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First, Americans say half their paychecks are gone before they arrive.

And harrowing reports about how East African housekeepers are treated in other countries.

Hello, I'm Bonnie Erbé.

Welcome to To the Contrary, a discussion of news and social trends from different perspectives.

Up first.

Paying the bills.

Most working Americans earning less than $75,000 a year spend more than half their paychecks before they arrive.

A recent survey shows they pay bills in advance because living costs outpace income.

Many Americans juggle overdue bills, with funds vanishing quickly on essentials such as food and rent.

This leaves little for savings or emergencies, forcing reliance on side hustles, family or credit.

This news hits women and people of color who still struggle for equal pay.

Joining me on the panel this week are Democratic strategist Patricia Sosa, Republican strategist Ann Stone, feminist activists Erin Matson and KJ McKenzie, co-owner of Metro Conservative Media.

So my round robin question starts with you.

Ann, why do so many Americans spend their pay before it arrives?

Well, for budgeting purposes, many of them spend it on the essentials so they can be sure they have a place to live and the lights stay on and all that.

And unfortunately, medicine and food are the last to be accounted for, which is what's really hurting families so much.

Getting the cost of those two items down especially, it's going to be important.

The good news is some of the costs are starting to come down, but we're only a, you know, a little bit into the change administration.

So we'll see how their policies play out in the future.

Does everybody else agree?

Those are the two easiest ways to get costs down.

I would say this is exceedingly complicated.

It's a structural issues related to housing.

I agree with her to education, to health care and, the instability that most of us are feeling, particularly, until after Trump took over as president is not helping, is creating, an enormous amount of, of stress, financially, we know feel very strongly about those government people that all of a sudden were let go.

We know people argue that government employees are not a high percentage of their, labor in the United States, which is considerable in many states, including West Virginia.

And veterans are disproportionately represented among those working in the federal government.

So we're going to see people that are these small, important state out West Virginia feeling it even more linked not only to the fact that the Trump administration is not taking on reducing the cost of food, reducing the cost of labor, and housing in particular, but really focusing on tariffs and on Ukraine and all these other issues that are not at the heart of what people thought he was going to be doing when he took over as president.

How is the world economy changing as well as the US economy, and what should our politicians do about it?

Well, if I could just jump in there, I, I really disagree with Patricia on that.

And cities like Baltimore, where I live, it's tough to stay afloat because we're buried under taxes, fees and inflation.

President Trump has only been in office for, what, 30 days?

So this is an ongoing issue.

It's not just spending habits.

It's bad policy.

Bad policy within the last 4 to 10 years, I'd say.

And inflated utility costs, permit fees, parking fines and a bloated bureaucracy that mismanaged city resources right here in Baltimore, where I am.

So instead of creating opportunity and rewarding hard work, these cities punish productivity and drive people into survival mode.

And I know this firsthand from being a Baltimore resident, born and raised.

Bonnie, I just made lunch and I had avocado with my lunch, and I'm wondering if I'm going to have an avocado again anytime soon.

With the way these tariffs are going and prices are going up.

The rent has been too damn high for a long time, but now the price of the eggs are too damn high.

And what we have is.

But also.

But those are, let's point out from two completely different.

Two completely different things.

But they need to be discussed together.

When we're talking about people who are so squeezed.

And Bonnie, you opened up exactly where we should focus.

The people who are making or being paid the least people who are being paid $75,000 and under disproportionately hurting women, women of color and people of color.

But also, you know, looking across the income spectrum.

More than two thirds of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, even in higher income brackets.

And so you already had the the price.

Like I said, the rent's been too damn high for a long time and mortgage rates are only going up, which is causing other problems.

But now you've got things like inflation and the cost of eggs is astronomical, and you've got a president and his billionaire enabler who's actually the richest man in the world, you know, putting in place tariffs that only raise, prices and uncertainty.

Now, the president has said indicated he's not ruling out a recession.

He's not ruling out pain.

These are incredibly rich men who are so disconnected from the struggles that people are facing with their paychecks.

And yet they were elected with the majority of support from American voters.

So what do we make of that?

The majority of American voters, what they wanted was for him to address their economic stress, the price of eggs, gas.

They wanted a healthier economy because they felt that the economy under Biden wasnt doing for them what they wanted.

The challenge here, that is not what Trump is doing in his first six months of office, but he's creating more instability.

He is making the economy more difficult.

And the problem is a lot of this is in the name of tax cuts.

And you know, who's going to benefit from those tax cuts are not going to be the working people of Baltimore.

I don't totally disagree with her that working people in this country, the middle class in this country, are structurally in a disadvantage for many, many reasons.

And tax has been one of them.

But that's not what they're talking about.

That's not what they're debating, and they're not that's not who they're looking to benefit.

And that is a gamble, I think, that Trump is taking, because it was so clear, which was listening to a star, Klein talking to David Ross about why the Democrats lost.

And it was very simple.

They did not focus, you know, on the economy and making the voters feel confident that if Harris was going to be president, she was going to address her problems.

And they felt that Trump did.

The problem is Trump is not doing it right now.

And the and the polls are showing they don't feel he's doing it.

And we know he's not doing it.

And the economy is not doing better.

And what's the best way.

Ann, you can go ahead and jump in.

But what's the best way to get a message out to the voters about what should be done now to try to help fix this?

But first, I have to address the misinformation both Erin and Patricia put forward.

First of all, Erin, you can't afford avocados.

Boy, that's a first world problem.

Trust me, people making under 75,000, that's not their concern.

The price of eggs is coming down.

The cost of rent is coming down.

The mortgage rates are coming down.

The price, the price of eggs dropped dramatically in the past couple of weeks.

The price of produce.

I just bought cucumbers for $0.30 cheaper than I did a couple of weeks ago.

I just bought tomatoes.

Cheaper, lettuce, cheaper, all kinds of bananas.

I got them for $0.59.

They were $0.89 a pound.

Prices are coming down, but it's only been a while.

Hasn't been six months yet.

Things are starting to be affected already, though.

Things are moving in the right direction in terms of taxes.

Patricia, please update your information sources.

If they don't make the Trump taxes permanent, the lower echelon in commissions are going to be hurt more than the upper echelon.

Let me jump back to you, KJ.

What what's the most pressing economic issue that could get women, women of color?

You know, religious women out and voting and participating, politically.

It's like, it's like what Ann said, taxes, fees.

You economic issues are what matter most to not just women of color, but everyone across the board.

And, you know, a lot of people, from the left in different parties, always try to push everything on the boogie man Trump.

And now it's, Elon Musk.

Whoo hoo!

God help him.

He is helping.

He's he's not even really getting paid.

He doesn't have to do this.

And he's trying to, balance out our government the best way he can.

But I want to take it back to the local area right here in Baltimore.

Our mayor is currently proposing lawmakers add a 2% sales tax on top of the state, 6% sales tax.

Baltimore residents already face 15 different taxes, and they pay twice as much in property taxes as neighboring jurisdictions.

So folks in Baltimore is predominantly black.

It's a predominantly black city.

It's run by black Democrats for decades, and we are suffering.

We are suffering.

This is what the Democrat Party has done over and over again.

And it needs to stop.

It's hurting us and our cities are shrinking because of it.

Erin, your thoughts?

Well, I think, Bonnie, we need to focus on the basics here.

Bringing inflation down is critical.

It is actually one of the primary reasons why Biden lost the election, and that is not what Trump is focusing on.

Instead, he is focusing on amassing executive power.

And I'll say it, being a lapdog to Vladimir Putin, he doesn't care about the price of eggs.

He doesn't care about what it's costing people to get groceries.

When was the last time this man was in a grocery store, much less the person who's slashing government?

And that's a whole other layer.

I mean, that's when and Patricia had acknowledged this as well.

But the fact that so many people are losing their jobs now, hiring appears to be in a pullback.

I've seen other headlines recently.

You know, people used to when they were switching jobs, they used to go up higher rates and pay than they are now.

So all of these factors are coming at once.

At the same time that our president is callously suggesting that a recession is on the table and that we need some short term or pain in order for him to, you know, prove a point to Mexico, Mexico and even Canada or one of our longest allies.

It makes no sense for any.

Can I make some sense of it, Bonnie?

Very quickly, please, because we're almost out of time We're transitioning from a government that funded the stock market and funded industry to one that's going to be privately funded.

That's why you're going to have some pain.

He was juicing.

He was juicing the economy with government spending.

That is not sustainable for the long term.

We're moving to where it can be private and industry.

He's bringing manufacturing back.

You know, in Virginia, they're crying out for people.

We've got over 250,000 jobs open in Virginia alone.

Come to Virginia, get employed, and there's going to be all kinds of new, higher level, high paying, high tech jobs, a, you know, AI jobs, all that that are being developed now.

But tons of manufacturing jobs are coming back already to this country is over 5 trillion in new investment that Trump has brought.

That's going to build manufacturing back in America.

That is great for the future.

That's substantial GDP growth that will actually increase the tax revenue basis.

And we're all going to be able to get more tax cuts in the future as a result of it.

Well, that'll be interesting to watch.

Let us know what you think.

Please follow me on Twitter at Bonnie Erbé.

From finances to domestic workers, East African women seeking work as domestic helpers in Saudi Arabia face severe abuse, including physical violence, sexual assault, even death, promise decent wages by recruiters and supported by their governments.

They migrate with hope but often return broken or not at all.

Hundreds have died in recent years with suspicious deaths, frequently labeled as, quote, natural, despite evidence of trauma.

Politicians and influential figures in both East Africa and Saudi Arabia profit from a booming labor trade.

Running agencies that exploit workers while ignoring widespread mistreatment.

Okay, so Patricio Sosa, we you know, with immigration and, unfortunately, in a lot of situations, white populations or lighter skinned populations, mistreat, treating darker skinned populations, has made money for a lot of small groups around the world.

But tell me about what's going on in Saudi Arabia.

Why is it so bad?

It's a terrible situation, as described by the New York Times, investigatory piece, which kudos to the journalists.

It was powerful.

274 women, mostly from Uganda and Kenya, that, went to work in Saudi Arabia on their service, a contract that agencies have and the government is actually engage or both countries have died in the last year, 55 of those women have died.

It's not clear how, because it's hidden what happened to these women in the government, not only of Saudi Arabia, but the governments of Uganda and Kenya are not doing anything to protect their workers.

Different, for example, from the Philippines that they negotiate with the countries when they send their, their workers, for with the Employment Protection and rights and they actually provide, protection for those that end up in abusive situation, which is not uncommon when these workers go from their country to another country, particularly in that part of the world.

And so, like you bring it, I'd like to bring in everybody because what do you deal with the situation as the one you have in Ethiopia where the problems are very internal.

They're going on inside of people's closed, guarded houses, and it's not as if there's something that, you know, the people around the world want from the government.

They want facts that nobody knows what is going on is being hidden, and the government is allowing it to be hidden.

So what is, what is the appropriate way to deal with it, starting with you, Ann?

Well I have to say thank you for bringing this to light, because I think that is one of the first steps you have to spotlight.

And we should say it's not new.

It's not new.

This has been in the public light for decades.

But you're bringing it more to light first.

Have we talked about it on this program?

As far as I know, and I think it's important.

I think women can be a good voice in this as well.

So spotlighting is the first thing getting, information to Secretary Rubio that he certainly can make part of his outreach.

When he deals with these different countries, we can put pressure through our State Department to them to to look into this and perhaps provide greater safety.

But it is one of the reasons everybody wants to come to work here because, domestic servants here are more protected, obviously, than they are in other parts of the world.

But I think you're doing a good first step by spotlight with this discussion.

Well, and how do we know?

I mean, again, this is not new.

There have been, you know, royalty from around the world, from smaller countries with very, you know, very tightly closed governments and very wealthy people running them who can get away with just about anything.

So what is the next step, Miss McKenzie, what do you think should be the next step in terms of trying to bring more of this out in the open and getting the perpetrators prosecuted?

This is a tough situation because a lot of this is cultural.

So, it would require them to confront deep rooted issues, including corruption, powerful business interests and cultural attitudes that undervalue foreign workers.

As Ann mentioned, you know, thank God we live in a Christian centered country like the one we're in where these we value human life.

It's often easier to easier politically and economically for officials to look the other way in these types of areas rather than enforce accountability.

But how do they get away with in anybody?

Please jump in here.

Erin, your thoughts, how do they get away with saying, you know, finding a woman who had obviously been, I believe, you know, her brain was badly damaged.

It looked like exposure to electricity of some sort had taken place.

How did they get away with calling that a natural death?

And getting away with it?

Yeah.

No.

And thank you, Bonnie, for casting your spotlight on this and putting it on the show.

I think one of the key things to look at here is the profit motive and the fact of the matter.

There's people in both the Saudi government as well as in the Kenyan government and the Ugandan government that are very tied in with the profit that comes from this industry being, very loosely regulated, seems like a horrific mismatch term to discuss what's happening here, but that there's not oversight happening.

This is compounded by the fact that it is notoriously, as you pointed out earlier, this is taking place inside private homes, outside of the public eye.

I mean, even here in the United States, it's notoriously difficult within the labor and the organizing space in terms of organizing people who work privately in the home.

Because, again, it's these are people who are often isolated, very much subject to the whims of a specific employer.

And so I think you need to look at, you know, the profit motive.

And in terms of how do we get out of this?

Clearly pressure is needed.

And and specifically targeting Saudi Arabia, I would think first and foremost, because that's where these crimes are occurring.

I have, not as much, hopefulness as an does that this is something that might come out of our government, both because the State Department is currently being gutted, and also because this is the same administration that after Jamal Khashoggi was killed by, with Saudi Arabian government collusion, that, you know, the president then was meeting and praising and.

Yes.

And so I don't know that that's the avenue.

But in terms of consumers, perhaps there's an angle there where, you know, consumers, there's a lot of oil that flows through Saudi Arabia.

And so there's different things that people may need to look at doing on an individual level as well.

Patricia, what what would you like to see done?

Well, this is why you need, the human rights groups and the human rights multilateral institutions to exist for these extreme kind of case, because unless the world, put pressure in a country like Saudi Arabia, and also in Uganda and Kenya, I mean, they're all in collusion in this specific case that we're discussing today, although the other countries are also involved in sending their workers, to Saudi Arabia, to the Emirates.

So we know this is this is happening, but I think the world has to come down on this.

And and I do think not only, the government of the United States.

I agree with Erin.

I'm not hopeful that this administration will take it on, but definitely the human rights institutions that exist in the under the UN system.

I have a couple of interesting ideas.

Go ahead, Ann, go.

One is to reach out to Liz Stefanik to see if there's anything she do to the UN.

I don't know, maybe I know her, I could certainly ask.

But, the other thing is you mentioned Kenya.

What?

What about having Obama reach out?

He's beloved.

He's going to reach out on behalf of a Republican administration.

On behalf of the women in Kenya and in the Middle East.

It should be looked at through a partisan lens.

This is an issue that should be nonpartisan.

But it still is partisan in the sense that he'd be reaching out to help women who are being abused because of what's going on.

You know, that country's government is allowing to go on.

Right?

And he has some influence with the Kenyan government.

Like I said, he's beloved in that country.

So he might be an interesting person to reach out on his own.

This is not through official channels, through Trump.

I'm saying he could be, perhaps a change maker in that country.

Just an idea.

Yeah.

So what I'd like to say, I was going to respond to, what the ladies were saying about how, Trump, you know, would not, intercede.

And we know he has intercede in human rights violations such as this.

Look what's going on in South Africa.

You know, he has interceded there with, the horrible abuses to the Afrikaners there in helping them resettle.

He's opened up resettlement to the United States, to them.

So, I don't I don't rule that out, but it's it's definitely a market and economic issue that's going on here.

Investors in Saudi Arabia help sustain this exploitive labor market because their economic influence combines with cultural norms.

Like I said that before, I'm going to say that again, that often undervalue foreign labor.

So the answer is better transparency, consistent enforcement of existing labor laws, and holding both investors and governments accountable to standards that value human dignity above profit.

Okay, but explain to me how even if you have a small but powerful, bland, group of revolutionaries ready to do whatever it's take it takes to blow open the horrible things that this small coterie of very wealthy investors and, and people who control the country have.

How do they do it?

It's very difficult, again, because there's a cultural perception that migrant workers are expendable in these areas, which may the.

Just migrant workers.

Is it migrant workers or poor people generally?

I think it's both.

And women, women, women are often undervalued in these areas as well.

And it's cultural.

It's religious.

It's a number of things.

So it's very difficult to penetrate that in this type of area, this complex, as Patricia mentioned about something else.

Earlier and your thoughts.

Ann, before we run out of time.

Well, again, my Obama suggestion, but, exactly what KJ's talking about.

It is a slow process.

I mean, look at how long it took apartheid to be defeated in South Africa to begin with.

And now, unfortunately, we're suffering some of the repercussions with the pendulum swung too far.

But I think spotlighting it, then getting perhaps some government resources behind it and again, finding creative ways to, sort of inflict pain, along with the message, going after their oil is probably not doable because they control too much the market and could screw up manipulating the prices.

But there are other ways to do it.

Culturally.

And last thoughts, Erin.

It is an oil, very much an oil related issue.

Do you see other ways around the the chokehold that the wealthy people in that country seem to have on the government?

Yeah.

No, I mean, I, I'm an activist at my core.

And so I want to believe the activists, people, you know, I have people in the United States, are the people watching this show.

We have tremendous consumer power and we buy a lot of gas for things.

And so I do want consumers to think about it.

But I also, you know, in closing, I also want to tie this to the the systematic abuse of women is an issue the world over.

And I think part of the reason why this doesn't get attention, and it has been going on for so long, is it goes on at all strata in society, and it's disgusting.

You know, the whole thing about the valuing of women, it goes back to the teaching women's history and having these cultures understand the real value of women over on society.

I'll tell you, when I traveled the State Department and have taught in some of these countries women's history, the shock the men have to find out stuff they didn't know women had done.

And it does have a transformative effect on men, even though this is Women's History Month.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, it is Women's History Month.

I mean, I can't let.

It let it go by without us doing something about it.

And actually we reran.

We ran an interview we did years ago with Eleanor Holmes Norton about not this topic, but a related women's history topic and and Black women, Black American women.

All right.

Thank you all for a wonderful program with a ton of information.

That's it for this edition of To the Country.

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