in. It's time to put up or shut up. Raleighamero versus Tiofimo Lopez. August 22nd. I'll shut you up. Watch on DeZone, and DeZone on Prime. I'm video. Nerds! Today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast. Ever Google a money question and end up 12 tabs deep with 12 different answers? This podcast is your shortcut back to clarity. NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast breaks down financial decisions with a team of trusted journalists. They explain the why behind decisions like investing, home buying, and choosing credit cards with clear research-backed insights. No jargon, no misinformation. Make your next financial move with confidence. Follow NerdWallet's Smart Money podcast on your favorite podcast app. Presented by Team Mobile, the official wireless partner of Odyssey Sports. With an awesome network and great savings, there's never been a better time to join Team Mobile. Visit your neighborhood store to make the switch today.