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> In our new data study, we analyzed the anonymized data spanning three years from tens of thousands of verified loan applicants from Priceonomics customer Earn
by no_protocol 9y ago
> In our new data study, we analyzed the anonymized data spanning three years from tens of thousands of verified loan applicants from Priceonomics customer Earnest to see how much people actually pay in rent across America.
The sample may be fairly large but it is almost certainly not representative. These figures only represent the subset of the population who would use an online financial services company AND actually did use it.
I would expect data from sources such as the Census Bureau to be much more representative of reality. Here is one visualization of such data I found [0]. These figures are much, much closer to the actual conditions I have personally observed in multiple states.
My guess is that the reported figures from Earnest miss large categories such as low-income and elderly people. The numbers are way too high for many states.
[0]: http://overflow.solutions/demographic-data/national-data/state-level-analysis/what-is-the-average-rent-in-each-state/ http://overflow.solutions/demographic-data/national-data/sta...
- morgante 9y agoSeriously, shame on Priceonomics for publishing this blog at all. This is textbook selection bias: of course people who need online personal loans are going to have different financial profiles from the average.
- wainstead 9y agoAnd they only report on the median. We have no idea what the centers and spreads look like.