What Are You Curious About?

The federal minimum wage has been hotly debated since it began. Right now, in twenty states, even if someone is working full-time on minimum wage, they make just $20 over the poverty line. And in Georgia and Wyoming, the state minimum wage is actually less than that. It’s nearly impossible to make a living on that, let alone climb out of poverty and build any sort of wealth. It’s hard to imagine how this is a good thing, so why is our minimum wage so low?

Kids today have a lot to worry about. We all remember how hard adolescence was for us when we were growing up. We struggled with doing well in school, making friends, fitting in, and figuring out who we are. And today, kids are still struggling with those same things, plus things we never had to deal with, like gun violence, climate change, and making it through a global pandemic. We want to help, but it’s hard to know where to start, so we’re here to explore the root causes of their struggle and what we can do about it.

In states with strict abortion bans, the laws attempt to define specific cases where medical professionals can make exceptions. These are typically for situations involving rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is at stake. However, too many real cases fall into legal and medical grey areas, leading to trauma, permanent physical harm, and in some cases, even death. What do we do when the law doesn’t reflect the reality of what many women, and even children, are experiencing?

During the presidential election, Trump pledged to crack down on immigration, but he claimed he was only talking about criminals. But over the last several months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been increasingly targeting people who are legally following the U.S. immigration process. Some of them are just kids. So we have to ask: why is ICE targeting people who aren’t criminals, and why are they targeting children?

Most of us can agree that America has a racist past. We enslaved other human beings, and even after the Civil War, injustices like lynching and Jim Crow laws persisted. But despite a troubling resurgence of white supremacy groups — a nearly 50% increase since 2022 — many Americans believe that racism is all in the past. “This is America,” we might think, “Everyone has an equal opportunity, right?” Or, talking about race or “seeing color” may feel like what is actually racist. So, why do we still need to talk about racism?

If you’re like many Americans, one of the first things you do every morning is check the weather. And we definitely pay attention when there’s extreme weather – like hurricanes, blizzards, and tornadoes – on the horizon, putting our lives and property in jeopardy. Whether you get it from your phone, the morning news, or a Google search, that information all comes from the same place: the Weather Service, a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). So why is the Trump administration getting rid of it?

Right now, many of us are feeling a ton of stress and anxiety. Add that to the rise in loneliness in our country, and it creates a toxic soup that isn’t just bad for our mood, it’s bad for our physical health too. The good news is, community connection can help with both of these problems! In these chaotic and stressful times, community is more important than ever. It isn’t just good for our hearts and minds, it’s good for democracy.

Social Security has been around for nearly a hundred years, and has been life-saving for many Americans. It provides retirement benefits to elderly Americans, unemployment benefits when people lose their jobs, and provides aid to families and people with disabilities. Those are all good things, right? So why would anyone want to get rid of it?

Have you been wondering why eggs – and pretty much everything else – is so expensive lately? Us too. So we decided to dig into it. It turns out, it’s not all due to the avian flu. And at the same time that prices are at an all time high, the government is cutting funding to critical programs that help families put food on the table.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Now, three years later, the war continues and there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight. One of Trump’s campaign promises was that he would end the war, but what does that mean exactly? And who will benefit? What would be the best outcome for Ukrainians and for democracy?

We’ve all been seeing voting rights in the news a lot lately, with things like the SAVE Act. States have passed nearly 100 restrictive voting laws in the last 10 years. And just this year, President Trump signed an executive order that he claimed to be about protecting the integrity of our elections. “Election integrity” sounds like a good thing, but what happens when we read the fine print? What are these laws really about?