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As an academic totally unrelated to economics this whole situation is just astounding. In my field we would say we failed and have the wrong metrics. In economi
by light_hue_1 3y ago
As an academic totally unrelated to economics this whole situation is just astounding. In my field we would say we failed and have the wrong metrics. In economics they say that people are delusional and the economy is actually good. Clearly economists are measuring the wrong things when they declare the economy is good.
Add to that one of the least affordable housing markets ever. Obscenely expensive childcare, far more expensive than it's ever been to the point where it's simply crushing for many.
The result is an economy where the basics: having a roof, kids, and food are a stretch for many. I don't know a single person who reports the economy is good. I talk to kids around the university all the time and it's normal now for them to have lost hope that they'll be able to afford a house and kids.
All of this is made worse by Biden et al. selling this as a victory and so offering zero help.
- frozenport 3y agoYou’d need to show people aren’t getting what they need rather than saying they are sad because they are spending their money on it.
- nitwit005 3y agoIndividual people do what you're doing: they talk to people. At the moment they hear a lot of anxiety. The students you mention talking to generally aren't even in the job market. It's all coming second hand. Which isn't to say people have no idea what's going on, but it can be fairly disconnected from reality.
- whatevaa 3y agoIt's way more connected to reality than "professional" economists and politicians, though.
- ThunderSizzle 3y agoI'm in the job market. 2-3x local family income, median house price would put us at 60% of take home pay going to purely principal and interest payments. It doesn't take social anxiety to see how unaffordable housing is.
- ozim 3y agoIf those healthy able bodied and educated people would be waiting unemployed for a bowl of soup from communal kitchen that would be bad economy. Since it is not going that direction we can all say economy is doing well.
- paulryanrogers 3y agoYou have a very high bar for measuring a 'bad' economy. That sounds like a serious depression, the kind that are associated with civil unrest.
- UncleMeat 3y agoUnemployment is very low. Real wages are up, including real wages of lower income households. What key metrics would you use over those?
- class3shock 3y agoAn average median income that is barely moving: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Median_personal_income_after_taxes.webp https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Median_p... Housing prices that have gone up dramatically, interest rates that have gone up dramatically, many others that matter to people and apparently not to economists.
- UncleMeat 3y agoThe chart ends in 2021 and shows a nontrivial increase that year. Real wages are up since the pandemic, with significantly higher growth at the 25th percentile of household income. You can see the data for 2022 here: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.nr0.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.nr0.htm. The cost to purchase a house using a mortgage is indeed way up, but surely it is worse to focus on this specific metric rather than the general basket of goods.
- class3shock 3y agoPersonal income after tax from 2019 to 2021 went up from $27,700 to $28,800 or about 4%. I won't call that trivial but I would hardly call that inline with the increase in costs we've seen. I don't see more direct data after that for salary but after tax household income was down in 2022: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/09/median-household-income.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/09/median-househ... I think the cost of housing is probably the most important thing to look at since, for most people, it is the highest monthly bill. I think all of the various cost increases that make existing harder are important to look at though.