The median household income to house ratio is at an all time high of 7.56x with interest rates roughly double what they were three years ago. Renters also got crushed.
Look at this data and notice that the growth in median income was smaller than the growth in average expenses. Then realize that half of the people must be doing worse than median.
Let me give you a list of the occupations that I know for sure have it worse now than they did before COVID: Nurses, teachers, truck drivers (especially owner operators a sizable % of whom have gone busto), anyone who works in anything related in any way to faang, government employees generally, and academics (especially those at the bottom). Telling anyone from any of those groups that the economy is great is going to make them want to punch you in the nose. Not that that ever stopped you, but you also arenāt qualified to give Joe Biden political advice.
The point is that while the aggregate economic data paints one picture the results have been spread extremely unevenly with the vast majority going to a select group of winners (that this time includes factory workers and fast food/retail workers thank goodness).
This is why I really detest using macro economic data for this type of conversation. The more you learn about what macro economic data is actually made of the less you trust it. Let me give you an example. Look at a chart of US Manufacturing output like this one. The line goes up which strongly suggests that while manufacturing as a share of GDP is going down manufacturing as a sector is basically healthy. Thatās wildly inaccurate because it hides the real storyā¦ which is that a large and growing percentage of that total number during the time period on this graph was semiconductors. Semiconductors are WILDLY valuable which means that a very small number of actual jobs are created per dollar in salesā¦ so this graph presents a period in which it wasnāt cost effective to manufacture anything that wasnāt so heavy/cheap that shipping it was impractical, or so technologically advanced that labor cost wasnāt a meaningful input as totally fineā¦ when the lived experience in manufacturing was wall to wall plant closures and outsourcing.
Iāve seen this too many times to take top line figures seriously. Weāre a little more honest than the Chinese in that we donāt entirely falsify the numbers, but the data we collect is a choice and a lot of those choices were intentionally made at think tanks funded by extremely rich libertarians who hate unions and view labor as an input material to be cost minimized.
And yes I do think 2024 is likely to be the best year economically since Biden was elected, because I think Biden got the one thing done legislatively he neededā¦ a huge multi year public works project that would take a couple of years to get goingā¦ passed in November 2021.
Heāll start crowing about the economy when the real economy is actually good. Right now it isnāt, but thankfully the worst is probably behind us already. Four rate cuts incoming for this year + a bunch of fiscal stimulus is why I think that.
Itās not a good idea to talk about how great the economy is when the people who have had a terrible time are comprised of: All truck drivers, all nurses, all teachers, all renters, all government employees generally, and anyone who got a smaller raise than their personal rate of inflation which got higher the lower you went on the socioeconomic scale. When I was poor I was spending 85-90% of what I made on food + gas + housing. Gas is cheap right now at least because the other two holy shit are they up more than the official inflation rate.
You live in California the only state in the country that Iām aware of with mandated staffing ratios. Everywhere else itās been nothing but pure unmitigated hell. My advice to anyone dumb enough to be in Nursing school in 2023 is to move to CA immediately on graduation.
Also as the husband of a nurse doctors perceptions of nurses arenāt worth a whole lot. You guys donāt even share a break room with the nurses here in Texas.
Iāve worked all over the nation man and keep in contact with people from NY, where there are no ratios. Itās just not true. You canāt pull the āI know peopleā thing on me on this one. I know these people better than you. I went to their weddings. I did the covid disaster with them.
Dude Iām married to a nurse. She didnāt make up every interaction with doctors ever (not all negative, but a lot of them were). Maybe ER nurses get treated better than average, but from what Iāve seen the wages have always been absolutely garbage vs the standard of living, the job is brutal, and the patient ratios get worse every single year. My wife makes about 5 bucks an hour more than she did when COVID started. That doesnāt cover inflation.
Honestly few things have made me as happy as being able to provide well enough that the number of shifts she has to put in has dropped massively. Fuck the entire healthcare system I hope it burns down tomorrow.
Also (2020 data) CA is the #1 state for nurse pay vs cost of living and NY is middle of the pack. This might be a situation where the variance in our anecdotes actually could be explained by economic data. Yup just checked KY is #44 out of 50 and Texas was#11 but the pay has barely budged since 2020 here and the staffing ratios got entirely fucked beyond recognition. Really annoying because at least part of why we moved here was to improve my wifeās work situation and avoid state income tax for me.
To be clear when my wife started her career over ten years back she was slammed with max 25 long term care and or rehab patients under her care. Today itās 35-50 at a memory care facility sheās working PRN for after entirely burning out as the ADON.
Actually you know what? Iāll change what I said. Instead of saying all nurses Iāll say everyone who works in anything geriatric. Thatās a tiny slice of the overall job market right? The CNAās make less than fast food and retail now by the way.
Not at the bottom, but I do work in scientific research for a university, so Iād put myself in this category and yeah wages are not even close to keeping pace with inflation. I do have a house that was refinanced to 2.5% a few years back when interest rates got that low, so Iām thankfully insulated from the housing runup. But I feel for those that are still renting.
Also, these past 3 years have been the worst job market years ever for me personally. I had far more opportunities even in the early 2010s than now.
I think healthcare currently running into a situation where about to discover that paying people more and more actually doesnāt by itself make them not miserable at work
It would be nice if they started by trying out paying people more and more. I havenāt seen that happen in Austin, TX which is why they somehow managed to get a nursing strike in Texas. Any scenario where you manage to unionize much less strike in Texas is 10,000,000,000% guaranteed to be a complete and utter nightmare work environment.
Does anyone here think the economy today, or even during peak inflation of 2022, is worse than 2008? Because, like, how in the hell is consumer sentiment worse in 2022 than in 2008? Thatās pretty good evidence that consumer sentiment is, at the very least, not a terribly great objective measure of the state of the economy.
But then why should the difference between Jan 2020 and the 2022 inflation crisis be larger than the difference between Jan 2006 and the 2008 financial collapse? I donāt think anyone who was ~18+ yo at 2008 would say things are worse today than back then. The only thing I can think of is that people think it should be better than it is, while in 2008 we were thankful it wasnāt any worse than it seems.
Upper middle class people (so basically all Dems in power) simply prefer to stick their fingers in their ears, which not coincidentally is exactly what benefits their donors. Companies fucking love low wages and no benefits, keeps people desperate.
Literally, just go talk to anyone making less than 60k a year. They arenāt just struggling, theyāre desperate. Weāve got some in this thread!
Yep. āReal wagesā are slightly up vs 2019 but the basket of goods is not even close to an accurate depiction of inflation for people who donāt own homes at decent interest rates and/or are in the bottom 50%. Housing, groceries, and utilities to a lesser extent outpaced inflation significantly. And for those with kids, childcare expenses are wild around here and I assume most places.
But it works great for rich people to point to the data and tell the rest of us, āsuck it up, buttercup, the economy is great!ā
Like, my parents have a house thatās about 50% bigger than our townhouse with a significantly bigger yard. Their mortgage payment is about 35% of our rent. Our health insurance is about 85% of their mortgage, and our deductible is like $16K so everything is basically out of pocket. But as I understand it, their housing cost (and other homeowners) have about 5x as much influence on CPI as rents do. And overall I think housing is like 28-30% of CPI. Our rent is 38% of our monthly budget, and we have a deal thatās about 25% below the market rent.
Weāll likely be relocating to an apartment soon to try to save money. Weāll end up spending about 20% less for about half as much space, so thatās going to be awesome. We would do it now but we know we have to move again soon regardless and we donāt want to move twice in six months. 90% of our groceries come from Costco or Aldi.
Iām working 280 hours a month, commuting 30-40, plus a side hustle. My wife is in school/clinicals, plus two part time jobs, plus a side hustle. Weāll probably spend like 4-6 waking hours per month together between now and June. But please, please tell me more about the data saying Iām actually doing great, CN! Glad youāre doing well but stop acting like those of us who arenāt are just too stupid to realize how great the economy is. Itās fucking insult to injury.
