…so…trying to go from the wave back to the source on bluesky can be both entertaining & illustrative…&…I guess this sort of works as an exemplar of sorts?
My hottest “I have no data to back this up” take is that phones aren’t making young people less happy. What’s making them less happy is living in a world where everyone is having their reality defined by recommendation algorithms that can only care about whether something keeps you watching.
…I don’t think hank is a bad guy…pretty much the reverse, even…but…I also don’t think he’s some infallible oracle…just a decently smart guy who tries to follow his curiosity to interesting places he’s found rewarding in several senses…some of which I’d argue it’s fairly hard to file as other-than-an-unambiguous-good…&…really I suspect I differ from him on this one mostly in the sense that they might be less happy because they aren’t any less smart than the ones there used to be…but their prospects look worse…& the living memory these days is the kids getting to be better off than the parents…while the ones coming up are going to be lucky not to be worse off…& they’re watching the ones that bequeathed them that compound the shit that makes it so while failing to make the strides that could have been on a more manageable gradient…so…”the world” that they’re set to inherit…is not happy-making…with or without a smartphone or an algorithm…but…I’m not a kid…so…ultimately…I wouldn’t know…I…was a kid, though…&…even then it seemed like that might be the way that was starting to look for a lot of my peers…&/or yours truly…&…that might be an interesting topic to discuss in a venue that had a broad spectrum of ages represented…but…then the rest of this post would be about a different thing, I guess…& apparently we don’t get nice things…so
My take is that people don't have money anymore. Jobs that used to make decent money no longer do so. Healthcare and rent are unaffordable.Everything costs way too much.
This is a rehash of the vibecession debates but median household income adjusted for inflation hit a record in 2024 (2025 data will be released in September). It’s just *not true* in any objective sense that people don’t have money anymore. It may *feel* that way but that’s different from reality.
Hard not to feel a little smug watching Pearkes get pilloried for saying this. Guess what, the left is almost uniquely psychotic on this topic! They’ll absolutely assassinate your reputation for years on end if you dare try to insist on following empirical data on it.
It’s impossible for individuals to evaluate every piece of economic data all the time, so one’s interpretation of how the broader economy is doing is typically determined by their information environment. 1/
Pessimistic narratives about how everything sucks and you’re getting screwed spread faster than ones that soberly reflect reality, particularly on algorithm-driven social media. It’s no surprise, then, that online posters have a particularly bad relationship with the facts. 2/2
It's because "real wages have risen according to our measurements" is not a particularly strong or resonant argument and no one who makes it has a further point to make. The next step after the first argument fails is always just to get emotional.
…”it’s the economy, stupid”…or “it’s the economy: stupid”?
I don't think so – I think that "the vibecession" is real – for some reason, things *appear* to be getting worse, even though numerically they are getting better. I think this is happening pretty much for everyone. I think that for people who've done well, they're scared to lose what they have.
I think a lot of this is directly related to political leaders. The vibecession decade coincides with Trump – Biden – Trump.For all of the good things Biden did, he was not inspiring.And Trump scares me a lot, that the country will collapse into civil war and my money will be worthless
The major "economic anxiety" I have is "Trump destroys America". This will not go away until the bastard is dead. And it is still a worry as long as the Trump voters are alive and able to vote.
That's a reasonable guess, but interestingly, almost exactly wrong!Historically, macroeconomic data could be assembled into an actually -very good- measure of people's sentiment. They moved hand in hand for *decades* before. That changed in 2020.
Pilloried for ignoring that the lived experience of a large swath of the population isn't captured by household income statistics if you don't also look at household expenditure?www.allianz.com/en/economic_…
This is bad and we should have universal healthcare but it doesn’t change the fact that real incomes are higher than they’ve ever been. By definition anyone on an ACA exchange plan isn’t representative of the typical American!
'Member that time I showed you employment-to-population data, and you yelled at me about how it needed unskewing because of all the supposed population aging during a pandemic that killed a million older Americans? I 'member!
My scorching hot take on this (at least in the uk) is that a bunch of more public-sector-ish jobs: teaching, universities, media, civil servant had been relatively downwards mobile in this time and it’s actually falling inequality that is making people mad.
The UK has now had so much wage compression that its wage curve is actually less unequal than the Soviet Union managed on a p10 vs p90 basis. Whatever people are mad about it is not inequality.
If folks want to say “well okay that may be true but I feel differently” – fine feel whatever you want, I shan’t be debating your feelings with you. But I can and will point out the reality-based community has a different perspective.
Two months ago, someone argued with me approximately like this:Them: "Prices have increased by 20%, but social benefits (in Germany) have not."Me: "Data shows, social benefits have increased by more than 20%"Them: "That was only to adjust for inflation, but prices have gone up since"
So you're saying people are not dipping into credit and 401ks at an alarming rate and we are all imagining that we have less ability to afford things despite income increasing? Sounds like you're just privileged with a higher income than most people. Do you own a home?
Problem is when gains disproprotionately accrue to the poor, you still complain (falsely) that the opposite is happening, undermining your own purported cause.www.epi.org/publication/…
liberals love posting that chart so a few months ago i spent a couple minutes remaking it in terms of dollars. the orange represents the gain in dollars
that's not what 'real' in the phrase 'real income' means, 'real' there is adjusted for inflation (so if your nominal income goes up by 5%, and inflation is 2%, your real income goes up by 3%)
…I dunno…he says it was lovely…but…might be his kids you’d call privileged in that scenario…you know…if you weren’t super-busy grinding a seemingly personal axe…either way
Good chart to show the first decile did extremely well in absolute dollar terms as well as compared to baseline.
factsand like with poor people "having money" is the difference between going to the doctor or going to the ER (or not getting treatment)higher up it's just "toyota not an acura"
I only have about an hour this morning to putter around online, so I’m going to go start with your other DOT.
But also? I do like your use of appendices to share additional content so that the DOT isn’t an endless scroll. I log in and go oh, DOT Appendix A today. Wonder when there will be an Appendix B on the same day.
Anyone who uses the term “reality-based community” deserves a smack in the head, IMO.
…like the “clip your ear” sort…or the smack to the back of the head when you say something daft &/or cheeky too close to a parent…sure
…the “upsides the head” sort oft characterized as involving a bat might be a bit harsh
…either way…fine tradition of percussive maintenance to draw on, I reckon?
I only have about an hour this morning to putter around online, so I’m going to go start with your other DOT.
But also? I do like your use of appendices to share additional content so that the DOT isn’t an endless scroll. I log in and go oh, DOT Appendix A today. Wonder when there will be an Appendix B on the same day.
…hmm…a hat-trick, you say?
…at this rate…distinct possibility…hmmm…can I get away with calling that a sign of the times?