The Economic Impact of Legalized Sports Betting

 What could legalizing sports betting do for an economy?

By: Nathan Schroeder

In 2018, Super Bowl 52 was played between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots. Super Bowl Sunday is a great day where people get together, make good food, and watch football. Another thing that it is big for is sports betting. During Super Bowl 52, Americans bet $4.67 billion dollars on the game, and 97% of that money was bet illegally. This then sparked the question of the potential economic impact that sports betting could have if it was legalized. 

This shows just how big the sports betting industry is if one game is able to generate $4.76 billion dollars in wagers. The sports betting industry has taken off over the past decade and it continues to grow at a rapid rate. The industry is estimated to be worth well over $200 billion dollars. While there are ways for states to make money off sports betting, the primary way is through taxation. If states such as Wisconsin were to legalize sports betting then it would generate more money in taxes, which can lead to more money for roads, schools, and public transportation. With the widespread legalization of sports betting, it has the potential to generate millions in tax revenue. With that, legalizing sports betting could also increase potential tourism for certain cities and states. For instance, Las Vegas is the gambling capital of the world which attracts tourists. Not only does this help with gaining more money on taxes, but it also helps generate money for local restaurants, hotels, and vendors. 

Where there is an increase in tourism, money, and the local economy, there will also be an increase in jobs. Around 750,000 people in America are employed through the gaming industry, which then accounts for over $75 billion dollars in salaries and benefits for middle-class families around the country. These numbers are only expected to grow in the next 10 years with a projection of 62,000 new jobs, and the legalization of sports betting in all 50 states will only help to boost those numbers. 

As seen in the graph above, the projected revenue of the sports betting industry is projected to boom within the next couple of years. With one factor, all states legalize it. Currently, people have to illegally use a book to place bets where states and cities reap zero benefits from it. If it legalizes it, that means more jobs, money in taxes, and an increase in tourism. States need to make the right decision to legalize sports betting so that the economy, and most importantly the people can benefit because putting the “illegal” tag on it, isn’t stopping people from betting. 

https://morningconsult.com/2018/06/07/legal-sports-gamblings-future-younger-less-wealthy-bettors/

Vaccine Mandates Impacting Economy

 Written by: Sam Deibert 

Vaccine Mandates Impacting Economy

Over the past week, truckers have begun what they call a “Freedom Convoy”, or a blockade located at the Canada-American border. There are three major blockage points, one in Montana, North Dakota, and most importantly, at America’s biggest tradepoint with Canada, Ambassador Bridge which links Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario. These protests have lasted days, adding to existing supply chain issues. 

The protests were started by Canadian and American truckers in response to both countries mandating that truck drivers must be fully vaccinated to cross the border. In regard to policy, I feel as though these protester’s actions are justified. They should have the right to continue doing their job - which is almost solely independent - regardless of vaccination status. As someone who has received all of my vaccinations, I am not anti-vax. However, I strongly disagree with the perspective that everyone has to be vaccinated in order to work or receive medical treatment that is being pushed by some today. 

The industry that has been hit hardest because of this blockade is the automotive industry, stalling auto plants in Michigan, Ohio, Alabama, and West Virginia. This is largely due to bad timing, coming right after last year’s global computer chip shortage. Because of last year’s shortage, automotive manufacturers have already been running on very thin inventory. This meant that when their supply had been cut for nearly a week, they had to stop production in some cases. So, car prices have remained extremely high or have even climbed higher recently, because supply is significantly low. 

Even though I do think that the trucker’s actions have valid supporting reasons from a political point of view, when you look at it from an economical point of view it becomes much harder to support. Car manufacturers and other industries are being punished the most rather than the government, which ultimately impacts us as consumers. For that reason, I have mixed feelings about these protests. I do feel like they have gotten their message across, but it’s not worth sacrificing our economic production at a crucial time of recovery from the pandemic. 

Works Cited

Solman, Paul, and Ryan Connelly Holmes. “Canadian Trucker Blockades Impact Production on Both Sides of the Border.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 11 Feb. 2022, www.pbs.org/newshour/show/canadian-trucker-blockades-impact-production-on-both-sides-of-the-border.

Swanson, Ana, and Jack Ewing. “Auto Production Restarts after the Ambassador Bridge Is Cleared.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 14 Feb. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/business/canada-protest-auto-supply-chain.html.

Rising Tuition Costs in the US

Written by: Musaab Tareen 

 Rising Tuition Costs in the US

As many high school students begin applying to colleges, one issue on the mind of both students and parents is the price of college tuition. Tuition rates have risen over 175% in the US over the past two decades, and the United States has become the second-highest country in the cost of secondary education among all developed nations. Due to these numbers, and the over 1.6 trillion dollars in student debt owed by the American people, many begin to wonder whether the US government should be doing more to try and control tuition prices and make college more affordable for students. 

US tuition prices have grown at an extremely high rate over the past twenty years. The average yearly tuition for private universities has risen by over 26,000 dollars. For public colleges, it has risen by over 18,000 dollars for out-of-state tuition and over 10,000 dollars for in-state tuition. While these increases may seem astonishing, what is more surprising is that these increases are part of a growing trend seen in the US since the 1980s. During this time period tuition costs on average have risen by around 500%, which is double the amount which inflation has risen over the past 40 years. These rising costs have caused many problems for the United States and look to continue to do so. Rising costs have caused fewer students to choose to attend a university after high school graduation, with the rate of college participation dropping over the past 40 years and total college enrolment numbers dropping since 2010. This means that to more and more people, the opportunity cost of attending college is too high to outweigh any benefits a college education may have down the road. While some may not see this as a problem, as many of those who choose not to attend college go directly to the labor force, with technology evolving at a rapid rate in the US there will be more high qualification jobs available, and fewer people to fill them. The increase in prices has also affected low-income students who have seen their college participation rate stay at a meager 33%, less than half of the national participation rate. This rate has been increasing over the past 40 years, however, at a very slow rate showing little growth and little increase in incentive for low-income students to attend college. 

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2017-09-20/see-20-years-of-tuition-growth-at-national-universities

   

 https://educationdata.org/college-enrollment-statistics

So what are the options that the US government has to try and fix this? One option which was presented by lawmakers in the past was to grant more federal aid to colleges who choose to raise prices only at inflation level or lower. This would provide universities an incentive not to raise their tuition at high levels as they would be able to attract a high demand of students due to low tuition rates, and still recuperate any losses incurred due to not raising tuition higher through federal funding. This is a viable option which the government could take; however, it would only work with public colleges that receive federal funding, and would also cause a need for a tax shift or a shift in funding from other sectors of the government to pay for the extra funding. Another option would be to put a price ceiling on tuition rates based on educational quality. This would still allow high-quality universities to receive higher tuition to pay for their student’s educational experience, however, it would help lower the overall cost of education. This option is viable as well, however could come with unwanted consequences such as a drop in quality of education as well. 

All in all, it is clear that rising tuition costs are a very large issue in the US and something must be done to counter them. While many of the solutions that the US government may have at their disposal do have drawbacks to them, the extent to which tuition costs have become a problem is much higher than any problems the drawbacks from these solutions may incur. Whether it is through price ceilings, or restructuring federal aid, the US government must take a role in trying to lower tuition costs to make post-secondary education affordable for all.

Works Cited

Armstrong, Martin, and Felix Richter. “Infographic: The World's Highest and Lowest Tuition Fees.” Statista Infographics, 17 Sept. 2021, www.statista.com/chart/11058/bachelor-tuition-fees-international-comparison/.

Hanson, Melanie, and Fact Checked. “College Enrollment Statistics [2022]: Total   by Demographic.” Education Data Initiative, 22 Jan. 2022, educationdata.org/college-enrollment-statistics.

Hoffower, Hillary. “College Is More Expensive than It's Ever Been, and the 5 Reasons Why Suggest It's Only Going to Get Worse.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 26 June 2019, www.businessinsider.com/why-is-college-so-expensive-2018-4.

“Home.” Education at a Glance 2021 : OECD Indicators | OECD ILibrary, www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/b35a14e5-en/index.html?itemId=/content/publication/b35a14e5-en.

News, Zenger. “College Tuition Is Rising at Twice the Inflation Rate-While Students Learn At Home.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 10 Dec. 2021, www.forbes.com/sites/zengernews/2020/08/31/college-tuition-is-rising-at-twice-the-inflation-rate-while-students-learn-at-home/?sh=73ef60342f98.

Gas Prices

 Gas Prices 

Written By: Ava Guth

As many of us have or are earning our driving license, we are having to pay for gas. However, within the last year, gas prices have hit a seven year high. Though this doesn’t seem like a major problem to us now, it will be in the future as gas prices continue increasing every week. The main reason for these increased gas prices is because of high demand and constricted supply. 

Demand for gasoline is so high because there are many more drivers on the road. After a tremendous decline in the amount of vehicles on the road during Spring of 2020 during quarantine, the economy wasn’t prepared for the large amounts of gas needed to fuel the 290.14 billion miles being traveled by vehicles in the US. However, gas prices vary depending on which region of the country you are located. Since we are in Wisconsin our gas prices are increasing, but not as much as the West Coast and Rocky Mountain regions. Reason being for more tourists driving around the area and needing lots of fuel to get around those mountains. In the midwest we actually have some of the lowest gas prices compared to the rest of the country, even though ours are still increasing. 

The constricted supply is due to countries using their resources as an advantage. For example, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have only been agreeing to slight increases in oil production, even after America’s and India’s pleas for more. Recently, they have agreed to 400k barrels per day. Crude oil is also known as petroleum which explains the name of the OPEC. However, crude oil prices are also increasing and the US stockpile of oil is at a historical low, at 1.03 billion barrels of oil. 

Even though gas prices in other areas of the country may not be important to you now, the entire economy will suffer from it. So even though we have free lunches at school and such, the opportunity cost is we are having to pay more for living expenses like fuel for our cars. Plus, with some of you going to college out of state, these rising gas prices may affect your wallet more than here at home. In the near future, be aware that gas prices are something that you will be dealing with as we become adults and keep in mind to manage your money and living expenses well enough to not have to worry about this rising problem.

Works Cited

Kiersz, Andy. “3 Reasons Why Gas Prices Are so High Right Now.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 25 Nov. 2021, www.businessinsider.com/why-are-gas-prices-so-high-right-now-3-reasons-2021-10.

“U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis.” Retail Gasoline Prices Rose across the United States in 2021 as Driving Increased - Today in Energy - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=50758.

“Vehicle Miles Traveled.” FRED, 24 Jan. 2022, fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TRFVOLUSM227NFWA.

Is our economy booming or just recovering?

Written by: Audrey Lehnen 

Is our economy booming or just recovering? If you have been keeping up with economic news, you might have heard that the economy has grown the most since 1984 according to NPR. I argue that the economy was simply recovering its losses due to COVID-19, and only improved a marginal percentage.

 People assume that the economy boomed because everyone started going shopping and to restaurants again, and traveling became a bigger thing than during COVID, when people were not spending as much money. Of course the economy looked like it was booming and growing at the fastest pace since 1984. Looking at the graph below, in quarter 2 of 2020 the economy was at negative 31.2% because people weren’t contributing to the economy, and in quarter 3 of 2021 it's at positive 33.8%. If you subtract the two, it's only a 2.6% increase, from what was already made up. 

Putting this in context, the United States economy is dependent on consumer spending. Whether that be travel, groceries, restaurants, it all contributes to the overall economy. With over a fiscal year to recover the economy, it's simply regaining its “former glory”, and really only increasing a small percentage. Again, people weren’t spending money, and then they suddenly did again, proving the point that it's simply recovering and then increasing a small percentage. 

Also taking into account inflation, higher wages and costs, can make the economy look like it's doing better than it is. Estimating a smaller increase on top of a recovery is more probable than a huge increase, because we weren’t doing anything new. It's like rediscovering an old song, plus one new song from the radio. You already had the old songs, so that doesn’t count, but the new song from the radio does. The economic growth is the same way. 

Optimists can argue that even the recovery is a huge economic boost and should be taken into account during the analysis of the graph. However, the super increase is due to domestic spending. Domestic spending has recovered even faster than GDP because so much of the demand has been for imported goods; the trade deficit has been growing as import growth has been buoyant and exports have been contracting. Meaning that as an economy, we rely on foreign goods, and the demand for said goods went up because of a supply problem, so demand increased, and when those products were available again, people jumped to buy them. 

So ask yourself, is the economy recovering, just like rediscovering old songs, or is it a completely new playlist because we are spending money on domestic products again? 

Horsley, Scott. “Believe It or Not, the Economy Grew Last Year at the Fastest Pace since 1984.” NPR, NPR, 27 Jan. 2022, www.npr.org/2022/01/27/1075782151/economy-gdp-pandemic-omicron-delta-inflation-labor-shortages-supply-chain.

Milesi-Ferretti, Gian Maria. “A Most Unusual Recovery: How the US Rebound from COVID Differs from Rest of G7.” Brookings, Brookings, 8 Dec. 2021, www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/12/08/a-most-unusual-recovery-how-the-us-rebound-from-covid-differs-from-rest-of-g7/#:~:text=U.S. growth has remained strong,(fourth quarter of 2019).

Should Minimum Wage be Raised?

Written By: Ben Schmidt 

In politics today, wage and the placement of minimum wage is a heated discussion. As inflation lowers the purchasing power of money, it is important that wages also shift to make sure that people remain with the same amount of purchasing power. Obviously, it would be very hard for the government to raise everyone's wage but they can at least control the minimum wage of the country, which 1.1 million workers work at (or below).

In the graph below, minimum wage, which is adjusted for inflation, is compared from 1964 to 2013. This graph shows how wage is increased and slowly loses it’s same purchasing power (peaks and the descending line that follows) as well as how much money it allows people to gain per year when compared to the poverty line. Though the orange line does represent the wage of one person over the course of the year, it is important to also consider how the poverty line is calculated. The line is purely based on the cost of the minimum amount of food needed for a family. This means that the purple line represents the amount of money needed, in a year, in order to buy enough food to live. This means that the poverty line does not look at extra costs of living, like a home, be it rent or repaying off a mortgage, or healthcare and health insurance. So while someone can survive at the poverty line, they are not living. It is also important to at least briefly consider other circumstances, like a single mother or father, where they would be working below the poverty line for a family of two. All in all, minimum wage is not a livable wage, it is only enough to survive. But, there are people against raising the minimum wage.

The people-against-minimum-wage’s first argument is that if the minimum wage were to increase, the businesses would start to lay off workers because their profit margins would lessen. It is important to understand that this concept isn’t wrong. If the amount of money that it takes to produce something is too high, firms will try to minimize these extra production costs. The issue with these concepts is that there are other inflation-esque properties that are functioning at the same time that are also reducing the money it takes to produce products. You can see it at the grocery store, where companies are reducing the size of their products—like the size of cereal boxes—but selling these products at the same price, this concept is called shrinkflation. Similarly, some companies are reducing the quality of their product in order to keep that product at the same price, this is called skimpflation (in a sense, it seems to be the inverse—of inflation—change in a company’s product to keep prices the same but it is really just following inflation). Connecting this back to laying off workers, if the minimum wage did raise, the amount of money needed to make a product would rise but because of the lowering of quality and quantity of their product, this raise would have minimal effect.

Overall, while companies may push back against a raise in minimum wage, it is important to consider the worker because a change in minimum wage would be able to increase the quality of a person’s life. And in a more cynical sense, a more healthy worker means a better, and more efficient worker, so, in the end, it is important that minimum wage increases to meet the inflating economy and lowering purchasing power of a person’s wage.

Works Cited

“Pros & Cons - ProCon.org.” Minimum Wage, 26 Jan. 2022, minimum-wage.procon.org/.

“Raise the Wage.” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/raise-the-wage.

Travel Industry Predictions

Written by: Ava Kiel 

I predict the travel industry will take the longest to fully recover from the coronavirus, however the industry will drastically spike soon. 

International countries that are vacation-populated rely heavily on the travel industry. Some countries have a high share of GDP generated by travel and tourism. Take Macau, China for example; it is famous for the blend of Portuguese and Chinese cultures, the architecture, and it’s gambling industry. 50.2% of Macau’s economy solely depends on tourism- which is the most out of any other country worldwide. 100 to 120 million direct tourism jobs were put in jeopardy when Covid-19 came around. Now in 2022, as society is slowly coming back to how it was pre-pandemic, many tourism jobs are still predicted to remain unfilled. 

With these negative effects, I do however believe there to be an increase in demand for travel within these next few years. With canceling vacations during the pandemic, people are now planning to make up for lost time post pandemic. Whether it’s by car, train, airplane, etc., more people will hit the road. According to AAA Newsroom, “Airlines will see a 184% increase from last year”. The economy for those countries that rely on tourism are starting to see hope again. Using the example of Macau again, businesses would rely on international tourists before. Now, businesses like restaurants have been leuring in the locals as well. Special deals are offered to generate more business. With the Covid vaccines and protocols, more protection is shown to make people feel traveling is an option once again. 

People cannot wait to get out of their houses to travel, vacation, or see family; which is why I predict there to be a drastic spike soon in the tourism industry, even though it will take the longest to fully recover from the coronavirus. 

Shown above is a graph of the countries’ economies that rely most heavily on the tourism industry. This source is created by Rachel King, an author for Statista. 

Works Cited

Leposa, Adam. “Stats: Travel Industry Second-Fastest Growing Sector in the World.” Travel Agent Central, 27 Feb. 2019, www.travelagentcentral.com/running-your-business/stats-travel-industry-second-fastest-growing-sector-world.

Published by

                                    Statista Research Department, and Feb 4. “Countries with the Highest GDP from Travel and Tourism 2019.” Statista, 4 Feb. 2021, 

www.statista.com/statistics/1100368/countries-highest-gdp-travel-tourism/.

Torkington, Simon, et al. “This Is the Impact of COVID-19 on the Travel Sector.” World Economic Forum, www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/01/global-travel-tourism-pandemic-covid-19/.